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
You know the way to the place where I am going.”
“And whither I go ye know,.... They might have known, at least, whither he was going, since he had spoke of his Father's house, and of his going to prepare a place for them there, and doubtless had some knowledge thereof, though very confused and…”
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own.
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father?.... This surely is, as it must needs be, and ought to be, an article of your faith, "that I am in the Father", and the Father in me; phrases which are expressive of the sameness of…”
And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever—
“And I will pray the Father,...., Here Christ speaks as Mediator, and promises his disciples, that he would intercede for them with the Father; which is designed as an encouragement to them to ask for what they want, in his name, and to comfort their…”
Judas (not Iscariot) asked Him, “Lord, why are You going to reveal Yourself to us and not to the world?”
“Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,.... This was Judas Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus, the same with Jude the apostle, the author of the epistle which bears his name; and is said to be "not Iscariot", to distinguish him from the betrayer.”
Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless…
“Abide in me, and I in you,.... The former of these is an exhortation to continue in the exercise of faith and love upon Christ, holding to him the head, cleaving to him with full purpose of heart, and so deriving life, grace, strength, and…”
This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, proving yourselves to be My disciples.
“Herein is my Father glorified,.... This does not so much refer to what goes before, concerning the disciples abiding in Christ, and he and his words abiding in them, and doing for them whatever they ask, though by all this God is glorified; as to…”
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
“This is my commandment, that ye love one another,.... Christ had been before speaking of his commandments; and he mentions this as the principal one, and to which all the rest may be reduced; for as the precepts of the second table of the moral…”
But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated Me without reason.’
“But this cometh to pass,.... This hatred against Christ, and which is pointed at his people for his sake, and reaches to the Father also on his account, is suffered to be, and therefore should be patiently borne: that the word might be fulfilled which…”
Now, however, I am going to Him who sent Me; yet none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’
“But now I go my way to him that sent me,.... These words seem to belong to Joh 16:4, and to contain a reason why Christ spoke of the trials and afflictions of his disciples now, because he was going away from them to his…”
in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me;
“Of sin, because they believe not on me. The "sin" here primarily intended, is that of the Jews, in disbelieving, rejecting, and crucifying Christ; and which the Spirit of God, by Peter, charged upon them on the day of "Pentecost", and fully proved against them…”
However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.
“Howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come,.... Of this character of the Spirit, see Joh 14:17. His coming, as before, intends more especially his descent on the apostles at Pentecost; though what is here said of him is true of his office, and of…”
In a little while you will see Me no more, and then after a little while you will see Me.”
“A little while and ye shall not see me,.... Meaning, that he should be quickly taken from them by death.”
Then some of His disciples asked one another, “Why is He telling us, ‘In a little while you will not see Me, and then after a little while you will…
“Then said some of his disciples among themselves,.... It may be, some of them might better understand the meaning of Christ than others, or they might all be ignorant of it; for before the effusion of the Spirit on them, they were attended with a…”
They kept asking, “Why is He saying, ‘a little while’? We do not understand what He is saying.”
“They said therefore,.... One, and all of them; the inquiry became universal; what is this that he saith, a little while?”
A woman has pain in childbirth because her time has come; but when she brings forth her child, she forgets her anguish because of her joy that a child has…
“A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow,.... As was said she should have, Gen 3:16; This is God's ordination and appointment for sin: because her hour is come; is at hand; the fixed time in nature is up, and there is no avoiding…”
For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God.
“For the Father himself loveth you,.... The Father loved them as well, and as much as the Son did, and of himself too, without any merit or motive in them: he loved them from everlasting, and had given proofs of it in time, in the…”
“Do you finally believe?” Jesus replied.
“Jesus answered them, do ye now believe? Not as calling their faith in question; or as denying they had any; or as despising it for the smallness of it; but as reproving them for their security, vain confidence and boasting, as if their faith was…”
And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world existed.
“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self,.... Not with his perfections, these he had, they dwelt bodily in him; or with his nature, in which he was one with him; but as Mediator, with his glorious presence in heaven, by setting…”
They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. These words are repeated from Joh 17:14, where they are given as a reason of the world's hatred to them; and here, as showing that they are exposed to the evil…”
Righteous Father, although the world has not known You, I know You, and they know that You sent Me.
“O righteous Father,.... God is righteous in all the divine persons: the Father is righteous, the Son is righteous, and the Holy Spirit is righteous: he is so in his nature; righteousness is a perfection of it; he is so in all his purposes and…”
“I told you that I am He,” Jesus replied. “So if you are looking for Me, let these men go.”
“Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he,.... This he said, upbraiding them with their stupidity; signifying he was ready to deliver himself up into their hands; and which he did with intrepidity and calmness, only on this condition, with this proviso for…”
Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be better if one man died for the people.
“Now Caiaphas was he which gave council to the Jews,.... The chief priests and Pharisees, who met in council about Jesus, Joh 11:47, the counsel he gave was, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people; and which advice was given…”
Now Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he also went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.
“And Simon Peter followed Jesus,.... It is certain, he first fled with the rest, and forsook him, as they all did, notwithstanding his resolution to abide by him; however, he was very desirous to know what would become of Jesus, and what would be the…”
Because it was cold, the servants and officers were standing around a charcoal fire they had made to keep warm. And Peter was also standing with them, warming himself.
“And the servants and officers stood there,.... In a certain part of the hall, the middle of it; the Vulgate Latin reads, "by the coals": it follows, who had made a fire of coals, for it was cold; though it was the passover, and harvest…”
Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about His disciples and His teaching.
“The high priest then asked Jesus,.... Being now brought from Annas to Caiaphas, who was the high priest and mouth of the sanhedrim, and to whom it appertained to hear and try a cause relating to doctrine.”