Philemon 1:9

for love's sake Lit., "because of the love" ;i.e., perhaps, "because of ourlove." Ellicott, Alford, and Lightfoot take the reference to be to (Christian) love in general. But the Greek commentators (cent. 11) Theophylact and Œcumenius (quoted by Ellicott) explain the phrase as referring to thelove of the two friends; and this is surely in point in this message of personal affection.

beseech The verb is one which often means "exhort," in a sense less tender than "beseech." But see e.g. Philippians 4:2 for a case where, as here, it evidently conveys a lovingappeal.

being such a one as Does this mean, "becauseI am such," or "althoughI am such"? The answer depends mainly on the explanation of the next following words.

Paul the aged Paulus senex, Latin Versions; "and so apparently all versions" (Ellicott). So R.V. text. Its margin has "Paul an ambassador" ;and this rendering is advocated by Lightfoot in a long and instructive note. He points out that not only are presbûtês(" an elder," which all mss. have here) and presbeutês(" an envoy") nearly identical in form, but that the latter word was often spelt by the Greeks like the former. And he points to Ephesians 6:20 (see our note there), where "the ambassador in chains" expressly describes himself a passage written perhaps on the same day as this. So explaining, the phrase would be a quiet reminder, in the act of entreaty, that the suppliant was no ordinary one; he was the Lord's envoy, dignified by suffering for the Lord.

But, with reverence to the great Commentator, is not the other explanation after all more in character in this Epistle, which carries a tender pathos in it everywhere? A fresh reminder of his dignity, after the passing and as it were rejected allusion to it in Philemon 1:8, seems to us to be out of harmony; while nothing could be more fitting here than a word about age and affliction. The question whether St Paul was "an old man," as we commonly reckon age, is not important; so Lightfoot himself points out. At all periods, men have called themselves old when they felt so; Lightfoot instances Sir Walter Scott at fifty-five. (St Paul was probably quite sixty at this time.) And it is immaterial whether or no Philemon was his junior. If he were Paul's coeval, it would matter little. The appeal lies in the fact of the writer's "failing powers," worn in the Lord's service; and this would touch an equal as readily as a junior. To our mind too the phrase, "being such a one as," conveys, though it is hard to analyse the impression, the thought of a pathetic self-depreciation.

On the whole we recommend the rendering of the A.V. and (text) R.V. But by all means see Lightfoot's note.

also a prisoner of Jesus Christ See on Philemon 1:1. "Also" :the weakness of age was aggravatedby the helplessness of bonds.