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1Ti_4:16. Cumulat sane h. 1. Paulus adhortationes, unde ejus amorem in Timotheum et in Christianos Timotheo subditos intelligas, Leo.
ἔπεχε σεαυτῷ ] “take heed to thyself,” refers to 1Ti_4:12; καὶ τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ refers to 1Ti_4:13. Heinrichs wrongly combines the two together as an hendiadys (“pro σεαυτῷ ut possis tradere bonam διδασκαλίαν ”). On the other hand, however, we must not understand the διδασκαλία to mean the doctrine of others (Heydenreich: take heed, that nothing is neglected in the instruction of Christians by the teachers placed under thy oversight).
ἐπίμενε αὐτοῖς ] αὐτοῖς is not masculine, as Grotius and Bengel think, the one understanding it of the Ephesians, the other of the audientes. It is neuter, and as such it is to be referred not only to what immediately preceded (= “in this attention to thyself and to the doctrine”), but, glancing back to τούτοις , ταῦτα in 1Ti_4:15 (Wiesinger), it is to be referred also to all the precepts from 1Ti_4:12 onward. Hofmann is wrong in connecting τῇ διδασκαλίᾳ with ἐπίμενε , and explaining αὐτοῖς as the dativus commodi; for, on the one hand, no subject precedes to which αὐτοῖς could be referred; and, on the other, there is nothing to show that αὐτοῖς is the dat. commodi.
The exhortations close with words confirming them: τοῦτο γὰρ ποιῶν ] “if thou doest this” (regarding the form of the clause, comp. 1Ti_4:6); καὶ σεαυτὸν σώσεις καὶ τοὺς ἀκούοντάς σου ] Without reason, de Wette thinks that σώσεις has in Timothy’s case a different meaning from that which it has in the case of others; that in his case it is to be understood of the higher (!) σωτηρία , in theirs simply of the σωτηρία . Σώζειν means originally “save;” but in the N. T. it has in connection with Christian doctrine not only a negative, but also a positive meaning. Hence we cannot, with Mack, take it here as signifying merely, protecting from heresy and its effects. Luther translates it rightly: “thou shalt make blessed,” etc.—i.e. thou shalt further thine own salvation as well as the salvation of those who hear thee, i.e. of the church assigned to thee.