1 Timothy 5:23

μηκέτι ὑδροπότει : An adequate explanation of this seemingly irrelevant direction is that since there is a certain degree of ambiguity in ἁγνός, St. Paul thought it necessary to guard against any possible misunderstanding of Keep thyself pure : “I do not mean you to practice a rigid asceticism; on the contrary, I think that you are likely to injure your health by your complete abstinence from wine; so, be no longer a water-drinker, etc.” So Hort, who thinks that this is “not merely a sanitary but quite as much a moral precept” (Judaistic Christianity, p. 144). This explanation is preferable to that of Paley who regards this as an example of “the negligence of real correspondence … when a man writes as he remembers: when he puts down an article that occurs the moment it occurs, lest he should afterwards forget it” (Horae Paulinae). Similarly Calvin suggested that σεαυτὸν ἀσθενείας was a marginal note by St. Paul himself. Alford's view has not much to commend it, viz., that Timothy's weakness of character was connected with his constant ill health, and that St. Paul hoped to brace his deputy's will by a tonic.

For this position of μηκέτι cf. Mark 9:25; Mark 11:14; Luke 8:49; John 5:14; John 8:11; Romans 14:13; Ephesians 4:28; and see note on chap. 1 Timothy 4:14.

διὰ τὸ στόμαχον : Wetstein's happy quotation from Libanius, Epist. 1578 must not be omitted: πέπτωκε καὶ ἡμῖν ὁ στόμαχος ταῖς συνεχέσιν ὑδροποσίαις.