Messenger of Satan (dyyedos Sarav). The torment is thus personified. Messenger is the word commonly rendered angel in the New Testament, though sometimes used of human mes- sengers, as Luke vii. 24, 27; ix. 52; Jas. ii. 25; see also on the angels of the churches, Apoc. i. 20. Messenger and Satan are not to be taken in apposition—a messenger who was Satan —because Satan is never called ayyenos in the New Testament. Messenger is figurative, in the sense of agent. Satan is con- ceived in the New Testament as the originator of bodily evil. Thus, in the gospel narrative, demoniac possession is often ac- companied with some form of disease. Compare Luke xiii. 16; Acts x. 38, and see on 1 Cor. v. 5.
Buffet (codadpifn). Connect with messenger, which better suits depart ; not with thorn, which would be a confusion of metaphor, a stake buffeting. For the verb, meaning to strike with the fist, see Matt. xxvi. 67; Mark xiv. 65; 1 Pet. ii. 20.
* Sraupds cross, is originally an upright stake or pale. Werodotus uses it of the pues of a foundation, and Thucydides of the stakes or palisades of a dock. Lx«daow for cravpds occurs in Celsus. .
{See Farrar’s ‘‘ Paul,” i., excursus x.; Stanley’s ‘‘Commentary,” p. 547 sqq.; Lightfoot, ‘‘Commentary on Galatians,” additional note on ch. iv. 14. Dr. John Brown, in ‘‘ Horae Subsecivae,” presents the ophthalmic theory very attractively.
356 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. (Cu. XII,
Compare Job ii. 5, 7, where the Septuagint has dau touch, and érratce smote.
8. For this thing (imép rovrov). Rev., concerning this thing. But it is better to refer this to messenger: concerning thes or whom. For, of A. V., is ambiguous.
9. He said (elpnxev). Rev., correctly, He hath said. The force of the perfect tense is to be insisted on. It shows that the affliction was still clinging to Paul, and that there was lying in his mind when he wrote, not only the memory of the incident, but the sense of the stild abiding power and value of Christ’s grace; so that because the Lord hath said “my grace,” etc., Paul can now say, under the continued affliction, wherefore I take pleasure, etc., for Christ's sake ; for when I am weak, then am I strong. A more beautiful use of the perfect it would be difficult to find in the New Testament.
My strength. The best texts omit my, thus turning the answer into a general proposition: strength as perfected in weakness ; but besides the preéminent frigidity of replying to a passionate appeal with an aphorism, the reference to the special power of Christ is clear from the words power of Christ, which almost immediately follow. Compare 1 Cor. i. 3, 4; 2 Cor. iv. 7; Heb. xi. 34. Rev., rightly, retains my italicized.
May rest upon (éucxnvdcn). Only here in the New Test- ament. The simple verb oxyvow to dwell in a tent is used by John, especially in the Apocalypse. See on John i. 14. The compound verb here means ¢o jiw a tent or a habitation upon , and the figure is that of Christ abiding upon him as a tent spread over him, during his temporary stay on earth.
For Christ’s sake. This may be taken with all the preced- ing details, weaknesses, etc., endured for Christ’s sake, or with I take pleasure, assigning the specific motive of his rejoicing: I take pleasure for Christ’s sake.
11. | am become a fool in glorying. Ironical. By the record I have presented I stand convicted of being foolish.
| ought to have been commended of you. You ought to have saved me the necessity of recounting my sufferings, and
Cu. XII.] THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 357
thus commending myself as not inferior to those preéminent apostles (ch. xi. 5).
12. Signs (cnpeia). See on Matt. xxiv. 24. Stanley ob- serves that the passage is remarkable as containing (what is rare in the history of miracles) a direct claim to miraculous powers by the person to whom they were ascribed. Compare 1 Corsiin 4; Rom. xv. 19.