1 Corinthians 13:4

1 Corinthians 13:4. Love suffereth long. This long-suffering is the protracted endurance of wrong, such as is fitted to provoke resentment. It is that command over natural impulse which keeps just displeasure from breaking forth into action. This is one of Jehovah's most conspicuous names: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering”(Exodus 34:6); “slow to anger” (Psalms 103:8). Moses had more of this than any other of his day, yet to his cost he once failed in it. Indeed, of One only could it be said in the fullest sense, “When He was reviled, He reviled not again” (see Colossians 3:12-13).

and is kind. The word means to ‘shew oneself benignant, gentle, good, meek.' Though used only here as a verb, it occurs frequently as an adjective, and precisely as it occurs here, in conjunction with long-suffering, the one being the negative, the other the positive side of the same quality; shewing that though there is no conjunction between them in the original, they were intended to go together, and therefore that the Authorised Version has rightly added the connecting “ and.” Thus: “The fruit of the Spirit is long-suffering, gentleness” (Galatians 5:22); “By long-suffering, by kindness ” (2 Corinthians 6:6); “Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering?” (Romans 2:4).

love envieth not. The word signifies both “envy” and “jealousy,” qualities which though distinct are inseparable, so that only the context can shew which in any given case is intended. Here “envy” is plainly meant that miserable feeling of chagrin at the good of another, not possessed by ourselves, which corrodes the heart, and is “the rottenness of the bones” (Proverbs 14:30); that murderous principle of “Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother; and wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous” (1 John 3:12; and see Proverbs 27:4; Acts 7:9; Acts 17:5).

love vaunteth not itself; [1] is not puffed up does not ostentatiously parade its superiority to others, whether real or supposed, priding itself on it. Perhaps there is here some allusion to that unseemly display of spiritual gifts in the Corinthian church to which reference is elsewhere made. This quality is exactly the opposite of envy; the one envying in another what is not possessed by ourselves, the other looking down on another for the want of something which we possess. Ahab, though a king, mastered by the hateful passion of envy, throws himself on his bed, turns his face to the wall, and will eat no bread, because Naboth his neighbour will not disobey a Divine commandment by giving up to him “the inheritance of his fathers” (1 Kings 21:3-4). On the other hand, ‘I am better than you (says the whole air of the puffed-up vaunter), for I have this and that which you possess not,' Selfishness is at the bottom of both alike, while love sees its own good in the good of another, and another's in its own.

[1] The word here used occurs here only. It comes from a word which signifies ‘vain boaster.'