Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 5:10 - 5:10
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_5:10. After the warning in Gal_5:8-9, Paul now assures his readers how he cherishes confidence in them, that their sentiments would be in conformity with this warning; but those who led them astray would meet with punishment.
ἐγώ ] with emphasis: I on my part, however much my opponents may think that they have won over your judgment to their side. Groundlessly and arbitrarily Rückert affirms that what Paul says is not altogether what he means, namely, “I indeed have done all that was possible, so that I may be allowed to hope,” etc.
εἰς ὑμᾶς ] towards you. Comp. Wis_16:24. Usually with the dative or ἐπί .
ἐν κυρίῳ ] In Christ, in whom Paul lives and moves, he feels also that his confidence rests and is grounded. Comp. Php_2:24; 2Th_3:4; Rom_14:14.
οὐδέν ἄλλο ] is referred by most expositors, including Luther, Calvin, Winer, Rückert, Matthies, Schott, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette, Ewald, to the previous purport of the epistle generally as directed against Judaism. But what is there to warrant this vague reference? The warning which immediately precedes in Gal_5:8-9 (not Gal_5:7, to which Wieseler, Hofmann, and others arbitrarily go back) has the first claim to have οὐδέν ἄλλο referred to it, and is sufficiently important for the reference. The antithesis ὁ δὲ ταράσσων also suits very appropriately the subjects of that warning, ἡ πεισμονή and ζύμη , both of which terms characterize the action of the seducers. Usteri interprets: that ye will not allow any other than your hitherto subsisting sentiments.” No, a change, that is, a correction of the sentiments previously existing, is precisely what Paul hopes for.
φρονήσετε ] ye will have no other sentiments (the practical determination of thought). The future (comp. Gal_6:16) refers to the time when the letter would be received. Hitherto, by their submissiveness towards those who were troubling them, they seemed to have given themselves up to another mode of thinking, which was not the right one ( ἄλλο , comp. Lys. in Eratosth. 48; ἕτερος is more frequently thus used, see on Php_3:15).
ὁ δὲ ταράσσων ὑμᾶς ] The singular denotes not, as in 2Co_11:4, the totum genus, but, as is more appropriate to the subsequent ὅστις ἄν ᾖ , the individual who happened to be the troubler in each actual case. Comp. Bernhardy, p. 315. The idea that the apostle refers to the chief person among his opponents, who was well known to him (Erasmus, Luther, Pareus, Estius, Bengel, Rückert, Olshausen, Ewald, and others; comp. also Usteri),—formerly even guessed at by name, and identified with Peter himself (Jerome),—has no warrant in the epistle. See, on the contrary, even Gal_5:12, and compare Gal_1:7, Gal_4:17.
ὅστις ἂν ᾖ ] is to be left entirely general: without distinction of personal position, be he, when the case occurs, who he will. The reference to high repute (Theodoret, Theophylact, Luther, Estius, and many others; including Koppe, Flatt, Rückert, de Wette) would only be warranted, if ὁ ταράσσ . applied definitely to some particular person.
τὸ κρῖμα ] the judicial sentence κατʼ ἐξοχήν , that is, the condemnatory sentence of the (impending) last judgment. Comp. Rom_2:3; Rom_3:8; 1Co_11:29. Of excommunication (Locke, Borger) the context contains nothing.[229]
βαστάσει ] the judicial sentence is conceived as something heavily laid on (2Ki_18:14), which the condemned one carries away as he leaves the judgment-seat. The idea of λαυβάνειν κρῖμα (Rom_13:2; Jam_3:1; Luk_20:47, et al.) is not altogether the same.
[229] Jatho also explains the word as referring to this and other ecclesiastical penalties. But it was not the manner of the apostle to call for the discipline of the church in so indirect and veiled a fashion (comp. 1 Corinthians 5).