Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 2 Corinthians 12:20 - 12:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
2Co_12:20 f.[385] Subjective justification of what was just said, ὑπὲρ τῆς ὑμῶν οἰκοδομῆς . For I fear to find you on my arrival such as have very great need of ΟἸΚΟΔΟΜΉ .
The sharp lesson which he now gives his readers down to 2Co_13:10, although introducing it not without tenderness to their feelings ( ΦΟΒΟῦΜΑΙ , and then the negative form of expression), could not but wholly cancel the thought: ἩΜῖΝ ἈΠΟΛΟΓΕῖΤΑΙ , and make them feel his apostolic position afresh in all its ascendancy. It is in this way that the victor speaks who has reconquered his domain, and this language at the end of the letter completes the mastery shown in its well-calculated arrangemen.
κἀγὼ εὑρεθῶ ὑμῖν κ . τ . λ .] and that I shall be found such an one as you do not wish, namely, as τιμωρὸς καὶ κολαστῆς , Theophylact; 1Co_4:21. The negation attaches itself to ΟἽΟΥς in the first clause, but in this second to ΘΈΛΕΤΕ , by which there is produced a climax in the expressio.
ὙΜῖΝ ] Reference of ΕὙΡΕΘῶ : for you, to your judgment based on experience. Comp. Rom_7:10; 2Pe_3:14. This is more delicate and expressive than the meaning of the common interpretation: by you (dative with the passive), Rom_10:20.
What follows is not, with Rückert, to be regarded as if μήπως down to ἈΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΣΊΑΙ were a more precise explanation regarding the condition of the Corinthians (consequently regarding that μήπως ἐλθὼν οὐχ οἵους θέλω εὕρω ὑμᾶς ), and, 2Co_12:21, a more precise explanation regarding the apostle’s duty to punish (consequently regarding that κἀγὼ … θέλετε )). Against this it may be decisively urged that 2Co_12:21 brings forward quite a different category of sinful states from 2Co_12:20, and that 2Co_12:21, rightly understood, does not yet express any threat of punishment. No; the arrangement of the passage is this: After Paul has said that he is afraid of not finding them such as he wishes them, and of being found by them such as they would not wish him, he now gives the more precise explanation of that first apprehension ( μήπως … εὕρω ὑμᾶς ), by adducing two kinds of sins, which he fears to find among them, namely, (1) the mischiefs occasioned by partisan feeling; and (2) the sins of impurity, which would bow him down and make him sad. The further explanation regarding the second apprehension expressed, κἀγὼ εὑρεθῶ ὑμῖν οἷον οὐ θέλετε , thereupon follows only at 2Co_13:1 ff.
ΜΉΠΩς ἜΡΕΙς Κ . Τ . Λ .] sc εὑρεθῶσιν ἐν ὑμῖν .
ἔρεις , ζῆλος ] contentions,[386] jealousy. See 1Co_1:11; 1Co_3:3.
θυμοί ] irae, excitements of anger. See on Rom_2:8; Gal_5:20.
ἐριθεῖαι ] party-intrigues. See on Rom_2:8, and the excursus of Fritzsche, I. p. 143 ff.[387]
καταλαλίαι , ψιθυρισμοί ] slanders, whisperings. See on Rom_1:30.
φυσιώσεις ] Manifestations of conceited inflation; elsewhere only in the Fathers. ἀκαταστασίαι ] disorderly relations, confusions, comp. 1Co_14:33.
[385] On ver. 20–13:2, see the thorough discussion by Lücke (Whitsun Programm of 1837); Conjectan. Exeg. Part I. p. 14 ff.
[386] Regarding the plural form ἔρεις , see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 326; Gregor. Cor., ed. Schaef. p. 476; also Buttmann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 172.
[387] Fritzsche (following Ilgen) is probably right in deriving ἔριθος from ἔρι , valde (see Buttmann, Lexilog. I. p. 146 f.). Comp. the many forms compounded with ἔρι in Homer. For the second part of the word no proper derivation has yet been found. This second half is not simply the ending θος , but ιθος , since in ἔρι the iota is short, whereas in ἔριθος it is long. See Homer, Il. xviii 550: Ἐν δʼ ἐτίθει τέμἑνος βαθυλήϊον ἔνθα δʼ ἔριθοι . See regarding the various derivations, Lobeck, Pathol, p. 365.