1 Corinthians 16:22 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Anathema, Maran-atha.— When the Jews lost the power of life and death, they used, nevertheless, to pronounce an anathema on persons who should have been executed according to the Mosaic law; and such a person became an anathema, or cheren, or accursed,—for the expressions are equivalent. They had a full persuasion that the curse would not be in vain; and, indeed, it appears they expected that some judgment, corresponding to that which the law pronounced, would befal the offender. Now, to express their faith that God would, one way or another, and probably in some remarkable way, interpose, to add that efficacy to their sentence which they could not give it, it is most likely they used the Syriac words Maran-atha; that is, "The Lord cometh;" or, "He will surely and quickly come, to put this sentence in execution, and to shew that the person on whom it falls is indeed anathema,—accursed:" in allusion to this, when the Apostle was speaking of a secret alienation from Christ, maintained under the forms of Christianity, (which, perhaps, might be the case among many of the Corinthians, and much more probably may be so among us,) as this was not a crime capable of being convicted and censured in the Christian church, he reminds them that the Lord Jesus Christ will come at length, and find it out, and punish it in a proper manner. The Apostle chose to write with his own hand this weighty sentence, and insert it between his general salutation and benediction, that it might be the more attentively regarded. See John 9:22 and Bishop Patrick on Deuteronomy 27:15.