Bcen^ the invisible worlds the abode of the dead in the widest sense. It depends on the context whether the immediate reference be to the grave, the place of departed spirits, or hell, in the modern sense of that word. Here where the spe- cial reference is to the bodies of men and to the deUvery of them from the power of death, it is properly rendered the grave. The only sense in which the body can be in Hades is that it is in the grave. The apostle is not speaking of the de- livery of the souls of men from any intermediate state, but of the redemption of the body. In Hosea 13, 14 God says, " O death, I will be thy plagues ; O grave, I will be thy destruc- tion." This is a literal version of the Hebrew. The Vulgate comes near to it, Ero mors tua, O mors ! Morsus tuus ero, inferne ! The LXX. depart from the figure, " Where is thy judgment (or vengeance), O death? where is thy sting, O grave ? " These are all different forms of expressing the idea that death and the grave are completely conquered. The apostle does not quote the prophet. He expresses an analo- gous idea in analogous terms. In speaking of death as fur- nished with a sting, the most natural figure is that of a scor- pion. Others say that Kivrpov here means a goad, and that death is compared to a man driving animals before him with such an instrument. The power of a goad is as nothing to that of the sting of a scorpion. Rev, 9, 5. 6. 10, and the figure is therefore far more forcible as commonly understood.*
56. The sting of death (is) sin ; and the strength of sin (is) the law.
The sting of death is sin ; that is, death would have no power to injure us if it were not for sin. This is true for two reasons. 1. Because if there were no sin there would be no death. Death is by sin, Rom. 5, 12. 2. Because sin gives death, when it has been introduced, all its terrors. If sm be pardoned, death is harmless. It can inflict no evil. It be- comes a mere transition from a lower to a higher state. The strength of sin is the law. This must be the law of God in its widest sense; not the Mosaic law, which would make the declaration amount to nothing. The law is the strength of
* The MSB. B. D. E. F. G., and most of the versions, read, -kou <tov, ^dva- Tf, rh xevTpov : irov aov, i^ai/are, rh vIkos ; where, 0 death, is thy sting ? where, 0 death, thy victory ? A reading which Tischendorf and other modern editors have adopted.