1 Thessalonians 2:8

ομειρομενοι, in all uncials and many minuscc. Theophylact writes, τινες δε ιμειρομενοι ανεγνωσαν, αντι του επιθυμουντες· ουκ εστι δε. WH (see Appendix, p. 144) give ομειρομενοι the smooth breathing; other editors have written it with the rough breathing, following the erroneous derivation from ομου and ειρομαι. In all likelihood, as WH suggest, this form was a local or vernacular variation of ιμειρομενοι, which later copyists substituted for the almost unexampled form in ο-. See Expository Note.

γεγενησθε (for εγενηθητε): K, and most minuscc.—a Syrian emendation, due seemingly to reading ευδοκουμεν as present instead of imperfect (see Expository Note); so the latter verb is rendered in deg, Ambrst (cupimus), Aug (placet). ηυδοκουμεν is actually read here in B; f vg give volebamus; cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:1, and note on ηυδοκησαμεν.

μαρτυρουμενοι (for -ομενοι): so T.R., after D*G 37 and other inferior minn. (but not in HKL Chr—Syrian); a bad Western corruption.

8. The figure of 1 Thessalonians 2:7 c, while it looks back to νήπιοι (ἤπιοι), in its turn suggests another side of the relation of the Apostles to their converts: they had been as nursing mothers to their spiritual children not only in homely simplicity (or gentleness), but in self-devotion:—

ὡς … τροφὸς … οὕτως ὀμειρόμενοι ὑμῶν, (like a nurse) … so tenderly yearning over you. Ὀμείρομαι, a hap. leg. in Greek—except that it occurs as a varia lectio in Job 3:21 (LXX) and in Psalms 62:2 (Symmachus)—is taken to be an obscure dialectic variation of ἱμείρομαι, a verb common in poetry from Homer downwards (not extant in Attic prose), which is spelt also by Nicander (c. 160 b.c.) μείρομαι. As a verb of feeling, it is construed with genitive of the object. Ἱμείρομαι describes in Odyss. i. 41 Odysseus’ yearning for his native land; in classical Greek it implies absence of the beloved object, like ἐπιποθέω in 1 Thessalonians 3:6 below; otherwise here,—ἐνταῦθα τὴν φιλοστοργίαν δείκνυσι (Chrys.). On the spiritus (asper or lenis?), see Textual Note.

ηὐδοκοῦμεν μεταδοῦναι ὑμῖν κ.τ.λ. We were well-pleased (or thought good) to impart to you not only the Good News of God, but also our own souls. Ηὐδοκοῦμεν implies not something that the Apostles were willing to do (A.V.), or would have done if occasion had arisen—as though they had written ηὐδοκοῦμεν (or ηὐδοκήσαμεν) ἄν—but what they actually did with hearty good-will: so εὐδοκέω with the infinitive in 1 Thessalonians 3:1; cf. Romans 15:26; 1 Corinthians 1:21; Galatians 1:15; Colossians 1:19; Luke 12:32. The idea is not that the missionaries were ready to lay down their lives for their converts—as though the words were δοῦναι, or θεῖναι, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν τὰς ψυχάς (cf. Mark 10:45; Galatians 1:4; 1 John 3:16)—but that they gladly communicated (μετα-δοῦναι; cf. Romans 1:11) their very selves to them,—in other words, they gave with their message the best and utmost that was in them, for the reason that (διότι) the Thessalonians had grown (ἐγενήθητε) dear to them.

On ψυχή, see note to 1 Thessalonians 5:23. It denotes the personality, the living self (hence plural, as including the three), and is synonymous with καρδία (1 Thessalonians 2:4, see note); καρδία is the inner man by contrast with the outer, while ψυχή is the man himself as feeling and acting through the outer organs, the soul within the body: cf. Colossians 3:23; Luke 12:19; Luke 12:22 f.; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 2:11. St Paul and his fellows imparted themselves to this Church as the nursing-mother to her offspring (1 Thessalonians 2:7), with a tenderness in which one’s very soul goes out to the beloved. Of this unstinting, uncalculating devotion (how opposite to all πρόφασις πλεονεξίας, 1 Thessalonians 2:5) the κόπος κ. μόχθος of 1 Thessalonians 2:9 gave evidence; the saying of 2 Corinthians 12:15, ἥδιστα ἐκδαπανηθήσομαι ὑπὲρ τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν, is a striking parallel to ηὐδοκοῦμεν μεταδοῦναι τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν. Bengel aptly paraphrases, “Anima nostra cupiebat quasi immeare in animam vestram”; and Calvin, more at length, “Mater in liberis suis educandis … nullis parcit laboribus ac molestiis, nullam solicitudinem refugit, nulla assiduitate fatigatur, suumque adeo sanguinem hilari animo sugendum praebet.” The 3rd personal reflexive, ἑαυτῶν, is freely used in later Greek for all three persons in plural; see Winer-Moulton, pp. 187 f.

διότι (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:6) = διὰ τοῦτο ὃτι, a more distinct causal than ὅτι. ἀγαπητοὶ ἡμῖν ἐγενήθητε, beloved to us,—in our eyes. This adjective has in effect the force of a substantive (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:19 f.); elsewhere St Paul uses it of his people by way of endearing address, along with or in place of ἀδελφοί, or in describing their relation to God (Romans 1:7; Ephesians 5:1; cf. Ephesians 1:4 above). Christ Himself is ὁ� (Matthew 3:17) or ὁ ἠγαπημένος (Ephesians 1:6). Ἐγενήθητε, you became after your conversion and our acquaintance with you; cf. ὥστε γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς, 1 Thessalonians 1:8.