Quotes & Notes on:
1 Corinthians 15:55
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John Wesley's Notes:
O death, where is thy sting?-Which once was full of hellish poison.
O hades, the receptacle of separate souls, where is thy victory-Thou art
now robbed of all thy spoils; all thy captives are set at liberty. Hades
literally means the invisible world, and relates to the soul; death, to
the body. The Greek words are found in the Septuagint translation of Ho
13:14. Isa 25:8
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge:
* O death. Ho 13:14
* sting. Ac 9:5; Re 9:10*Gr:|
* grave. or, hell. Lu 16:23; Ac 2:27; Re 20:13,14*Gr:|
* is thy victory. Job 18:13,14; Ps 49:8-15; 89:48; Ec 2:15; 3:19; 8:8;
9:5,6 Ro 5:14
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Adam Clarke's Commentary:
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? These words
are generally supposed to be taken from Ho 13:14, where the Hebrew text
stands thus:  ehi debareyca maueth;
ehikatabca sheol: which we translate, O death! I will be thy plagues; O
grave! I will be thy destruction; and which the Septuagint translate
very nearly as the apostle,; O death, where is thy revenge, or judicial
process? O grave, where is thy sting? And it may be remarked that almost
all the MSS., versions, and many of the fathers, interchange the two
members of this sentence as they appear in the Septuagint, attributing
victory to death; and the sting, to hades or the grave; only the
Septuagint, probably by mistake or corruption of copyists, have , dike,
revenge or a judicial process, for nikos, victory: a mistake which
the similarity of the words, both in letters and sound, might readily
produce. We may observe, also, that the ehi (I will be) of the
Hebrew text the Septuagint, and the apostle following them, have
translated , where, as if the word had been written where, the two
last letters interchanged; but ehi, is rendered where in other
places; and our translators, in the 10th verse of this same chapter (Ho
13:10) render ehi malca, "I will be thy king," but have this note
in the margin, "Rather, where is thy king? King Hoshea being then in
prison." The apostle, therefore, and the Septuagint, are sufficiently
vindicated by the use of the word elsewhere: and the best Jewish
commentators allow this use of the word. The Targum, Syriac, Arabic,
Vulgate, and some MSS. of Kennicott and De Rossi, confirm this reading.
Having vindicated the translation, it is necessary to inquire into the
meaning of the apostle's expressions. Both Death and Hades are here
personified: Death is represented as having a sting, dagger, or goad, by
which, like the driver of oxen, he is continually irritating and urging
on; (these irritations are the diseases by which men are urged on till
they fall into Hades, the empire of Death;) to Hades, victory is
attributed, having overcome and conquered all human life, and subdued
all to its own empire. By the transposition of these two members of the
sentence, the victory is given to Death, who has extinguished all human
life; and the sting is given to Hades, as in his empire the evil of
death is fully displayed by the extinction of all animal life, and the
destruction of all human bodies. We have often seen a personification of
death in ancient paintings-a skeleton crowned, with a dart in his hand;
probably taken from the apostle's description. The Jews represent the
angel of death as having a sword, from which deadly drops of gall fall
into the mouths of all men.
Hades, which we here translate grave, is generally understood to be the
place of separate spirits. See ACC for Mt 11:23.
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Family Bible Notes:
Thy sting; that by which thou didst terrify men. Ho 13:14. Thy
victory; by which thou didst hold men as vanquished.
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1599 Geneva Bible Notes:
(No comment on this verse)
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People's New Testament Commentary:
This is quoted from Ho 13:14. It is here the triumphant shout of the
apostle as he sees by faith the final victory over death.
To fulfil. To complete its purpose. He was the end of the law. It was a
"schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" (Ga 3:24), but "after faith is come
we are no longer under the schoolmaster" [Ga 3:25].
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Robertson's Word Pictures:
Late form of nikę. O death (thanate). Second instance. Here Paul
changes Hades of the LXX for Hebrew Sheol (Ho 13:14) to death. Paul
never uses Hades. Thy sting (sou to kentron). Old word from kentreô, to
prick, as in Ac 26:14. In Re 9:10 of the sting of locusts, scorpions.
The serpent death has lost his poison fangs.
