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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 1 Timothy 6:7 - 6:7
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Ver. 7. A reason is here given for the preceding statement, that the real good for man lies in what he is as a rational and moral being, not in the outward means and possessions he may gather into his lot: for we brought nothing into the world, because neither are we able to take anything out of it. Such seems to be the correct reading. The received text has äç ͂ ëïí before ὅôé with mss. K, L; but the best authorities, à , A, F, G, want it, and it was in all probability inserted to soften the apparent hardness or difficulty of the connection between the two clauses, and render the import more perspicuous. Taking the passage as it stands in the best supported form, the apostle not merely says that we both enter and leave the world in a state of destitution as to worldly goods, but that the one is ordered with a certain respect to the other: we brought nothing with us of earthly treasure when we were ushered into life here, because neither could we take aught with us when we leave it; thus having a lesson embodied in our very birth, in order that we might keep in view the solemn exemplification it was to find at the hour of death. If we do so, we shall live in the habitual recollection that all we can accumulate of the things of earth during our sojourn in it, is adventitious merely—of the nature of a temporary appendage—and not, therefore, for a moment to be compared with the state of the soul itself in reference to God and righteousness. Here, and here alone, lie the essential elements of our well-being.