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
- 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.
Undated in the archive this site cites.
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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…
Undated in the archive this site cites.
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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:
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.
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.
Undated in the archive this site cites.
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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
This site quotes John Gill 5,991 times across 66 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
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
Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; for all this time I have been praying out of the depth of my anguish and grief.”
“Count not thine handmaid for a daughter of Belial,.... A yokeless, a lawless, impudent, and abandoned creature; one of the most wicked, vilest, and most profligate wretches; as she must be to come drunk into the sanctuary of God; see 1Sa 25:17.”
So the LORD attended to Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the LORD.
“And the Lord visited Hannah,.... In a way of mercy, approving and confirming the blessing of Eli; or rather granting the blessing he prayed for, by giving her power to conceive, bear, and bring forth children, as the following words explain it: so that she…”
Why then do you kick at My sacrifice and offering that I have prescribed for My dwelling place?
“Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice, and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation,....”
And this sign shall come to you concerning your two sons Hophni and Phinehas: They will both die on the same day.
“This shall be a sign unto thee,.... A confirming one, that all which had been now said would be fulfilled: that shall come upon thy two sons, Hophni and Phinehas; which Eli would live to see fulfilled on them; and when it was, he might…”
Before the lamp of God had gone out, Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was located.
“And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord,.... The tabernacle so called; lamp is put for the lamps in the candlestick in the tabernacle, which were lighted every evening, and burnt till morning; by which time some of them…”
And the LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, because there He revealed Himself to Samuel by His word.
“And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh,.... In the tabernacle there; he had appeared before to Samuel, when he called him, and declared to him what he designed and resolved to do to Eli and his family, and now appeared again to him in the…”
After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod,
“And the Philistines took the ark of God,.... Which fell into their hands, Israel being beaten, and caused to flee, and the priests that had the care of the ark slain; and when possessed of it, they did not destroy it, nor take out of…”
When the ark of the LORD had been in the land of the Philistines seven months,
“And the ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. Or "in the field" (c) of the Philistines; hence Procopius Gazaeus observes, that none of the cities daring to receive the ark, they left it without under the open air…”
Then they put the ark of the LORD on the cart, along with the chest containing the gold rats and the images of the tumors.
“And they laid the ark of the Lord upon the cart,.... Perhaps the same men that made the cart; however they were the Philistines, yet were not punished for touching it, as Uzzah was, though an Israelite, 2Sa 6:6.”
The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there near a large rock.
“And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite,.... In that part of the valley where they were reaping wheat which belonged to him, whom we nowhere else read; whether a priest or Levite, which is not improbable, since this was a city…”
And when the five rulers of the Philistines saw this, they returned to Ekron that same day.
“And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it,.... Observed all that was done, how the kine performed their journey, drew the cart in which the ark was straight to Bethshemesh, stopped in a field near it, where it was received joyfully by…”
As a guilt offering to the LORD, the Philistines had sent back one gold tumor for each city: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.
“And these are the golden emerods, which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto the Lord,....”
So the Israelites put away the Baals and Ashtoreths and served only the LORD.
“Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth,.... Both their male and female deities, of which see Jdg 2:13. and served the Lord Only; Dr.”
Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD on your behalf.”
“And Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpeh,.... Not Mizpeh in Gilead, on the other side Jordan, but a city which lay on the borders of Judah and Benjamin, where the tribes met on the account of the Levite's concubine, Jdg 20:”
So Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.
“And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. Not only before Saul was made king, but afterwards; for though he had not the exercise of the supreme government of the nation, yet he might act as a judge under Saul, and hear and…”
When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel.
“And it came to pass, when Samuel was old,.... The common notion of the Jews is, that he lived but fifty two years (t); when a man is not usually called an old man, unless the infirmities of old age came upon him sooner than…”
The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba.
“Now the name of his firstborn was Joel,.... In 1Ch 6:28 he is called Vashni; See Gill on 1Ch 6:”
So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah.
“Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together,.... At some place of rendezvous appointed; these were the heads of the tribes, and fathers of the houses and families of Israel, the principal persons of age and authority: and came to Samuel unto Ramah; the…”
And he will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
“And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries,.... Such as deal in spices, and mix them, and make them up in various forms very agreeable to the taste.”
He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.
“He will take the tenth of your sheep,.... As well as of their seed and vineyards; and not the tithe of their flocks only, but of their herds also, which are here included, as Kimchi observes: and ye shall be his servants: made slaves of…”
Samuel listened to all the words of the people and repeated them in the hearing of the LORD.
“And Samuel heard all the words of the people,.... Patiently, and without interruption; attentively heard them, took notice of them, laid them up in his memory; but gave no answer to them, but reported them to the Lord, as in the next clause: and he…”
“Look,” said the servant, “in this city there is a man of God who is highly respected; everything he says surely comes to pass. Let us go there now.
“And he said unto him,.... That is, the servant of Saul: behold, now, there is in this city a man of God; a prophet of the Lord, as the Targum; such were called men of God, because not only partakers of the grace of God…”
And as they were climbing the hill to the city, they met some young women coming out to draw water and asked, “Is the seer here?”
“And as they went up the hill to the city,.... For the city was built upon an hill, from whence it had the name of Ramah, which signifies high and lifted up: they found young maidens going out to draw water: going out of the…”
Now on the day before Saul’s arrival, the LORD had revealed to Samuel,
“Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear,.... In a private manner, whispering in his ear, telling him in a free, familiar, friendly way, as a secret: a day before Saul came; that he might prepare for the entertainment of him, and not be…”
And Samuel said to the cook, “Bring the portion I gave you and told you to set aside.”
“And Samuel said unto the cook,.... That dressed and prepared the food for the entertainment of the guests: bring the portion which I gave thee; to dress; for part of the provisions of the feast was Samuel's, and the other part the people's that brought…”