See on 2 Corinthians 9:4.

Only here and Galatians 2:4, where it is used of the efforts of the Jewish party to bring the christian Church under the ceremonial law. Compare Galatians 5:1.

Devour (κατεσθίει)

Your property. Compare Matthew 23:14.

Take (λαμβάνει)

A.V. supplies of you, evidently with reference to property, which has already been touched upon in devour. The meaning is to take as a prey, as Luke 5:5.

Exalteth himself (ἐπαίρεται)

As 2 Corinthians 10:5. It is noticeable that these are the only two instances out of nineteen in the New Testament where the word is used figuratively.

Smite you on the face

The climax of insult. Compare Matthew 5:39; Luke 22:64; Acts 23:2. Also the injunction to a bishop not to be a striker, 1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7. Stanley notes the decree of the Council of Braga, a.d. 675, that no bishop, at his will and pleasure, shall strike his clergy.

Better, Rev., by way of disparagement. Intensely ironical. Yes, you have borne with these enslavers and devourers and smiters. I could never ask you to extend such toleration to me. I speak as one without position or authority, having shown myself weak as you know.

I speak foolishly (ἐν ἀφροσύνῃ)

Rev., in foolishness. My pretensions are equal to theirs, but, of course, it is folly to advance them, and they amount to nothing. Yet, even speaking in this foolish way, I possess every qualification on which they plume themselves.

See on Acts 6:1.

Israelites

See on Acts 3:12, and compare Philippians 3:5, and the phrase Israel of God, Galatians 6:16, and an Israelite indeed, John 1:48.

Seed of Abraham

Compare Matthew 3:9; John 8:33; Romans 9:7; Romans 11:1; Galatians 3:16; Hebrews 2:16. The three names are arranged climactically, Hebrews pointing to the nationality; Israelites to the special relation to God's covenant; seed of Abraham to the messianic privilege. Compare with the whole, Philippians 3:4, Philippians 3:5.

Referring to his opponents' claim to have a closer connection with Christ than he had. See the note on 1 Corinthians 1:12.

As a fool (παραφρονῶν)

Only here in the New Testament. See the kindred παραφρονία madness, 2 Peter 2:16. Lit., being beside myself Rev., as one beside myself. This expression is stronger than that in 2 Corinthians 11:21, because the statement which it characterizes is stronger. Up to this point Paul has been asserting equality with the other teachers. Now he asserts superiority "I more;" and ironically characterizes this statement from their stand-point as madness.

More abundant (περισσοτέρως)

Lit., more abundantly, as Rev.

Stripes above measure (ὑπερβαλλόντως)

This peculiar form of suffering is emphasized by details. He specifies three Roman scourgings, and five at the hands of the Jews. Of the former, only one is recorded, that at Philippi (Acts 16:22, Acts 16:23. See on Acts 22:25), and none of the latter. The Jewish scourge consisted of two thongs made of calf's or ass's skin, passing through a hole in a handle. Thirteen blows were inflicted on the breast, thirteen on the right, and thirteen on the left shoulder. The law in Deuteronomy 25:3 permitted forty blows, but only thirty-nine were given, in order to avoid a possible miscount. During the punishment the chief judge read aloud Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 28:59; Deuteronomy 29:9; Psalm 68:38, 39. The possibility of death under the infliction was contemplated in the provision which exonerated the executioner unless he should exceed the legal number of blows. Paul escaped Roman scourging at Jerusalem on the ground of his Roman citizenship. It is not related that he and Silas urged this privilege at Philippi until after the scourging. It is evident from the narrative that they were not allowed a formal hearing before the magistrates; and, if they asserted their citizenship, it may have been that their voices were drowned by the mob. That this plea did not always avail appears from the case cited by Cicero against Verres, that he scourged a Roman citizen in spite of his continued protest under the scourge, "I am a Roman citizen" (see on Acts 16:37), and from well-known instances of the scourging of even senators under the Empire.

Prisons

At Philippi, and other places not recorded.

Deaths

Perils of death, as at Damascus, Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra, Thessalonica, Beroea.

Roman scourgings.

Stoned

At Lystra, Acts 14:19.

Thrice I suffered shipwreck

The shipwreck at Malta, being later, is, of course, not referred to; so that no one of these three is on record.

A night and a day (νυχθήμερον)

A compound term occurring only here in the New Testament, and rarely in later Greek.

Have I been in the deep (ἐν τῷ βυθῷ πεποίηκα)

Lit., I have made (spent) a night and a day in the deep. For a similar use of ποιέω to make, see Acts 15:33; Acts 18:23; Acts 20:3; James 4:13. βυθός bottom or depth occurs only here. Of the event itself there is no record.

From the sudden swelling of mountain streams or flooding of dry water-courses. "The rivers of Asia Minor, like all the rivers in the Levant, are liable to violent and sudden changes, and no district in Asia Minor is more singularly characterized by its water-floods than the mountainous tract of Pisidia, where rivers burst out at the bases of huge cliffs, or dash down wildly through narrow ravines" (Conybeare and Howson, i., ch. 6).

Robbers

The tribes inhabiting the mountains between the table-land of Asia Minor and the coast were notorious for robbery. Paul may have encountered such on his journey to the Pisidian Antioch, Acts 13:14.

Mine own countrymen

Conspiracies of the Jews at Damascus, Lystra, Thessalonica, Beroea, etc.

The Gentiles

As at Philippi and Ephesus.

False brethren

Judaizing Christians, as Galatians 2:4.

See on 2 Corinthians 6:5.

Some explain, external calamities; others, the things which are left out in the enumeration, as Matthew 5:32; Acts 26:29. Better, the latter, so that the literal meaning is, apart from the things which are beside and outside my enumeration: or, as Alford, not to mention those which are beside these. The word does not occur in classical Greek, and no instance of its usage in the former sense occurs in the New Testament or in the Septuagint. See Rev., margin.

That which cometh upon me (ἐπισύστασις)

Lit., a gathering together against. Both here and Acts 24:12, the best texts read ἐπίστασις onset. Rev., that which presseth upon me. "The crowd of cares."

Farrar remarks upon 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, that it is "the most marvelous record ever written of any biography; a fragment beside which the most imperiled lives of the most suffering saints shrink into insignificance, and which shows us how fractional at the best is our knowledge of the details of St. Paul's life." Eleven of the occurrences mentioned here are not alluded to in Acts.

With sorrow over the stumbling or with indignation over the cause. This and 1 Corinthians 7:9 are the only instances in which the word is used figuratively.

He will be attested as a true apostle by the sufferings which show his weakness, which make him contemptible in his adversaries' eyes, and not by the strength of which his opponents boast.

See on Romans 9:5, and compare Romans 1:25.

Only here in the New Testament. A governor ruling in the name of a king: a prefect.

Aretas

Or Hareth, the father-in-law of Herod Antipas. Hs capital was the rock-city of Petra, the metropolis of Arabia Petraea. Herod's unfaithfulness to his daughter brought on a quarrel, in which Herod's army was defeated, to the great delight of the Jews. The further prosecution of the war by Roman troops was arrested by the death of Tiberius, and it is supposed that Caligula assigned Damascus as a free gift to Aretas.

Kept with a garrison (ἐφρούρει)

Imperfect tense, was maintaining a constant watch. Compare Acts 9:24 : They watched the gates day and night.

To apprehend (πιάσαι)

See on Acts 3:7.