Ver. 13. +I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations.+--Compare 2 Cor. iv. 1-16, where the same word is used. As an agonised sufferer, heroically suppressing every sign of pain, begs those who wait on him not to give way to grief; as Socrates, having quaffed the poison, rallies his friends, who have broken out into uncontrollable weeping, with the words, "What are you doing my friends? What! such fine men as you are! Oh, where is virtue?"; so (with a possible reminiscence of Acts xx. 36-38) St. Paul begs his readers not to lose heart. Ver. 15. +The whole family.+--R.V. "every family." The word for "family" is only found in the New Testament in St. Luke ii. 4 and Acts iii. 25; in one translated "lineage," in the other "kindreds" in A.V.; consistently as "family" by R.V. Chrysostom, and others who followed him, have surely a special claim to be heard. They translate it "races." Bishop Alexander contends for the A.V. translation, _"the whole."_ He says, "A special force and signification in the expression make this translation necessary" (cf. ch. ii. 19). Ver. 16. +The riches of His glory.+--"The whole glorious perfection of God." +To be strengthened with might.+--There may be a verbal connection with the "fainting" of ver. 13, but the thought goes far out beyond that. +In the inner man.+--We are reminded again of the text quoted above (2 Cor. iv. 16). A mode of expression derived from the Platonic school, not necessarily presupposing any acquaintance with that system of philosophy. Ver. 17. +That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.+--The condition of this, declared by Christ Himself, is that a man should keep the word of Christ. +Being rooted and grounded.+--A double metaphor--of a tree that has struck its roots deep into the crevices of the rock, and of a building with a foundation of bed-rock. "Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God" (1 John iv. 7). Love conditions knowledge of things Divine (see ver. 18). Ver. 18. +May be able.+--Perfectly able. +With all saints.+--The highest and most precious knowledge Paul can desire only as a common possession of all Christians. +What is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.+--"The deeply affected mind with its poetico-imaginative intuition looks upon the _metaphysical_ magnitude as a _physical, mathematical_ one. Every special attempt at interpretation is unpsychological, and only gives scope to that caprice which profanes by dissecting the outpouring of enthusiasm" (_Meyer_). Ver. 19. +And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.+--"An _adequate_ knowledge of the love of Christ transcends human capacity, but the _relative_ knowledge of the same opens up in a higher degree the more the heart is filled with the Spirit of Christ, and thereby is strengthened in loving. This knowledge is not _discursive,_ but based in the consciousness of experience" (_Meyer_).