Adam Clarke Commentary - 2 Corinthians 11:20 - 11:20

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Adam Clarke Commentary - 2 Corinthians 11:20 - 11:20


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

For ye suffer - As you are so meek and gentle as to submit to be brought into bondage, to have your property devoured, your goods taken away, yourselves laid in the dust, so that others may exalt themselves over you, yea, and will bear from those the most degrading indignity; then of course, you will bear with one who has never insulted, defrauded, devoured, taken of you, exalted himself against you, or offered you any kind of indignity; and who only wishes you to bear his confident boasting, concerning matters which he can substantiate.

The expressions in this verse are some evidence that the false apostle was a Judaizing teacher. You suffer, says the apostle, if a man, καταδουλοι, bring you into bondage, probably meaning to the Jewish rites and ceremonies, Gal 4:9; Gal 5:1. If he devour you; as the Pharisees did the patrimony of the widows, and for a pretense made long prayers; if a man take of you, exact different contributions, pretendedly for the temple at Jerusalem, etc. If he exalt himself, pretending to be of the seed of Abraham, infinitely higher in honor and dignity than all the families of the Gentiles; if he smite you on the face - treat you with indignity, as the Jews did the Gentiles, considering them only as dogs, and not fit to be ranked with any of the descendants of Jacob.