Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Colossians 2:21 - 2:21
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (mē hapsēi mēde geusēi mēde thigēis). Specimens of Gnostic rules. The Essenes took the Mosaic regulations and carried them much further and the Pharisees demanded ceremonially clean hands for all food. Later ascetics (the Latin commentators Ambrose, Hilary, Pelagius) regard these prohibitions as Paul’s own instead of those of the Gnostics condemned by him. Even today men are finding that the noble prohibition law needs enlightened instruction to make it effective. That is true of all law. The Pharisees, Essenes, Gnostics made piety hinge on outward observances and rules instead of inward conviction and principle. These three verbs are all in the aorist subjunctive second person singular with mē, a prohibition against handling or touching these forbidden things. Two of them do not differ greatly in meaning. Hapsēi is aorist middle subjunctive of haptō, to fasten to, middle, to cling to, to handle. Thigēis is second aorist active subjunctive of thigganō, old verb, to touch, to handle. In N.T. only here and Heb 11:28; Heb 12:20. Geusēi is second aorist middle subjunctive of geuō, to give taste of, only middle in N.T. to taste as here.