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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 1 Thessalonians 2:8 - 2:8
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Even so, being affectionately desirous of you (houtōs omeiromenoi humōn). Clearly the correct text rather than himeiromenoi from himeirō, old verb to long for. But the verb homeiromai (Westcott and Hort om., smooth breathing) occurs nowhere else except MSS. in Job 3:21; Psa 62:2 (Symmachus) and the Lycaonian sepulchral inscription (4th cent. a.d.) about the sorrowing parents homeiromenoi peri paidos, greatly desiring their son (Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary). Moulton suggests that it comes from a root smer, remember, and that ȯ is a derelict preposition o like o-duromai, o-kellō, ō-keanos. Wohlenberg (Zahn, Kommentar) calls the word “a term of endearment,” “derived from the language of the nursery” (Milligan).
We were well pleased (ēudokoumen). Imperfect active of eudokeō, common verb in later Greek and in N.T. (see Mat 3:17), picturing Paul’s idea of their attitude while in Thessalonica. Paul often has it with the infinitive as here.
To impart (metadounai). Second aorist active infinitive of metadidōmi, old verb to share with (see Luk 3:11). Possible zeugma with souls (psuchas), though Lightfoot renders “lives.” Paul and his associates held nothing back.
Because ye were become very dear to us (dioti agapētoi hēmin egenēthēte). Note dioti (double cause, dia, hoti, for that), use of ginomai again for become, and dative hēmin with verbal agapētoi, beloved and so dear. A beautiful picture of the growth of Paul’s affection for them as should be true with every pastor.