Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

248 Second Timothy IV. 21.
our own view by no means makes it necessary that these statements
should be intended to give information to Timothy. We can explain
them as above on Wieseler's hypothesis that they point back
to ver. IG, and merely remind Timothy that those whom he would
naturally look for were not present at the trial ; or, as this reference
seems forbidden by the intervening ver, 19, we connect them more
naturally with 19 and 21. The salutations to absent friends naturaUy
reminds him of those absent companions whose anticipated
presence in his confinement he does not enjoy.
Especially the memory
of Onesiphorus, who had come to him, might well recall that of
those, who, though expected, had failed to come. And the object of
the statement is explained by the following exhortation to Timothy
to hasten before winter. Ver. 20 is then in effect but supplementary
to ver. 10, just as ver. 21 is but a pressing repetition of ver. 9. And
the reason why, at ver. 10, he docs not speak of these two is, that
there he is enumerating those who had been with him in Rome,
and had left him to feel the need of others, to which number these
did not belong. But at ver. 20 they are naturally mentioned alike
as suggested by the memory of other friends to wjiom he sends salutations,
and as thus introducing and enforcing his request to Timothy
to come and supply their place.
Wieseler, finally, urges against
our view that in travelling from Asia Minor to Rome one would not
go first to Corinth and thence to Miletus; and again that the reader
could surely hardly refer the statement to this journey of the
apostle. But, first, we need not suppose that in mentioning the
persons he followed the course of his journey ; he may rather have
made Rome the starting-point of his reckoning, or have been guided
by some other principle of arrangement; and, secondly, although the
reader is not referred of necessity to the journey of the apostle,
could Timothy fail to think of it, when having, by remaining in
Ephesus, been parted from the apostle who has journeyed to Rome,
and of course by way of Miletus, the apostle writes to him from
Rome, that he had left Trophimus in Miletus ?
Ver. 21 concludes naturally the summons to a speedy coming.
At ver. 10 he slated that all but Luke had forsaken him; here that
wished-for friends had not come to him; hence, in both cases, the
onovdaaov, k. t. X. " Before winter" explains the "quickly." Wieseler
supposes that though the feeling of solitude dictates ver. 9, yet
here the emphasis lies on the rrpo ;\;«/i(2irof, as urging him to avoid
the perils of a winter voyage, such as he had himself encountered.
But how else could the ajjostle have expressed the wish simply that
he would hasten to liim before winter ? Though -fio xtiitwrog is
emphatic, it is not therefore to be rendered " winter storm," rather
than simply "winter." According to Wieseler, vers. 19, 20, and
21, would alike stand isolated the former cominir in most awk-