2 Corinthians 9:5 - Exposition

That they would go before unto you. The triple repetition of the word "before" shows how earnest St. Paul is in the matter. The Corinthians had promised largely; it was evident that there had been, or that there was ground for fearing that there might be, some slackness of performance. St. Paul was so unwilling to have seemed inaccurate in what, he had said about them in Macedonia that he wished to give them ample notice before the Macedonian delegates arrived. Your bounty, whereof ye had notice before; your previously promised blessing, bounty; literally, blessing . The mere word should have acted as an inducement to generosity. See the use of the word to express a generous gift in Genesis 33:11 ; 1:15 , etc. ( LXX .); Ephesians 1:3 . In this sense it resembles the Hebrew berachah ( Joshua 15:19 , etc.). As a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness; as a blessing, and not as an extortion; i.e. as a free gift of your own, and not as something which I had wrung from you, or "got out of you" ( 2 Corinthians 7:2 ; 2 Corinthians 12:17 , 2 Corinthians 12:18 ). It is less likely that the word pleonexia refers to the "parsimony" of the Corinthians, as though the smallness of their gift would show their greed for large gains.