2 Corinthians 8:2-4 How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality.… The condition of Greece in the time of Augustus was one of desolation and distress. It had suffered severely by being the seat of the successive civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, between the Triumvirs and Brutus and Cassius, and, lastly, between Augustus and Antonius. Besides, the country had never recovered from the long series of miseries which had succeeded and accompanied its conquest by the Romans; and between those times and the civil contest between Pompey and Caesar, it had been again exposed to all the evils of war when Sylla was disputing the possession of it with the general of Mithridates The provinces of Macedonia and Achaia, when they petitioned for a diminution of their burdens, in the reign of Tiberius, were considered so deserving of compassion that they were transferred for a time from the jurisdiction of the Senate to that of the Emperor (as involving less heavy taxation). (T. Arnold, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. |
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