Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Corinthians 2:16

Of the three clauses of Isaiah 40:13, P. adopts in Romans 11:34 the 1James, 2 nd, here the 1James, 3 rd; in both instances from the LXX (which renders the Heb. freely), in both instances without the καθὼς γέγραπται of formal quotation. ὃς συνβιβάσει αὐτόν (qui instructurus sit eum, Bz [445] : on the rel [446] pron [447] with fut [448] ind [449] of contemplated result, see Krüger's Gr [450] Sprachl., I., § 53, 7, Anm. 8; Bn [451], § 318) indicates the Divine superiority to creaturely correction, which justifies the enormous claim of 1 Corinthians 2:15 b. Συνβιβάζω means (1) to bring together, combine (Colossians 2:2, etc.); (2) to compare, gather, prove by putting things together (Acts 16:10); (3) widened in later Gr [452] to the sense to teach, instruct. The prophet pointed in evidence of God's incomparable wisdom and power to the vastness of creation, wherein lie unimaginable resources for Israel's redemption, that forbid despair. Here too the νοῦς in question is God's infinite wisdom, directing man's salvation through inscrutable ways (1 Corinthians 2:6-9); but the Apostle's contention is that this “mind” inspires the organs of revelation (1 Corinthians 2:10 ff.), and its superiority to the judgment of the world is relatively also theirs (1 Corinthians 2:14 ff.). Paul translates the νοῦν Κυρίου of Isaiah into his own νοῦν Χριστοῦ; to him these minds are identical (cf. Matthew 11:27; John 5:20, etc.). Such interchanges betray his “innermost conviction of the Godhead of Christ” (El [453]). νοῦς serves his turn better than the literal πνεῦμα of the original (ruach); the intellectual side of the πνεῦμα is concerned, the θεῖον ὄμμα (see note on νοῦς, 1 Corinthians 1:10). For the emphatic ἡμεῖς, cf. 1 Corinthians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 2:12, and notes; for the anarthrous nouns, note on 1 Corinthians 2:4; νοῦν Χ. is quasi-predicative “it is Christ's mind no other that we have”. ἔχομεν is not to be softened into perspectam habemus, novimus (Gr [454]): Christ lives and thinks in the πνευματικός (1 Corinthians 6:17; 2 Corinthians 13:3 ff., etc.; John 15:1-8); the unio mystica is the heart of Paul's experience.

[445] Beza's Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).

[446] relative pronoun.

[447]ron. pronoun.

[448] future tense.

[449] indicative mood.

[450] Greek, or Grotius' Annotationes in N.T.

[451] E. Burton's Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in the N.T. (1894).

[452] Greek, or Grotius' Annotationes in N.T.

[453] C. J. Ellicott's St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.

[454] Greek, or Grotius' Annotationes in N.T.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

1 Corinthians 2:16

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