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
Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners.
“Therefore will I give their wives unto others,.... To strangers, to the Gentiles; than which nothing could be more disagreeable to them, or a sorer punishment, of a temporal one: and their fields to them that shall inherit them; or, to the heirs (i); other…”
Why are we just sitting here? Gather together, let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there, for the LORD our God has doomed us.
“Why do we sit still?.... In the country, where were barrenness and want of provisions; in the villages and unwalled towns, where they were exposed to the spoils and ravages of the enemy.”
“For behold, I will send snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the LORD.
“For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,.... The Chaldeans, comparable to these noxious and hurtful creatures, because of the mischief they should do unto them. The Targum is, "for, lo, I will raise up against you people that kill as the destroying serpents.''”
My sorrow is beyond healing; my heart is faint within me.
“When I would comfort myself against terror,.... Either naturally, by eating and drinking, the necessary and lawful means of refreshment; or spiritually, by reading the word of God, and looking over the promises in it: my heart is faint in me; at the consideration of…”
For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed. I mourn; horror has gripped me.
“For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt,.... These are the words, not of God, as Jerom; nor of Jerusalem, as the Targum; but of the prophet, as Kimchi observes, expressing his sympathy with the people in their affliction: and they…”
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?
“Is there no balm in Gilead?.... Which was famous for it; see Gen 37:25, or rather turpentine or rosin, a gum which drops from pine trees and the like; since balm or balsam grew on this side Jordan, near Jericho and Engedi, and not beyond…”
Oh, that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night over the slain daughter of my people.
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears,.... Or, "who will give to my head water, and to mine eyes a fountain of tears?" as the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions.”
You dwell in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the LORD.
“Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit,.... In the midst of a people of deceit, as Kimchi and Ben Molech.”
Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
“Their tongue is as an arrow shot out,.... As an arrow out of a bow, which moves swiftly, and comes with great force; or, "drawn out" (u); as out of a quiver.”
Should I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD. Should I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”
“Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord,.... The Targum adds, "to bring evil upon them.'' Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing…
“For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing,.... Because of the desolation of them; because no pasture upon them, nor flocks feeding there; or "concerning" them, as the Arabic version; or "upon" them (y), in order to cause the lamentation to be…”
“And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
“And I will make Jerusalem heaps,.... That is, the walls and houses of it shall be thrown down, and become heaps of stones and rubbish: and a den of dragons; only inhabited by wild beasts: and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without…”
And the LORD answered, “It is because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them; they have not walked in it or obeyed My voice.
“And the Lord saith,.... The Septuagint version adds, "to me"; there being no wise and understanding man, nor prophet (b), to take up this affair, and open the cause of it, therefore the Lord undertakes it himself: the question was put to them, but they…”
Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts and gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them.”
“But have walked after the imagination of their own heart,.... What their own hearts devised, chose, and were best pleased with; See Gill on Jer 7:24, and after Baalim; the idols of the Gentiles; these they served and worshipped, and not the true God: which…”
For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.
“For death is come up into our windows,.... Their doors being shut, bolted, and barred, they thought themselves safe, but were not; the Chaldeans scaled their walls, broke in at the tops of their houses, or at their windows, and destroyed them: for the invasion…”
Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one…
“Speak, thus saith the Lord,.... These are the words of the Lord to Jeremiah, to go on with his prophecy in his name; so the Targum, "prophesy, thus saith the Lord:'' even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field; or…”
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised yet uncircumcised:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,.... Or, "are coming" (h); it seems to respect the time after the Babylonish captivity, when the punishment after threatened took place, and not before: that I will punish all them that are circumcised with the uncircumcised; Jews and…”
Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples.
“Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab,.... Places and people among which the Jews were dispersed, and whose punishment is predicted in Jeremiah chapters forty six through forty nine, and whose countries are now under the dominion of the Turks…”
Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz—the work of a craftsman from the hands of a goldsmith.
“Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish,.... In Cilicia, where the Apostle Paul was born; according to Josephus, as Jerom says, it was a country in India.”
They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.
“They are vanity,.... They are the fruit of the vain imagination of men; to worship them shows the vanity of the human mind; and they are vain things to trust to: and the work of errors; of erroneous men, and which lead men into errors…”
Gather up your belongings from this land, you who live under siege.
“Gather up thy wares out of the land,.... Or thy merchandise, as the Targum; or thy substance, as the Septuagint; all valuable effects and goods that are movable, which might be carried from place to place.”
For the shepherds have become senseless; they do not seek the LORD. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flock is scattered.
“For the pastors are become brutish,.... The "kings" of Judah, so the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, as Jehoiakim and Zedekiah; though it need not be restrained to these only, but may include all inferior civil magistrates, and even all ecclesiastical rulers, who were the shepherds…”
“Listen to the words of this covenant and tell them to the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem.
“Hear ye the words of this covenant,.... Which. Dr. Lightfoot understands of the covenant lately made in the times of Josiah, upon finding and reading the law of Moses, 2Ki 23:3, but it seems rather to design the law of Moses itself; or the covenant…”
Then the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying: Hear the words of this covenant and carry…
“Then the Lord said unto me,.... Again; for this is a repetition of the above order: proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: with a loud voice, and openly, that all may hear: saying, hear ye the…”
They have returned to the sins of their forefathers who refused to obey My words. They have followed other gods to serve them.
“They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers,.... According to Kimchi, this prophecy was delivered out in the times of Jehoiakim.”