John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 2. I knew a man in Christ about fourteen years ago , etc..] Which is to be understood of himself, as appears from ( 2 Corinthians 12:7), where he speaks in the first person; and the reason why he here speaks in the third, is to show his modesty and humility, and how much he declined vain glory and popular applause; and whilst he is speaking of himself, studies as it were to conceal himself from being the person designed, and to draw off the mind of the reader from him to another person; though another cannot be intended, for it would not have been to his purpose, yea, quite beside it, when he proposes to come to visions and revelations he had of the Lord, to have instanced in the rapture of another. Moreover, the full and certain knowledge he had of this man, of the place he was caught up to, and of the things he there heard, best agrees with him; as also his attesting, in such a solemn way, his ignorance of the manner of this rapture, whether in the body or out of the body, and which he repeats and refers to the knowledge of God, clearly shows he must mean himself; besides, it would otherwise have been no instance of any vision of his, nor would the rapture of another have at all affected his character, commendation, and praise, or given him any occasion of glorying as this did: though he did not choose to take it, as is clear by his saying that if he gloried of it he should not be a fool, yet forbore, lest others should entertain too high an opinion of him; and after all, he was in some danger of being elated with this vision along with others, that the following sore temptation was permitted, to prevent his being exalted with it above measure: and when he calls this person, meaning himself, a man, it is not to distinguish him from an angel, whose habitation is in the third heaven, and so no wonderful thing to be found there; or from any other creature; nor perhaps only to express his sex, a man, and not a woman, though the Syriac version uses the word arbg , peculiar to the masculine sex; but merely to design a person, and it is all one as if it had been said, I knew a person, or I knew one in Christ: and the phrase in Christ, is not to be connected with the word know, as if the sense was, that he called Christ to witness the truth of what he was about to say, and that what he should say was not with a view to his own glory, but to the glory and honour of Christ only; but it is to be connected with the word man, and denotes his being in Christ, and that either, as Dr.
Hammond thinks, in a singular and extraordinary manner; as John is said to be in the spirit, ( Revelation 1:10), that is, in an ecstasy; and so here this man was in the Spirit of Christ, and transported by him to see visions, and have revelations; or rather it intends a spiritual being in Christ, union to him, the effect of which is communion with him. The date of fourteen years ago , may refer either to the time when the apostle first had the knowledge of his being in Christ, which was at his conversion; he was in Christ from all eternity, being given to him, chosen in him, loved by him; set as a seal upon his heart, as well as engraven on the palms of his hands, and represented by him, and in him, in the everlasting covenant; and so in time, at his crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God; in consequence of all which, when the set time was come, he became a new creature, was converted and believed in Christ, and then he knew himself to be in him; he was in him secretly before, now openly; and this was about fourteen years before the writing of this epistle; the exact time of his conversion might well be known and remembered by him, it being in such an extraordinary manner: or also this date may refer to the time of his rapture, which some have thought was some time within the three days after his conversion, when he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank; some have thought it to be eight years after his conversion; but the most probable opinion is, that it was not at Damascus, but when he was come again to Jerusalem, and was praying in the temple, and was in a trance or ecstasy, ( Acts 22:17), though the difference there is among chronologers, and the uncertainty of their conjectures, both as to the time of the apostle's conversion, and the writing of this epistle, makes it very difficult to determine this point. They that make this rapture to be at the time of his conversion, seem to be furthest off of the truth of things; for whether his conversion be placed in the 34th year of Christ, as some, or in the 35th, as others, or in the 36th; and this epistle be thought to be written either in the 56th, or 58th, or 60th, the date of fourteen years will agree with neither: they indeed make things to agree together best, who place his conversion in the year 36, make this rapture to be eight years after, in the year 44, and this epistle to be written in the year 58. Dr. Lightfoot puts the conversion of the apostle in the year 34, the rapture of him into the third heaven, in the year 43, at the time of the famine in the reign of Claudius, ( Acts 11:28), when he was in a trance at Jerusalem, ( Acts 22:17), and the writing of this epistle in the year 57. That great chronologer, Bishop Usher, places Paul's conversion in the year 35, his rapture in the year 46, and the writing of this epistle in the year 60. So that upon the whole it is hard to say when this rapture was; and it may be, it was at neither of the visions recorded in the Scripture, which the apostle had, but at some other time nowhere else made mention of: when, as he here says, such an one was caught up to the third heaven , the seat of the divine Majesty, and the residence of the holy angels; where the souls of departed saints go immediately upon their dissolution; and the bodies and souls of those who have been translated, caught up, and raised already, are; and where the glorified body of Christ is and will be, until his second coming.
This is called the third heaven, in respect to the airy and starry heavens.
