2 Corinthians 11:29 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Who is weak and I am not weak...? — The words obviously spring from a recollection of all that was involved in that “rush” of which he had just spoken. Did any come to him with his tale of body-sickness or soul-sickness, he, in his infinite sympathy, felt as if he shared in it. He claimed no exemption from their infirmities, was reminded by every such tale of his own liability to them. The words that follow have a still stronger significance. The word “offended” (better, made to stumble — i.e., led to fall by a temptation which the man has not resisted) suggests the thought of some grievous sin, as distinct from weakness; and the dominant sense of the word, as in Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 18:8-9; Mark 9:42-43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47; 1 Corinthians 8:13, is that of the sins to which men are led by the temptations of the senses. The other word — to “burn” — is even more startling in its suggestiveness. It had been used in 1 Corinthians 7:9 of the “burning” of sensual passion, and it is scarcely open to a doubt that the associations thus connected with it mingle with its meaning here. Men came to the Apostle with their tales of shame, and told how they had been tempted and had fallen; and here, too, he, in that illimitable sympathy of his, seemed to have travelled with them on the downward road. He felt himself suffused, as it were, with the burning glow of their shame. He blushed with them and for them, as though the sin had been his own. Simply as a word, it should be added, it is equally applicable to any emotion of intense pain or fiery indignation, and it has been so taken by many interpreters. The view which has been given above seems, however, most in harmony with the Apostle’s character.