Galatians 4:16 - Exposition

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? [ ὥστε ἐχθρὸς ὑμῶν γέγονα ἀληθεύων ὑμῖν ;]; so then , am I become your enemy , because I deal with you according to truth ? This is a wailing remonstrance against an apprehended incipient state of alienation. "So then," ὥστε (see note on Galatians 4:7 ), occurs repeatedly before an imperative; as 1 Corinthians 3:21 ; 1 Corinthians 4:5 ; 1 Corinthians 10:12 ; Philippians 2:12 ; Philippians 4:1 ; James 1:19 ; here only before a question. Its consecutive import here lies in the essential identification between their attachment to St. Paul and their allegiance to the pure gospel. If they forsook the gospel, their heart was gone from him. Naturally also their incipient defection from tile truth was accompanied by a jealousy on their part hew he would regard them, and by a preparedness to listen to those who spoke of him, as Judaizers everywhere did, with disparagement and dislike. No doubt the accounts which had just reached him of the symptoms showing themselves among them of defection from the gospel, and which prompted the immediate despatch of this Epistle, had informed him also of symptoms of a commencing aversation from himself. The construction of γέγονα with ἀληθεύων is similar to that of γέγονα ἄφρων with καυχώμενος in the Textus Receptus of 2 Corinthians 12:11 , which is perfectly good Greek, even though the word καυχώμενος must be removed from the text as not genuine. The verb "I am become" describes the now produced result of the action expressed by the participle ἀληθεύων , "dealing according to truth"—an action which has been continuous to the present hour and is still going on. If the apostle were referring only to something which had taken place at his second visit, he would have probably used different tenses; either, perhaps, ἐχθρὸς ὑμῶν ἐγευόμην ἀληθεύων —compare φανῃ ... κατεργαζομένη in Romans 7:13 (or with a contemporaneous aorist participle, ἀληθεύσας ); or , ἐχθρὸς ὑμῶν γέγονα ἀληθεύσας , like εἶναι μοιχαλίδα γενομένην ἀνδρὶ ἑτέρῳ in Romans 7:3 . As it stands, " dealing with you according to truth" ( ἀλήθεύων ὑμῖν ) expresses the apostle's continuous declaration of the gospel, and his never-flinching ins]stance upon the mortal danger of defection from it (see Galatians 1:9 , προειρήκαμεν ); and "I am become your enemy" points to the result now manifesting itself from this steadfast attitude of his, in consequence of their consciousness of meriting his disapproval. The verb ἀληθεύω occurs only once in the Septuagint—in Genesis 42:16 , εἰ ἀληθεύετε ἢου) , "Whether there be any truth in you" (Authorized Version and Hebrew); and once besides in the New Testament—in Ephesians 4:15 , ἀληθεύοντες ἐν ἀγάπῃ , where the verb denotes, apparently, not merely being truthful in speech, but the whole habit of addiction both to uprightness and to God's known truth; for we can hardly leave out of our view this latter idea, when we consider how frequently the apostle designates the gospel by the term "the truth" ( 2 Corinthians 4:2 ; 2 Corinthians 6:7 ; 2 Corinthians 13:8 ; Galatians 3:1 ; Ephesians 1:13 ; 2 Thessalonians 2:10 , 2 Thessalonians 2:12 , 2 Thessalonians 2:13 ; 1 Timothy 2:4 ). "Enemy" is either one regarded as adopting a hostile position to them, or one viewed with hostile feeling by them, which latter is its sense in Romans 11:28 ; 2 Thessalonians 3:15 . The above exposition of the import of this verse is confirmed by the consideration that the Epistle affords no trace of the apostle's relations with the Galatian converts having been other than mutually friendly at even his second visit to them. This fact is implied in 2 Thessalonians 3:12 , and Galatians 1:9 furnishes no evidence to the contrary; for those warnings may have been uttered in his first visit as well as in his second, without occasioning or being occasioned by any want of mutual confidence. This view of their mutual relations is confirmed likewise by the feelings of indignant astonishment with which evidently the apostle took up his pen to address them in this letter: the tidings which had just reached him had been a painful surprise to him.