I desire to be present with you now, and to change my tone; for I stand in doubt of you.
All Commentaries on Galatians 4:20 Go To Galatians 4
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice. I would wish to say orally what a letter cannot sufficiently express; I would wish to coax, to beseech, to implore you, to treat you as a mother does her children, to manifest in every way a mother"s affection, that I might persuade you to do what I wish.
See what love makes men do. Paul makes himself a father, and becomes a boy with his children. So King Agesilaus, to amuse his boy, would lay aside his purple and his sceptre, to ride on a stick for him; and when one of his court remarked on his levity, he retorted: "Hold your tongue, for when you have children of your own, then I will give you leave to laugh at your king"s folly." So here Paul would say that a mother"s love knows no bounds, no shame; for it no toil is too great, nothing is too trivial or too shameful.
I stand in doubt of you. "I am ashamed," as some render it, but wrongly. The meaning is: I am perplexed; I do not know what to say to you to persuade you. Maldonatus gives two interpretations: (1.) I have not obtained the expected fruit of my preaching, therefore I am confounded; and (2.) I do not know whether you are Christians or Jews.
