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Voices and influences

John Gill

The self-taught Baptist Hebraist who pastored one London congregation for fifty-one years and wrote a comment on every verse in the Bible.

Summary

This site quotes John Gill 5,991 times across 66 books, and lists 0 works.

  • Lived 1697 to 1771.
  • Quoted here most in Psalms: 639 of 5,991.
John Gill. Painted by George Vertue. The file is marked public domain. This site's record does not give the artist's death year, which is what settles the painting's own rights. The file record

John Gill

Lived
1697 to 1771
Tradition
Reformed Baptist

5 of 5,991 quotations

Own words

Quoted in full, because John Gill died in 1771 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.

A bruised reed shall he not break,.... Various are the thoughts of interpreters, about what is meant by this, and by the smoking flax shall he not quench.

Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

Some think the Scribes and Pharisees are designed, whose power Christ could easily crush, and their wrath and fury restrain, but would not, till the time of his vengeance was come. Others that the publicans and sinners are intended, of whose conversion and salvation there were more hope than of the Scribes and Pharisees; and which Christ greatly sought after, and therefore cherished and encouraged them in his ministry and conversation.

Matthew 12:20 A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, till He leads justice to victory. BSB

And Cain talked with Abel,.... Or "said", or "spoke unto" him (l); either what the Lord God said to him in the foregoing verses, as Aben Ezra; or he spoke to him in a kind and friendly manner, and thereby got him to take a…

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

walk in the field with him.

Genesis 4:8 Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. BSB

And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offering unto the Lord,.... This, as Ben Gersom observes, is distinguished from a burnt offering; for though it was to be perfect, and without blemish, yet not obliged to be a male as that, Lev 3:

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

Leviticus 22:21 When a man presents a peace offering to the LORD from the herd or flock to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering, it must be without blemish or defect to be acceptable. BSB

So David and Abishai came to the people by night,.... Josephus (l) wrongly says, that he took with him both Abishai and Ahimelech; he chose to have but one, for the greater secrecy.

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

1 Samuel 26:7 That night David and Abishai came to the troops, and Saul was lying there asleep in the inner circle of the camp, with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. And Abner and the troops were lying around him. BSB

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam,.... Calamities, destruction, and ruin: and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall; not leave a dog of his, or rather a male, see 1Sa 25:22.

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

and him that is shut up and left in Israel; in garrisons or in prisons, in cities or in fields, or in whatsoever situation or circumstances they may be.

1 Kings 14:10 Because of all this, behold, I am bringing disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will cut off from Jeroboam every male, both slave and free, in Israel; I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns up dung until it is gone! BSB

Influence, on the record

The life, in order

The life told as one accountfrom this site's record

John Gill was born at Kettering in Northamptonshire on November 23, 1697, the son of a wool merchant who served as a deacon in the dissenting congregation there. Because the family were Nonconformists, the local grammar school effectively closed to him around the age of eleven. So he taught himself. What he taught himself was languages. He worked through Latin and Greek on his own, then Hebrew — and then kept going, into the Targums, the Talmud, and the medieval rabbis. Almost no English Christian of his century read Jewish sources as widely as Gill did, and he read them in the original. He was baptized in 1716, began preaching, and in 1719 was called to a small Particular Baptist congregation at Horsleydown in Southwark, south London. He stayed fifty-one years, until his death. That pulpit had a long life ahead of it: the congregation later moved and eventually became the church that called Charles Spurgeon a century afterward, and Spurgeon spoke of Gill as one of his predecessors. The work he is remembered for is the commentary. Gill wrote an exposition of the entire Bible, verse by verse, book by book — the New Testament first, in three volumes (1746–1748), then the Old Testament in six (1748–1763). It was the first complete verse-by-verse commentary on the whole Bible written by a Baptist, and it is thick with rabbinic material nobody else was bringing to English readers. He also wrote The Cause of God and Truth (1735–1738), a four-part defense of Calvinist doctrine against the Arminian arguments of Daniel Whitby, and late in life A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity (1767–1770), the first full systematic theology produced by an English Baptist. The University of Aberdeen gave him a doctorate in divinity in 1748; he remarked that he had neither asked for it nor deserved it. His theology was high Calvinism, and he pressed it further than most. Gill held to eternal justification and was reluctant to make a free offer of Christ to all who heard him — a position later called hyper-Calvinism, and one that Andrew Fuller and then Spurgeon worked hard to undo among the Baptists. Historians still argue about exactly how far he went. Robert Hall's jab has followed the commentary ever since: it was, he said, a continent of mud. But the mud kept getting reprinted. Augustus Toplady defended him fiercely. Spurgeon kept him on the shelf and praised his learning in Commenting and Commentaries, while rejecting outright his restraint about inviting sinners to come. He preached his last sermon in 1771 and died at Camberwell on October 14 of that year, aged seventy-three. Fifty-one years in one pulpit, a comment on every verse in the Bible, and a body of theology his own denomination has been arguing with ever since. Sources: John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments and A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity; John Rippon, A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late Rev. John Gill, D.D.; C. H. Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries; Timothy George and David Dockery, eds., Baptist Theologians.

