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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - Philippians 3:5 - 3:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Thinketh to have confidence (dokei pepoithenai). Second perfect active infinitive. Old idiom, “seems to himself to have confidence.” Later idiom like Mat 3:9 “think not to say” and 1Co 11:16, “thinks that he has ground of confidence in himself.”
I yet more (egō mallon). “I have more ground for boasting than he” and Paul proceeds to prove it in the rest of Phi 3:5, Phi 3:6.
Circumcised the eighth day (peritomēi oktaēmeros). “In circumcision (locative case) an eighth day man.” Use of the ordinal with persons like tetartaios (Joh 11:39). Ishmaelites were circumcised in the thirteenth year, proselytes from Gentiles in mature age, Jews on the eighth day (Luk 2:21).
Of the stock of Israel (ek genous Israēl). Of the original stock, not a proselyte.
Benjamin (Beniamin). Son of the right hand (that is, left-handed), son of Rachel. The first King, Saul (Paul’s own Hebrew name) was from this little tribe. The battle cry of Israel was “After thee, O Benjamin” (Jdg 5:14).
A Hebrew of the Hebrews (Ebraios ex Ebraiōn). Of Hebrew parents who retained the characteristic qualities in language and custom as distinct from the Hellenistic Jews (Act 6:1). Paul was from Tarsus and knew Greek as well as Aramaic (Act 21:40; Act 22:2) and Hebrew, but he had not become Hellenized.
A Pharisee (Pharisaios). In distinction from the Sadducees (Gal 1:14) and he continued a Pharisee in many essential matters like the doctrine of the resurrection (Act 23:6). Cf. 2Co 11:22.