2 Timothy 4:6

The connexion from 2 Timothy 4:3 seems to be this: The dangers to the Church are pressing and instant; they can only be met by watchfulness, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty on the part of the leaders of the Church, of whom thou art one. As for me, I have done my best. My King is calling me from the field of action to wait for my reward; thou canst no longer look to me to take initiative in action. This seems to be the force of the emphatic ἐγώ and the connecting γάρ.

ἤδη σπένδομαι : jam delibor (Vulg.). The analogy of Philippians 2:17, σπένδ. ἐπὶ τῇ θνσίᾳ καὶ λειτουργίᾳ (where see Lightfoot's note), is sufficient to prove that St. Paul did not regard his own death as a sacrifice. There the θυσία is the persons of the Philippian converts (cf. Romans 12:1; Romans 15:16) rendered acceptable by faith, and offered up by their faith. Here the nature of the θυσία is not determined, possibly not thought of, by the writer. The reason alleged by Chrys. for the absence here of the term θυσία is ingenious: “For the whole of the sacrifice was not offered to God, but the whole of the drink-offering was.” It is immaterial to decide whether the imagery is drawn from the Jewish drink-offerings, or heathen libations. Lightfoot quotes interesting parallels from the dying words of Seneca: “stagnum calidae aquae introiit respergens proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori ” (Tac. Ann. xv. 64), and from Ignatius, “Grant me nothing more than that I be poured out a libation (σπονδισθῆναι) to God, while there is yet an altar ready” (Romans 2).

τῆς ἀναλύσεως : There is no figure of speech, such as that of striking a tent or unmooring a ship, suggested by ἀνάλυσις. It was as common a euphemism for death as is our word departure. See the verb in Philippians 1:23, and, besides the usual references given by the commentators, see examples supplied by Moulton and Milligan, Expositor, vii., 4:266. The Vulg. resolutionis is wrong. Dean Bernard calls attention to the “verbal similarities of expression” between this letter to Timothy and Philippians, written when Timothy was with St. Paul, viz., σπένδομαι, ἀνάλυσις here and ἀναλῦσαι, Philippians 1:23, and the image of the race; there (Philippians 3:13-14) not completed, here finished, 2 Timothy 4:7.

ἐφέστηκεν : instat (Vulg.), is come (R.V.), is already present, rather than is at hand (A.V.), which implies a postponement. For similar prescience of approaching death compare 2 Peter 1:14.