Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Ver. 5. Let your conversation] Gr. προπος, your turnings and windings in the world for a livelihood. Do your business not out of a desire to get silver, αφιλαργυρος, but to humble yourselves by just labour.
Be content with such things] Not to be content is to be covetous. If men cannot bring their means to their mind, let them bring their mind to their means. (Clem. Alex.) A little will serve to bear our charges till we come home to heaven. Bonus paucis indiget. See Trapp on " 1Ti 6:6 " See Trapp on " 1Ti 6:7 " See Trapp on " 1Ti 6:8 " The contented man sits and sings,
Hoc alii cupiant: liceat mihi, paupere cultu
Securo, chara coniuge posse frui.
For he hath said] Five times in Scripture is this precious promise renewed; that we may press and oppress it, till we have expressed the sweetness out of it, Isaiah 66:11 .
I will not forsake thee] Gr. ουδε ου μη, I will not not not forsake thee. Leave us God may to our thinking, but forsake us he will not. Only we must put this and other promises in suit, by praying them over. God loves to be bound by his own words, to be sued by his own bond. Now all this is nothing to the wicked, who are strangers to the promises. These God will bring into the briers, and there leave them, Ezekiel 22:20; Ezekiel 29:5. His own he will never leave nor forsake; or if he does, as sometimes he seems, yet he will not forsake them utterly, Psalms 119:8; no, that he will not. The Greek here hath five negatives, and may thus be rendered, "I will not not leave thee; neither will I not not forsake thee." God may desert his people, but not disinherit them; forsake them in regard of vision, not of union; change his dispensation, not his disposition.