Galatians 4:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I beseech you, be as I am Follow my example in laying aside your opinion of the necessity of the law; for I am Or rather, I was; as ye are That is, I was once as zealous of the law as you are; but by the grace of God I am now of another mind: be you so too. See Philippians 3:7-8. Or, as some understand the verse, I beseech you to maintain the same affectionate regard for me as I bear toward you, and candidly to receive those sentiments which I, to whose authority in the church ye can be no strangers, have been inculcating upon you. Ye have not injured me at all As if he had said, What I have spoken proceeds purely out of love, and not from any anger or ill-will, for which indeed you have given me no occasion, as I have received no personal injury from you. “The apostle having sharply rebuked the Galatians for their attachment to Judaism, checks himself, and turns his discourse into the most affectionate entreaties and expostulations, in which he shows himself to have had a great knowledge of human nature. For he mentions such things as must have deeply affected the Galatians, especially as he expressed them in a simplicity and energy of language which is inimitable.” Macknight. Ye know how through, or in, infirmity of the flesh That is, in great bodily weakness, and under great disadvantage from the despicableness of my outward appearance; I preached the gospel to you at the first. And my temptation, which was in my flesh The peculiar trial wherewith I was exercised, namely, my thorn in the flesh, see on 2 Corinthians 12:7; ye despised not Ye did not slight, or disdain me; nor rejected my person or ministry on account of it; but received me as an angel of God As though I had been a superior being come down from heaven; even as Christ Jesus With as much affection and submission as it can be supposed you would have shown to Christ himself, if, instead of sending me as his messenger, he had visited you in person. The veneration with which the Galatians regarded the apostle at his first coming among them, cannot be more strongly painted than by these expressions.