1 Corinthians 4:3 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you - Those who preferred Apollos or Kephas before St. Paul, would of course give their reasons for this preference; and these might, in many instances, be very unfavourable to his character as a man, a Christian, or an apostle; of this he was regardless, as he sought not his own glory, but the glory of God in the salvation of their souls.

Or of man's judgment - Η ὑπο ανθρωπινης ἡμερας, literally, or of man's day: but ανθρωπινη ἡμερα signifies any day set apart by a judge or magistrate to try a man on. This is the meaning of ἡμερα, Psalms 37:13 : The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his Day, ἡ ἡμερα αυτου, his judgment is coming. Malachi 3:17 : And they shall be mine in the Day, εις ἡμεραν, in the judgment, when I make up my jewels. It has the same meaning in 2 Peter 3:10 : But the Day, the Judgment, of the Lord will come. The word ανθρωπινος, man's, signifies miserable, wretched, woful; so Jeremiah 17:16 : Neither have I desired, יום אנוש yom enosh, the day of man; but very properly translated in our version, the woful day. God's Days, Job 24:1, certainly signify God's Judgments. And the Day of our Lord Jesus, in this epistle, 1 Corinthians 1:8; 1 Corinthians 5:5, signifies the day in which Christ will judge the world; or rather the judgment itself.

I judge not mine own self - I leave myself entirely to God, whose I am, and whom I serve.

1 Corinthians 4:3

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment:a yea, I judge not mine own self.