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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Corinthians 2:9 - 2:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
But as it is written (alla kathōs gegraptai). Elliptical sentence like Rom 15:3 where gegonen (it has happened) can be supplied. It is not certain where Paul derives this quotation as Scripture. Origen thought it a quotation from the Apocalypse of Elias and Jerome finds it also in the Ascension of Isaiah. But these books appear to be post-Pauline, and Jerome denies that Paul obtained it from these late apocryphal books. Clement of Rome finds it in the lxx text of Isa 64:4 and cites it as a Christian saying. It is likely that Paul here combines freely Isa 64:4; Isa 65:17; Isa 52:15 in a sort of catena or free chain of quotations as he does in Rom 3:10-18. There is also an anacoluthon for ha (which things) occurs as the direct object (accusative) with eiden (saw) and ēkousan (heard), but as the subject (nominative) with anebē (entered, second aorist active indicative of anabainō, to go up).
Whatsoever (hosa). A climax to the preceding relative clause (Findlay).
Prepared (hētoimasen). First aorist active indicative of hetoimazō. The only instance where Paul uses this verb of God, though it occurs of final glory (Luk 2:31; Mat 20:23; Mat 25:34; Mar 10:40; Heb 11:16) and of final misery (Mat 25:41). But here undoubtedly the dominant idea is the present blessing to these who love God (1Co 1:5-7).
Heart (kardian) here as in Rom 1:21 is more than emotion. The Gnostics used this passage to support their teaching of esoteric doctrine as Hegesippus shows. Lightfoot thinks that probably the apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah and Apocalypse of Elias were Gnostic and so quoted this passage of Paul to support their position. But the next verse shows that Paul uses it of what is now revealed and made plain, not of mysteries still unknown.