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1Th 5:23. Αὐτὸς) [The very] Himself. You will be defended, says Paul, not by my zeal, but by the Divine protection.-ὁ Θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, the God of peace) who gives all that is good, and takes away all that is evil: εἰρήνη and ὁλοτελὴς, in the Hebrew שלם, are conjugates. [Therefore the following prayer shows what this title implies (involves in it).-V. g.]-ὁλοτελεῖς-ὁλόκληρον) He wishes that collectively (ὁλοτελεῖς) and as individuals (ὁλόκληρον) they should be claimed for God [as His], and being so claimed, should abide in Him: collectively, all the Thessalonians without exception, so that no one should fail; individually, every one of them, with “spirit, soul, and body.” The exposition of this verse will perhaps be more matured in course of time. There might be supposed an elegant Chiasmus, and if ὁλόκληρον were taken adverbially, it would cast new light on the exposition.[32] If we give the passage another sense, ὁλόκληρον ὑμῶν, would constitute the genus and the whole; the three following words (πνεῦμα, σῶμα, ψυχὴ) would be the parts.-ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τὸ σῶμα, your spirit and soul and body) You; he just before has called them universally: and the same persons he now denominates from their spiritual condition, my wish being, saith he, that your spirit (Gal 6:18) may be preserved ὁλόκληρον, whole and entire; then from their natural condition, and soul and body, for the nature of the whole man absolutely consists of these two parts, my wish is, that it may be preserved blameless.[33] The mention of the body agrees with the preceding discussion, 1Th 4:4, note 16.
[32] The Chiasmus would make ὁλόκληρον answer to σῶμα, and πνεῦμα to ψυχή: meaning, May your body be wholly preserved, as also your spirit and soul!-ED.
[33] The Germ. Vers. exhibits on the marg. this periphrasis of the passage:-“May your Spirit, i.e. you yourselves be most fully preserved according to your spiritual state, which you have attained in respect both of soul and body.” In accordance with this view, I may observe, is the fact, that πνεῦμα is a heavenly principle-the life from above-linking us to a higher order of beings, and imparted by “the second Adam,” who, in 1Co 15:47, is called ζωοποιοῦν πνεῦμα, “a quickening Spirit.” Hence πνεῦμα is seldom if ever found associated with unbelievers. Passages are found where this word is used of good and bad alike “yielding up the Ghost.” But these mean rather “breathed their last,” πνεῦμα being used simply of the breath. Ψυχὴ, anima, on the other hand, is the inferior principle, common to bad and good, linking us to the first Adam, the ζῶσα ψυχή, living soul; from which we derive the σῶμα ψυχικὸν, the natural or animal body-a body animated by the ψυχή, as contrasted with the σῶμα πνευματικὸν, body animated with the Spirit, spiritual, which shall be given to the believer hereafter, 1Co 15:44-47. Comp. Rom 8:11; Jud 1:19, ψυχικοί.-ED.