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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Corinthians 7:26 - 7:26
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The present distress (τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν ἀνάγκην)
Ἑνεστῶσαν present may also express something which is not simply present, but the presence of which foreshadows and inaugurates something to come. Hence it may be rendered impending or setting in. See on Rom 8:38. Ἁνάγκη means originally force, constraint, necessity, and this is its usual meaning in classical Greek; though in the poets it sometimes has the meaning of distress, anguish, which is very common in Hellenistic Greek. Thus Sophocles, of the approach of the crippled Philoctetes: “There falls on my ears the sound of one who creeps slow and painfully (κατ' ἀνάγκην.” “Philoctetes,” 206); and again, of the same: “Stumbling he cries for pain (ὑπ' ἀνάγκας,” 215). In the Attic orators it occurs in the sense of blood-relationship, like the Latin necessitudo a binding tie. In this sense never in the New Testament. For the original sense of necessity, see Mat 18:7; Luk 14:18; 2Co 9:7; Heb 9:16. For distress, Luk 21:23; 1Th 3:7. The distress is that which should precede Christ's second coming, and which was predicted by the Lord himself, Mat 24:8 sqq. Compare Luk 21:23-28.