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2Co_5:6. The resulting effect of 2Co_5:5 on the apostle’s tone of mind.
Estius (comp. Erasmus, Annot.) rightly saw that the participle does not stand for the finite verb (as Flatt still holds, with most of the older commentators), but that 2Co_5:6 is an anacoluthon, as the construction is quite broken off by 2Co_5:7, but the thought is taken up again with θαῤῥοῦμεν δέ in 2Co_5:8. See Fritzsche, Diss. II. p. 43 ff.; Winer, p. 533 [E. T. 717 f.]; Buttmann, neut. Gram. p. 252 [E. T. 292]. We must therefore not treat 2Co_5:7 (Beza and others), nor even 2Co_5:7-8 (Olshausen, Ewald), as a parenthesis. Paul intended to write: θαῤῥοῦντες οὖν πάντοτε καὶ εἰδότες … κυρίου , εὐδοκοῦμεν μᾶλλον κ . τ . λ ., but was carried away from this by the intervening thought of 2Co_5:7, and accordingly wrote as he has done. Comp. on 2Co_5:8. Hofmann’s opinion, that θαῤῥοῦμεν δὲ κ . τ . λ . is apodosis to the participial protasis θαῤῥοῦντες οὖν κ . τ . λ ., would only be grammatically tenable (comp. on Act_13:45) if there were no δέ in 2Co_5:8. This δέ , as is always the case with δέ of the apodosis, even in the examples in Hartung, I. p. 186, would be adversative (on the contrary), which is not suitable here, and is not to be logically supported by the added κ . εὐδοκ . μᾶλλον (see on 2Co_5:8).
θαῤῥοῦντες ] in all afflictions, 2Co_4:17.
πάντοτε ] In no time of trouble does Paul know himself deserted by this confident courage, 2Co_4:8 ff., 2Co_6:4 ff.
καὶ εἰδότες κ . τ . λ .] This likewise follows from 2Co_5:5, and likewise serves as ground for the εὐδοκοῦμεν κ . τ . λ . of 2Co_5:8; hence it is not, with Calvin, to be explained: quia scimus (as giving a reason for the θαῤῥοῦντες ), nor with Estius, Rosenmüller, Emmerling, Flatt, Olshausen, in a limiting sense: while we yet, or although we kno.
ἐνδημοῦντες ἐν τῷ σώμ .] being at home in the body, i.e. while the body is the place of our home. The body is here also conceived as οἰκία (not civitas, as Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, and others hold), and that an οἰκία out of which we have not yet migrated, Erasmus: “qUamdiu domi sumus in hoc corporis habitaculo.” Comp. Plato, Legg. xii. p. 594 B: ἐὰν δὲ ἀποδημῶν οἰκίας δεσπότης τυγχάνῃ , Aesch. Choeph. 569.
ἐκδημοῦμεν ἀπὸ τ . κυρ .] peregre absumus a Domino. For in respect to the future eternal home with Christ (1Th_4:17; Php_1:23; Php_3:20; Heb_11:13; Heb_13:14), the temporary home in the earthly body is a sojourn abroad, an ἐκδημία , which keeps us at a distance from Christ. On ἀπὸ τ . κυρ ., comp. Rom_9:3; Ameis on Hom. Od. xiv. 525, appendix.