2 Corinthians 11:9 - Exposition

And wanted. The aorist shows that this sad condition of extreme poverty was a crisis rather than chronic. Yet even at that supreme moment of trial, when from illness or accident the scanty income of his trade failed him, he would not tell them that he was starving, but rather accepted help from the Philippians, who, as he knew, felt for him an unfeigned affection. It is needless to point out once more how strong is the argument in favour of the genuineness of the Acts and the Epistles from the numberless undesigned coincidences between them in such passages as those to which I have referred in the foregoing notes. I was chargeable to no man; literally, I did not benumb you . The word katenarkesa, which occurs only here and in 2 Corinthians 12:13 , 2 Corinthians 12:14 , is ranked by St. Jerome among St. Paul's cilicisms, i.e. the provincial expressions which he picked up during his long residence at Tarsus. Narke (whence our narcissus and narcotie ) means "paralysis," and is also the name given to the gymnotus, or electric eel—in Latin, torpedo, the cramp-fish—which benumbs with the shock of its touch. "I did not," he indignantly says, "cramp you with my torpedo touch." Perhaps in a less vehement mood he would have chosen a less picturesque or technical and medical term. That which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied; rather, for the brethren, on their arrival from Macedonia; filled up my deficiency . This must have been the third present which St. Paul received from Philippi ( Philippians 4:15 , Philippians 4:16 ). These brethren from Macedonia accompanied Silas and Timotheus ( Acts 18:5 ). And so will I keep myself ( 2 Corinthians 12:14 ).