Galatians 4:18 - Exposition

But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you ( καλὸν δὲ ζηλοῦσθαι , [Receptus, τὸ ζηλοῦσθαι ] ἐν καλῷ παντότε καὶ μὴ μόνον ἐν τῷ παρεῖναί με πρὸς ὑμᾶς ); but good it is to be admired , in what is good , at all times and not only when I am present with you. That is, but as to being admired and felicitated, the good kind of admiring felicitation is that which, being tendered on a good account, is enjoyed at all times, and not only, my little children, when 1 am with you, as on that first occasion when you were so full of mutual felicitation and joy in the newly found sense of God's adoption and love in Christ Jesus. In signification, this ζηλοῦσθαι , to be admired, is equivalent to μακαρίζεσθαι , to be congratulated, and was illustrated in the first note on Galatians 4:17 , especially by the reference to Aristophanes, 'Nubes,' 1188. ζηλοῦσθαι ἐν τῷ παρεῖναι με πρὸς ὑμας , "to be objects of admiration when I am present with you," is manifestly a recital of the μακαρισμὸς ὑμῶν , "the gratulation of yourselves," of Galatians 4:15 . The vivid remembrance of the simple-hearted joy and frank sympathy with each other's happiness of those days comes back to the apostle's mind with fresh force, after his brief mention and rebuke of the false-hearted gratulations and compliments by which they were now in danger of being ensnared. With a gentle reprehension of their levity, in that they were now bartering that former well-founded happiness for this later poor gratification of being recipients of mere false flattery, he yearns to bring them back to what they were so senselessly casting away, and that they should hold it fast, a stable joy, whether he was with them or not. This would be the case if "Christ were truly formed in them." The phrase, ἐν καλῷ , "in what is good," is similar to ἐν κρυπτῷ ( John 7:4 ); ὁ ἐν τῷ φανερῷ ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ ἰουδαῖος ( Romans 2:28 , Romans 2:29 ). The sphere in which this admiring felicitation acts must be "what is good;" here that highest good which these Galatians were in danger of losing, if, indeed, they possessed it—being, and knowing themselves to be, sons of God. It is a doubtful point whether verse 19 should be conjoined with this present verse, with a colon between verses 19 and 20, and a comma only at the end of verse 18; or whether the sentences should be separated as they appear in our Authorized Version. But at all events, the earnest, anxious, tender affectionateness which, as it were, wrings the apostle's heart in writing verse 19, is to be felt already working in his soul in the writing of this eighteenth verse. The sense above given to the verb ζηλοῦν , though disallowed by Alford and Bishops Ellicott and Lightfoot, appears to be that recognized by the Greek commentators Chrysostom and Theophylact.