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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Corinthians 4:4 - 4:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
4. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐμαυτῷ σύνοιδα. For if I were to put myself on my trial, I am conscious of no dereliction of duty. In A.V. ‘I know nothing by myself’ (I know nought by myself, Tyndale) signifies I know nothing against myself, like the Latin ‘nil conscire sibi’ in Hor. Ep. I. 1. 61, or the nihil mihi conscius sum of the Vulgate here. The expression ‘I know nothing by him,’ as equivalent to ‘I know nothing against his character,’ is a common one in the North of England. Instances of this expression in old English writers may be found in Davies’ Bible English.
ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐν τούτῳ δεδικαίωμαι. ‘But my innocence (lit. righteousness) has not been established by this.’ Here δικαιόω means to declare a righteousness actually possessed, as in 1Ki 8:32 (LXX.) and Psalms 143 (142):2. ἐν, though here used in an instrumental sense, is not the simple instrument, but refers to the result of a process. St Paul who elsewhere (ch. 1Co 9:27, 1Co 15:9; Eph 3:8; 1Ti 1:13; 1Ti 1:15—cf. also Php 3:13) had an almost exaggerated sense of infirmity can hardly have meant to imply here that he was entirely free from fault. What he seems to have meant was that, as far as he could see, and as far as anyone else could see, he had been strictly conscientious in the discharge of his mission. But he must not be puffed up, either by the thought that no one had a right to judge him, or even by his own inability to see where he had failed. There was a strict and righteous Judge, Who would bring him to account in His own good time.
ὁ δὲ ἀνακρίνων με κύριός ἐστιν. ‘But He who arraigneth me, putteth me on my trial, is the Lord,’ i.e. Jesus Christ.