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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - 2 Corinthians 8:9 - 8:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
He became poor (ἐπτώχευσεν)
Only here in the New Testament. Primarily of abject poverty, beggary (see on Mat 5:3), though used of poverty generally. “Became poor” is correct, though some render “was poor,” and explain that Christ was both rich and poor simultaneously; combining divine power and excellence with human weakness and suffering. But this idea is foreign to the general drift of the passage. The other explanation falls in better with the key-note - an act of self-devotion - in 2Co 8:5. The aorist tense denotes the entrance into the condition of poverty, and the whole accords with the magnificent passage, Phi 2:6-8. Stanley has some interesting remarks on the influence of this passage in giving rise to the orders of mendicant friars. See Dante, “Paradiso,” xi., 40-139; xii., 130 sqq.