1 Corinthians 14:5

Notwithstanding the above drawback, the Tongues are a real and desirable charism; the better is preferred to the good : “Yet I would have you all speak with tongues, but rather that you might prophesy.” μᾶλλον ἵνα προφητεύητε is repeated from 1 Corinthians 14:1 : what the Ap. bids his readers prefer, he prefers for them not to the exclusion of the Tongues, for the two gifts might be held at once (1 Corinthians 14:6; 1 Corinthians 14:18), but as looking beyond them. θέλω ἵνα occurs several times in the Gospels without any marked telic force (Matthew 7:12; Mark 6:25; Mark 9:30; John 17:24), but only here in P.; its substitution for the inf [2024] (λαλεῖν) of the coordinate clause is significant. “Moreover he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues” attached by the part. δὲ where one expected γάρ (T.R.); P. is not justifying his own preference just stated, but giving a further reason why the Cor [2025] should covet Prophecy more than Tongues: the main reason lies in the eminent usefulness of this charism (1 Corinthians 14:2-4); besides that (δέ), its possessor is a “greater” person (μείζων : cf. 1 Corinthians 12:31) “than the speaker with tongues except in the case that he interprets (his ecstatic utterance), that the Church may get edification”. The power to interpret superadded to the glossolalia (see 1 Corinthians 14:13; 1 Corinthians 14:26 ff., 1 Corinthians 12:10) puts the mystic speaker on a level with the prophet: first “uttering mysteries” (1 Corinthians 14:2) and then making them plain to his hearers, he accomplishes in two acts what the prophet does in one. ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ is a Pauline pleonasm (see parls.), consisting of ἐκτὸς εἰ (except if) and εἰ μή (unless) run together; “with this exception, unless he interpret” (Wr [2026], p. 756). For εἰ with sbj [2027], in distinction from ἐάν, see Wr [2028], p. 368; it “represents that the event will decide the point” (El [2029]). To supply τις with διερμην., supposing another interpreter meant, is ungrammatical; the identity of Speaker and interpreter is the essential point. He interprets with the express intention that the Church may be edified (ἵνα … οἰκοδομὴν λάβῃ).

[2024] infinitive mood.

[2025] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[2026] Winer-Moulton's Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

[2027] subjunctive mood.

[2028] Winer-Moulton's Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

[2029] C. J. Ellicott's St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.