Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Galatians 5:11 - 5:11
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11. ἐλὼ δὲ. Primarily in contrast to the change, probably made and certainly taught, by the false leader. I, in contrast to him, and also to what is said of me by him and others like him, am different from what I was as a Jew before my conversion, and remain different. I at any rate have made no change since my conversion. The causes of such an accusation may have been (a) his circumcision of Timothy, Act 16:3; (b) his permission, or instruction, to Jewish parents to circumcise their children, for the accusation in Act 21:21 is evidently false; (c) his indifference to circumcision as such in the case of Jews, 1Co 7:18; (d) perhaps also his recent dissemination of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem.
ἀδελφοί (Gal 4:28 note), εἰ περιτομὴν ἔτι (Gal 1:10) κηρύσσω (Gal 2:2).
τί ἔτι διὠκομαι; The first ἔτι is continuous from before his conversion; the second from after his conversion, i.e. temporal not logical.
ἄρα. The conclusion is logical (Gal 2:21) if the premisses are granted. But the supposition that he still preaches circumcision is so plainly false, and it is so evident that he is still persecuted, that the sentence becomes satirical. The accentuation ἇρα (Gal 2:17) gives a weaker sense.
κατήργηται (Gal 5:4 note) τὸ σκάνδαλον. The figure is suggested by Isa 8:14 (cf. Isa 28:16) where the full revelation of God (which is Christ), is termed a stone of stumbling, for the revelation culminates in the Cross; see Rom 9:33; 1Pe 2:8 (where see Hort); 1Co 1:23.
τοῦ σταυροῦ: Gal 6:12; Gal 6:14; Col 1:20; cf. Col 3:1; Php 3:18.