For I am with thee. — The command was followed by a promise which met the special trial of the time. Men might be against him, but Christ was with him. The general promise given to the Church at large, “Lo! I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20), received a personal application, “I am with thee;” and though called to a life of suffering, there was for the time an assurance that the wrath of men should be restrained, and that his work should not be hindered.
I have much people in this city. — The words remind us once more of those which Elijah had heard at a moment of like weakness, “Yet have I left me seven thousand men in Israel” (1 Kings 19:18). Even in the sinful streets of Corinth, among those plunged deepest into its sin (1 Corinthians 5:10-11), there were souls yearning for deliverance, in whom conscience was not dead, and was waiting only for the call to repentance.