2 Corinthians 11:20

ἀνέχεσθε γάρ. ‘Am I not right in saying that in your sublime wisdom you can be serenely tolerant of folly? For you put up with what is a great deal more intolerable than folly. You put up with tyranny, with extortion, with craftiness, with arrogance, with violence and insult. All this you bear with from my opponents. Surely you can bear with a little folly from me.’

καταδουλοῖ. ‘Reduce to abject slavery,’ as in Galatians 2:4, the only other passage in which the compound is found in the N.T. Comp. Jeremiah 15:4. Elsewhere in the LXX. we have the middle (Exodus 1:14; Ezekiel 29:18; &c.), which is more common in classical Greek, and might have been expected here. But perhaps S. Paul means that these false apostles were bringing the Corinthians into bondage, not to themselves, but to the yoke of the Law. So in Galatians 2:4, where see Lightfoot. Comp. ἀρίστων ἁνδρῶν πατρίδα ἐλευθερούντων, Δολοβέλλα δὲ αὐτὴν καταδουλοῦτος ἑτέροις (Appian, B.C. IV. ix. 69).

κατεσθίει. As in Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47, this probably refers to the avarice of the Judaizers in getting all that they could out of the Corinthians. For illustrations see Wetstein ad loc. and Matthew 23:14. Comp. Galatians 5:15 and οἱ κατέσθοντες τὸν λαόν μου (Psalms 13:4). In Isaiah 9:15 καταπίνειν is used in a similar way; πλανῶσιν ὅπως καταπίνωσιν αὐτούς: comp. Ps. 34:25, 123:3.

λαμβάνει. Taketh you, i.e. in a snare, ‘catcheth you’: comp. δόλῳ ὑμᾶς ἔλαβον (2 Corinthians 12:16); οὐδὲν ἐλάβομεν (Luke 5:5). This interpretation harmonizes with ἐργάται δόλιοι (2 Corinthians 11:13). ‘Take of you’ (A.V.), si quis stipendium accipit (Beza), is a bathos after ‘devour you.’

ἐπαίρεται. Uplifteth himself: see on 2 Corinthians 10:5. ‘Exalt’ should be kept for ὑψόω (2 Corinthians 11:10). The Judaizing leaders would be likely fastu efferri: comp. 2 Corinthians 3:1; 2 Corinthians 10:12.

εἰς πρόσωπον ὑμᾶς δέρει. This may be metaphorical for violent and insulting treatment (Matthew 5:39). But such an outrage may actually have occurred (Mark 14:65; Acts 23:2). S. Paul thought it necessary to direct both Timothy and Titus that a bishop must not be a ‘striker’ (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7). For the rhetorical repetition of εἰ comp. 1 Timothy 5:10 : for the asyndeton comp. 2 Corinthians 11:13; 2 Corinthians 12:10.