2 Corinthians 7:12 - Exposition

Wherefore, though I wrote unto you. "So then, even if I did write you," namely, about that matter. For his cause that had done the wrong, etc. My object in writing was not to mix myself up with the personal quarrel. I had in view neither the wronger nor the wronged, directly and primarily, but wrote for the sake of the whole Church ( 1 Corinthians 5:1 , 1 Corinthians 5:2 ; 1 Corinthians 6:7 ). Nor for his cause that suffered wrong. Apparently the father of the offender ( 1 Corinthians 5:1 ). Our care for you, etc. Among the diversity of readings in this clause, which seem to be still further confused by mere mistakes of copyists, the best supported reading is "your care for us" (B, C, E, K, L, and various versions, etc.). The Sinaitic manuscript has "your care for yourselves." The variations have partly risen from the apparent strangeness of the remark that his letter had been written in order that their care for him might be manifested to themselves; in other words, that they might learn from their own conduct the reality of their earnest feelings for him. He has already spoken of this "earnest care" of theirs ( 2 Corinthians 7:11 ), but not in quite the same sense. Certainly, however, the reading followed by our Authorized Version, even if it be a correction, furnishes a more natural meaning, and the other may have arisen from a clerical error.