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
All day long they twist my words; all their thoughts are on my demise.
“Every day they wrest my words,.... Form, fashion, and shape them at their pleasure; construe them, and put what sense upon them they think fit.”
They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps while they wait to take my life.
“They gather themselves together,.... And meet in some one place, to contrive ways and means to do hurt, and then assemble together again to put them in execution; as did the Jews with respect to Christ, Mat 26:”
In spite of such sin, will they escape? In Your anger, O God, cast down the nations.
“Shall they escape by iniquity?.... Shall such iniquity as this, or persons guilty of it, go unpunished, or escape righteous judgment, and the vengeance of God?”
You have taken account of my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle— are they not in Your book?
“Thou tellest my wanderings,.... Not his sins; though these are aberrations or wanderings from the ways of God's commandments; yet these are not told by the Lord: he takes no account of them; the number of them is not kept by him; they are blotted…”
in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?
“In God have I put my trust,.... See Gill on Psa 56:4; I will not be afraid what man can do unto me; the same with flesh in Psa 56:4, and is opposed to God, in whom he trusted; and it suggests that he was…”
My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts— with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
“My soul is among lions,.... Not literally understood; though such there might be in the wildernesses where he sometimes was; but figuratively, men comparable to lions, for their stoutness, courage, strength, fierceness, and cruelty; meaning not his own men, as some think, who were fierce…”
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth.
“Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens,.... That is, show thyself to be God, that sittest in the heavens, and art higher than they, by saving me, and disappointing mine enemies; that I, and those that are with me, may magnify the Lord and…”
They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it! Selah
“They have prepared a net for my steps,.... They laid snares for him, as the fowler does for the bird, in order to take him.”
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make music.
“My heart is fixed, O God,.... Firm and sure, trusting in the Lord, believing that he should be saved by him out of his troubles; see Psa 101:1.”
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth.
“Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens,.... As Christ now is at the Father's right hand, and who is God over all, blessed for ever; let thy glory be above all the earth; as it is above all the men on earth and angels…”
Do you indeed speak justly, O rulers? Do you judge uprightly, O sons of men?
“Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation?.... Of the mighty, as in Psa 82:1; the judges of the land, who were many, and therefore called a congregation, as it is necessary they should; for, being many, they are not so easily bribed; and besides, one…”
refusing to hear the tune of the charmer who skillfully weaves his spell.
“Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers,.... Or "that use enchantments", to enchant serpents, by muttering certain words, or by magical songs; by which means it is said that they have been drawn out of their holes, or caused to fly, or have…”
Like a slug that dissolves in its slime, like a woman’s stillborn child, may they never see the sun.
“As a snail which melteth, let everyone of them pass away,.... As a snail when it comes out of its shell liquefies, drops its moisture, and with it makes a "path", from whence it has its name שבלול, in the Hebrew language; and so the…”
Before your pots can feel the burning thorns— whether green or dry— He will sweep them away.
“Before your pots can feel the thorns,.... Which is soon done; for as dry thorns make a great blaze, so they give a quick heat; the pots soon feel them, or the water in them soon receives heat from them.”
Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise against me.
“Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God,.... David had his enemies in his youth, notwithstanding the amiableness of his person, the endowments of his mind, his martial achievements, his wise behaviour and conduct, and the presence of God with him; yea, it were some…”
Deliver me from workers of iniquity, and save me from men of bloodshed.
“Deliver me from the workers of iniquity,.... See Gill on Psa 6:8; and save me from bloody men; such as Saul sent to kill David, as appears from the title of the psalm; and such as were concerned in the death of Christ; and such…”
See how they lie in wait for me. Fierce men conspire against me for no transgression or sin of my own, O LORD.
“For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul,.... As the men did that watched his house, when Saul sent to kill him; so the Jews sought and lay in wait to take away the life of Christ; and very often was it the case…”
For no fault of my own, they move swiftly to attack me. Arise to help me, and take notice.
“They run and prepare themselves without my fault,.... Or, "without sin in me"; or "without punishment in them"; so the same word is rendered, 1Sa 28:10.”
O LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, rouse Yourself to punish all the nations; show no mercy to the wicked traitors. Selah
“Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts,.... Of the armies in heaven, the angels, and of all the inhabitants of the earth; who are all under him, and at his dispose, and can do among them and with them whatsoever he pleases; the God of…”
They return in the evening, snarling like dogs and prowling around the city.
“They return at evening,.... It was at evening Saul sent messengers to watch David's house, that they might take him in the morning; but missing him, perhaps after a fruitless search for him all the day, returned at evening to watch his house again; or…”
I will keep watch for You, O my strength, because You, O God, are my fortress.
“Because of his strength will I wait upon thee,.... Either because of the strength of Saul, who was stronger than David, he determined to wait upon the Lord for salvation and deliverance from him; or because of the strength of the Lord, which he expected…”
My God of loving devotion will come to meet me; God will let me stare down my foes.
“The God of my mercy shall prevent me,.... Or "of my grace", or "goodness", as the Targum; see 1Pe 5:10.”
Do not kill them, or my people will forget. Scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.
“Slay thou not,.... Though they deserved to be slain, and the Lord seemed as if he was about to slay them, who was able to do it; he seemed to be whetting his glittering sword, and his hand to take hold of vengeance ready to…”
They scavenge for food, and growl if they are not satisfied.
“Let them wander up and down for meat,.... Like hungry dogs; and grudge if they be not satisfied; or murmur and howl as dogs when hungry, and can find nothing to eat; or "when they shall not be satisfied, and shall lodge" (z); when they…”
To You, O my strength, I sing praises, for You, O God, are my fortress, my God of loving devotion.
“Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing,.... That is, to God, whom he made his strength, and put his trust in for strength, and from whom he received it; and he therefore determined to sing praise to him for it, and give him the…”