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A further account of their behaviour among them. The former verse showed their great gentleness, this their great love; expressed, first: In their affectionate desire of them; as the Latin phrase, cupidissimus fui, imports love to the person. And it was the desire of their salvation, first in their believing, and then perseverance and progress in faith. It was themselves, not their goods, they desired; as Paul elsewhere saith: We seek not yours, but you. Secondly, In the effect of it, which was imparting the gospel to them, whereby they might be saved; which is amplified by two things:
1. That they did this willingly, not out of mere necessity, with a backward mind; the word is eudokoumen, we were well pleased to preach, and with complacence of mind.
2. That they were willing to impart their souls to them; that is, to hazard their lives for them in preaching to them, as Act_16:1-40; the same word signifying both the soul and life, and he that dies for another gives his life to them. Or, it may refer to their labours and hardships, whereby they endangered their lives for them, labouring night and day, 1Th_2:9. Others understand the words only as an expression of their great affection to them; a man imparts his soul to the person whom he entirely loves, as Isa_58:10; when a man gives relief to a person in want out of love and compassion, he imparts his soul in what he gives. So did they in the gospel thus preached. And the word imparting is used to express relief to the wants of the body, Rom_12:8; and the gospel is the bread of life to give relief to the soul, and used in this sense also, Rom_1:11. The apostle may here futher allude to mothers that are nurses, who impart not only other food, but their milk, which is their blood, to cherish their children.
Ye were dear unto us; or, ye have been beloved of us; wherein the apostle more plainly declares their love to them as the ground of all their labours and perils in preaching to them; yea, it may reach to all that he had said before concerning their carriage among them, all was from love.