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
Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it.
“Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, are the Lord's thy God,.... Made and possessed by him; the airy and starry heaven, the third heaven, which is the heaven of heavens, the seat of the divine Majesty, the habitation of angels and glorified saints…”
Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
“Thy fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons,.... That is, in all; for there were not seventy besides Jacob and the patriarchs his sons, but with them; see Gen 46:26 and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven…”
what He did for you in the wilderness until you reached this place;
“And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came unto this place. Meaning not so much the good things he did for them in divers places, as the chastisements and corrections he had exercised them with for their murmurings, rebellions, idolatry, and…”
So if you carefully obey the commandments I am giving you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your…
“And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day,....”
Instead, you must seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to establish as a dwelling for His Name, and there you must go.
“But unto the place which the Lord your God,.... The Targum of Jonathan is, that the Word of the Lord your God: shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there; to place his tabernacle, set up his worship, take up his…”
and be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
“Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite,.... By withholding from him the tithes appointed for his maintenance; or rather by neglecting to take him with him in order to partake of the feast or entertainment before spoken of: as long as thou…”
But you are to take your holy things and your vow offerings and go to the place the LORD will choose.
“Only thy holy things which thou hast,.... Which the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan interpret of the tithe of their holy things, and Aben Ezra of their burnt offerings and peace offerings; they seem to include all in Deu 12:17.”
If a prophet or dreamer of dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you,
“If there arise among you a prophet,.... A false prophet, a lying prophet, as the Targum of Jonathan; one that pretends to be a true prophet, and to be sent of God, and to come from him with a message from him, a new revelation…”
These are the animals that you may eat: The ox, the sheep, the goat,
“These are the beasts which they shall eat,.... That is, which they might lawfully eat of, which were allowed for their food; for they were not obliged to eat of them if they did not choose it: the ox, the sheep, and the goat; which…”
You may eat any clean bird,
“Of all clean birds ye shall eat. Which the Targum of Jonathan describes, everyone that has a craw, and whose crop is naked, and has a superfluous talon, and is not rapacious; but such as are unclean are expressed by name in the following verses…”
All flying insects are unclean for you; they may not be eaten.
“And every creeping thing that flieth is unclean,.... Which the Targum of Jonathan thus paraphrases;"all flies and wasps (or hornets), and worms of lentiles and of beans, which are separated from food, and fly as birds, they are unclean;''See Gill on Lev 11:20; see Gill…”
But you may eat any clean bird.
“But of all clean fowls ye may eat. Even of all fowls, but those before excepted; Aben Ezra instances in the locust, as being a clean fowl, that might be eaten; and so the Targum of Jonathan is"every clean locust ye may eat;''see Lev 11:22.”
then exchange it for money, take the money in your hand, and go to the place the LORD your God will choose.
“Thou shalt then turn it into money,.... The tithe, which would be lighter and easier carriage: and bind up the money in thine hand; put it into a bag or purse, and tie it up and carry it in the hand; which some think was…”
And do not neglect the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.
“And the Levite that is within thy gates, thou shalt not forsake him,.... As not from giving him the first tithe, as Jarchi remarks, so he was not to forget him in this; he was not to leave him behind, but take him with him…”
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
“At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. Not of servants, for they were not to be dismissed from their service until they had served six years, as is directed to in a following law; for if they were to be…”
Instead, you are to open your hand to him and freely loan him whatever he needs.
“But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him,.... And give him bountifully and liberally; in order to which the heart must be first opened, the affections moved, and a willing mind disposed to give generously: and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need…”
And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed.
“And when thou sendest him out free from thee,.... When he discharged him from his servitude, and made him a free man: thou shall not let him go away empty; without anything to support himself, or to put himself in a way of business; he…”
Do not regard it as a hardship to set your servant free, because his six years of service were worth twice the wages of a hired hand.
“It shall not seem hard to thee when thou sendest him away free from thee,.... He should not grudge him his liberty, nor what he gives to him when he dismisses him: for he hath been worth a double hired servant to thee in serving…”
Eat it within your gates; both the ceremonially unclean and clean may eat it as they would a gazelle or a deer.
“Thou shalt eat it within thy gates,.... Though it might not be sacrificed, nor eaten as an eucharistic feast at Jerusalem, it might be eaten as common food in their own houses: the unclean and the clean person shall eat it alike; such as were…”
For six days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day you shall hold a solemn assembly to the LORD your God, and you must not do any…
“Six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread,.... In other places it is ordered to be eaten seven days, Exo 12:15 and here it is not said six only; it was to be eaten on the seventh as on the other, though that is here distinguished…”
You are to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.
“Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days,.... Which began on the fifteenth day of Tisri, or September; see Lev 23:34, &c.”
Everyone must appear with a gift as he is able, according to the blessing the LORD your God has given you.
“Every man shall give as he is able,.... The quantity to be given is not fixed in the law, but the wise men appointed it, as observed on Deu 16:16 but it is left by the Lord to the generosity of the people, only giving…”
Pursue justice, and justice alone, so that you may live, and you may possess the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
“That which is altogether just shalt thou follow,.... Or "justice", "justice" (a), strict justice, and nothing else: that thou mayest live and inherit the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee; that is, continue in the possession of it. (a) צדק צדק.”
You are to go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who presides at that time. Inquire of them, and they will give you a verdict in the case.
“Thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites,.... The priests that are of the tribe of Levi, as the Targum of Jonathan, and so Jarchi; for Aben Ezra says there are priests that are not of the genealogy of Levi; such there were indeed in…”
The Levitical priests—indeed the whole tribe of Levi—shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel.
“The priests, the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel,....”