2nd Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 3 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - I speak not this to condemn you. "Not by way of condemnation am I speaking." My object is to maintain the old love between us; what I say, therefore, is merely to defend myself, not to complain of you (comp. 1 Corinthians 4:14). I have said before. He has not said it in so many words, but has implied it in 2 Corinthians 3:2, 3; 2 Corinthians 6:11-14. Ye are in our hearts. So he says to his beloved Philippians, "I have you in my heart" (Philippians 1:7). To die and live with you. Similarly he tells the Thessalonians that he was ready to give them even his own life (1 Thessalonians 2:8). This is no mere conventional expression of deep affection, like Horace's, "Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens;" nor is it the description of some compact for life and death like that of the Theban Band. It has the deeper meaning which was involved by the words "life" and "death" on the lips of a Christian (2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 6:9). And one whose life was, for Christ's sake, a daily death, naturally mentions death first.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) I speak not this to condemn you.--Better, I do not speak as condemning. There is no "you" in the Greek, and the form of expression seems intentionally vague, as leaving it an open question whether his words might refer to his readers or to others. We trace here a sudden revulsion of feeling. What he had just said seemed to imply that he condemned them for even listening to the calumnies which had been circulated against him, for joining in any measure even of outward friendship with men of evil lives; and then there rushes on his memory the recollection of all the good news which Titus had brought. Indignation and jealous sensitiveness are swallowed up in the overflowing thankfulness to which those tidings had given birth at the time, and which were now renewed.I have said before . . .--He had not used the form of expression before, as far as this letter is concerned, but the fact was implied in what he had said in 2Corinthians 6:11 : "Our heart is enlarged." The words that follow are partly an almost proverbial expression for strong attachment, as in Horace (Odes, iii. 9): "Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens"--"With thee I fain would live,With thee I fain would die;"partly with a profounder meaning, that, whether in death or life (the order of the words throws us back on "dying, but behold, we live," in 2Corinthians 6:9), his heart and prayers would be with them and for them.