[3] Matzenbach lies at the mouth of the Straubenbach where it empties into the Glan, on the river's right bank across from the neighbouring Ortsteil of Eisenbach at an elevation of 210 m above sea level.

Matzenbach is linked by simple Kreisstraßen to the neighbouring village to the south, Rehweiler, and to Godelhausen to the north, an outlying centre of Theisbergstegen.

[8] Eisenbach stretches mainly along a single street alongside the railway and the river Glan beginning at the bridge that links it with Matzenbach.

The building style in the older parts of the village makes it clear that it was mainly farmers who lived here in earlier times.

Standing out among the older buildings is the Protestant church built in 1747, which dominates the view from the northern Glan valley.

Worth mentioning as a good example of the former farmhouse typical of the Westrich, an historic region that encompasses areas in both Germany and France, is the Haus Maas-Schleppi on Glanstraße, although even this has deviated considerably from the original type as a result of later conversions.

The centre of Eisenbach, on the other hand, lay within the Reims-controlled Remigiusland, which shaped this village's history in a way unlike the other two in the municipality.

Matzenbach ended up along with the other villages of the Amt of Reichenbach as an Imperial pledge in 1345 in the hands of the younger line of the Counts of Veldenz.

According to a 1200 document, Count Heinrich of Veldenz and Geroldseck declared that he was having seven solidi in the Trier currency paid yearly to the Provost of the Remigiusberg, the actual holder of the Remigiusland, for the villages of Ysenbach and Leidenstal, which he had bought from a knight from the County of Zweibrücken.

[21] In the time of French rule from 1801 to 1814, Eisenbach lay in the Department of Sarre, the Arrondissement of Birkenfeld, the Canton of Kusel and the Mairie (“Mayoralty”) of Quirnbach.

Beginning in the mid 20th century, though, more and more farmers were taking up other occupations, working the land only as a secondary source of income, or even giving it up altogether.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Matzenbach (main centre), with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[25] Eisenbach's inhabitants originally earned their livelihoods almost exclusively at agriculture.

Worthy of note, though, is the renewed growth in population figures in the latter half of the 20th century, at a time when this was hardly the general trend in villages in the Kusel district, most of which were losing people.

The following table shows population development over the centuries for Gimsbach, with some figures broken down by religious denomination:[27] All three of Matzenbach's constituent communities have names ending in the syllable —bach (German for “brook”), as do many other places in the region.

According to researchers Dolch and Greule, the name prefix Isen— or Eisen— (the latter and current form being the German word for “iron”) refers to the iron-bearing inclusions that crop up in the sandstone deposits near the village.

Other forms of the name that the village has borne over the ages are Gimmespach (1321), Gymmssbach (1393), Gimspach (1430), Gymßbach (1460), Gymbßbach (1482), Gymbschbach (about 1500), Gimßbach (1545), Gimbsbach (1593) and Gimschbach (1797).

After the Thirty Years' War, freedom of religion prevailed, which led during the occupation by French King Louis XIV's troops and also during the Electorate of the Palatinate epoch after 1733 to the Catholic faith's being more strongly supported.

On the other hand, many Christians who followed John Calvin’s Reformed teachings came here and settled who had hardly set foot in other parts of the County Palatine of Veldenz.

[34] Eisenbach lay in the Remigiusland, thereby belonging since its founding to a lordly domain of the Church of Reims, although in ecclesiastical organization, it was subject to the Archbishopric of Mainz.

Today, the Evangelical Christians belong to the Gimsbach branch of the church community of Neunkirchen am Potzberg in the deaconry of Kusel.

It is a building of special worth to art history, a five-sided, enclosed aisleless church whose flat roof is borne by two rows of wooden columns.

The charge emerging above this, the waterwheel, recalls the old mills in Matzenbach and Gimsbach, which still stand but are no longer used as such, and were economically important in days of yore.

Under the bend wavy stands an unusual charge, a cross with a crescent-moon-shaped hook, a device that formerly appeared on Eisenbach's municipal limit markers.

R. Stemler (1985) reported that Matzenbach had “well organized singing evenings that are always gladly attended and make for a pleasant variety in the winter.

Businesses worthy of mention are a fruit distillery, insurance agencies and a carpentry shop that specializes in renovating antique furniture.

Historian Johann Goswin Widder reported in 1788 that a vein of quicksilver ore had been found, and that the pit employed three workers.

[49][50][51] Schooling had its beginning in Matzenbach with the feudal lords’ efforts during the time of the Reformation to further education so that their subjects could have access to Holy Writ.

In 1783, historical records mention that owing to poverty and being forced by parents to work in the family business, many children could not go to school.

[53] As in the other centres, schooling had its beginning in Gimsbach with the feudal lords’ efforts during the time of the Reformation to further education so that their subjects could have access to Holy Writ, and likewise, the Thirty Years' War put an end to all their good intentions.

[54] Matzenbach's main centre once lay on a road coming from Kusel across the uplands that crossed the Glan here and led onwards to Landstuhl and Kaiserslautern.