[138] The rendering of the R.V. margin is that of all the Greek interpreters, and of Meyer, Lightfoot, Beet, and the strict grammatical commentators amongst the moderns. The form and usage of the verb do not allow of any other. Apart from its unseemliness, the expression is powerfully appropriate. This condemnation of the Old-Testament sacrament is not more severe than the language of Isa. lxvi. 3: "He that slaughtereth an ox is a man-slayer, he that bringeth a meal-offering—it is swine's blood."
[139] The construction of ch. vi. 16; Rom. iv. 12; Phil. iii. 16, is not strictly analogous.
[140] Comp. Jas. iv. 5: "The Spirit which He made to dwell in us, yearneth even unto jealous envy" (R. V. margin); also the double use of ζηλόω in ch. iv. 17, 18 (Chapter XVIII, pp. 279, 280.).
[141] See Rom. vi. 6, 12; vii. 4, 5, 23, 24; viii. 10-13; Col. ii. 11-13; iii. 5.
[142] Comp., 1 Tim. ii. 13-15: saved through the childbearing—i.e., surely, the bearing of the Child Jesus, the seed of the woman.
[143] For this pregnant force of έν see the grammarians: Moulton's Winer, pp. 514, 5; A. Buttmann, pp. 328, 9. (Eng. Ver.).
[144] 1 Tim. ii. 14: the expression is parallel in point of grammar, as well as sense; γέγονεν έν παραβάσει.
[145] 1 Cor. iv. 1-5; 2 Cor. i. 12; v. 10-12.
[146] See 2 Thess. iii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. xvi. 21-23. In ver. 22 of the latter passage we can trace a similar autographic message, on a smaller scale. Comp. also Philemon 19.
[147] ὁι περιτεμνόμενοι (Revised Text). On this idiom, see Winer's Grammar, p. 444; A. Buttmann's N. T. Grammar, p. 296. In ch. i. 23, and in ii. 2 (τ. δοκοῦσι), we have had instances of this usage.