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1Ti_6:10 gives a reason for the thought in 1Ti_6:9.
ῥίζα γὰρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστὶν ἡ φιλαργυρία ] It is to be observed that Paul does not mean to say, whence all κακά whatever proceed, but what proceeds from φιλαργυρία . Hence there is no article with ῥίζα . Hence, too, de Wette’s correcting remark, that ambition, too, may entirely destroy man, does not affect the author of the epistle.
By τὰ κακά may be understood both physical and moral evils (wickedness); here the latter idea is uppermost (otherwise in Polycarp, Ephesians 4 : ἀρχὴ πάντων χαλεπῶν φιλαργυρία ). Φιλαργυρία only here in the N. T. (Jer_8:10, LXX.).
ἧς τινὲς ὀρεγόμενοι ] ὀρέγεσθαι does not mean deditum esse, but it is to be acknowledged that the manner of connection is not exact, since φιλαργυρία , as de Wette rightly says, is itself an ὄρεξις . Hofmann’s interpretation is artificial. He makes ὀρέγεσθαι denote here “the grasping of a man after something out of his way,” and “the thing after which he reaches sideways is said to be the plant which afterwards proves to be to him a root of all evils,” so that ἧς does not refer to φιλαργυρία , but to ῥίζα πάντων τῶν κακῶν .
ἀπεπλανήθησαν ἀπὸ τῆς πίστεως ] The reason of this is the inner connection between faith and blessedness. The denial of the one necessarily implies the denial of the other. The aorist passive has a neuter sense; Luther rightly: “have gone astray from the faith.” The compound only here and at Mar_13:22; the ἀπό added serves to intensify the meaning.
καὶ ἑαυτοὺς περιέπειραν ὀδύναις πολλαῖς ] περιπείρειν ἅπ . λεγ . “pierce through,” not “sting all round, wound in every part” (Matthies). The ὄδυναι πολλαί , here regarded as a sword with which they have pierced themselves through, are not the outward pains which they have drawn on themselves by avarice, but the stings of conscience (“the precursors of the future ἀπώλεια ,” Wiesinger) which they have prepared for themselves by apostasy from the faith. To this his own experience the apostle here directs attention, that he may thereby present more vividly the destructiveness of the φιλαργυρία .