Galatians 4:13

Galatians 4:13. But ye know that on account of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you the former time. ‘On account of' or ‘because of' is the only correct translation of the Greek text, [1] not ‘through' (as in the E. V.), nor ‘in,' nor ‘amid.' The infirmity, whatever it was, is here represented as the occasion of Paul's preaching (not as the condition during his preaching). It seems that he intended first merely to pass through Galatia, on his second large missionary tour, but was detained there by some undefined bodily infirmity or sickness, and thus induced to preach the gospel. This would place the love of the Galatians to him in a still stronger light, since he had no claim upon it, and became their benefactor, so to speak, only by accident. Conybeare well expresses the sense by translating, somewhat too freely: ‘On the contrary, although it was sickness (as you know) which caused me to preach the glad-tidings to you at my first visit, yet you neither scorned nor loathed the bodily infirmity which was my [your] trial.' In the absence of further information, the exact character of this infirmity of the flesh cannot be determined, except that it was a painful, recurrent, and repulsive physical malady, no doubt the same which he calls a ‘thorn in the flesh,' 2 Corinthians 12:7. This infirmity was a check upon spiritual pride and kept Paul near the cross. God overruled the obstacle for the furtherance of the gospel (as He did afterwards his bonds, Philippians 1:12), and manifested the strength of His supernatural grace in and through the weakness of nature, comp. 2 Corinthians 12:9: (My) strength is made perfect in weakness. See Excursus below. ‘The former time,' on the first of my two visits. Paul had been twice in Galatia before writing this Epistle, comp. Acts 16:6; Acts 18:23. At his second visit (Acts 18:23) the pleasant relation was already disturbed by the intermeddling of the Judaizing teachers, as intimated in Galatians 4:16.

[1] Διά with the accusative, not with the genitive. Sometimes the preposition with the accusative has the temporal sense (‘during a period of sickness'), but only in poetry and rarely.