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
It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir.
“There are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of Mount Seir, to Kadeshbarnea. Not that the Israelites came thither in eleven days from Horeb, for they stayed by the way at Kibrothhattaavah, a whole month at least, and seven days at Hazeroth; but…”
In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them.
“And it came to pass in the fortieth year,.... That is, of the coming of the children of Israel out of Egypt: in the eleventh month; the month Shebet, as the Targum of Jonathan, which answers to part of January and part of February: in…”
At that time I said to you, “I cannot carry the burden for you alone.
“And I spake unto you at that time,.... About that time; for it was after the rock in Horeb was smitten, and before they encamped at Mount Sinai, that Jethro gave the advice which Moses took, and proceeded on it, as here related; see Exo…”
The LORD your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky.
“The Lord your God hath multiplied you,.... Which was the reason why he could not bear them, or the government of them was too heavy for him, because they were so numerous, and the cases brought before him to decide were so many: and, behold…”
So I said to you: “Do not be terrified or afraid of them!
“Then I said unto you, dread not, neither be afraid of them. With such like words he had exhorted and encouraged them before the spies were sent, and he still uses the same, or stronger terms, notwithstanding the report that had been made of the…”
But in spite of all this, you did not trust the LORD your God,
“Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God. That they might go up and possess the land at once, and that he would fight for them, and subdue their enemies under them; or notwithstanding the favours bestowed upon them, and because…”
But you are to turn back and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”
“But as for you, turn ye,.... From the mountain of the Amorites, the border of the land of Canaan: and take your journey into the wilderness, by the way of the Red sea: see Num 14:25.”
For this reason you stayed in Kadesh for a long time—a very long time.
“So ye abode in Kadesh many days,.... Yea, some years, as some think: according to the days that ye abode there; that is, according to Jarchi, as they did in the rest of the journeys or stations; so that as they were thirty eight years…”
(The Emites used to live there, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites.
“The Emims dwelt there in time past,.... We read of them as early as the times of Chedorlaomer, Gen 14:5 when their dwelling was in Kirjathaim, a city which Sihon king of the Amorites took from the Moabites, and which being taken from him, was…”
Like the Anakites, they were also regarded as Rephaim, though the Moabites called them Emites.
“Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims,.... Because of their bulky size and tall stature; or,"the Rephaim were they accounted, even they as the Anakims;''they were reckoned Rephaim, a name for giants in early times, even as the Anakims were; see Gen 14:5.”
The Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out.
“The Horims also dwelt in Seir before time,.... Which is the name of a mount, and so of the country, from it; so called from Seir the Horite, who dwelt in it before it was possessed by Esau and his sons; but who the Horim…”
(That too was regarded as the land of the Rephaim, who used to live there, though the Ammonites called them Zamzummites.
“That also was accounted a land of giants,.... Ammon was so reckoned as well as Moab, Deu 2:10. giants dwelt therein in old time; the Rephaim dwelt there, as they did also in Ashteroth Karnaim, Gen 14:5.”
And the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, were destroyed by the Caphtorites, who came out of Caphtor and settled in their place.)
“And the Avim, which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah,.... The same with the Avites, who appear to have inhabited some part of the land of the Philistines, in which Azzah or Gaza was, which was one of the five lordships of the Philistines, Jos…”
just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for us, until we cross the Jordan into the land that the…
“As the children of Esau which dwell in Seir, and the Moabites which dwell in Ar, did unto me,.... Which respects, as Jarchi observes, not the affair of passing through their land requested, for neither of them granted that, but buying food and drink; for…”
So Sihon and his whole army came out for battle against us at Jahaz.
“Then Sihon came out against us,.... Perceiving they were upon their march towards his land or into it, he gathered all his people and went out of Heshbon their capital city, where he resided: he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz; a city…”
And the LORD our God delivered him over to us, and we defeated him and his sons and his whole army.
“And the Lord our God delivered him before us,.... With their lands: and we smote him and his sons, and all his people; with the edge of the sword; slew them all: the Cetib or textual reading is "his son", though the Keri or margin…”
At that time we captured all his cities and devoted to destruction the people of every city, including women and children. We left no survivors.
“And we took all his cities at that time,.... As Heshbon, and others mentioned in Num 21:25, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones of every city, we left none to remain; for the Amorites were one of the seven…”
All these cities were fortified with high walls and gates and bars, and there were many more unwalled villages.
“All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars,.... That is, all the cities in the kingdom of Bashan; and though they were, it hindered not their falling into the hands of the Israelites; and this might serve to encourage them against those…”
To the half-tribe of Manasseh I gave the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og.
“And the rest of Gilead,.... The other half of the mount, with the cities belonging to it: and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; see Num 32:33.”
Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and Maacathites.
“Jair the son of Manasseh took all the country of Argob,.... Or Trachonitis; the small towns belonging to Gilead, as in Num 32:41.”
But your wives, your children, and your livestock—I know that you have much livestock—may remain in the cities I have given you,
“But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle,.... These were to be left behind: for I know that ye have much cattle; which made the countries of Gilead and Bashan, so famous for pasturage, agreeable to them; see Num 32:1 these, under the…”
Do not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God Himself will fight for you.”
“Ye shall not fear them,.... On account of the numbers, strength, courage, and gigantic stature of the inhabitants, at least some of them; nor on account of their walled towns, and fortified cities: for the Lord your God he shall fight for you; as he…”
Go to the top of Pisgah and look to the west and north and south and east.
“Get thee up into the top of Pisgah,.... Which was the highest eminence of Mount Nebo, and so a very proper place to take a prospect from; see Deu 32:49.”
So we stayed in the valley opposite Beth-peor.
“So we abode in the valley over against Bethpeor. In the plains of Moab, over against a temple built for Baalpeor upon a mountain, so called from that idol, or that idol from the mountain; this is the valley where Moses was buried, Deu 34:6.”
Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all who followed Baal of Peor.
“Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baalpeor,.... Because of the idolatry the people of Israel fell into by worshipping that idol, being drawn into it by the daughters of Moab and Midian, through the counsel of Balaam, with whom they committed…”