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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 1 Timothy 5:23 - 5:23
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Drink no longer water (μηκέτι ὑδροπότει)
The verb N.T.o. olxx. Rend. be no longer a drinker of water. Timothy is not enjoined to abstain from water, but is bidden not to be a water-drinker, entirely abstaining from wine. The kindred noun ὑδροπότης is used by Greek comic writers to denote a mean-spirited person. See Aristoph. Knights, 319.
But use a little wine (ἀλλὰ οἴνῳ ὀλίγῳ χρῶ)
The reverse antithesis appears in Hdt. i. 171, of the Persians: οὐκ οἴνῳ διαχρέονται ἀλλ' ὑδροποτέουσι they do not indulge in wine but are water-drinkers. Comp. Plato, Repub. 561 C, τοτὲ μεν μεθύων - αὖθις δὲ ὑδροποτῶν sometimes he is drunk - then he is for total-abstinence. With a little wine comp. much wine, 1Ti 3:8; Tit 2:3.
For thy stomach's sake (διὰ στόμαχον)
Στόμαχος N.T.o. olxx. The appearance at this point of this dietetic prescription, if it is nothing more, is sufficiently startling; which has led to some question whether the verse may not have been misplaced. If it belongs here, it can be explained only as a continuation of the thought in 1Ti 5:22, to the effect that Timothy is to keep himself pure by not giving aid and comfort to the ascetics, and imperilling his own health by adopting their rules of abstinence. Observe that οἶνος here, as everywhere else, means wine, fermented and capable of intoxicating, and not a sweet syrup made by boiling down grape-juice, and styled by certain modern reformers “unfermented wine.” Such a concoction would have tended rather to aggravate than to relieve Timothy's stomachic or other infirmities.
Thine often infirmities (τὰς πυκνάς σου ἀσθενείας)
This use of often as an adjective appears in earlier English. So Chaucer: “Ofte sythes” or “tymes ofte,” many times. Shakespeare: “In which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness” (As you like it, IV. i. 19). And
Ben Jonson:
“The jolly wassal walks the often round.”
The Forest, iii.
Even Tennyson:
“Wrench'd or broken limb - an often chance
In those brain-stunning shocks and tourney-falls.”
Gareth and Lynette.
Πυκνός often, very common in Class. Originally, close, compact, comp. Lat. frequens. In this sense 3 Macc. 4:10, τῷ πυκνῷ σανιδώματι the close planking of a ship's deck. In N.T., except here, always adverbial, πυκνὰ or πυκνότερον often or oftener, Luk 5:33; Act 24:26. Ἁσθένεια weakness, infirmity, only here in Pastorals. In the physical sense, as here, Luk 5:15; Luk 8:2; Joh 5:5; Gal 4:13. In the ethic sense, Rom 6:19; Rom 8:26.