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2Co_11:2. Ground of the ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀνέχεσθέ μου : My jealousy for you is, in fact, a divine jealousy; how can you then refuse to me the ἀνέχεσθαι ! Rückert refers γάρ to ὄφελον … ἀφροσύνης , but in this way ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀνέχεσθέ μου is overleaped all the more violently, seeing that it is a correction of what goes before. Calvin (comp. Chrysostom and Bengel): “en cur desipiat, nam hominem zelotypia quasi transversum rapit.” Against this may be urged the emphatic θεοῦ , in which lies the very point of the reason assigne.
ζηλῶ γὰρ ὑμᾶς κ . τ . λ .] As Paul, in what follows, represents himself as a marriage-friend (comp. Joh_3:29) who has betrothed the bride to the bridegroom, and is now anxious that she may not let herself be led astray by another, ζηλῶ is to be taken in the narrowest sense as equivalent to ζηλοτυπῶ : I am jealous concerning you (comp. Num_5:14; Sir_9:1), for the marriage-friend very naturally takes the bridegroom’s part. The more indefinite interpretation: I am zealous concerning you (Flatt and others), is therefore, according to the context, too general, and the explanation: vehementer amo vos (Rosenmüller, comp. Fritzsche), is at variance with the contex.
θεοῦ ζήλῳ ] with a jealousy, which God has; which is no human passion, but an emotion belonging to God, which I therefore have in common with Him. Paul consequently conceives of God as likewise jealous concerning the Corinthian church ( ὑμᾶς ), that she might not, as the bride of Christ, suffer herself to be led astray. God appears in the O. T. as the spouse of His people, and therefore jealous regarding it (Isa_54:5; Isa_62:5; Jer_3:1 ff.; Eze_16:8 ff., Eze_16:23; Hos_2:18-19). Now, as the representative of God in the theocracy of the N. T. is Christ, with whom, therefore, the church appears connected, partly as spouse (see on Rom_7:4), partly as betrothed (with reference to the completion of the marriage at the Parousia), as here (comp. Eph_5:25 ff.); the falling away from Christ must therefore be the object of divine jealousy, and so Paul knows his ζῆλος , the ζῆλος of the marriage-friend, as the ζῆλος of God. θεοῦ has been taken as genitivus auctoris (Wolf and others, comp. Flatt, de Wette), or as: zeal for God (Rom_10:2, so Calvin, Grotius, Estius, Semler, Schulz), or as: zeal pleasing to God (Billroth, comp. Flatt), or as: zeal extraordinarily great (Emmerling, so also Fritzsche; comp. Bengel: “zelo sancto et magno”); but all these interpretations lie beyond the necessary definite reference to what follows, in which a reason is given for the very predicate θεοῦ .
ἡρμοσάμην γὰρ κ . τ . λ .] for I have betrothed you … but I fear, etc., 2Co_11:3, so that, with Lachmann, only a comma is to be put after 2Co_11:2. ἁρμόζειν , adaptare, then specially in the sense of betroth; see Wetstein. The more Attic form is ἁρμόττειν . See Gregor. p. 154, Schaef.; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 241. That Paul has expressed himself contrary to the Greek usage (according to which ἁρμόζεσθαί τινα means: to betroth oneself to a woman, Herod. v. 32, 47, vi. 65), is only to be said, in so far as a classical writer would certainly have used the active (Herod. ix. 108; Pind. Pyth. ix. 207), although in late writers the middle also occurs in the active sense (see the passages from Philo in Loesner, p. 320, e.g. de Abr. p. 364 B; γάμος ὃν ἁρμόζεται ἡδονή ), and here the following ἑνὶ ἀνδρί leaves no doubt of the reference: I have joined (i.e. according to the context, betrothed) you to one husband. Paul regards himself as a marriage-friend ( προμνήστωρ ὑμῶν ἐγενόμην καὶ τοῦ γάμου μεσίτης , Theodoret), by whose intervention the betrothal of the Corinthians with Christ was brought to pass. Chrysostom aptly says on the figurative representation of the matter: μνηστείας γάρ ἐστι καιρὸς ὁ παρὼν καιρός · ὁ δὲ τῶν παστάδων ἕτερος , ὅταν λέγωσιν · ἀνέστη ὁ νυμφίος … Ὃ μάλιστα τούτοις (to the readers) ἔφερεν ἀξίωμα , τοῦτο τίθησιν , ἑαυτὸν μὲν ἐν χώρᾳ τῆς προμνηστρίας , ἐκείνους δὲ ἐν τάξει τῆς νύμφης στήσας . Pelagius, Elsner, Mosheim, Emmerling wrongly hold that he conceives himself as father of the Corinthians; their father (but this figure is here quite out of place) he has, in fact, only come to be through their conversion to Christ (1Co_4:17; 2Co_12:14; comp. Tit_1:4); he had not been so already before. Regarding the marriage-friend of the Jews, ùÑåÉùÑÌÀáÅï , παρανύμφιος , who not only wooed the bride for the bridegroom, but who was the constant medium between the two, and at the wedding itself was regulator of the feast, see Schöttgen, Hor. ad Joh. iii. 29. With the Rabbins, Moses is represented as such a marriage-friend. See Rab. Sal. ad Exod. xxxiv. 1, al.
ἑνὶ ἀνδρί ] to one husband, to belong to no one furthe.
παρθένον ἁγνὴν κ . τ . λ .] Aim, with which he had betrothed the Corinthians to a single husband: in order to present a pure virgin to Christ ( παραστ ., comp. 2Co_4:14), namely, at the Parousia, when Christ appears as bridegroom, to fetch home the bride, Mat_25:1 ff.; Eph_5:27; Rev_19:7-9. The church in its entirety, as a moral person, is this virgin. On ἁγνήν , comp. Dem. 1371. 23; Plut. Mor. p. 268 E, 438 C; Plat. Legg. viii. p. 840 D. The whole emphasis is on παρθένον ἁγνήν . When this is attended to, there disappears the semblance of εἷς ἀνήρ and ὁ Χριστός being different persons,—a semblance for which Rückert blames the apostle. Fritzsche regards τῷ Χριστῷ as apposition to ἑνὶ ἀνδρί (in which Rückert agrees with him), and encloses παραστῆσαι between two commas; but this is an unnecessary and enfeebling breaking up of the passage. Beza and Bengel connect ἑνὶ ἀνδρί with παραστ ., and take τῷ Χριστῷ likewise epexegetically. But the absolute ἡρμοσάμην ὑμᾶς would in fact mean: I have betrothed myself to you! In order that it may not mean this, it must necessarily be joined to ἑνὶ ἀνδρί .