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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Philippians 1:4 - 1:4
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
4. δεήσει. “Request, petition”; a narrower word than προσευχή, which may and often does denote worship at large.
μετὰ χαρᾶς. Emphatic words by position. They strike a note continually repeated in the Epistle.
τὴν δέησιν. “The request” just mentioned.
ποιούμενος. The middle suggests a personal fulness in the action. The request comes from the depth of the man and relates to a welfare dear to him as his own. Only it is impossible to explain this in English without a certain exaggeration of the delicate Greek.
On the other hand ποιεῖσθαι is often used with a substantive by way of periphrasis, to express what would be more simply stated by a verb. E.g. Luk 13:22, πορείαν ποιούμενος (cf. Luk 9:51, πορεύεσθαι). Instances of ποιεῖν thus used are very rare. Thus explained the phrase here nearly equals δεόμενος, though still, surely, adding a certain fulness.