Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 John 2:10 - 2:10

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 John 2:10 - 2:10


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

10. ὁ ἀγαπῶν. Nothing is said about what he professes; it is what he does that is of consequence. μένει means not only has entered into the light, but has it for his abode: see on 1Jn 2:24.

σκάνδαλον οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ. There are four ways of taking this; three taking αὐτῷ as masculine, and one taking it as neuter, referring to τῷ φωτί. 1. He has in him nothing likely to ensnare him or cause him to stumble. 2. He has in him nothing likely to cause others to stumble. 3. There is in his case nothing likely to cause stumbling. 4. In the light there is nothing likely to cause stumbling. All make good sense, and the last makes a good antithesis to ‘knoweth not whither he goeth’ in 1Jn 2:11 : but the first is to be preferred on account of 1Jn 2:11. Yet in favour of the second it is worth noting that σκάνδαλον is commonly, if not always, used of offence caused to others. The parallel expressions ‘the truth is not in him’ (1Jn 2:4), ‘His word is not in us’ (1Jn 1:10; comp. 1Jn 1:8), make ‘in him’ more probable than ‘in his case.’ And nothing here suggests the notion that the brother-hater leads others astray: it is his own dark condition that is contemplated: ipse sibi offendiculum est. Moreover, there is the very close parallel in Joh 11:9-10; ‘If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him.’ Comp. Psa 119:165, ‘Great peace have they which love Thy law: and nothing shall offend them’; i.e. there is no stumbling-block before them: οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῖς σκάνδαλον. It is not impossible that this passage was in the Apostle’s mind: his ἐν may represent the ‘to’ in the Hebrew original. Comp. 1Sa 25:31 where σκάνδαλον represents the Hebrew mikshol, ‘a stumbling.’ Elsewhere it represents moqesh ‘a snare’ (Jdg 2:3; Jdg 8:27). It combines the notions of tripping up and ensnaring. The word is a late form of σκανδάληθρον (Aristoph. Ach. 687) the ‘baitstick’ in a trap.