(11-18) Concluding section of the Epistle, written in the Apostle's own hand. These Judaising teachers only wish to have you circumcised as a matter of outside show, in order to disguise their own professed Christianity from their fellow Jews, and so escape persecution. They show that they really care nothing for circumcision, for they freely break the rest of the Law to which they affect to give in their adhesion. Their true object is to make capital out of their influence over you, to boast publicly of your submission to the rite. I, too, will boast, but of something very different. My boast is in the cross of Christ. When I attached myself to the crucified Messiah, from that moment the world became nothing to me. Circumcision and uncircumcision matter not. The essential point is that total change which such a relation implies. On all who take this for their rule I can invoke a blessing, for they are the true Israel. Enough. I have a right to claim exemption from these attacks. The scars that I bear upon me are marks of the place I hold in my Master's service.

(11) Ye see.--Rather, See. The Apostle calls the attention of his readers to the handwriting of these concluding paragraphs.

How large a letter.--Rather, in what large letters: i.e., characters. The exact significance of these words is somewhat enigmatic, and can only be matter of conjecture. Two points, however, are clear:--(1) The latter part of the Greek phrase means "in" or "with" letters--i.e., characters of hand-writing--and not "a letter," "an epistle," as it is taken in the Authorised version; (2) The former half of the phrase means "how large," strictly in respect of size. The Apostle, for some reason or other, points out that the characters in which he is writing are larger than usual. What is his reason? It is hard to say. Some have thought that the reference was to the "shapelessness" of the letters, whether as due to the fact that the Apostle himself was not accustomed to the manual work of writing, or possibly to physical weakness from the hardships that he had undergone. The idea of "shapelessness," however, is not necessarily included in that of size. It seems, on the whole, most probable that the size of the characters express the emphasis and authority with which the Apostle is writing. He adds to the Epistle--which had so far been written by an amanuensis--a few bold incisive strokes in his own hand, trenchantly exposing the motives of the Judaising faction, and re-asserting his own position.

I have written.--Must this be so taken: I have written? or may it be idiomatically translated: I write? In other words, does it refer to the whole previous portion of the Epistle, or only to these concluding paragraphs? The question turns upon a nice point of Greek scholarship, on which such authorities as Bishop Ellicott and Dr. Lightfoot take different sides. It will only be possible in a Commentary like this to express a general conclusion, without going into the arguments on which it is based. That conclusion would be that the Greek may, quite fairly and tenably, be translated: I write; and that being so, considerations of exegesis would seem to tell somewhat decidedly in the same direction. The whole character of this concluding section is very much what we should expect if St. Paul followed his usual custom of taking the pen from the amanuensis to write it, and its brief weighty summarising style would correspond well with the "largo letters" in which he says that it was written. If this description is to be applied to the whole Epistle, it must remain a riddle to which there is no clue.

With mine own hand.--It was the Apostle's custom to make use of an amanuensis, and only to add a few final words in proof of the genuineness of the writing. (See especially 2Thessalonians 3:17; and comp. also Romans 16:22; 1Corinthians 16:21; Colossians 4:18.) . . .

Verse 11. - Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand (ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί); see with what large pieces of writing (or, with what large letters) I have written (or, I write) unto you with mine own hand. There can be hardly any doubt that the rendering "ye see" of the Authorized Version, supposing, as it seems to do, that this is meant as an indicative, must be wrong (cf. John 4:29; 1 John 3:1). The ἴδετε of the Textus Receptus in Philippians 1:30 is replaced by recent editors with one consent by εἴδετε. Each one of the four next Greek words, πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα, has been subjected to a variety of interprerations. What appears to the present writer the most probable view he must explain as briefly as he is able. The interrogative πηλίκος means "how great," as in Zechariah 2:2 (Septuagint); Hebrews 7:4. Accordingly, πόσα καὶ πηλίκα in Polyb., 1:2, 8 (cited in Liddell and Scott's 'Lexicon') means "how many and how large." Many, as e.g. Chrysostom, have supposed that the word includes a reference to clumsiness, ungainliness, as attaching to the apostle's handwriting ("with what big letters!'). But no example of the word being used in this sense of "ungainliness" has been adduced; and it seems safer not to import into its rendering this additional shade of meaning. The dative ὑμῖν Bishop Lightfoot proposes to connect closely with πληίκοις as μοὶ and σοὶ are often used in familiar style, with the sense mark you! But there is no instance of this use of the dative pronoun in the Greek Testament (see Winer, 'Gram. N. T.,' § 22, 7, Anna. 2, p. 140); and here surely it more naturally connects itself with ἔγραψαψ. It is not uncommon with St. Paul to insert some word or words between a substantive and its adjective or dependent genitive, as here between πηλίκοις and γράμμασιν (see Galatians 2:9; Galatians 3:15; Philippians 4:15, etc.). In the instances now cited there appears no more logical occasion for such a seeming disarrangement of the words than there does here. The verb ἔγραψα is used with no objective accusative following, as in Romans 15:15; 1 Peter 5:12; the substantive γράμμασιν being in the dative, because the apostle is referring merely to the form of the medium of communication, and not to the substance of the communication itself. The rendering of the Authorized Version, "how large a letter I have written," cannot be defended as a literal translation, though it may be allowed on one view of the passage to give the sense rightly. But though the plural noun γράμματα, in ordinary Greek, like literae in Latin, sometimes occurs in the sense of a single epistle or letter, it is never so used by St. Paul, who always employs the word ἐπιστολὴ to express this notion, which he does no less than seventeen times. In Acts 28:21 it is rendered "letters," in the plural number; being properly "communications in writing." The noun γράμμα was the word ordinarily employed in Greek to designate a letter of the alphabet. It also denotes "a writing," as when in the plural we read in John 5:47, "if ye believe not his writings," and in 2 Timothy 3:15," the sacred writings," or Scriptures. In Luke 16:6, 7 "take thy bill" is literally, "take thy writings" (γράμματα being the now accepted reading in the Greek text). In 2 Corinthians 3:7, "the ministration of death in writings," the word probably refers to the ten commandments, each forming one writing; though it may mean "in characters of writing." In ordinary Greek it sometimes denotes a passage of a treatise or book (Liddell and Scott, under the word, 2:4). Next

