The Pulpit Commentary — Galatians — Section 62

of the oonjunoUon Iii, we must consider how the revelation spoken of was the fruit solely the sentence it introduces stanrls related of a Divine volition triumphing over extreme to what precedes. The main underlying wickedness and infatuation on hie own po.rt. thought of vers. 13, 14 was that the Compare, in this respect also, the passage habit of the o.postle's mind before his con• Eph. i. 5, just cited. It is this feeling which version we.a such as wholly to preclude the prompts the introduction of the deep] y noUon of his ho.ving known the gospel up to emotional parenthesis consisting of the two the.t hour. The main thought pervo.ding next clauses of the verse. Who separated vers. 15-17, e.nd indeed pursued to the me from my mother's womb (o d.cpopf,,-as µ.• end of the chapter, is th1<t, after he had 11< 1<011'.las µ.Trrp&s µ.ov); ttJOO ut me apart frrrm received from God himself the knowledge of my mother's ttJomb. The verb dcpopf(w, set the gospel, he he.d had no occasion to have apart, separate, which is found use,l in recourse to any mortal man, apostle or other, other relations in Lev. xx. 26 (LXX.); Matt. for the purpose of further instruction therein. xiii. 49; xxv. 32; Acts xix. 9; eh. ii. 12, is It follows the.t the conjunction connecting employed here with an implied reference to the two sentences is not adversative, as it a specific office or work. Such a reference would, of oourse, be taken if God's dealings is explicitly added in Acts xiii. 2," Separate with him, described in vers. 15, 16, were the me Be.ma.bas and Saul for the work where- main point of this new po.re.graph, but is nnt.o I have mlled them;" and in Rom. i. 1, simply the sign of the writer's passing on to " Separated nnto the gospel of God." There another thought-not one contrasted with is this distinction, however, between the the preceding, bnt merely additional. As " setting apart" of the present passage and examples of the use of lie as continu.ative and that of Acts xiii. 2, that, whereas in the latter not adversative, comp. Luke xii. 11, 16; xiii. it was one actually realized, here it is in the 6, 10; xv. 11; Acts ix. 8, 10; xii. 10, 13; Divine predestination only, which last seems Rom. ii. 3; 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 17. It me.y be to be nearly the sense of the words, "where- represented in English by "and" or "and nnto I have called them," in the Acts. lo again." In the roe.ding of the Greek text Rom. i 1 the verb probably includes both it is not certain whether we ought not to senses. "From my mother's womb" means omit the word "God" (o 0,&s). If it is a "from the time that I was as yet nnborn ; " gloss which hRS crept into the text, it is not perhaps exactly "ever since my birth," unquestionably a just gloss. Similar omis- as Judg. xvi. 17; Matt. xix.. 12: Acts iii. 2; sions of the Divine Name,e.e Bishop Lightfoot xiv. 8; comp. rather Luke i. 15, as illus- observes, are frequent in St. Pe.ul (see eh. i trated by ver. 41. The addition of these 6 ; ii. 8 ; Rom. viii. 11 ; Phil. i. 6). The words is designed to mark the purely arbi- verb ,blio1«i'vproperlyexpresseeoomple.cency; trary character of this predestination. Comp. as e.g. Matt. iii. 17, "In whom I am well Rom. ix. 11, "The children being not yet pleesed;" and often. And this notion me.y born, neither having done anything good or be commonly traced in its use even when bad, that thepurposeofGodaccording to elec- followed, as here, by an infinitive. Thus in tion might stand." Viewed thus, the clause 1 Thess. ii. 8, "It would have been a appears as an utterance of adoring humility pleasure to us to impart," etc.; in 1 These. on the part of the apostle, combined, how- iii. 1, "It was painful to us to be left alone, ever, with the strongest possible assertion of but under the circumstances we gladly chose the Divine origin of his mission. A similar t.o be so." When applied, as here, to God, statement of God's arbitrary selection of a the notion of the pleasure which he takes particular human being for a particular in acts of beneficence must not be lost eight function is found in Isa. xlix. 1," The Lord of; "Was graciously pleased;" comp. Luke bath called mo from the womb; from the xii. 32, " It is your Father's good pleasure bowels of my mother bath he made mention to give you the kingdom." In Eph. i. 5 of my name; "ibid., ver. 5," That formed me the noun "good pleasure " points to the aot from the womb to be his servant;" and of" predestination" spoken of as (if we may again, with yet more striking resemble.nee, venture so to speak of God) a volition of his in J er. i. 5, " Before I formed thee in the bee.rt and not of merely hie regulative belly I knew thee; and before thou earnest wisdom. The apostle seems led to use the forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and word here by the complacency and joy which I ordained thee a prophllt unto the nations he himself felt in having been made the (-,rpo<t>f,.-.,,11 ,is l8VT1)," It is difficult not to recipient of this "revelation;" those senti- believe that this conviction of the apostle ments of his own bosom are, t.o his view, a ooncerning himself RB an object of God's pre- reflection of the Divine complacency in im- destinating purpose, and perhaps even the parting it. At the same time, the reader form of its expression-for compare the words must be ooneoious of the deep sense, in faot in the next verse, "That I might preach the supremely prevailing sense, whioh the him among the Gentiles (te.,,,-,.) "-was very apostle has just here, that the imparting of me.inly derived from the Lord's words to  THE EPISTLE .TO THE GALA'l'IANS. [cu. 1. 1-24.