Philemon Chapter 1 verse 10 Holy Bible
I beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus,
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My request is for my child Onesimus, the child of my chains,
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I exhort thee for *my* child, whom I have begotten in [my] bonds, Onesimus,
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I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:
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read chapter 1 in WBT
I beg you for my child, whom I have become the father of in my chains, Onesimus,{Onesimus means "useful."}
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I entreat thee concerning my child -- whom I did beget in my bonds -- Onesimus,
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 10. - I beseech thee for my son ... Onesimus; my child (Revised Version). The name of Onesimus could not have been a pleasing one in the ears of Philemon. Note with what caution and almost timidity it is at length introduced. He does not interpose for the ingrate with apostolic dignity, but pleads for him with fatherly love. He puts himself side by side with him, and calls him his son. Some of the old commentators conclude, from Colossians 4:9, that Onesimus was a native of Colossae, and thence discuss whether he could have been a slave born in Philemon's house of a slave-mother, or whether he was sold in his youth by his father - a custom so common to the Phrygians (as to the Circassians in later times) as to have been noticed by Cicero.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(10) My son.--Properly, my own child, whom I have begotten in my bonds, Onesimus. The name is withheld, till Philemon's interest is doubly engaged, for one who is the Apostle's "own child" (a name of endearment given elsewhere only to Timothy and Titus), and for one who was begotten under the hardships and hindrances of imprisonment. At last the name is given, and even then comes, in the same breath, the declaration of the change in him from past uselessness to present usefulness, both to the Apostle and to his former master.Onesimus.--Of Onesimus we know absolutely nothing, except what we read here and in Colossians 4:9. Tradition, of course, is busy with his name, and makes him Bishop of Ber?a, in Macedonia, or identifies him with the Onesimus, Bishop of Ephesus, mentioned in the Ignatian Epistle to the Ephesians (Ephesians 1:2-6). The name was a common one, especially among slaves.