Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

2 Timothy 4:17

ἀκούσωσιν. The rec. text has ἀκούσῃ with KL.

17. ὁ δὲ κύριός μοι παρέστη, but, in contrast to man’s unfaithfulness, the Lord, sc. Christ, stood by me.

καὶ ἐνεδυνάμωσέν με, and strengthened me. See, for St Paul’s use of this verb, the note on 1 Timothy 1:12.

ἵνα διʼ ἐμοῦ τὸ κήρυγμα πληροφορηθῇ, in order that by me the preaching, sc. of the Gospel, might be fulfilled. For πληροφορέω see on 2 Timothy 4:5 above; its force here is not ‘be fully known,’ as the A.V. has it, but ‘be fully performed, completed, fulfilled.’ How this was true is explained by the next clause καὶ�. The opportunity given to St Paul of pleading his cause in the official centre of Rome, the mistress of the nations, was in a sense the ‘fulfilling’ of the preaching of the Gospel. For ἀκούσωσιν (certainly the right reading) see the crit. note.

καὶ ἐρύσθην ἐκ στόματος λέοντος, and I was rescued out of the mouth of the lion. That is, a verdict of non liquet was returned at the prima actio, and Paul was respited for the time. The phrase is evidently borrowed from the Greek Bible; it was said, e.g., of Daniel that he was rescued ἐκ στόματος τῶν λεόντων; cp. also Psalms 22 (21):21; Daniel 6:20. But interpreters have been anxious to find a more definite allusion in the words ἐκ στόματος λέοντος. Thus (a) the λέων has been understood to be the lion of the amphitheatre to whom the martyrs were thrown. The cry Christianos ad leonem rises to one’s thoughts. But, after all, this was not the death with which St Paul was threatened, as the sequel proved. (b) The Greek commentators generally understand the λέων to be Nero, and if St Paul’s trial really took place before that Emperor (for we have no certainty that Nero was in Rome at this moment), this would give a vivid meaning to ἐκ στόματος λέοντος. A parallel is found in Josephus, where the death of Tiberius is announced to Agrippa in the words τέθνηκεν ὁ λέων (Antt. XVIII. 6. 10). But the absence of the article here before λέοντος makes this explanation very improbable. (c) The lion has been identified with Satan. Paul did not yield to weakness or betray the faith at the supreme moment of his trial, and he is thus said to have been rescued from the mouth of the lion, sc. the great ἀντίδικος, the devil, who is ὡς λέων ὠρυόμενος (1 Peter 5:8). And the fact that there are apparent reminiscences of the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer in 2 Timothy 4:18 gives a certain attractiveness to the identification in 2 Timothy 4:17 of the lion out of whose mouth Paul was delivered with the πονηρός, the Evil One. Again, however, the absence of the definite article before λέοντος is a difficulty. We are inclined therefore, on the whole, to take the phrase ῥύεσθαι ἐκ στόματος λέοντος as almost proverbial, as expressive of deliverance out of imminent and deadly peril, such as Daniel’s story records; and there is thus no place for the identification of the λέων with any individual adversary, human or diabolical.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

2 Timothy 4:17

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