Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 1 Thessalonians 3:9 - 3:9
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1Th_3:9. Reason of ζῶμεν , 1Th_3:8; γάρ , consequently, is not “mera particula transeundi” (Koppe, Pelt). In a truly monstrous construction, Hofmann, with a renunciation of all exegetical tact, pulls to pieces the simple and clear structure of the words, taking τίνα γὰρ εὐχαριστίαν δυνάμεθα τῷ Θεῷ ἀνταποδοῦναι περὶ ὑμῶν (1Th_3:9) as a parenthetic clause, the object of which is to give beforehand the reason of δεόμενοι (1Th_3:10), referring ἐπὶ πάσῃ τῇ χαρᾷ , ᾗ χαίρομεν διʼ ὑμᾶς to δεόμενοι “as a statement of what he joined to his request;” considering δεόμενοι , which is “a participle of the imperfect,” as an apodosis, which, passing over the parenthesis, is annexed to παρεκλήθημεν (1Th_3:7), and to which διὰ τῆς ὑμῶν πίστεως ὅτι νῦν ζῶμεν (1Th_3:7-8) forms the protasis!
τίνα γὰρ εὐχαριστίαν κ . τ . λ .] for what thanks can we give in return to God on behalf of you for all the joy we feel for your sakes before our God? i.e., What expression of thanks can be sufficiently great to be an equivalent for the fulness and superabundance of our joy? Theophylact: Τοσαύτη , φησίν , ἡ διʼ ὑμᾶς χαρά , ὅτι οὐδὲ εὐχαριστῆσαι τῷ Θεῷ κατʼ ἀξίαν δυνάμεθα ὑπὲρ ὑμων . God has brought about and arranged this joy by His higher guidance; therefore to Him belongs the thanks; therefore is this thanks a return for the proof of His grace ( ἀνταποδοῦναι ).
πᾶσα ἡ χαρά ] cannot denote joy of every kind; accordingly, cannot indicate the multiplicity of objects which the joy for the Thessalonians has (which Schott thinks possible). It means, as the article added requires, the whole joy—joy in its sum total. See Winer, p. 101 [E. T. 137]. A joy in its totality is certainly the greatest conceivable joy; so that it may be said that πᾶσα ἡ χαρά denotes laetitia maxima (Flatt, Pelt, Schott).
ᾗ χαίρομεν ] by attraction instead of ἣν χαίρομεν ; comp. Mat_2:10.
ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν ] belongs not to the following (Ewald, Hofmann), but to the preceding; but not to χαρᾷ (Koppe, Pelt, Bloomfield), but to χαίρομεν . The addition serves to bring forward the purity of this joy, to which nothing earthly cleaves. Erroneously Oecumenius and Bloomfield: “Paul would think on God as the Author of the joy.”
On ἡμῶν , comp. on 1Th_2:2.