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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Galatians 2:6 - 2:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Somewhat (ti). Something, not somebody. Paul refers to the Big Three (Cephas, James, and John). He seems a bit embarrassed in the reference. He means no disrespect, but he asserts his independence sharply in a tangled sentence with two parentheses (dashes in Westcott and Hort).
Whatsoever they were (hopoioi pote ēsan). Literally, “What sort they once were.”
Hopoioi is a qualitative word (1Th 1:9; 1Co 3:13; Jam 1:24). Lightfoot thinks that these three leaders were the ones who suggested the compromise about Titus. That is a possible, but not the natural, interpretation of this involved sentence. The use of de (but) in Gal 2:6 seems to make a contrast between the three leaders and the pleaders for compromise in Gal 2:4.
They, I say, imparted nothing to me (emoi gar ouden prosanethento). He starts over again after the two parentheses and drops the construction apo tōn dokountōn and changes the construction (anacoluthon) to hoi dokountes (nominative case), the men of reputation and influences whom he names in Gal 2:8. See the same verb in Gal 1:16. They added nothing in the conference to me. The compromisers tried to win them, but they finally came over to my view. Paul won his point, when he persuaded Peter, James, and John to agree with him and Barnabas in their contention for freedom for the Gentile Christians from the bondage of the Mosaic ceremonial law.