2 Corinthians 11:22

Are they Hebrews? so am I: this would incline us to think, that some, at least, of those corrupt teachers, upon whom the apostle hath so much reflected, were Jews; who had endeavoured to corrupt the Gentile churches with their traditions, and imposing on them the ceremonial rites of the Jewish church. Others think otherwise, and that the words import no more than this; Do they glory in the antiquity of their stock and parentage, as descending from Abraham? I have as much upon that account to glory in as they; for although I was born, not in Judea, but in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, Acts 22:3, yet I was a Jew, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, Philippians 3:5. Are they Israelites? Will they derive from Jacob, to whom God gave the name of Israel, from whence all his posterity were called Israelites? So am I, (saith he), I can derive from Jacob as well as they. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I: will they glory in this, that they are the seed of Abraham? (this was a great boast of the Jews, as we learn from Matthew 3:9, and 1 Thessalonians 8:1); saith the apostle, I have on that account as much to glory in as they. Some here inquire: What difference there is in these three things? For to be a Hebrew, and an Israelite, and of the seed of Abraham, seem all to signify the same thing. Nor indeed have we any need to assign any difference, it seemeth to be but the same thing amplified in three phrases. But others distinguish more subtlely, and think the first may signify a glorying in the ancientness of their pedigree, or in their ability to speak in the Hebrew tongue; the second, may refer to the nation of which they were; the third, to the promise made to Abraham and his seed.