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…
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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
Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring in some Israelites from the royal family and the nobility—
“And the king spake unto Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs,.... That is, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon spake to this officer of his, whose name was Ashpenaz; which, according to Saadiah, signifies a man of an angry countenance; but Hillerus (e) derives it from the…”
As you watched, a stone was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.
“Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands,.... Or, "wast seeing" (e); the king continued looking upon the image that stood before him, as he thought, as long as he could see it, till he saw a "stone": an emblem of the…”
In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.
“And in the days of these kings, &c. Not of the Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian kings; nor, indeed, of the old Roman kings, or emperors; but in the days of these ten kings, or kingdoms, into which the Roman empire is divided, signified by the…”
And whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace.”
“And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth,.... Who refuses to worship it, or wilfully neglects it; which would be interpreted a contempt of it, and of the king's command: shall in the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; such…”
and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden statue I have set up?
“Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, is it true,.... What I have heard of you, what you are charged with and accused of; surely it cannot be; so Aben Ezra and Saadiah interpret the word as we do, and all the Oriental versions: it is…”
“Look!” he exclaimed. “I see four men, unbound and unharmed, walking around in the fire—and the fourth looks like a son of the gods!”
“He answered and said, lo, I see four men loose,.... Not bound as the three were, when cast in; but quite at liberty in their hands and feet, and separate from one another.”
King Nebuchadnezzar, To the people of every nation and language who dwell in all the earth: May your prosperity be multiplied.
“Nebuchadnezzar the king,..... This and the two following verses are annexed to the preceding chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions; as if the author of the division of the chapters thought that Nebuchadnezzar proposed by this public proclamation…”
The tree grew large and strong; its top reached the sky, and it was visible to the ends of the earth.
“The tree grew, and was strong,.... Grew higher and broader, taller and thicker, increased in boughs and branches, and became strong and stable, that no winds nor storms could move it: this shows the increasing power of Nebuchadnezzar, the enlargement of his dominions, and the…”
As I lay on my bed, I also saw in the visions of my mind a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven.
“I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed,.... The king goes on to relate what other things presented themselves to his imagination in his dream, concerning this tree which signified himself: and, behold, a watcher: which Saadiah interprets of Bath Kol; but…”
you, O king, are that tree! For you have become great and strong; your greatness has grown to reach the sky, and your dominion extends to the ends of the…
“It is thou, O king, that art grown, and become strong,.... Here begins the interpretation of the dream: the tree was an emblem of King Nebuchadnezzar, of his greatness, and growing power and strength: for thy greatness is grown, and reacheth unto heaven; he overtopped…”
Now this is the inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN.
“And this is the writing that was written,.... They are such and such letters, and so to be read, as follows: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN; which are Chaldee words, and may be literally rendered, "he hath numbered, he hath numbered"; that is, God hath certainly…”
TEKEL means that you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.
“TEKEL,.... As for the meaning of this word, and what it points at, it is this: thou art weighed in the balances: of justice and truth, in the holy righteous law of God; as gold, and jewels, and precious stones, are weighed in the scales…”
and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.
“And Darius the Median took the kingdom,.... This was Cyaxares the son of Astyages, and uncle of Cyrus; he is called the Median, to distinguish him from another Darius the Persian, that came after, Ezr 4:5, the same took the kingdom of Babylon from Cyrus…”
Now it pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom,
“It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes,.... This is the same Darius mentioned in the latter part of the preceding chapter; who, as soon as he took the kingdom of Babylon, divided it into a hundred and twenty provinces…”
Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.
“Wherefore King Darius signed the writing and the decree. Moved to it by the number and importunity of his principal men; and chiefly through affectation of deity, which this law gave him; and that he might have an opportunity of ingratiating himself into his new…”
Then Daniel replied, “O king, may you live forever!
“Then said Daniel unto the king,.... Whose voice he knew, though the tone of it was so much altered: O king, live for ever; he does not reproach him for delivering him into the hands of his enemies, and suffering him to be cast into…”
So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
“So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius,.... This Daniel, of whom so much has been said all the preceding chapters, and who had been so lately and so wonderfully delivered from the lions' den, the same flourished throughout the reign of Darius the…”
As I continued to watch, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took His seat.
“I beheld till the thrones were cast down,.... On which the governors of the above monarchies sat; and those of the ten kings, signified by the ten horns; and also that of the little horn.”
And the ten horns are ten kings who will rise from this kingdom. After them another king, different from the earlier ones, will rise and subdue three kings.
“And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise,..... Or ten kingdoms which sprung out of the Roman empire, or into which it was broken and divided upon the dissolution of it, about A.D. 476; which, according to Mr.”
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one that had appeared to me earlier.
“In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar,.... Which some say (t) was the last year of his reign; but, according to Ptolemy's canon, he reigned seventeen years; and so says Josephus (u); however, this, as well as the preceding vision, were seen…”
And in the vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa, in the province of Elam. I saw in the vision that I was beside the Ulai Canal.
“And I saw in a vision,.... The following things: and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; not in reality, but so it seemed to him in the vision; as…”
I saw the ram charging toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against him, and there was no deliverance from his power.
“I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward,.... That is, with his horns, as rams do; these kingdoms using all their power and strength, wealth and riches, in fighting with and subduing nations, and pushing on their conquests in all parts here mentioned…”
While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man.
“And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision,.... The whole of the preceding vision, concerning the ram, he goat, and little horn, and what were done by them; the prophet not only affirms he saw this vision, but repeats…”
The four horns that replaced the broken one represent four kingdoms that will rise from that nation, but will not have the same power.
“Now that being broken,.... That is, the great horn Alexander, the first king of the Grecian monarchy; whose death, either by drunkenness, or by poison, is here expressed by being "broken".”
His body was like beryl, his face like the brilliance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of polished bronze, and his voice…
“His body also was like the beryl,.... That is, that part of it which was not covered with the linen garment, and was seen, was like such a precious stone, said to be of an azure and sky colour, signifying he was the Lord from…”