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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - 2 Timothy 4:6 - 4:6
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Ver. 6. The course of active, faithful, devoted labour in the work of the ministry thus enjoined upon Timothy is now enforced by a reference to the apostle’s own case, his approaching departure from the field, coupled with a brief retrospect of the manner in which he had fulfilled his calling, and the prospect that lay before him of the coming recompense. Commentators have traced the connection variously —some laying stress on one point, some on another. I agree with Alford, that there appears no propriety in confining it to any one; and it may well be put, as he does it, so as to include several weighty considerations: “I am no longer here to withstand those things: be thou a worthy successor of me, no longer depending on, but carrying out for thyself, my directions; follow my steps, inherit their result, and the honour of their end.”
For I ( å ̓ ãὼ ãὰñ —emphatic with respect to the thou, óὺ , in the preceding verse) am already being offered— ἤäç óðÝíäïìáé , already poured out as a drink-offering. He contemplates himself in the light of a sacrifice, yielding up his life for the cause of the gospel—a sacrifice which might be said to have already begun in the sufferings of a preliminary kind he was called to endure; and the drink-offering, or libation, was thought of as the special kind of sacrifice under which he presented the surrender, because of the resemblance it would be seen to carry to the shedding of his blood. This is so much the most natural explanation of the reference, that it is not worth while noticing any other. The same thought, and expressed in the same language, was employed at an earlier period by the apostle, in Php_2:17. But in the following clause he gives it without a figure: and the time of my departure is at hand—departure, namely, from life; without reference, as some would have it, to leaving the sacrificial feast with a libation, or, as others, to withdrawal from the battle-field. Such allusions are too far-fetched, and instead of adding to the beautiful simplicity and force of the language, tend rather to spoil it. From what he had already seen in the treatment of his case, and the obvious temper of those he had to deal with, he was convinced that the final stage was approaching.