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
‘Lord,’ I answered, ‘they know very well that in one synagogue after another I imprisoned and beat those who believed in You.
“And I said, Lord, they know, that I imprisoned,.... Men and women, that made a profession of the Christian religion, Act 8:3 and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee; in Jerusalem there were many synagogues, and in these scourging and beating of…”
Then He said to me, ‘Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
“And he said unto me, depart,.... At once from Jerusalem, and out of the land of Judea: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles; to the nations afar off, even as far as Illyricum, Pannonia, or Hungary, where the apostle went and…”
The crowd listened to Paul until he made this statement. Then they lifted up their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He is not fit to live!”
“And they gave him audience unto this word..... The Ethiopic version reads, "and I heard him so speaking unto me"; as if it was to be understood of the apostle hearing Christ speaking to him concerning his mission to the Gentiles; whereas the words refer…”
As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air,
“And as they cried out,.... In this furious manner: and cast off their clothes; either like madmen, that knew not what they did, or in order to stone him; see Act 7:57.”
But as they stretched him out to strap him down, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it lawful for you to flog a Roman citizen without a trial?”
“And as they bound him with thongs,.... To a pillar, in order to be scourged, according to the Roman manner (d).”
On hearing this, the centurion went and reported it to the commander. “What are you going to do?” he said. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
“When the centurion heard that,.... The question put by Paul, which strongly suggested that he was a Roman: he went and told the chief captain; what Paul had said: saying, take heed what thou dost; or "art about to do"; lest some bad consequences should…”
The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” he answered.
“Then the chief captain came, and said unto him,.... To Paul: tell me, art thou a Roman? he had told him before that he was a Jew of Tarsus, and which was true, and had said nothing of his being a Roman; wherefore the chief…”
At this, the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth.
“And the high priest Ananias,.... This could not be the same with Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, but rather Ananus his son; though this is more generally thought to be Ananias the son of Nebedaeus, whom Josephus (m) speaks of. There is one R.”
More than forty of them were involved in this plot.
“And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy. Who met together, formed this resolution, entered into this scheme, and bound themselves with this oath; the word rendered "conspiracy", signifies an agreement by oath; such a number of them banded together, that they…”
he said, “I will hear your case when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that Paul be kept under guard in Herod’s Praetorium.
“I will hear thee, said he,.... The Arabic and Ethiopic versions read, "we will hear", which is a grand courtly way of speaking: when thine accusers are come; which Lysias, in his letter, informed him that he had ordered them to come; which shows the…”
We have found this man to be a pestilence, stirring up dissension among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes,
“For we have found this man a pestilent fellow,.... Pointing to Paul, the prisoner at the bar; the word here used signifies the "pest" or "plague" itself; and it was usual with orators among the Romans, when they would represent a man as a very…”
“But the chief captain Lysias came upon us,.... Suddenly, and at unawares, immediately, and with great haste, before they could execute their designs; which were not to judge Paul according to law, but to kill him, in the manner the zealots did: and with great…”
The Jews concurred, asserting that these charges were true.
“And the Jews also assented,.... That is, Ananias the high priest, and the elders that were with him, agreed to what Tertullus said, and confirmed the same.”
Nor can they prove to you any of their charges against me.
“Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me. As that he was a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition, and a profaner of the temple these things they could not set forth in any clear light, and bring testimonies, or give demonstration…”
and I have the same hope in God that they themselves cherish, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.
“And have hope towards God,.... Of an interest in him, and of enjoying eternal life and happiness with him in a future state: which they themselves also allow; that is, some of the Jews, not the Sadducees, for they denied what is afterwards asserted; but…”
who ought to appear before you and bring charges, if they have anything against me.
“Who ought to have been here before thee,.... For they were the only persons who saw him in the temple, and what he was doing; and who by an hideous outcry raised a mob upon him, who took things upon hearsay from them: and object…”
unless it was this one thing I called out as I stood in their presence: ‘It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you…
“Except it be for this one voice,.... Sentence or expression following, which declares his faith about the resurrection; not that he thought or owned that this was an evil in him, but that it was the only one, that any of them, the Jews, a…”
When Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many serious charges that they could not prove.
“And when he was come,.... Into court: the Jews which came down from Jerusalem; along with Festus, perhaps the high priest with the elders, and Tertullus the orator, as before: stood round about; either the Apostle Paul, or the judgment seat; the witnesses and accusers…”
If, however, I am guilty of anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die.
“For if I be an offender,.... Against the law of Moses, or the temple at Jerusalem, or Caesar the Roman emperor: or have committed anything worthy of death; by the laws of the Romans, as sedition, murder, &c.”
Since I was at a loss as to how to investigate these matters, I asked if he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there on these charges.
“And because I doubted of such manner of questions,.... Or was ignorant of them, and knew not what to make of them, or to say to them, and was at an entire loss what to do in this affair: I asked him whether he would…”
But I found he had done nothing worthy of death, and since he has now appealed to the Emperor, I decided to send him.
“But when I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death,.... Which was a public testimony of the apostle's innocence, to the great mortification of his enemies, some of whom might be present; a like testimony was given of him by Lysias, Act 23:29.”
I have nothing definite to write to our sovereign one about him. Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after…
“Of whom I have no certain thing,.... No certain crime, charge, or accusation; nothing of any moment or consequence, no particular thing, nothing but a heap of confused notions, of I know not who or what: to write unto my lord; meaning the Roman emperor…”
Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense:
“Then Agrippa said unto Paul,.... After Festus had made the above speech to him, and to all present, and had introduced the affair of Paul, who now stood before them: thou art permitted to speak for thyself; which a prisoner might not do, until he…”
And now I stand on trial because of my hope in the promise that God made to our fathers,
“And now I stand, and am judged,.... Before the Roman governor, and in the presence of Agrippa: for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; either for the hope of righteousness, life, and salvation, by the Messiah; who was promised to…”
And that is what I did in Jerusalem. With authority from the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were condemned to death, I…
“Which thing I also did in Jerusalem,.... The metropolis of Judea, where he had had his education, and was well known; here he consented to the death of Stephen, and held the clothes of the witnesses while they stoned him; and here he haled men…”