2nd Timothy Chapter 2 verse 17 Holy Bible
and their word will eat as doth a gangrene: or whom is Hymenaeus an Philetus;
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And their words will be like poisoned wounds in the flesh: such are Hymenaeus and Philetus;
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and their word will spread as a gangrene; of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
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And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
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and their word will consume like gangrene, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
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and their word as a gangrene will have pasture, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus,
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 17. - Gangrene for canker, A.V. Their word; as opposed to "the Word of truth" in ver. 15. Will eat (νομὴν ἕξει); i.e. spread, like a gangrene, which gradually enlarges its area, corrupting the flesh that was sound before. So these heretical opinions spread in the body of the Church which is affected by them. Νομή is literally "pasture" (John 10:9), "grazing of flocks," and hence is applied to fire (Polybius), which as it were feeds upon all around it, and, in medical language (Hippocrates), to sores and gangrenes, which grow larger and depasture the flesh. Of whom; of the number of those pointed at in the phrase, "their word." Hymenaeus; probably the same person as is mentioned as a blasphemer in 1 Timothy 1:20. Philetus. Nothing is known of him.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(17) And their word will eat as doth a canker.--Better rendered, as in the margin of the English translation, as doth a gangrene, the usual rendering of the various English versions. "Cancer," which is adopted also by Luther--krebs--fails to express the terrible and deathly nature of the "word" of these false teachers. The life of the sufferer afflicted with cancer may be prolonged for many years; a few hours, however, is sufficient to put a term to the life of the patient attacked with "gangrene," unless the limb affected be at once cut away. To translate this Greek word here by "cancer" is to water down the original, in which St. Paul expresses his dread of the fatal influence of the words of these teachers on the lives of many of the flock of Christ. Perhaps Jerome's words, "a perverse doctrine, beginning with one, at the commencement scarcely finds two or three listeners; but little by little the cancer creeps through the body" (Jerome. in Epist. ad Gal.), has suggested the rendering of the English Version.Of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus.--Of these false teachers nothing is known beyond the mention, in the First Epistle to Timothy, of Hymenaeus, who, regardless of the severe action which had been taken against him (1Timothy 1:20), was apparently still continuing in his error. Vitringa thinks they were Jews, and probably Samaritans. Their names are simply given as examples of the teachers of error to whom St. Paul was referring--famous leaders, no doubt, in their cheerless school of doctrine.
