As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing. — Are we still in the region of the taunts and sneers of which we have found such distinct traces in the previous verses? Did men say of him, as others had said of the saints of God before him, that he was “smitten of God, and afflicted”? Was it with him, as with David, that when he wept, that “was turned to his reproof”? that when he “made sackcloth his garment” he “became a proverb unto them”? (Psalms 69:10-11.) This seems, on the whole, the most probable explanation of the words. His Jewish rivals, or the jesters of Corinth, taunted him with his want of cheerfulness, “He was always in trouble.” This, at least, enables us to understand the bitterness of spirit in which St. Paul spoke, and to enter into the full force of his answer: “Yea, but with our sorrow there is also the ever-flowing well-spring of joy — a joy not of the world, but of the Holy Ghost.”
As poor, yet making many rich. — Better, as a beggar. It is not hard to imagine that the outward circumstances of St. Paul’s life, his daily toil as a tent-maker, his accepting gifts from the Church of Philippi (2 Corinthians 11:8-9; Philippians 4:15), would furnish occasion for some taunting jest. We seem to hear men speaking of him as a “beggar,” a “mendicant.” “Yes,” he answers, “but I am able to make many rich.” It is a possible, though perhaps not altogether an adequate, explanation of the words to see in them a reference to the fact that out of his “poverty” he was able to supply the necessities of others (Acts 20:35). We must, at all events, think of his words as including something more than this, and reminding the Corinthians that he had made many rich with the unsearchable riches of Christ.
As having nothing, and yet possessing all things. — The series of paradoxes culminates in this. In language which has found echoes in the thoughts of sages, saints, mystics, he utters the truth that in the absolute surrender of the thought of calling anything its own the soul becomes the heir of the universe. All things are his, as with the certainty of an assured inheritance. The beatitude of the meek, of those who claim nothing, is that they “shall inherit the earth,” and so all things are theirs — the forces of nature, and the changes and chances of life — for all are working together for their good. (See Note on Matthew 5:5.)