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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - 2 Thessalonians 1:9 - 1:9
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2Th_1:9. Paul names eternal destruction as the punishment which those ungodly ones will have to endure.
οἵτινες ] nimirum qui, refers back to the characteristics of the two classes named in 2Th_1:8, and accordingly recapitulates the reason for δίκην τίσουσιν . See Hermann, ad Soph. Oed. R. 688.
ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ κυρίου κ . τ . λ .] has received a threefold interpretation. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Vatablus, Estius, Fromond., and others interpret ἀπό of time: immediately after the appearance of the πρόσωπον τοῦ κυρίου and of the δόξα τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ . The swiftness and facility of the punishment are thereby described, inasmuch as it required Christ merely to become visible. The artificialness of this interpretation is evident. For however often ἀπό denotes the point of commencement of a period, yet the bare ἀπὸ προσώπου cannot possibly be considered as parallel with such constructions as ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου , Rom_1:20; ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης ἡμέρας , Php_1:5, and the like. At least ἀπʼ ἀποκαλύψεως τοῦ προσώπου or something similar would require to have been written. Add to this that ἀπὸ προσώπου κ . τ . λ ., on account of its position at the end of the sentence, cannot have such an emphasis, that the idea of the swiftness and facility of the punishment can be derived from it. ἀπό is understood as a statement of the operating cause by Grotius, Harduin, Benson, Bengel, Moldenhauer, Flatt, Pelt, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, and Hofmann: “from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (comp. Act_3:19). Pelt (and so also Castalio, Koppe, Bolten, and others) arbitrarily considers ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ κυρίου as equivalent to the simple ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ; and equally arbitrarily Harduin, Benson, and Moldenhauer (comp. also Hofmann) understand πρόσωπον of a wrathful or gloomy countenance. But there is an essential inconvenience to this second mode of interpretation, inasmuch as by its assumption without the introduction of a new idea there is only a repetition in other words of what has already been said in 2Th_1:7-8 from ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει to διδόντος ἐκδίκησιν ; the whole of the 9th verse would only contain αἰώνιον as a new point. Accordingly the third mode of explanation, adopted by Piscator, Ernest Schmid, Beza, Calixt, Koppe, Krause, Schott, Bloomfield, Alford, Bisping, and Riggenbach, is decidedly to be preferred, according to which ἀπό expresses the idea of separation, of severance from something. Comp. 2Th_2:2; Rom_9:3; 2Co_11:3; Gal_5:4. According to Flatt and de Wette, the expression ἰσχύος is opposed to this explanation, which directly points to an operating cause. But τῆς ἰσχύος is to be rendered the genitive of origin, and the δόξα is to be understood, not of the glory of Christ, but of the glory which is to be imparted to believers. The meaning is: apart or separated from the face of the Lord, and apart from the glory which is a creation of His power. By this explanation πρόσωπον receives its full import; “to see the face of the Lord” is a well-known biblical expression to denote blessedness (comp. Psa_11:7; Psa_17:5; Mat_5:8; Mat_18:10; Heb_12:14; Rev_22:4), whereas distance from it is an expression of misery.