For the which cause I also suffer these things. — Because he had been the teacher and apostle, had all these sufferings — the prison, the chains, the solitude, the hate of so many — come upon him. There was no need to refer to them more particularly. Timothy knew well what he was then undergoing. The reason of the Apostle’s touching at all upon himself and his fortunes will appear in the next clause, when, from the depths, as it would seem, of human misfortune, he triumphantly rehearses his sure grounds of confidence. Timothy was dispirited, cast down, sorrowful. He need not be. When tempted to despair, let him think of his old master and friend, Paul the Apostle, who rejoiced in the midst of the greatest sufferings, knowing that these were the sure earthly guerdon of the most devoted work, but that there was One, in whom he believed, able and, at the same time, willing to save him for yet higher and grander things.
Nevertheless I am not ashamed. — Not ashamed of the suffering I am now enduring for the cause of the Lord. He then, by showing the grounds of his joyful hope, proceeds to show how men can rise to the same lofty heights of independence to which he had risen, whence they can look down with indifference on all human opinion and human reward and regard.
For I know whom I have believed. — Better rendered, whom I have trusted; yea, and still trust. “Whom” here refers to God the Father.
That which I have committed unto him. — More exactly, my deposit. Considerable diversity of opinion has existed among commentators of all ages as to the exact meaning which should be assigned to the words “my deposit.” Let us glance back at what has gone before. St. Paul, the forsaken prisoner, looking for death, has been bidding his younger comrade never to let his heart sink or his spirit grow faint when oncoming dangers threaten to crush him; for, he says, you know me and my seemingly ruined fortunes and blasted hopes. Friendless and alone, you know, I am awaiting death (2 Timothy 4:6); and yet, in spite of all this crushing weight of sorrow, which has come on me because I am a Christian, yet am I not ashamed, for I know whom I have trusted — I know His sovereign power to whom I have committed “my deposit.” He, I know, can keep it safe against that day. St. Paul had intrusted his deathless soul to the keeping of his Heavenly Father, and having done this, serene and joyful he waited for the end. His disciple Timothy must do the same.
“That which I have committed unto Him, my deposit,” signified a most precious treasure committed by St. Paul to his God. The language and imagery was probably taken by the Apostle from one of those Hebrew Psalms he knew so well (Psalms 31:5) — “Into thy hand I commend my spirit,” rendered in the LXX. version (Psalms 30:5), “I will commit” (parathçsomai). In Josephus, a writer of the same age, the soul is especially termed a parakatatheke — deposit. The passage is one in which he is speaking against suicide (B. J. iii. 8, 5). Philo, also, who may almost be termed a contemporary of St. Paul, uses the very same expression, and also calls the soul “a deposit” (p. 499, ed. Richter). Both passages are quoted at length by Alford, who, however, comes to a slightly different conclusion.
Against that day. — The day of the coming of Christ — “that day when I (the Lord of Hosts) make up my jewels.” He will keep my soul — “my deposit” — safe against that day when the crown of life will be given to all that love His appearing.