2 Corinthians 4:16

διὸ οὐκ ἐγκακοῦμεν κ. τ. λ.: wherefore, sc., because of the thought in 2 Corinthians 4:14, we faint not (repeated from 2 Corinthians 4:1); but even though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. That is, even though (note εἰ καί with the indicative as introducing not a mere contingency, but a matter of fact; see reff. 2 Corinthians 4:3) the “earthen vessel” (2 Corinthians 4:7) of my body is subject to a continual νέκρωσις (2 Corinthians 4:10) and decay, yet my true self is daily renewed by Divine grace; it is in hope of the consummation of this “renewal” that I faint not (cf. Isaiah 40:30). The contrast between ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος and ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν ἅνθρωπος has verbal parallels in Romans 7:22; Ephesians 4:22-23; Colossians 3:9 (cf. also 1 Peter 3:4), but they are not quite apposite, as in those passages the thought is of the difference between the lower and higher nature, the “flesh” and the “spirit,” whereas here the decay of the bodily organism is set over against the growth in grace of the man himself; cf. the expression of Plato, ὁ ἐντὸς ἄνθρωπος (Republ., ix., p. 589). The phrase ἡμέρᾳ καὶ ἡμέρᾳ is a Hebraism; it is not found in this exact form in the LXX, but it might well be a rendering of יוֹם ריוֹם (cf. Genesis 39:10; Psalms 68:19; Esther 3:4).