Colossians 3:13

καθὼς καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν. κύριος is read by ABD*G vulg. χριστὸς by Text. Rec. with אa(vid)cCDbKLP, etc., Syrr. Egyptt. Chr. θεὸς by א*. Apparently χριστός and θεός are explanatory of κύριος.

13. ἀνεχόμενοι�, “Bearing with one another.” Similarly in || Ephesians 4:2 with the addition ἐν�. So of Christ (Matthew 17:17). Cf. Acts 18:14. So ἀνοχή of God, Romans 2:4, where χρηστότης and μακροθυμία are also predicated of Him, and Colossians 3:25.

The present points to the continued need of the exercise of μακροθυμία in this specific form, for, as is implied, we are each in some ways trying to others.

καὶ χαριζόμενοι (Colossians 2:13, note) ἑαυτοῖς. Beng. notes “ἀνεχ. in offensis praesentibus, χαριζ. offensas praeteritas.” For we not only tend to irritate others, but also we all sometimes do positive harm to them.

ἐαυτοῖς perhaps for variety (cf. Blass, Gram. § 48. 9); cf. Ephesians 4:2 with 32, 1 Peter 4:9-10. “But perhaps as though the whole Church were one person, as it is actually the one Body of Christ, so that forbearance towards a fellow-Christian is forbearance towards ourselves,” Beet; cf. also Colossians 3:16. It also readily serves as a transition to the thought that as Christ forgave us so should we forgive others.

ἑάν τις πρός τινα ἔχῃ μομφήν, “cause of complaint.” μομφή here only in the Greek Bible, though found in the poets. “Quarrel,” A. V., is an archaism, directly from Vulg., “si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam.” Compare the verb in “they were the principal motives of it, and therefore ought least to quarrel it,” The Translators to the Reader (A.V. 1611, 11th paragraph).

καθὼς καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν. See notes on Textual Criticism. On χαρίζομαι see Colossians 2:13, note. ὁ κύριος almost certainly represents Christ. Forgiveness is predicated of Christ directly only here, as it seems, in the Epistles (contrast His claim in the Gospels), yet as “neither the Father judgeth any man but He hath given all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22), His forgiveness is, in its final form, through the Son, and it is easy to leave out of sight the ultimate source of forgiveness in the Father and think only of its immediate source in the Son (cf. Beet). In Ephesians 4:32 the fuller form is used. Moule compares Acts 5:31.

οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς. For the thought compare the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Matthew 18:23-35, though there is no evidence in our passage that St Paul was acquainted with it.

According to the punctuation adopted by WH, a colon after μομφήν, we are to understand χαρίσασθε after ὑμεῖς and then of course a fresh imperative in Colossians 3:14. But it is questionable whether the force of χαριζόμενοι is not carried to the end of Colossians 3:13, the words οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς being only an emphatic resumption of the ὑμεῖς already included in it; cf. Bengel, “χαριζόμενοι … Hinc pendet, sic etiam vos.” In this case Colossians 3:14 depends grammatically upon ἐνδύσασθε (Colossians 3:12). There will then of course be only a comma after μομφήν.