Verse 15
15. Looking diligently The Greek might be rendered episcopizing; the word from which bishop is derived. Every Christian should be bishop in this respect, watching for the purity of the Church.
Root of bitterness Not a principle or an event, but a person, who springs up like a poisonous plant in a garden, and whose noxious quality is contagious. So Christ is beautifully called the “root of David;” and, in the Apocrypha, Antiochus Epiphanes is called “a sinful root.” But the allusion here is to Deuteronomy 29:18: “Lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood.”
Trouble By a curious coincidence the Greek words in Deuteronomy 29:18, “in gall,” εν χολη , are the same as this trouble, ενοχλη , with one letter transposed. This is, perhaps, a slight word-play by our author. The Alexandrian text of the Septuagint has more nearly the precise words of Paul, but Delitzsch thinks that text to have been changed into conformity with his words.
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