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2Co_9:10. The progress of the discourse is this: able is God, etc., 2Co_9:8; but He who gives seed, etc., will also do it. The description of God introduced by δέ contains the ground of this promise, which rests on a syllogism a minori ad majus.
Who supplies, seed to the sower and bread for eating, is a reminiscence of Isa_55:10, which is very suitable to the figure prominent in the context (2Co_9:6; 2Co_9:9). On βρῶσις , actus edendi, differing from βρῶμα , cibus, see on Rom_14:17; 1Co_8:4; Col_2:16.
Chrysostom, Castalio, Beza, and others, including Hofmann, rightly connect χορηγήσει with what follows. Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Estius, Elzevir, and others, including Ewald and Neander, think that καὶ ἄρτον εἰς βρῶσιν χορηγ . should go together. This would be at variance with Isa_55:10, and would destroy the symmetrical relation of the two parts of the vers.
χορηγήσει [290] κ . πληθυνεῖ τὸν σπόρον ὑμῶν ] i.e. dropping the figure: will give and increase the means, with which you distribute benefits. What is given away benevolently by the readers, is the seed which they scatter ( ὁ σπόρος αὐτῶν ); hence Rückert’s idea is arbitrary and unnecessary, that here two clauses, χορηγήσει ὑμῖν σπόρον and πληθυνεῖ τὸν σπόρον ὑμῶν , are blended into one. Rückert also inappropriately thinks that Paul is not speaking at all of the present, but wholly of the future, of the blessed consequences of their beneficence now asked, and that ὁ σπόρος , therefore, does not denote what they were now to give away, but what God will further bestow on them. At variance with the entire course of the passage (see on 2Co_9:8 ff.); and the very διʼ ἡμῶν in 2Co_9:11 ought to have prevented the excluding of the present time. Paul intends by χορηγήσει … ὑμῶν the means for the present work of collection, and only with καὶ αὐξήσει does he promise the blessing thence arising for the future. This κ . αὐξ . τὰ γεννημάτα τῆς δικ . ὑμ . corresponds to the preceding καὶ ἄρτον εἰς βρῶσιν : and will make the fruits of your righteousness grow (see on 2Co_9:9), i.e. and will cause that the blessing, which proceeds from your δικαιοσύνη (what blessing that is, see 2Co_9:11) may become always larger. Paul abides by the figure. Just as God causes ἄρτον εἰς βρῶσιν to grow from the natural seed, so from the σπόρος , which the beneficent scatters through his gifts of love, He likewise causes fruits (blessings) to grow; but because this σπόρος had been sown by the beneficent man in virtue of his Christian righteousness, the fruits produced are the γεννήματα τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ , just as the bread-fruits, which the husbandman obtains from his σπόρος , are the γεννήματα of his diligence. Hence Theodoret rightly remarks: σπόρον μέντοι πάλιν τὴν εὐποΐαν ἐκάλεσε · γεννήματα δὲ δικαιοσύνης τὴν ἐκ ταύτης βλαστάσασαν ὠφέλειαν .
γέννημα , in the sense of vegetable fruit, according to late Greek; not to be written γένημα . Comp. on Mat_26:29. On the figurative expression γεννήμ . τ . δικαιοσ ., comp. Hos_10:12.
[290] ἐπιχορηγ . and χορηγ . are distinguished simply like the German darreichen and reichen, dargeben and geben [give forth and give].