Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - 2 Corinthians 4:4 - 4:4
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The god of this world (ho theos tou aiōnos toutou). “Age,” more exactly, as in 1Co 1:20. Satan is “the god of this age,” a phrase nowhere else in the N.T., but Jesus uses the same idea in Joh 12:31; Joh 14:30 and Paul in Eph 2:2; Eph 6:12 and John in 1Jo 5:19. Satan claimed the rule over the world in the temptations with Jesus.
Blinded (etuphlōsen). First aorist active of tuphloō, old verb to blind (tuphlos, blind). They refused to believe (apistōn) and so Satan got the power to blind their thoughts. That happens with wilful disbelievers.
The light (ton phōtismon). The illumination, the enlightening. Late word from photizō, to give light, in Plutarch and lxx. In N.T. only in 2Co 4:4, 2Co 4:6. Accusative case of general reference here with the articular infinitive (eis to mē augasai that should not dawn). That is, if augasai is intransitive as is likely, though it is transitive in the old poets (from augē, radiance. Cf. German Auge=eye). If it is transitive, the idea would be “that they should not see clearly the illumination, etc.”