2 Timothy 1:18

2 Timothy 1:18. That he may find mercy from the Lord in that day. On the assumption already mentioned as probable, this would, of course, be a prayer for the dead. The reference to the great day of judgment falls in with this hypothesis. Such prayers were, we know from 2Ma 12:41-45, common among the Jews a century or more before St. Paul's time, and there is good ground for thinking that they entered into the ritual of every synagogue, and were to be seen in the epitaphs in every Jewish burial-place. From the controversial point of view, this may appear to favour the doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome, but facts are facts apart from their controversial bearing. It is, at any rate, clear that such a simple utterance of hope in prayer, like the Shalom (Peace) of Jewish, and the ‘Requiescat' or ‘Refrigerium' of early Christian epitaphs, and the like prayers in early liturgies, though they sanction the natural outpouring of affectionate yearnings, are as far as possible from the full-blown Romish theory of Purgatory. The singular construction, ‘The Lord grant... mercy from the Lord,' suggests the thought that the former is equivalent to ‘God grant as referring to the Father, the latter to the Lord Jesus as the Judge of quick and dead in the great day.

Thou knowest very well. Literally, ‘ too well to need to be told.' The ministrations refer probably to St. Paul's last visit to Ephesus, where it would seem from 2 Timothy 4:19, Onesiphorus and his family had resided.