Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Philippians 4:6 - 4:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Php_4:6. The μεριμνᾶτε is not to be limited in an arbitrary way (as by Grotius, Flatt, Weiss, and others, to anxious care); about nothing (neither want, nor persecution, nor a threatening future, etc.) are they at all to give themselves concern, but on the contrary, etc.; μηδέν , which is emphatically prefixed, is the accusative of the object (1Co_7:32 ff; 1Co_12:25; Php_2:20). Comp. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. 12: τὸ πολλὰ μεριμνᾶν καὶ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι ἡσυχίαν ἔχειν . Caring is here, as in Matthew 6, the contrast to full confidence in God. Comp. 1Pe_5:7. “Curare et orare plus inter se pugnant quam aqua et ignis,” Bengel.
ἐν παντί ] opposed to the μηδέν ; hence: in every case or affair (comp. Eph_5:24; 2Co_4:8; 1Th_5:18; Plat. Euthyd. p. 301 A), not: at all times (Syriac, Grotius, Bos, Flatt, Rheinwald).
τῇ προσευχῇ κ . τῇ δεήσει ] by prayer and supplication. On the distinction between the two (the former being general, the latter supplicating prayer), see on Eph_6:18. The article indicates the prayer, which ye make; and the repetition of the article, otherwise not required, puts forward the two elements the more emphatically (Kühner, II. 1, p. 529).
μετὰ εὐχαρ .] belongs to γνωριζ . κ . τ . λ ., which, excluding all solicitude in the prayer, should never take place (comp. 1Th_5:18; Col_3:17) without thanksgiving for the proofs of divine love already received and continually being experienced, of which the Christian is conscious under all circumstances (Rom_8:28). In the thanksgiving of the suppliant there is expressed entire surrender to God’s will, the very opposite of solicitude.
τὰ αἰτήματα ὑμ .] what ye desire (Plat. Rep. viii. p. 566 B; Dionys. Hal. Antt. vi. 74; Luk_23:24), that is, in accordance with the context: your petitions (1Jn_5:15; Dan_6:7; Dan_6:13; Psa_19:6; Psa_36:4, et al.; Schleusner, Thes. I. p. 100).
γνωριζέσθω πρὸς τ . Θεόν ] must be made known towards God; πρός , versus; it is the coram of the direction. Comp. Bernhardy, p. 265; Schoem. ad Is. iii. 25. The expression is more graphic than the mere dative would be; and the conception itself ( γνωριζ .) is popularly anthropopathic; Mat_6:8. Bengel, moreover, aptly remarks on the subject-matter: “qui desideria sua praepostero pudore ac diffidenti modestia … velant, suffocant ac retinent, curis anguntur; qui filiali et liberali fiducia erga Deum expromunt, expediuntur. Confessionibus ejusmodi scatent Psalmi.”