2 Timothy 2:26

2 Timothy 2:26. That they may recover themselves. Literally, ‘that they may awake as from a drunken sleep.'

Taken captive by him at his will. The English presents no difficulty, but in the Greek the two possessive pronouns are not the same, and are, apparently at least, presented in direct contrast. If we accept them as pointing to different agents, then the probable meaning is, ‘that they may awake sobered from the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him (the devil), unto (i.e. awaking unto) His will (the will of God);' and this rendering is adopted by many commentators, and appears in the Revised Version of the New Testament. There seems, however, sufficient reason for supposing that the change of pronoun was determined by the desire of avoiding the repetition of the same word rather than by any purpose to distinguish between the two.