Ver. 16. To add affliction to my bonds.—“To make my chains gall me,” Lightfoot strikingly translates. One can almost imagine St. Paul starting up, and straining at the wrist of the soldier to whom he was chained as he hears of the intrigues of a party whose one object it was to impose an effete ritual on men called to liberty in Christ.

Ver. 17. For the defence of the gospel.—Many a man in the apostle’s place would have found himself absorbed by the question how best to make a good defence of himself.

Ver. 18. Whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached.—St. Paul evidently thinks the imperfect knowledge of Christ preferable to heathen ignorance of Him. The truth is mighty enough to take care of itself, without any hand that shakes with nervous apprehension to steady its ark. St. Paul is beforehand with our method of keeping a subject before the notice of the public. The policy of “never mentioning” was what St. Paul regarded as fatal.

Ver. 19. This shall turn to my salvation.—“Salvation in the highest sense. These trials will develop the spiritual life in the apostle, will be a pathway to the glories of heaven” (Lightfoot). Meyer prefers to render “will be salutary for me,” without any more precise modal definition. Supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.—“The Spirit of Jesus is both the giver and the gift” (Lightfoot).

Ver. 20. Earnest expectation.—Same word again in Rom. viii. 19 (not again in New Testament). “It is the waiting expectation that continues on the strain till the goal is attained” (Meyer). The intensive in the compound word implies abstraction from other things through intentness on one. Put to shame.—As a man might be who felt his cause not worth pleading, or as one overawed by an august presence. With all boldness, i.e. of speech. A man overpowered by shame loses the power of speech (see Matt. xxii. 12).

Ver. 21. For me to live is Christ.—The word of emphasis is to me, whatever it may be to others. If this be not the finest specimen of a surrendered soul, one may seek long for that which excels it. That life should be intolerable, nay inconceivable, except as the ego merges into Christ’s; this is the sanest and most blessed unio mystica (Gal. ii. 20). And to die is gain.—It is the purely personal view—“to me”—which the apostle has before him. “The spirit that denies” says, that when all that a man hath has been bartered for life, he will think himself gainer. “More life and fuller” is what St. Paul sees through the sombre corridor. It is not simply the oblivious repose where “the wicked cease from troubling” that he yearns for. Nor is it a philosophical Nirvâna.

“For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey
This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned?”

Ver. 22. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour (see R.V.).—“The grammar of the passage reflects the conflict of feeling in the apostle’s mind. He is tossed to and fro between the desire to labour for Christ in life and the desire to be united with Christ by death. The abrupt and disjointed sentences express this hesitation” (Lightfoot).

Ver. 23. I am in a strait betwixt two.—I am laid hold of by two forces drawing in opposite directions. “Desire” draws me away from earth; your “necessity” would keep me in it. As in the old mythology everything bowed before Necessity (ἀνάγκη), so here the apostle’s desire is held in check by the needs of his converts. To depart.—As a ship weighs anchor and glides out with set sails, or as a tent is struck by the Arabs as they noiselessly steal away. To be with Christ.—St. Paul regards the soul, whilst in the body, as a “settler” in a land of which he is not a native, an “emigrant” from other shores. But he would rather emigrate from the land of his sojourn and settle with the Lord (2 Cor. v. 6, 8). “We come from God who is our home.” “As soon as I shall have taken the poison I shall stay no longer with you, but shall part from hence, and go to enjoy the felicity of the blessed” (Socrates to Crito). Which is far better.—R.V. “very far.” How far from uncertainty is the eager estimate of the life with Christ! It is one thing to extol the superiority of the life away from the flesh in a Christian hymn, whilst health is robust; it is quite a different matter to covet it with the sword of martyrdom hanging over one’s head.

Ver. 25. I know that I shall abide.—Not a prophetic inspiration, but a personal conviction (Acts xx. 25).