Kept with a garrison (é¢povpe). Imperfect tense, was maintaining a constant watch. Compare Acts ix. 24: They watched the gates day and night.
To apprehend (zudacas). See on Acts iii. 7.
33. Through a window (é&a Supédos). Only here and Acts xx. 9. Diminutive of Svpa a door. The same expression is used in Sept., Josh. ii. 15, of the escape of the spies from Jericho, and 1 Sam. xix. 12, of David’s escape from Saul by the aid of Michal.
Basket (capydvy). Lit., braided work; a rope-basket or hamper. Luke, in his narrative of the incident, uses ozupis, for which see on Matt. xiv. 20.
1. Revelations (aroxcadveis). See on Apoc. i. 1. 2. I knew (oiéa). Reyv., correctly, Z know.
Above fourteen years ago (zpo érav dexatecodpav). Above, of A. V.,is due to a misunderstanding of the Greek idiom. Lit., before fourteen years, that is, fourteen years ago, as Rev.
Caught up (dpzrayévra). Compare Dante:
“Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light.” ‘¢ Paradiso,” i., 75. Vou. III.—23
854 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XIL
The verb suits the swift, resistless, impetuous seizure of spirit- ual ecstasy. See on Matt. xi.12; and compare Acts vill. 39; 1 Thess. iv. 17; Apoc. xii. 5.
Third heaven. It is quite useless to attempt to explain this expression according to any scheme of celestial gradation. The conception of seven heavens was familiar to the Jews; but ac- cording to some of the Rabbins there were two heavens—the visible clouds and the sky; in which case the third heaven would be the invisible region beyond the sky. Some think that Paul describes two stages of his rapture; the first to the third heaven, from which he was borne, as if from a halting- point, up into Paradise.
4. Paradise. See on Luke xxiii. 43.
Unspeakable words (4)pnTa pyyara). An oxymoron, speak- ings which may not be spoken.
7. Abundance (imepBory). Rev., more correctly, the ex- ceeding greatness.
Thorn (cxérow). Only here in the New Testament. Fre- quent in classical Greek in the sense of a pale or stake. It occurs once in Euripides, meaning a stwmp (‘“ Bacchae,” 983). It is a stake for a palisade, or for impaling; a surgical instru- ment; the point of a fish-hook. In the Septuagint it occurs three times, translated thorn in Hos. ii. 6, where, however, it is distinguished from daxdvSats thorns ; brier in Ezek. xxviii. 24, and prick in Num. xxxiii. 55. Nine different Hebrew words are rendered by thorn, for which, in the great majority of cases, Septuagint gives dav9a. The rendering thorn for cxodow has no support. The figure is that of the impaling-stake. Herod- otus, alluding to this punishment, uses dvacxonoritew (i., 128 ; iii, 182). In the ninth book of his history, Lampon says to Pausanias: ‘“ When Leonidas was slain at Thermopylae, Xerxes and Mardonius beheaded and crucified (avectatpwaav) him. Do thou the like by Mardonius, . . . for by crucifying (avackororlcas) thou wilt avenge Leonidas” (ix., 78). The verb seems, therefore, to have been used interchangeably with crucify ; and clear instances of this occur in Philo and Lucian.
Cu. XII.] THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 355
At least one text of the Septuagint gives dvackodomlfw in Esther vii. 10, of Haman’s being hanged.* See further, on Gal. ii. 20. The explanations of the peculiar nature of this affliction are numerous. Opinions are divided, generally, be- tween mental or spiritual and bodily trials. Under the former head are sensual desires, faint-heartedness, doubts, temptations to despair, and blasphemous suggestions from the devil. Under the latter, persecution, mean personal appearance, headache, epilepsy, earache, stone, ophthalmia. It was probably a bodily malady, in the flesh ; but its nature must remain a matter of conjecture. Very plausible reasons are given in favor of both epilepsy and ophthalmia. Bishop Lightfoot inclines to the former, and Archdeacon Farrar thinks that it was almost cert- ainly the latter.+