2 Timothy 1:15 - Exposition

That are for they which are, A.V.; turned for be turned , A.V.; Phygelus for Phygellus, A.V. and T.R. Turned away from ( ἀπεστράφησάν με ). This verb is used, as here, governing an accusative of the person or thing turned away from, in Titus 1:14 ; Hebrews 12:25 , as frequently in classical Greek. The use of the aorist here is important, as St. Paul does not mean to say that the Churches of Asia had all forsaken him, which was not true, and which it would be absurd to inform Timothy of if it were true, living as he was at Ephesus, the central city of Asia, but adverts to some occasion, probably connected with his trim before Nero, when they shrank from him in a cowardly way. πάντες οἱ ἐν τῆ ασίᾳ means "the whole party in Asia" connected with the particular transaction to which St. Paul is alluding, and which was known to Timothy though it is not known to us. Perhaps he had applied to certain Asiatics, whether Christians or Jews or GraecoRomans, for a testimony to his orderly conduct in Asia, and they had refused it; or they may have been at Rome at the time, and avoided St. Paul; and among them Phygelus and Hermogenes, whose conduct may have been particularly ungrateful and unexpected. Nothing is known of either of them.