Philippians 3:2

Beware of Lit., "see." For this use of the verb, cp. Colossians 4:17; 2 John 1:8.

dogs Lit. and better, the dogs. He refers to a known and defined class; and these evidently were those Judaistic teachers within the pale of the Church to whom he has referred already (Philippians 1:15) in another connexion and in a different tone. These Pharisee-Christians very probably called the uncircumcised, and (from their point of view) non-conforming, converts, "dogs," as the Pharisees-proper called all Gentiles; cp. Matthew 15:26-27, for words alluding to this use of the term. The habits and instincts of the dog suggest ideas of uncleanness and wantonness; and its half-wild condition in Eastern towns adds the idea of a thing outcast. Thus everywhere in Scripture the word "dog" is used in connexions of contempt, reproach or dread: see e.g. 1 Samuel 24:14; 2 Samuel 16:9; 2 Kings 8:13; Psalms 22:16; Psalms 22:20; Psalms 59:6; Ecclesiastes 9:4; Matthew 7:6; Revelation 22:15. The Apostle "here turns the tables" on the Judaist, and pronounces himto be the real defiled outcast from Messiah's covenant, rather than the simple believer, who comes to Messiah not by way of Judaism, but direct. The same view is expressed more fully Galatians 5:2-4. It is just possible that the word "dog" refers also to positive immorality underlying, in many cases, a rigid ceremonialism. But this is at most secondary here. See below Philippians 3:18-19, and notes, for another "school" more open to such charges.

evil workers Better, the bad work-men. He refers to the same faction under another aspect. Very probably, by a play on the word "worker," he censures them as teaching a salvation by "works," not by faith. (See e.g. Romans 3:27; Romans 4:2; Romans 4:6; Romans 11:6; Galatians 2:16; Galatians 3:2; Ephesians 2:9; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5.) As if to say, "They are all for working, with a view to merit; but they are bungling workmenall the while, adjusting wrongly the fabric of the Gospel, and working not rightly even what in itself is right." Cp. 2 Corinthians 11:13 for a passage where the same double meaning seems to attach to this word. For the other side of the truth of "working" see Philippians 2:12, and notes.

the concision "The gashing, the mutilation." By this harsh kindred word he satirizes, as it were, the rigid zeal of the Judaist for bodily circumcision. In the light of the Gospel, the demand for the continuance of circumcision in the Church, as a saving ordinance, was in fact a demand for a maltreatment of the body, akin only to heathen practices; cp. e.g. 1 Kings 18:28.

Cp. Galatians 5:12, with Lightfoot's notes, for a somewhat similar use of words in a kindred connexion. Lightfoot here remarks on the frequent occurrence in the N.T. of verbal play. See e.g. the Greek of Acts 8:30; Romans 12:3; 2 Thessalonians 3:11.

Wyclif curiously, and without any support in the Latin, renders this clause, "se ye dyuysioun"; Tyndale and Cranmer, "Beware of dissencion (dissensyon)."