Share The Gospel.

He asserts it with a solemn protestation. I say the truth in Christ, "I speak it as a Christian, one of God's people, children that will not lie, as one that knows not how to give flattering title." Or, "I appeal to Christ, who searches the heart, concerning it." He appeals likewise to his own conscience, which was instead of a thousand witnesses. That which he was going to assert was not only a great and weighty thing (such solemn protestations are not to be thrown away upon trifles), but it was likewise a secret it was concerning a sorrow in his heart to which none was a capable competent witness but God and his own conscience.--That I have great heaviness. He does not say for what the very mention of it was unpleasant and invidious but it is plain that he means for the rejection of the Jews.

He backs it with a very serious imprecation, which he was ready to make, out of love to the Jews. I could wish he does not say, I do wish, for it was no proper means appointed for such an end but, if it were, I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren--a very high pang of zeal and affection for his countrymen. He would be willing to undergo the greatest misery to do them good. Love is apt to be thus bold, and venturous, and self-denying. Because the glory of God's grace in the salvation of many is to be preferred before the welfare and happiness of a single person, Paul, if they were put in competition, would be content to forego all his own happiness to purchase theirs.

He would be content to be cut off from the land of the living, in the most shameful and ignominious manner, as an anathema, or a devoted person. They thirsted for his blood, persecuted him as the most obnoxious person in the world, the curse and plague of his generation, 1 Corinthians 4:13; Acts 22:22. "Now," says Paul, "I am willing to bear all this, and a great deal more, for your good. - Matthew Henry