therefore refers frequently to the service of the priests and Levites, a usage the influence of which is seen in chap. xv. 16 and Phil. ii. 17; but this was by no means exclusively the case in the O.T. (2 Sam. xiii. 18, 2 Kings x. 5) nor is it so in the New (chap. xv. 27, Phil. ii. 25, 30). It is not a priestly character that the word assigns to the magistracy, but only an official character ; they are in their place by God’s appointment for the public good. εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο means ‘to this very end’”—the end described in vers. 3 and 4. AS προσκαρτεροῦντες is elsewhere construed with the dative (Acts i. 14, vi. 4, chap. ΧΙ], 12) it seems necessary here to take eis τὸ αὐτὸ with what precedes, and προσκ. by itself as, e.g., in Num. xiii. 21: spending all their time on the work.
Ver. 7. At this point Weiss begins a new paragraph, but W. and H. make ver. 7 the conclusion of the first part of this chapter. In view of the close connection between vers. 7 and 8 (cf. ὀφειλάς, ὀφεί- λετε) it is better not to make too decided a break at either place. All the words in νετ. 7, Φόρος, τέλος, φόβος, τιμῆ, do indeed imply duties to superiors, and seem therefore to continue and to sum up the content of vers. 1-6; but ver. 8, in which μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε seems expressly written as the negative coun- terpart to ἀπόδοτε πᾶσι τὰς ὀφειλάς in νετ. 7, introduces at the same time a wider subject—that of the duties of all
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c Matt. xvii. τὸ “τέλος, τὸ TEAOS* τῷ