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
and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Mount Seir.
“And say unto it, thus saith the Lord God,.... The prophet was not upon the spot, and could not direct his speech immediately to the Edomites; but he might send this prophecy to their ambassadors at Babylon; or in a letter to them in their…”
I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
“I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return,.... To their former dignity and glory; should not be built and inhabited again, but lie waste for ever: this agrees with what is prophesied of Edom, Mal 1:4 and will be true of…”
therefore you will no longer devour men or deprive your nation of its children, declares the Lord GOD.
“Therefore thou shalt devour men no more,.... Or they shall be no more destroyed in thee by pestilence, famine, sword, or other means: neither bereave that nations any more, saith the Lord; or, "thou shalt not cause them to fall any more" (k), for so…”
This is what the Lord GOD says: Once again I will hear the plea of the house of Israel and do for them this: I will multiply their people like…
“Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel,.... Besought and prayed unto for the accomplishment of the above promises, as well as what follows: for though God has promised and will perform, yet he expects…”
“And you, son of man, take a single stick and write on it: ‘Belonging to Judah and to the Israelites associated with him.’
“Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick,.... Or "wood" (a); a stick of wood; or table, as the Targum; a board or plank.”
Then join them together into one stick, so that they become one in your hand.
“And join them one to another into one stick,.... Clap the sticks, planks, boards, or tables, to one another; glue them together, or set them so close to one another, that they may seem as one stick, plank, board, or table: and they shall become…”
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“And the word of the Lord came unto me,.... At the same time as the preceding prophecy did, as the copulative and shows; which predicts the restoration and conversion of the Jews; the union of their tribes under the King Messiah; and their settlement in…”
as well as Gomer with all its troops, and Beth-togarmah from the far north with all its troops—the many nations with you.
“Gomer, and all his bands,.... Or all his army, as the Targum.”
Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish with all its villages will ask, ‘Have you come to capture the plunder?
“Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish,.... These are not any of the people that shall come along with Gog on his expedition; but some neighbouring nations bordering on Judea, who will address him in the following manner, as he passes through them, or…”
Now on that day when Gog comes against the land of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, My wrath will flare up.
“And it shall come to pass at the same time, when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God,....”
“As for you, O son of man, prophesy against Gog and declare that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of…
“Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog,.... As he had been ordered to do before, and must still continue to do it: behold, I am against thee, O Gog; which is repeated for the confirmation of it, and to inject terror into him; for…”
I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands, and they will know that I am the LORD.
“And I will send a fire on Magog,.... On the land of Magog; see Eze 38:2, while Gog is in the land of Israel, and he and his army perish there, his country shall be destroyed by fire, or by some judgment or judgments of…”
Yes, it is coming, and it will surely happen, declares the Lord GOD. This is the day of which I have spoken.
“Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God,.... That is, the salvation of his people, and the destruction of their enemies; the prophecy concerning all this is come to pass, and the whole is accomplished; thus, because of the certainty thereof…”
Next he measured the gateposts to be sixty cubits high. The gateway extended around to the gatepost of the courtyard.
“He made also posts of threescore cubits,.... Jerom thinks, that between the outward wall which surrounded this building, and the building itself, these posts or pillars were placed for ornament, which took up the space of sixty cubits; but rather these design the posts or…”
Then he measured the distance from the front of the lower gateway to the outside of the inner court; it was a hundred cubits on the east side as well…
“Then he measured the breadth from the fore front of the lower gate,.... That is, from the front of the inner eastern gate before mentioned, Eze 40:7, called the lower gate, in respect of the gate opposite to it, which led into the inner court…”
The side rooms were arranged one above another in three levels of thirty rooms each.
“And the side chambers were three, one over another, and thirty in order,.... There were three stories of them, and thirty in every storey, in all ninety; there were such chambers round about Solomon's temple, and so many stories of them, though their number is…”
and the outer chambers was twenty cubits wide all around the temple.
“And between the chambers was the wideness of twenty cubits,.... Not the side chambers before mentioned, as if there was the space of twenty cubits between each chamber; for another word is used; more probably the meaning is, that between the side chambers, or the…”
Now the building that faced the temple courtyard on the west was seventy cubits wide, and the wall of the building was five cubits thick all around, with a length…
“Now the building that was before the separate place,.... The "separate place" is the holy of holies, which was separated by a vail under the second temple, and by a wall as in this, and the first from the holy place: "before or over against"…”
were alternating carved cherubim and palm trees. Each cherub had two faces:
“And it was made with cherubim and palm trees,.... That is, all the wall of the house round about was ornamented with these, even both of the holy and of the most holy place; with these the curtains of Moses's tabernacle, and the vail that…”
The outer sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe, and the doorframe of the sanctuary was similar.
“The posts of the temple were squared,.... Or, were "foursquare" (n); the two posts on each side the door, the lintel and the threshold, made a square; the posts themselves were not round, as pillars, but flat and square; and the upper part was not…”
There was an altar of wood three cubits high and two cubits square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood.
“The altar of wood was three cubits high, and the length thereof two cubits,.... This was the altar of incense, and was typical of Christ in his intercession and mediation.”
Both the outer sanctuary and the inner sanctuary had double doors,
“And the temple and the sanctuary had two doors. Or the house of propitiatory, as the Targum; that is, the most holy place; not two doors apiece, but each had one door, which made two; the door of the temple was ten cubits broad, and…”
Now the upper chambers were smaller because the galleries took more space from the chambers on the lower and middle floors of the building.
“Now the upper chambers were shorter,.... The chambers were in three stories, as in the following verse, one above another; the middlemost were shorter than the lowermost, and the upper shorter than either; just the reverse of the chambers in Eze 41:7, they were not…”
Then the man brought me back to the gate that faces east,
“Afterward he brought me to the gate,.... The dimensions of this wonderful building being finished, the prophet's divine guide brought him from the wall about it, he had last measured, to the gate he first had him to, after he had observed to him the…”
and the glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east.
“And the glory of the Lord came into the house, Before described and measured; and being fitted and prepared, the builder and owner of it comes and takes up his residence in it; as Christ will do in his church, more especially and more visibly…”