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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 2 Corinthians 12:2 - 12:2
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
I knew (οἶδα)
Rev., correctly, I know.
Above fourteen years ago (πρὸ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων)
Above, of A.V., is due to a misunderstanding of the Greek idiom. Lit., before fourteen years, that is, fourteen years ago, as Rev.
Caught up (ἁρπαγέντα)
Compare Dante:
“Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light”
“Paradiso,” i., 75.
The verb suits the swift, resistless, impetuous seizure of spiritual ecstasy. See on Mat 11:12; and compare Act 8:39; 1Th 4:17; Rev 12:5.
Third heaven
It is quite useless to attempt to explain this expression according to any scheme of celestial gradation. The conception of seven heavens was familiar to the Jews; but according to some of the Rabbins there were two heavens - the visible clouds and the sky; in which case the third heaven would be the invisible region beyond the sky. Some think that Paul describes two stages of his rapture; the first to the third heaven, from which he was borne, as if from a halting-point, up into Paradise.