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1Co_14:10-11. Another example still to induce them to lay aside this way of speakin.
εἰ τύχοι ] if it so happens, if it is really the case, i.e. perhaps, just as the mere absolute τυχόν also is employed (Isocr. Archid. 38; De pace, 60; Xen. Mem. vi. 1. 20, and Kühner in loc.). So in all the passages in Wetstein, Loesner, p. 293; Viger. ed. Herm. p. 301, which are usually adduced in support of what is assumed (by Rückert also) to be the meaning here: for example. The phrase has never this meaning, and merely its approximate sense can be so expressed,[4] and that always but very unexactly, in several passages (such as 1Co_15:37; Lucian, Amor. 27). And in the present case this sense does not suit at all, partly because it would be very strange if Paul, after having already adduced flutes, citherns, and trumpets as examples, should now for the first time come out with a “for example,” partly and chiefly because εἰ τύχοι is a defining addition, not to the thing itself ( γένη φωνῶν ), but to its quantity (to τοσαῦτα ). Comp. Lucian, Icarom. 6 : καὶ πολλάκις , εἰ τύχοι , μηδὲ ὁπόσοι στάδιοι Μεγαρόθεν Ἀθήναζέ εἰσιν , ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστάμενοι . Paul, namely, had conceived to himself under τοσαῦτα a number indefinite, indeed, but very great;[5] and he now takes away from this conception its demonstrative certainty by ΕἸ ΤΎΧΟΙ : in so great multitude, perhaps, there are different languages in the world. Billroth, too, followed by Olshausen, takes εἰ τύχοι in itself rightly, but introduces an element of irony, inasmuch as he quite arbitrarily takes ΤΟΣΑῦΤΑ … ΚΑῚ ΟὐΔΈΝ for ὍΣΑ … ΤΟΣΑῦΤΑ , and, in doing so, makes ΕἸ ΤΎΧΟΙ even reach over to the second clause: “as many languages as there are, probably just so many have sense and significance.”
On ΕἸ with the optative, expressing the mere conjecture, it may suffice to refer to Hermann, ad Viger. p. 902.
γένη φωνῶν ] i.e. all sorts of different languages, each individual unit of which is a separate γένος φωνῶν . The opposite is ΦΩΝῊ ΜΊΑ ΠᾶΣΙ , Gen_11:1.
ΟὐΔΈΝ ] namely, ΓΈΝΟς ΦΩΝῶΝ . Bleek renders it, contrary to the context: no rational being. Similarly Grotius and others, so that αὐτῶν in the Textus receptus would apply to men. Comp. van Hengel, Annot. p. 194 f., who supplies ἔθνος with ΟὐΔΈΝ .
ἌΦΩΝΟΝ ] speechless, i.e. no language is without the essence of a language (comp. βίος ἀβίωτος , and the like, in Lobeck, Paralip. p. 229 f.; Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 612; Jacobs, Del. epigr. i. 33), i.e. unintelligible, and that absolutely, not merely for him, to whom it is a foreign tongue (1Co_14:11).
οὖν ] therefore, draws its argument, not from the great multitude of the languages (Hofmann), which, in truth, is not at all implied in what is contained in 1Co_14:11, but from οὐδέν ἄφωνον . For were the language spoken to me ( Τῆς ΦΩΝ .) ἌΦΩΝΟς , and so unintelligible in itself, I could not in that case appear even as a barbarian to the speaker, because, in fact, what he spoke would be understood by no man. The barbarian ( βαρβαρόφωνος , Herod. vii. 20, ix. 43) speaks only a foreign language, not one altogether devoid of meaning for other.
ΤῊΝ ΔΎΝΑΜΙΝ Τῆς ΦΩΝῆς ] the signification, the sense of the language (which is being spoken). Polyb. xx. 9. 11; Lucian, Nigr. 1, al. Comp. Herod. ii. 30; Plat. Euthyd. p. 286 C.
ἐν ἐμοί ] with me, i.e. in my judgment. See Valckenaer, ad Eur. Hipp. 324; Pflugk, ad Eur. Hel. 996; Winer, pp. 362, 204 [E. T. 483, 273].
[4] This also in opposition to Hilgenfeld, Glossol. p. 24.
[5] For this reason he could limit even the indefinite expression by εἰ τύχοι (in opposition to Hilgenfeld).
REMARK.
Paul has chosen φωνή to denote language, because in the whole section he has only the meaning tongue in his mind for γλῶσσα . To instruct his readers regarding the speaking with tongues, he uses the analogy of speaking languages. Hofmann resorts to the suggestion that Paul must have used φωνή here, because he would not have expressed what καὶ οὐδὲν ἄφωνον was designed to convey by κ . οὐδὲν ἄγλωσσον . That is incorrect; for ἄγλωσσον would have conveyed the very same thing (speechless, Poll. ii. 108; Soph. Trach. 1060; Pind. Nem. viii. 41) with the very same point (et nullum elingue), if he had used γλῶσσα instead of φωνή .