2nd Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 8 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. - With a letter; rather, with my Epistle. Probably the First Epistle, though some suppose that the allusion is to a lost intermediate letter. I do not repent, though I did repent; better, I do not regret it. Every one has experienced the anxiety which has followed the despatch of some painful letter. If it does good, well; but perhaps it may do harm. The severity was called for; it seemed a duty to write severely. But how will the rebuke be received? Might we not have done better if we had used language less uncompromisingly stern? As St. Paul thought with intense anxiety that perhaps in his zeal for truth he may have irrevocably alienated the feelings of the Corinthians, whom, with all their grave faults, he loved, a moment came when he actually regretted what he had written. He himself assures us that he had this feeling. Those who try all kinds of fantastic hypotheses and tortuous exegesis to explain away this phrase as though it were inconsistent with St. Paul's inspiration, go to Scripture to find there their own a priori dogmas, not to seek what Scripture really says. The doctrine of inspiration is not the fetish into which it has been degraded by formal systems of scholastic theology. Inspiration was not a mechanical dictation of words, but the influence of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of men who retained all their own natural emotions. For I perceive, etc. There are various ways of taking this clause. Nothing, however, is simpler than to regard it as a parenthetic remark (for I see that that Epistle, though it were but for a time, saddened you). Though it were but for a season. (For the phrase, see Philemon 1:15; Galatians 2:5.) He means to say that their grief will at any rate cease when they receive this letter, and he can bear the thought of having pained them when he remembers the brevity of their grief and the good effects which resulted from it.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) For though I made you sorry with a letter.--Better, For even if, and, as the Greek has the article, with my letter. This Titus had told him; and commonly to have caused pain to others would have been a source of grief to him, but he cannot bring himself now to say, I regret. (This is, perhaps, better than repent. On the words, see Notes on Matthew 21:29; Matthew 27:3.) He owns, however, that there had been a moment, either on first hearing of their grief or in his previous anxiety, when he had half regretted that he had written so strongly. Now he sees that that grief was but transient, and he trusts that the good wrought by it will be abiding.