2Cor 7:2-4 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 2 Receive us - Χωρησατε ἡμας. This address is variously understood. Receive us into your affections - love us as we love you. Receive us as your apostles and teachers; we have given you full proof that God hath both sent and owned us. Receive, comprehend, what we now say to you, and carefully mark it. We have wronged no man - We have never acted contrary to the strictest justice. We have corrupted no man - With any false doctrine or pernicious opinion. We have defrauded no man - Of any part of his property. But what have your false teachers done? They have beguiled you from the simplicity of the truth, and thus corrupted your minds. . They have brought you into bondage; they have taken of you; devoured you; exalted themselves against you, and ye have patiently suffered all this. . It is plain that he refers here to the false apostle or teacher which they had among them.

2 Corinthians 7:2-4

Verse 2

Receive us - Χωρησατε ἡμας. This address is variously understood. Receive us into your affections - love us as we love you. Receive us as your apostles and teachers; we have given you full proof that God hath both sent and owned us. Receive, comprehend, what we now say to you, and carefully mark it.

We have wronged no man - We have never acted contrary to the strictest justice.

We have corrupted no man - With any false doctrine or pernicious opinion.

We have defrauded no man - Of any part of his property. But what have your false teachers done? They have beguiled you from the simplicity of the truth, and thus corrupted your minds. 2Cor 11:3. They have brought you into bondage; they have taken of you; devoured you; exalted themselves against you, and ye have patiently suffered all this. 2Cor 11:20. It is plain that he refers here to the false apostle or teacher which they had among them. Verse 3

I speak not this to condemn you - I do not speak to reproach but to correct you. I wish you to open your eyes and see how you are corrupted, spoiled, and impoverished by those whom ye have incautiously preferred to the true apostles of Jesus Christ.

I have said before, that ye are in our hearts - He has in effect and substance said this, 2Cor 1:6-8 (note); 2Cor 2:4 (note), 2Cor 2:12 (note); 2Cor 3:2 (note), and 2Cor 3:13 (note); where see the passages at length, and the notes.

To die and live with you - An expression which points out the strongest affection, as in cases where love blinds us to the faults of those whom we love, and causes us to prefer them to all others; like that in Horace: -

Quanquam sidere pulchrior llle est, tu levior cortice, et improbo

Iracundior Adria.

Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam tibens.

Odar. lib. iii. Od. ix. ver. 21. "Though he exceed in beauty far

The rising lustre of a star;

Though light as cork thy fancy strays,

Thy passions wild as angry seas

When vex'd with storms; yet gladly I

With thee would live, with thee would die."

Francis.

From all appearance there never was a Church less worthy of an apostle's affections than this Church was at this time; and yet no one ever more beloved. The above quotation applies to this case in full force. Verse 4

Great is my boldness of speech - He seems to refer to the manner in which he spoke of them to others.

Great is my glorying of you - They had probably been very loving and affectionate previously to the time in which they were perverted by their false apostle. He therefore had boasted of them in all the Churches.

I am filled with comfort - My affection for you has still the most powerful ascendancy in my soul. Here we may see the affection of the most tender father to his children.

I am exceeding joyful - Ὑπερπερισσευομαι· I superabound in joy; I have a joy beyond expression. Ὑπερπερισσευω is an extremely rare verb. I have not met with it in any Greek author; and it occurs no where in the New Testament but here and in Rom 5:20.

In all our tribulation - Perhaps επι here should be rendered under instead of in, as it signifies, Mar 2:26; Luk 3:2; Act 11:28. Under all our tribulations, I feel inexpressible joy on your account.