Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. — So the section on the collection for the saints comes to its close. We are left to conjecture to what gift the Apostle refers: whether to the love of God as manifested in Christ, or to the spirit of love poured into men’s hearts. The use of the word in the Acts (Acts 2:38; Acts 8:20; Acts 10:45; Acts 11:17) is in favour of referring it to the gift of the Holy Ghost; that of Romans 5:15; Romans 5:17, to the gift of pardon or righteousness. Probably it did not enter into his thoughts to subject the jubilant utterance of praise to a minute analysis.
At this stage there was manifestly another pause, of greater or less length, in the act of dictating. Fresh thoughts of a different kind are working in his mind, and rousing feelings of a very different kind from those which had been just expressed. At last he again breaks silence and begins anew.