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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 2 Corinthians 11:20 - 11:20
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2Co_11:20. Argumentum a majori for what is said in 2Co_11:19, bitterly sarcastic against the complaisance of the Corinthians towards the imperious ( καταδουλοῖ ), covetous ( κατεσθίει ), slyly capturing ( λαμβάνει ), arrogant ( ἐπαίρεται ), and audaciously violent ( εἰς πρόσωπον δέρει ) conduct of the false apostle.
καταδουλοῖ ] enslaves. Comp. on Gal_2:4; Dem. 249. 2, and the passages in Wetstein. Paul has used the active, not the middle, as he leaves quite out of view the authority, whose lordship was aimed at; beyond doubt, however (see the following points), the pseudo-apostles wished to make themselves lords of the church, partly in religious, i.e. Judaistic effort (comp. 2Co_1:24), partly also in a material respect (see what follows).
κατεσθίει ] swallows up, devours, sc. ὑμᾶς , a figurative way of denoting not the depriving them of independence in a Christian point of view (Hofmann), which the reader could the less guess, since it was already said in καταδουλ ., but the course of greedily gathering to themselves all their property. Comp. Psa_53:5; Mat_23:13; Luk_15:30; Add. to Est_1:11; Hom. Od. iii 315: μή τοι κατὰ πάντα φάγωσι κτήματα , Dem. 992. 25; Aesch. c. Tim. 96. So also the Latin devorare (Quintil. viii. 6). Comp. also Jacobs, ad Anthol. X. pp. 217, 230. Rückert, who will not concede the avarice of the opponents (see on 2Co_11:12), explains it of rending the church into parties. Quite against the meaning of the word; for in Gal_5:15 ἀλλήλους stands alongside. And would it not be wonderful, if in such a company of worthlessness avarice were wanting?
λαμβάνει ] sc. ὑμᾶς , captures you. Comp. 2Co_12:16. The figure is taken from hunting, and denotes the getting of somebody into one’s power (Dem. 115. 10, 239. 17) in a secret way, by machinations, etc. (hence different from καταδουλοῖ ). Comp. Reiske, Ind. Dem., ed. Schaef. p 322: “devincire sibi mentes hominum deditas et veluti captas aut fascino quodam obstrictas.” This meaning is held by Wolf, Emmerling, Flatt, Billroth, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, and others. The usual older interpretation: if any one takes your goods from you (so also Ewald), is to be set aside, because ὑμᾶς would necessarily have to be supplied, and because already the far stronger κατεσθίει has preceded. The same is the case with Hofmann’s interpretation: if any one seizes hold on you (“treats you as a thing”), which after the two previous points would be nothing distinctiv.
ἐπαίρεται ] exalts himself (proudly). See the passages in Wetstein. As in this clause ὑμᾶς cannot be again supplied, and thus the supplying of it is interrupted, ὑμᾶς is again added in the following claus.
εἰς πρόσωπ . δέρει ] represents an extraordinary, very disgraceful and insolent maltreatment. Comp. 1Ki_22:24; Mat_5:39; Luk_22:64; Act_23:2; Philostr. vit. Apoll. vii. 23. On the impetuous fivefold repetition of εἰ , comp. 1Ti_5:10.