5,991 quotations across 66 books

Where this voice is quoted

1 Kings 21:22Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked My anger and caused Israel to…

And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah,....

1 Kings 21:23Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And the LORD also speaks concerning Jezebel: ‘The dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’

And of Jezebel also spake the Lord,.... To Elijah, and by him: saying, the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel or in the inheritance or portion of Jezreel, as the Targum; Jarchi interprets it, the valley of Jezreel; the fulfilment of this…

1 Kings 21:24Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city will be eaten by dogs, and anyone who dies in the field will be eaten by the birds of the air.”

Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat, and him that dieth in the field the fowls of the air shall eat.

1 Kings 21:26Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

He committed the most detestable acts by going after idols, just like the Amorites whom the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.)

And he did very abominably in following idols,.... Which were abominable to the Lord; "dunghill gods", as the Tigurine version: according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel; meaning the seven nations that formerly inhabited…

1 Kings 21:27Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and fasted. He lay down in sackcloth and walked around meekly.

Delivered in 1Ki 21:21, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon, his flesh, tore off his clothes, and stripped himself of all, even of his very shirt, and put sackcloth on his bare flesh, a coarse cloth made of hair, and such as…

1 Kings 21:29Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity during his days, but I will bring…

Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?.... Which yet was but an external humiliation, to be seen only with bodily eyes, as were all his actions and postures, before observed.

1 Kings 22:1Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Then three years passed without war between Aram and Israel.

And they continued three years without war between Syria and Israel. From the time that Benhadad made a covenant with Ahab; not three full years, but part of them: it was threatened by Elijah from the Lord, that Ahab's life should go for Benhadad's, because…

1 Kings 22:9Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, “Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once.”

Then the king of Israel called an officer,.... An eunuch, as the word is sometimes used, one of pages: and said, hasten hither Micaiah the son of Imlah; who, as it seems from 1Ki 22:26 was in prison, where perhaps Ahab had cast him for…

1 Kings 22:25Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Micaiah replied, “You will soon see, on that day when you go and hide in an inner room.”

And Micaiah said, behold, thou shalt see in the day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself.

1 Kings 22:29Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead.

So the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, went up to Ramothgilead. Which, according to Bunting (r), was twenty four miles from Samaria.

1 Kings 22:36Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

As the sun was setting, the cry rang out in the army: “Every man to his own city, and every man to his own land!”

And there went a proclamation throughout the host, about the going down of the sun,.... Much about the time that Ahab died; and this proclamation by an herald might be made by his order, as he was dying, or by Jehoshaphat, when he understood he…

1 Kings 22:38Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And the chariot was washed at the pool of Samaria where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up Ahab’s blood, according to the word that the LORD had spoken.

And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria,.... After the body was taken out, very likely the chariot driver, who drove it into the pool, and plunged it into it, as the word signifies, to cleanse it from the blood of his master…

1 Kings 22:41Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

In the fourth year of Ahab’s reign over Israel, Jehoshaphat son of Asa became king of Judah.

And Jehoshaphat the son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab king of Israel. And as Ahab reigned twenty two years, 1Ki 16:29, Jehoshaphat must reign about eighteen years with him, and seven years after him.

1 Kings 22:50Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the city of his father David. And his son Jehoram reigned in his place.

And Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father,....

1 Kings 22:51Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

In the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat’s reign over Judah, Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria two years.

Ahaziah the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah,....

1 Kings 22:52Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And he did evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the ways of his father and mother and of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel…

Which evil was idolatry: and walked in the way of his father; his father Ahab, who worshipped Baal: and in the way of his mother; his mother Jezebel, who was still living, and served Baal and Astarte, the deities of her country: and in the…

1 Kings 22:53Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Ahaziah served and worshiped Baal, provoking the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger, just as his father had done.

For he served Baal, and worshipped him,.... That is, Ahaziah served him, as his father had done, and his mother still did: and provoked to anger the Lord God of Israel, according to all that his father had done; of which there is an instance…