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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. Painted by George Vertue. The file is marked public domain. This site's record does not give the artist's death year, which is what settles the painting's own rights. The file record

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.

Exposition of the New Testament (1746-1748)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

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…

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

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:

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

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.

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

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.

Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Undated in the archive this site cites.

The rest of the quotation

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

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

Numbers 33:46Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

They set out from Dibon-gad and camped at Almon-diblathaim.

And they removed from Dibongad, and encamped in Almondiblathaim. Sixteen miles from Dibon, perhaps the same with Diblath, Eze 6:14, according to the account in Num 21:16, &c.

Numbers 33:47Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

They set out from Almon-diblathaim and camped in the mountains of Abarim facing Nebo.

And they removed from Almondiblathaim, and pitched in the mountains of Abarim,.... Sixteen miles from Almondiblathaim; these were so called from passages near them over the river Jordan: and this station was pitched before Nebo; one of those mountains, whither Moses went up and died.

Numbers 33:48Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

They set out from the mountains of Abarim and camped on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

And they departed from the mountains of Abarim, and pitched in the plains of Moab,.... Sixteen miles from Abarim, where all those things were transacted, which make the history of Balak and Balaam, Num 22:1 and where the Israelites now were by Jordan near Jericho…

Numbers 33:56Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And then I will do to you what I had planned to do to them.”

Moreover, it shall come to pass,.... This being the case, they suffering the Canaanites to dwell among them, and they mingling with them, learning their works, and serving their gods: that I shall do unto you as I thought I should do unto them; deliver…

Numbers 34:8Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

and from Mount Hor to Lebo-hamath, then extend to Zedad,

From Mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath,.... Antiochia, as Jarchi; or rather Epiphania, as Jerom (r); the former being described by Hemath the great, Amo 6:2, this entrance was a narrow pass leading from the land of Canaan…

Numbers 34:10Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

And your eastern border will run straight from Hazar-enan to Shepham,

And ye shall point out your east border from Hazarenan to Shepham. From the place where the northern border ended, which Jerom says (u) the Hebrews call Apamia, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem do here.

Numbers 34:29Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

These are the ones whom the LORD commanded to apportion the inheritance to the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

These are they whom the Lord commanded,.... Not only named and appointed them, but laid his commands upon them, and obliged them: to divide the inheritance unto the children of Israel; even this order was made before the land was conquered by them, so sure…

Numbers 35:5Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

You are also to measure two thousand cubits outside the city on the east, two thousand on the south, two thousand on the west, and two thousand on the north…

And ye shall measure from without the city on the east side two thousand cubits,.... Before only 1000 cubits were ordered to bemeasured, and now 2000, even 2000 more, which were to be added to the other, and to begin where they ended.

Numbers 35:7Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

The total number of cities you give the Levites will be forty-eight, with their corresponding pasturelands.

So all the cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty eight cities,.... Of these forty eight cities, their names, and what tribes they were in, and which of them were particularly cities of refuge, an account is given in Jos 21:10…

Numbers 35:16Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

If, however, anyone strikes a person with an iron object and kills him, he is a murderer; the murderer must surely be put to death.

And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die,.... As with an hatchet, hammer, sword, knife, &c.

Numbers 35:22Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

But if anyone pushes a person suddenly, without hostility, or throws an object at him unintentionally,

But if he thrust him suddenly, without enmity,.... Push him from a precipice, before he is aware, without any malicious design against his life, but merely through accident: or have cast upon him anything; from the top of a house, or from a building he…

Numbers 35:24Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

then the congregation must judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances.

Then the congregation,.... That is, the court of judicature, assembled together to hear and try this cause: shall judge between the slayer and the revenger of blood; shall hear what both have to say, and pass sentence: according to these judgments; these judicial laws and…

Numbers 35:26Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

But if the manslayer ever goes outside the limits of the city of refuge to which he fled

But if the slayer shall at any time come without the border of the city of his refuge,.... Which seems to be the three thousand cubits assigned to every city of the Levites, and so to the cities of refuge; and which, according to the…

Numbers 36:11Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to cousins on their father’s side.

For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah,.... The names of the daughters of Zelophehad, and the same as in Num 26:33, only the order a little varied, Tirzah and Noah here changing places; there they are according to their birth, here they are…

Numbers 36:12Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)

They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained within the tribe of their father’s clan.

And they were married into the families of the sons of Manasseh, the son of Joseph,.... The family of the Hepherites, of which they were.