Galatians 2:13 - Exposition

And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him ( καὶ συνοπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ ἰουδαῖοι ); and the rest of the Jews dissembled likewise with him. "The Jews," i.e. the Christian Jews who were at Antioch before these brethren "from James" arrived there, and who, as Cephas had done till their coming, associated quite frankly with the Gentile Christians. "Dissembled with him;" they as well as he acted in a manner which did not faithfully represent their own inward man. They were, in reality, convinced that Christ had made all those who believed in him alike righteous before God with themselves, and alike meet to be admitted to Christian fellowship. But now, by practically siding with those who treated their Gentile brethren as more or less unclean, not fit for them to associate with, they disguised their real sentiments from "fear' of forfeiting the confidence and good will of those narrow-minded Jews. The apostle brands their behaviour as "dissimulation" or "hypocrisy," because their motive was a deceitful one. They, though, no doubt, in a degree unconsciously, wished to make those newly arrived Jews suppose that they themselves did at bottom feel as they did as to a certain measure of uncleanness attaching even to the believing uncircumcision. Insomuch that Barnabas also ( ὥστε καὶ βαρνάβας ); so that even Barnabas. The last man from whom such conduct could have been expected! The expression shows how deeply the apostle felt Barnabas to have hitherto sympathized with himself with regard to Gentile believers; as, indeed, the history of the Acts proves, beginning with Acts 11:21-26 to Acts 15:12 , Acts 15:25 . Further, the tone of this reference to him, written three or four years after the occasion spoken of, as well as of that which he makes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians ( 1 Corinthians 9:6 ), written at nearly the same time as this Epistle to the Galatians, shows in the most natural manner the high and cordial esteem with which he then regarded him, notwithstanding the unhappy variance which sprang up between them soon after the circumstances here mentioned. Again, years later on, he commends Mark to the consideration of the Colossians ( Colossians 4:10 ), as being a cousin of Barnabas's, this giving him a high title to their respect. Obviously, the disapproval which St. Paul so openly expressed at Antioch of the behaviour of St. Peter and those who acted as he did, Barnabas, it seems, being one of them, helps to explain the sharpness of his subsequent difference with Barnabas concerning Mark. If St. Paul now, so long after the occurrence, does not hesitate in calm relation to brand the conduct of the party with the stern censure of "hypocrisy," it is not likely that he denounced it with less severity at the time in the excitement of actual conflict. How sharply and unsparingly he could on occasion express himself, his Epistles elsewhere very abundantly exemplify; and such vehement censure, so publicly expressed, and, which made it so especially cutting, so justly deserved, might well leave a sore feeling in the mind of the whole Judaic party, including even Barnabas, making the latter but too ready to Lake umbrage when the apostle insisted, with apparently again so much justice, upon the want which Mark had evinced of thoroughgoing sympathy with the work of evangelizing the Gentiles. This last was, in fact, a continuation of the conflict waged with Cephas probably but a short while before. On this point the Acts and the Epistles sustain each other. Was carried away with their dissimulation ( συναπήχθη αὐτῶν τῇ ὑποκρίσει ); or, with the hypocrisy of them. The position of αὐτῶν ("of them") is emphatic. St. Paul means that, if it had not been for their hypocrisy, Barnabas would never have fallen into so grievous a mistake in conduct himself. The construction of the verb συναπάγομαι here is the same as in 2 Peter 3:17 ; the dative which follows in each case being governed by the σὺν in the verb: "their dissimulation" was as it were a mighty torrent which swept even Barnabas away with it.