Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 2:12

Ἰακώβου. Any visitors from the Church of Jerusalem might perhaps be said to come from James, who was its permanent head; but these brethren appear to have been in special sympathy with James in regard to their strict observance of the Law, and the respect paid by Peter to their opinion suggests that they were representative men, probably deputed for some purpose by their Church. There is, however, no reason to conclude that James prompted or approved the intrigue against Gentile freedom at Antioch. Scrupulous as he was about observing the Law, he had taken a leading part at Jerusalem in shaping the recent contract with their Gentile brethren, and was the last man to sanction an evasion of its terms.

The imperfect tenses ὑπέστελλεν, ἀφώριζεν give a graphic picture of Peter's irresolute and tentative efforts to withdraw gradually from an intercourse that gave offence to the visitors. τ. ἐκ περιτομῆς. The omission of τῆς before περιτομῆς is conclusive against the rendering of our versions, them … of the circumcision. For περιτομή without an article does not denote the body of men, but the rite. By τ. ἐκ περιτομῆς are meant the party who based their faith on circumcision, and made that the charter of God's covenant rather than baptism, and not the Jewish Christians in general. It is clear from the context that the Circumcision as a body did eat with their brethren until Peter set the example of withdrawal through fear of this determined minority of partisans. In Acts 11:2 the phrase obviously singles out a particular party who pressed the claims of circumcision in an assembly consisting wholly of circumcised men. In Acts 10:45 οἱ ἐκ π. πιστοί distinguishes those who believed after circumcision from the uncircumcised who believed; and in Colossians 4:11 οἱ ὄντες ἐκ π. οὗτοι μόνοι συνεργοί designates those men who were my only fellow-workers after circumcision. (For the force of the elliptical phrase οἱ ἐκ cf. Galatians 3:7; Galatians 3:9; Romans 4:14.)

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Galatians 2:12

Old Testament

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