The apostle refers to a distinction among the Jews of yatt aymw ya[xym aymw yaly[ aym , the supreme heaven, the middle heaven, and the lower heaven f126 ; and who also make a like division of worlds, and which they call lph lw[hw y[xmah lw[w wyl[ lw[ , the supreme world, and the middle world, and the lower world f127 ; and sometimes the world of angels, the world of the orbs, and the world of them below; and accordingly the Cabalistic doctors talk of three worlds; hatylt aml[ , the third world, they say f129 , is the supreme world, hidden, treasured, and shut up, which none can know; as it is written, eye hath not seen, etc.. and is the same with the apostle's third heaven. The state and condition in which he was during this rapture is expressed by the following words, put into a parenthesis, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth : whether his soul remained in his body, and he was caught up soul and body into heaven, as Elijah was carried thither soul and body in a chariot with horses of fire; or whether his soul was out of his body, and he was disembodied for a time, as Philo the Jew says that Moses was aswmaton , without the body, during his stay of forty days and as many nights in the mount; or whether this was not all in a visionary way, as John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and Ezekiel was taken by a lock of his head, and lifted up by the Spirit between earth and heaven, and brought in the visions of God to Jerusalem, cannot be said. The apostle did not know himself, and much less can any other be able to say how it was; it is best with him to refer and leave it to the omniscient God; one of the four persons the Jews say entered into paradise, who are hereafter mentioned in (see Gill on 2 Corinthians 12:4), is said to have his mind snatched away in a divine rapture f131 ; that is, he was not himself, he knew not where he was, or whether in the body or out, as says the apostle.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-6 - There can be no doubt the apostle speaks of himself. Whether heavenl things were brought down to him, while his body was in a trance, as in the case of ancient prophets; or whether his soul was dislodged from the body for a time, and taken up into heaven, or whether he was take up, body and soul together, he knew not. We are not capable, nor is it fit we should yet know, the particulars of that glorious place an state. He did not attempt to publish to the world what he had hear there, but he set forth the doctrine of Christ. On that foundation the church is built, and on that we must build our faith and hope. An while this teaches us to enlarge our expectations of the glory tha shall be revealed, it should render us contented with the usual method of learning the truth and will of God.
Greek Textus Receptus
οιδα 1492 5758 V-RAI-1S ανθρωπον 444 N-ASM εν 1722 PREP χριστω 5547 N-DSM προ 4253 PREP ετων 2094 N-GPN δεκατεσσαρων 1180 A-GPN ειτε 1535 CONJ εν 1722 PREP σωματι 4983 N-DSN ουκ 3756 PRT-N οιδα 1492 5758 V-RAI-1S ειτε 1535 CONJ εκτος 1622 ADV του 3588 T-GSN σωματος 4983 N-GSN ουκ 3756 PRT-N οιδα 1492 5758 V-RAI-1S ο 3588 T-NSM θεος 2316 N-NSM οιδεν 1492 5758 V-RAI-3S αρπαγεντα 726 5651 V-2APP-ASM τον 3588 T-ASM τοιουτον 5108 D-ASM εως 2193 CONJ τριτου 5154 A-GSM ουρανου 3772 N-GSM
Vincent's NT Word Studies
2. l knew (oida). Rev., correctly, I know.Above fourteen years ago (pro etwn dekatessarwn). Above, of A.V., is due to a misunderstanding of the Greek idiom. Lit., before fourteen years, that is, fourteen years ago, as Rev.
Caught up (arpagenta). Compare Dante:
"Thou knowest, who didst lift me with thy light" "Paradiso," i., 75.
The verb suits the swift, resistless, impetuous seizure of spiritual ecstasy. See on Matt. xi. 12; and compare Acts viii. 39; 1 Thess. iv. 17; Apoc. xii. 5.
Third heaven. It is quite useless to attempt to explain this expression according to any scheme of celestial gradation. The conception of seven heavens was familiar to the Jews; but according to some of the Rabbins there were two heavens - the visible clouds and the sky; in which case the third heaven would be the invisible region beyond the sky. Some think that Paul describes two stages of his rapture; the first to the third heaven, from which he was borne, as if from a halting-point, up into Paradise.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
12:2 {I know a man} (oida anqrwpon). Paul singles out one incident of ecstasy in his own experience that he declines to describe. He alludes to it in this indirect way as if it were some other personality. {Fourteen years ago} (pro etwn dekatessarwn). Idiomatic way of putting it, the preposition pro (before) before the date (Robertson, _Grammar, p. 621f.) as in #Joh 12:1. The date was probably while Paul was at Tarsus (#Ac 9:30; 11:25). We have no details of that period. {Caught up} (harpagenta). Second aorist passive participle of harpazw, to seize (see on #Mt 11:12). {Even to the third heaven} (hews tritou ouranou). It is unlikely that Paul alludes to the idea of seven heavens held by some Jews (_Test. of the Twelve Pat._, Levi ii. iii.). He seems to mean the highest heaven where God is (Plummer).
