Philippians and Philemon - MR Vincent - 1906.pdf

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PHILEMON [12, 13
12. ov aveVe/xi/'a ' ' c/Aa ;( : whom
I send back to thee in his own person, that is my very heart.'
thus emphasises ov, and prepares the way for .
Lightf. punctuates 4. . , , \,, iyai,
etc., thus beginning a new sentence with as depending on the idea of
(vs. 17). Such a "dislocation" is hardly conceivable, even in
Paul's writing.
'AviVe/Mi/'a is the epistolary aorist, by which the writer puts him-
self at the point of time when the correspondent is reading his
letter. (See Acts xxiii. 30 ; Phil. ii. 28 ; Win. xl. 2 ; and note on
iypaypa, VS. 1 9.) For c/u-a,see on Phil. i. 8, ii. i.
Pesh. renders * my son.' Wetst. cites Artemidorus,
(i. 46) ol Trat'Se? ; also Id. 35, V. 57, and Philo,
Oe Joseph. 5 (ii. 45). In Latin poetry and post-Augustine prose
viscera is used in the same sense. (See Ov. Met. vi. 651, viii.
478, X. 465 ; Q. Curt. iv. 14, 22.) So Chr. and Thdrt. But this
does not agree with Paul's usage elsewhere. (See 2 Cor. vi. 12,
vii. 15 ; Phil. i. 8, ii. i ; Col. iii. 12.) Besides, it would be tautological
after ov /.
13. ov * « £« : whom I was
minded to keep with myself The expression of an actual
thought and desire entertained by Paul; indicating
deliberation with an accompanying inclination. I was inclined to
keep him, and was turning over the matter in my mind. See on
TO ^€«, Phil. ii. 13.
Lightf. prefers the conditional sense of the imperfect, could have
wished,' referring it to a suppressed conditional clause, ' if circumstances
had favored.' This is a well-known use of the imperf. (See Acts xxv. 22;
Rom. ix. 3; Gal. iv. 20; and Lightf. On Revis. of N.T., under "Faults of
Grammar.") But no such conditional clause is implied; for Paul does not
intimate that the fulfilment of his wish was impossible, and that therefore
he did not cherish it, but only that, though he entertained the wish, he
refrained from acting upon it until he should have learned Philemon's
pleasure in the matter (vs. 14).
TT/jo? : 'with myself.' See on %, vs. 5 ; and Phil. iv. 6.
: For the verb, see Lk. iv. 42, viii. 15; Rom. i. 18;
I Thess. v. 21.
virkp SiaKovrj '
: that he might serve me on thy behalf.'
A delicate justification of,and full of tact. The
is exquisite, assuming that his friend would delight in rendering
him, through the slave, the service which he could not personally
perform. is not for ' , instead of,' or * in thy
place' (Thdrt., CEc, Calv., De W., Bleek, van Oos.), but has its
usual N.T. sense, * on behalf of,' or * for thy sake.' The expression
thus gains in delicacy. Onesimus is more than a mere substitute
for Philemon. In these words the relation of master and slave
disappears for the moment. Both are servants for Christ's sake