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Albert Barnes' Commentary:
This triumphant exclamation is the commencement of the fourth division
of the chapter--the practical consequences of the doctrine. It is such
an exclamation as every man with right feelings will be disposed to
make, who contemplates the ravages of death; who looks upon a World
where in all forms he has reigned, and who then contemplates the
glorious truth, that a complete and final triumph has been obtained over
this great enemy of the happiness of man, and that man would die no
more. It is a triumphant view which bursts upon the soul as it
contemplates the fact that the work of the second Adam has repaired the
ruins of the first, and that man is redeemed; his body will be raised;
not another human being should die, and the work of death should be
ended. Nay, it is more. Death is not only at an end; it shall not only
cease, but its evils shall be repaired; and the glory and honour shall
encompasse the body of man, such as would have been unknown had there n
no death. No commentary can add to the beauty and force of the language
in this verse; and the best way to see its beauty, and to enjoy it, is
to sit down and think of DEATH; of what death has been, and has done; of
the millions and millions that have died; of the earth strewed with the
dead, and "arched with graves;" of our own death; the certainty that we
must die, and our parents, and brothers, and sisters, and children, and
friends; that all, all must die;--and then to suffer the truth, in its
full-orbed splendour, to rise upon us, that the time will come when
DEATH SHALL, BE AT AN END. Who, in such contemplation, can refrain from
the language of triumph, and from hymns of praise?
Where is thy sting? The word which is here rendered sting (kentron)
denotes, properly, a prick, a point; hence a goad or stimulus; i.e., a
rod or staff with an iron point, for goading oxen, See Barnes for Ac
9:5;) and then a sting properly, as of scorpions, bees, etc. It denotes
here a venomous thing, or weapon, applied to death personified, as if
death employed it to destroy life, as the sting of a bee or a scorpion
is used, The idea is derived from the venomous sting of serpents, or
other reptiles, as being destructive and painful. The language here is
the language of exultation, as if that was taken away or destroyed.
O grave, adh. Hades, the place of the dead. It is not improperly
rendered, however, grave. The word properly denotes a place of darkness;
then the world, or abodes of the dead. According to the Hebrews, hades,
or sheol, was a vast subterranean receptacle, or abode, where the souls
of the dead existed. It was dark, deep, still, awful. The descent to it
was through the grave; and the spirits of all the dead were supposed to
be assembled there; the righteous occupying the upper regions, and the
wicked the lower. See Barnes for Isa 14:9. Compare Lowth, Lect. on Heb.
Poet. vii. Campbell, Prel. Diss. vi. part 2, & 2. It refers here to the
dead; and means that the grave, or hades, should no longer have a
victory.
Thy victory? Since the dead are to rise; since all the graves are to
give up all that dwell in them; since no man will die after that, where
is its victory? It is taken away. It is despoiled. The power of death
and the grave is vanquished, and Christ is triumphant over all. It has
been well remarked here, that the words in this verse rise above the
plain and simple language of prose, and resemble a hymn, into which the
apostle breaks out in view of the glorious truth which is here presented
to the mind. The whole verse,is indeed a somewhat loose quotation from
Ho 13:14, which we translate---
"O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction."
But which the Seventy render-
"O death, where is thy punishment? O grave, where is thy sting?"
Probably Paul did not intend this as a direct quotation; but he spoke as
a man naturally does who is familiar with the language of the
Scriptures, and used it to express the sense which he intended, without
meaning to make a direct and literal quotation. The form which Paul uses
is so poetic in its structure, that Pope has adopted it, with only a
change in the location of the members, in the "Dying Christian:"
"O grave, where is thy victory! O death, where is thy sting."
{a} "death" Ho 13:14
{1} "grave" "hell"
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Jamieson-Faussett Brown:
Quoted from Ho 13:14, substantially; but freely used by the warrant of
the Spirit by which Paul wrote. The Hebrew may be translated, "O death,
where are thy plagues? Where, O Hades, is thy destruction?" The
Septuagint, "Where is thy victory (literally, in a lawsuit), O death?
Where is thy sting, O Hades? ... Sting" answers to the Hebrew "plagues,"
namely, a poisoned sting causing plagues. Appropriate, as to the old
serpent (Ge 3:14,15; Nu 21:6). "Victory" answers to the Hebrew
"destruction." Compare Isa 25:7, "destroy ... veil ... over all
nations," namely, victoriously destroy it; and to "in victory" (1Co
15:54), which he triumphantly repeats. The "where" implies their past
victorious destroying power and sting, now gone for ever; obtained
through Satan's triumph over man in Eden, which enlisted God's law on
the side of Satan and death against man (Ro 5:12,17,21). The souls in
Hades being freed by the resurrection, death's sting and victory are
gone. For "O grave," the oldest manuscripts and versions read, "O
death," the second time.
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Spurgeon Devotional Commentary:
(No comment on this verse)
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William Burkitt's Notes:
(No comment on this verse)
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Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:
(No comment on this verse)
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The Fourfold Gospel:
(No comment on this verse)
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