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Rom_15:20-21. But prosecuting it as a point of honour to preach in this way, the οὕτω is now first negatively stated: not where Christ was named, then positively: but, agreeably to the word of Scripture, etc. Hence οὐχ ὅπου , not ὅπου οὐκ .
φιλοτιμ .] dependent on με , Rom_15:19. On φιλοτιμεῖσθαι , to prosecute anything so that one seeks one’s honour in it, comp. 2Co_5:9; 1Th_4:11; see Wetstein and Kypke. This full signification (not merely the more general one: zealously to prosecute) is to be maintained in all passages, including the classical ones, and admirably suits the context. The matter was a special point of honour with the apostle in his working;[25] 2Co_10:15-16.
ὨΝΟΜΆΣΘΗ ] His name, as the contents of confession, has been named, namely, by preachers and confessors. See Rom_15:21.
ἵνα μὴ κ . τ . λ .] i.e., in order not simply to continue the work of conversion already begun by others. Comp. 1Co_3:10. The reason why Paul did not desire this, lay in the high consciousness of his apostolic destination (Act_26:17-18), according to which he recognised the greatest and most difficult work, the founding of the church, as the task of the apostle, and found his apostolic honour in the solution of this task.[26] Others, as Reiche, specify as the reason, that he had sought on account of his freer system of doctrine to avoid polemical controversies. This would be a principle of practical prudence, corresponding neither to the apostolical idea, nor to Paul’s magnanimous character in following it out.
καθὼς γέγρ .] Isa_52:15, closely cited after the LXX., who took àÂùÑÆø in each case as masculine. The passage runs according to the original: “What was never told to them, they see; and what they have never heard, they perceive;” and the subject is the kings, who become dumb before the glorified Servant of God, not the nations (Hengstenberg, Christol. II. p. 305; Philippi). But the actual state of the case—seeing that, along with the kings, their peoples also must see the glory of the Servant of God—allowed the apostle here to put the nations as the subject, the Gentile-peoples, to whom, through him, the Servant of God as yet unknown to them is made known, i.e. Jesus Christ, in whom the Messianic fulfilment of that prophetic idea concerning the Servant of God, as the ideal of Israel, had appeared realized.[27]
περὶ αὐτοῦ ] addition of the LXX.
ὄψονται ] they shall see, namely mentally, in knowledge and faith, it (that which the preaching now brings before them).
οἳ οὐκ ἀκηκ .] namely, the news of Him (the gospel).
συνήσουσι ] shall understand it (this news). Comp. Mat_13:23; Mat_15:10.
[25] Lucht here conceives the writer to be dependent even on a mistaken understanding of 2Co_10:15-16.
[26] The objection of Baur, ii. p. 399, that in truth, if this had been really Paul’s principle, the Epistle to the Romans itself would stand in contradiction to it, is invalid, since that principle referred only to his working as present in person; whence he thought of visiting the Romans only as διαπορευόμενος (ver. 24), on his intended journey to Spain. But to address letters to a church of a Pauline stamp, which had nevertheless been founded by others, such as, in fact, he wrote to the Colossians and Laodiceans, was not excluded by the above principle, the point of which was rather the personal presence at the founding of churches, and the oral proclamation of salvation.
[27] Comp. Schultz, alttestam. Theol. II. p. 263 ff.