(1) the verb ἔγραψα ("I have written") may be understood, as in Romans 15:15, "I have written the more boldly unto you," etc., with reference to the entire letter, now nearly complete, as it lies before him. In that case the apostle's words may be rendered, "See, with what long writings [or, 'pieces of writing'] I have written unto you with mine own hand." Through some cause or other, we know not what the cause was, writing with his own hand was not a welcome employment to him; so far unwelcome that he generally devolved the actual penning of his letters upon an amanuensis, merely authenticating each letter as his own by a postscript added in his own hand (see 2 Thessalonians 3. fin.). Perhaps Philemon forms the only' exception (see ver. 19), apart from this letter to the Galatians. We may, therefore, imagine the apostle as painfully and laboriously penning one portion after another of the Epistle; often pausing weariedly in the work as he came to the end of each γράμμα, that is, to the end of each section of his argument, each seeming to him a long and toilsome effort. And now at last he exclaims," Look, what long, laborious performances of handwriting I have achieved in writing to you! And from that learn how deeply I am concerned on your behalf, and how grave your present spiritual peril appears to me to be!" Ordinarily it was only a brief "piece of writing" that he wrote with his own hand; here, long pieces, added one after another with painful effort. Or

(2) the verb "I have written" may be referred to what the apostle is now beginning to pen, not merely because the epistolary style of the ancients, Greek and Roman, was wont to place the writer of a letter in the temporal standing-point of its recipient, as when Cicero dates his letters scribebam Id., etc., but because under some circumstances it is natural that the writer should thus refer himself to the view of his correspondent. Thus in Philemon 1:19, "I Paul have written it (ἔγραψα) with mine own hand, I will repay it." It would be quite obvious to ourselves to express our meaning in the same manner. So far, then, as such considerations reach, it appears quite supposable that the apostle, having employed an amanuensis as usual as far as the end of ver. 10, then himself took up the pen for the customary addition of an authenticating postscript; and that, for the purpose of adding especial emphasis to the postscript which he here thought advisable to add, he made his handwriting most unusually large, and that it is to this emphatic style of penmanship that he here draws attention. Many modern critics have acquiesced in this explanation; and if γράμμασιν means "letters," that is, characters of the writing, it seems the most probable; for it does not seem likely that the whole Epistle was written in letters of an extraordinary size; while, if the characters were those of his ordinary style of penmanship, the remark would be too trivial to come from him. The present writer inclines to the former method of interpretation.

Parallel Commentaries ...

See
Ἴδετε (Idete)
Verb - Aorist Imperative Active - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 3708: Properly, to stare at, i.e. to discern clearly; by extension, to attend to; by Hebraism, to experience; passively, to appear.

[what] large
πηλίκοις (pēlikois)
Adjective - Dative Neuter Plural
Strong's 4080: How large, how great. A quantitative form of the base of pou; how much, i.e. In size or dignity.

letters
γράμμασιν (grammasin)
Noun - Dative Neuter Plural
Strong's 1121: From grapho; a writing, i.e. A letter, note, epistle, book, etc. plural learning.

I am using to write
ἔγραψα (egrapsa)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 1st Person Singular
Strong's 1125: A primary verb; to 'grave', especially to write; figuratively, to describe.

to you
ὑμῖν (hymin)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Dative 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

with
τῇ (tē)
Article - Dative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

my own
ἐμῇ (emē)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Dative Feminine 1st Person Singular
Strong's 1699: My, mine. From the oblique cases of ego; my.

hand!
χειρί (cheiri)
Noun - Dative Feminine Singular
Strong's 5495: A hand.


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NT Letters: Galatians 6:11 See with what large letters I write (Gal. Ga)