Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Likewise the Spirit also ... - q.d., 'I have already shown you the varied offices of the blessed Spirit toward believers-how He descends into their souls as the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, making them members of Christ, and one life with their glorious Head; how in the power of this new life they are freed from the law of sin and death, walking henceforth not after the flesh but after the Spirit, minding supremely the things of the Spirit, and through the Spirit mortifying the deeds of the body; how He dwells in them as the Guide of the sons of God, as the Spirit of adoption teaches them to cry, "Abba, Father," witnesses with their spirit that they are children of God, and is in them as the first-fruits of their full redemption: but this is not all, for - " Likewise also the Spirit"
Helpeth, [ hoosautoos (G5615 ) de (G1161 ) kai (G2532 ), rather,`But after the like manner doth the Spirit also help'] our infirmities. The true reading, beyond doubt, is in the singular number-`our infirmity.' The infirmity meant is not merely the one infirmity regarding prayer here specified, but the general weakness of the spiritual life-of which one example is here given,
For we know not what we should pray for as we ought. It is not the proper matter of prayer that believers are at so much loss about, for the fullest directions are given them on this head; but to ask for the right things "as they ought" is the difficulty. This arises partly from the dimness of our spiritual vision in the present veiled state, while we have to "walk by faith, not by sight" (1 Corinthians 13:9; 2 Corinthians 5:7), and the large admixture of the ideas and feelings which spring from the fleeting objects of sense that there is in the very best views and affections of our renewed nature; partly also from the necessary imperfection of all human language as a vehicle for expressing the subtle spiritual feelings of the heart. In these circumstances, how can it be but that much uncertainty should surround all our spiritual exercises, and that in our nearest approaches, and in the freest outpourings of our hearts to our Father in heaven, doubts should spring up within us whether our frame of mind in such exercis es is altogether befitting and well-pleasing to God? Nor do these anxieties subside, but rather deepen, with the depth and ripeness of our spiritual experience.
But the Spirit itself - rather, 'Himself.' See, on the personal sense of the pronoun in such places, the note at 5:16.
Maketh intercession [for us]. The bracketed words are omitted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles, on good authority; but of course they are implied, and hence, their tendency to get into the text.
With groanings which cannot be uttered х alaleetois (G215)] - that is, which cannot be expressed in articulate language. What sublime and affecting ideas are these, for which we are indebted to this passage alone!-q.d., 'As we struggle to express in articulate language the desires of our hearts, and find that our deepest emotions are the most inexpressible, we "groan" under this felt inability. But not in vain are these groanings. For "the Spirit Himself" is in them, giving to the emotions which Himself has kindled the only language of which they are capable; so that though on our part they are the fruit of impotence to utter what we feel, they are at the same time the intercession of the Spirit Himself in our behalf.'