2 Corinthians 4:8-12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

We are troubled The four articles in this verse respect inward, the four in the next outward afflictions. In each clause the former part shows the earthen vessels; the latter, the excellence of the power. Yet not distressed Στενοχωρουμενοι, pressed into a strait place, so as to find no way of escape; perplexed The word απορουμενοι, so rendered, signifies persons involved in evils from which they know not how to extricate themselves: but not Εξαπορουμενοι, reduced to such despair as to give up all hope of deliverance from God. Persecuted Continually by men; but not forsaken Of God; cast down By our enemies; but not destroyed Entirely by them. Always Wherever we go; bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus Continually expecting to lay down our lives as he laid down his; that the life also of Jesus Who is now triumphant above all hostile power; might be made manifest in our body That is, in the preservation of it, feeble as it is, and exposed continually to destruction. Or the expression may mean, that we, through our various dangers and sufferings, being conformed to his life here, may hereafter rise from the dead, and be glorified like him. For we who live Those of us, the apostles and ministers of Christ, who are not yet killed for the testimony of Jesus; are always delivered unto death Are perpetually in the very jaws of destruction, which we willingly submit to, that we may obtain a better resurrection. So then Or so that, upon the whole; death worketh in us Is very busy, active, and always at work, to bring us under its power by these sufferings; but life in you Spiritual life has been conveyed to you by our ministry: or the sense may be, we undergo many miseries, and are in continual danger of death; but you are in safety, and enjoy all the comforts of life!