XIII.
(1) This is the third time I am coming to you. — The words may point either to three actual visits — (1) that of Acts 18:1; (2) an unrecorded visit (of which, however, there is no trace), during St. Paul’s stay at Ephesus; and (3) that now in contemplation — or (1) to one actual visit, as before; (2) the purposed visit which had been abandoned (see Notes on 2 Corinthians 1:16); and (3) that which he now has in view. The latter interpretation falls in best with the known facts of the case, and is in entire accordance both with his language in 2 Corinthians 12:14, and with his mode of expressing his intentions, as in 1 Corinthians 16:5.
In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. — There seems no adequate reason for not taking these words in their simple and natural meaning. The rule, quoted from Numbers 35:30; Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15, was of the nature of an axiom of Jewish, one might almost say of natural, law. And it had received a fresh prominence from our Lord’s reproduction of it in giving directions as for the discipline of the society which He came to found. (See Note on Matthew 18:16.) What more natural than that St. Paul should say, “When I come, there will be no more surmises and vague suspicions, but every offence will be dealt with in a vigorous and full inquiry”? There seems something strained, almost fantastic, in the interpretation which, catching at the accidental juxtaposition of “the third time” and the “three witnesses,” assumes that the Apostle personifies his actual or intended visits, and treats them as the witnesses whose testimony was to be decisive. It is a fatal objection to this view that it turns the judge into a prosecutor, and makes him appeal to his own reiteration of his charges as evidence of their truth.