Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - 2 Corinthians 12:7 - 12:7
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
2Co 12:7. Ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι, lest I should be exalted) In all the things, which Paul did, and which rendered him great, beloved, and admired among men, he might be less worthy of praise [elated] than in those, of which he was alone conscious to himself. The mind is vain and weak, which applauds itself on account of the applause of men. The better things [the preferable objects of desire] are within. [How dangerous must the exaltation of one’s self be, when the apostle required so much restraint.-V. g.]-σκόλοψ) Hesychius: σκόλοπες, ὀξέα ξύλα ὀρθὰ, σταυροί, a sharp pointed stake is denoted; comp. the LXX., Num 33:55; Eze 28:24. This general word is presently explained in a particular manner by those buffetings: and this double explanation does not require a third, variously attempted by those, who give a wrong meaning to the buffetings.-τῇ σαρκὶ, in the flesh) The ablative case, in the flesh, for the purpose of macerating the flesh. The same case occurs, 1Pe 3:18; 1Pe 4:1; 1Pe 4:6. This weakness was greater than all those, which had been enumerated in the preceding chapter, and that he might give an account of this weakness, he considered it necessary to mention revelations.-Ἄγγελος Σατᾶν, the messenger of Satan) Paul, after having had some experience of the state of the blessed angels, begins now to discover an angel of a different description. The word Σατᾶν only occurs in the LXX. twice or thrice, and that too as indeclinable; but Σατανᾶς is declined in thirty-four places in the New Testament, and among these, nine times by Paul; and in this single passage it is used as an indeclinable noun, by a well-weighed apocope [the loss of a syllable at the end], certainly not without good reason. Ἄγγελος Σατᾶν then does not seem in this passage to be in apposition, as if it were said the angel Satan for the devil, for the devil is nowhere called an angel, but he himself has his angels. Therefore Satan is either a proper name in the genitive or an adjective in the nominative, so that there is denoted either an angel sent by Satan or a very destructive angel, an angel like Satan himself or the devil, as distinguished from the fact of his being sent by Satan. The ambiguity seems to intimate, that the apostle himself, with a view to his greater humiliation, must have been ignorant of what was the character of this angel. He had a revelation from heaven, a chastisement from hell. Job and Paul were harassed by an enemy: the angel of the Lord struck Herod.-ἵνα με, that me) Therefore Paul is not the angel himself (comp. however Num. as above quoted [wherein the Israelites are represented as making the inhabitants of the land whom they drive not out thorns in their sides]), but what is stated is, that the angel harassed Paul with blows: ἵνα, that is again elegantly placed in the middle of the clause, that the antithesis may twice precede the particle, twice follow it. For the excellence of the revelations and the angel of Satan are in antithesis, and likewise to be exalted and to be buffeted.-κολαφίζῃ, buffet) With blows (μεγάλαις ἁφαῖς; for this is considered the original root, by Eustathius). Slaves were beaten, 1Pe 2:20, nor is there any obstacle to its being taken here in its proper acceptation, Job 2:6-7. For if the apostles and the Lord Himself received blows and other troubles from men, ch. 2Co 11:24-25; 1Co 4:11; Mat 26:67, comp. 2Co 4:5; why should not Paul receive such from Satan or his angel, either visibly or invisibly. Such evils also befel Antony, as Athanasius mentions in his life. Opposition of every kind came in the way of the apostle, 2Co 12:10, which he did not deprecate, but here he mentions something in particular, which harassed him with infirmities and met [counteracted] his exaltation with pain and disgrace, even more so or at least not less than the rage of lust, which has been excited in the members of the body (with which how wonderfully very holy souls may be tormented, may be learned by reading the writings of Ephraim Syrus, of Estius on this passage, of Joh. a Cruce and P. M. Petruccius), or the most violent headaches. Paul had become as it were of late afraid of the recurring attacks of these blows, inasmuch as he restrains himself in the time of boasting with such frequency as a reader in his natural state would despise and of which he would be weary. Chrysostom remarks, that Paul says κολαφίζῃ, that it may buffet, not κολαφίσῃ, that it might buffet, as concerning the present. The sight and hearing of Paul had been directed to the most magnificent objects: The touch [for the thorn was in the flesh] had been most severely tormented.