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
“This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a…
“Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia,.... Of whom, and this edict of his, Isaiah prophesied two hundred years before he was born, Isa 44:28 the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; many he had conquered before he took…”
accompanied by Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. This is the count of the men of Israel:
“Which came with Zerubbabel,.... The head of them, the prince of Judah; and the chief that came with him are the ten following; Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, Baanah; the first of these, Jeshua, was Joshua the high priest, the son…”
The priests: The descendants of Jedaiah (through the house of Jeshua), 973;
“The priests,.... An account of them is given in this and the three following verses, and only four families are mentioned, those of Jedaiah, Immer, Pashur, and Harim, and the number of them amounted to 4289; these, according to the Jews, were heads of four…”
The Levites: the descendants of Jeshua and Kadmiel (through the line of Hodaviah), 74.
“The Levites,.... Singers and porters, who are reckoned in this, and the two following verses, whose numbers were no more than three hundred and forty one; whereas, in the times of David, they were 38,000, 1Ch 23:3.”
These men searched for their family records, but they could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.
“These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy,.... To find their names written and registered there; for the Jews kept public registers of their priests, their descent, marriages, and offspring, that it might be known who were fit, and who not, to…”
The whole assembly numbered 42,360,
“The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and threescore. But the sums before given make no more, with Zerubbabel, and the ten principal men, than 29,829, so that there are more than 12,000 wanting; wherefore, in answer to the question, where…”
They had 736 horses, 245 mules,
“So that the far greatest part of them must walk on foot, since these can be thought to be little more than sufficient to carry their goods or baggage; some copies of the Vulgate Latin read six hundred and thirty six horses (c). (c) Ed.”
They also celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in accordance with what is written, and they offered burnt offerings daily based on the number prescribed for each day.
“They kept also the feast of tabernacles, as it is written,.... According to the rules prescribed for the observation of it in Lev 23:34 this began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month: and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the…”
So Jeshua and his sons and brothers, Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Yehudah), and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together to supervise those working…
“Then stood Jeshua, with his sons,.... Not Jeshua the high priest before mentioned, but Jeshua the Levite, Ezr 2:40, and his brethren, Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together; the same with Hodaviah, Ezr 2:40 to set forward the workmen in the house…”
Then the people of the land set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to build.
“Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building. By threatening them, or by dissuading the workmen from going on, by endeavouring to hinder their having materials from the Tyrians and Zidonians, or money out…”
Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote the letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows:
“Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort.”
From Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates—the judges and officials over Tripolis, Persia, Erech and Babylon, the Elamites of Susa,
“Then wrote Rehum the chancellor, and Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their companions,.... who all signed the letter; namely, the governors of the following nations: the Dinaites, the Apharsathchites, the Tarpelites, the Apharsites, the Archevites, the Babylonians, the Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the…”
The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence.
“The letter which ye sent unto us,.... The plural number is used, being now become courtly for kings thus to speak of themselves: hath been plainly before me; by such that understood both the Syrian and Persian languages; the letter was written in the Syrian…”
This is the text of the letter that Tattenai the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and their associates, the officials in the region, sent to King…
“The copy of the letter that Tatnai, governor on this side the river, and Shetharboznai, and his companions the Apharsachites, which were on this side the river,....”
But since our fathers angered the God of heaven, He delivered them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean who destroyed this temple and carried away the…
“But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath,.... By their idolatries; which accounts for it how it was that they who were the servants of the great God of heaven and earth, and this temple built for the honour of…”
In his first year, however, Cyrus king of Babylon issued a decree to rebuild this house of God.
“But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon,.... That is, the first year he was king of Babylon, having taken it, otherwise he was king of Persia many years before: the same King Cyrus made a decree to build this house of…”
Therefore Darius decreed: To Tattenai governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and your associates and officials in the region: You must stay away from that place!
“Now therefore Tatnai, governor beyond the river,.... The river Euphrates, that side of it towards the land of Israel; Josephus (z) calls this man master of the horse: Shetharboznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which are beyond the river, be ye far from thence; keep…”
I also decree that if any man interferes with this directive, a beam is to be torn from his house and raised up, and he is to be impaled on…
“Also I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word,.... Act contrary to this command, will not obey it, but as much as in him lies changes and revokes it: let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let…”
And this temple was completed on the third day of the month of Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
“And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar,.... The twelfth month of the year with the Jews, and answers to part of our February and part of March: which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the…”
Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy.
“And the children of Israel,.... Those of the ten tribes that remained after the body of the people were carried captive, or came with the Jews at their return: the priests and the Levites, and the rest of the children of the captivity; those of…”
They also appointed the priests by their divisions and the Levites by their groups to the service of God in Jerusalem, according to what is written in the Book of…
“And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God which is at Jerusalem,....”
On the fourteenth day of the first month, the exiles kept the Passover.
“And the children of the captivity kept the passover upon the fourteenth day of the first month. The month Nisan or Abib, which was the month following that in which the temple was finished, Ezr 6:15, this passover was kept at the exact time the…”
Many years later, during the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah,
“Now after these things,.... The finishing of the temple, and the dedication of it, and keeping the passover: in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia; in the seventh year of his reign, Ezr 7:7, who is the same with Darius in the preceding chapter…”
With this money, therefore, you are to buy as many bulls, rams, and lambs as needed, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings, and offer them on the altar…
“That thou mayest buy speedily with this money,.... Thus freely contributed by one and another: bullocks, rams, lambs; which were for burnt offerings: with their meat offerings, and their drink offerings; which always went along with the burnt offerings, according to the law of Moses…”
And if anything else is needed for the house of your God that you may have occasion to supply, you may pay for it from the royal treasury.
“And whatsoever more shall be needful for the house of thy God, which thou shall have occasion to bestow,....”