2 Corinthians 2:14

2 Corinthians 2:14. But thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. The objections made to this sense are considered in the footnote. [1] Beyond all doubt, what immediately follows agrees best with the causative sense of the word here used, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. ‘Though as good soldiers of Jesus Christ we seemed to be almost everywhere victorious, we feared greatly that Corinth, apparently our most wonderful triumph, was to prove a sad exception; but, blessed be God, it has not been so, but “in every place” even there He makes the sweet savour of the knowledge of Him in Christ, diffused through us, to go up as that of the offering up of an acceptable sacrifice.'

[1] According to the classical usage of the word, the true rendering of this clause is, ‘who triumphs over us,' or ‘leads us in triumph;' and some of the best interp reters think themselves bound so to interpret it, understanding the apostle to mean that God had so subdued his anxieties and fears as to make him feel as one conquered and carried in triumph as a captive. But this is so very unnatural (not-withstanding Meyer's elaborate attempt to represent it as natural), that others in view of the obvious allusion to the Roman triumphs granted to distinguished conquerors to enter Rome with their captives in chains think that the victors as well as the vanquished were regarded as led home thus. But there are two fatal objections to this: (1) It is not according to the classical use of the Greek word, any more than that of the Authorised Version; (2) while it yields the same sense as our own version, it does so in a way not at all natural. It only remains to take the word here in a factitive or causative sense, as Meyer admits that in a number of passages in the LXX. and the New Testament words of that termination are used. (See Winer, Lexical Peculiarities, sec II. b.; Grimm, Lex, Nov. Test. sub voce; Lidd. and Sc.) The instincts of some of the Greek interpreters have led them to substantially the same result.