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Spendomai, the word translated "offer" occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It
is found many times in the LXX and generally translated "pour out" as a drink offering.
The first occurrence is found in Gen. 35: 14, where Jacob, as an act of gratitude,
erected a pillar of stone at Beth-el, and "poured a drink offering thereon". Under the law
the daily sacrifice was always to be accompanied by:
"The fourth part of a hin of wine for a drink offering" (Exod. 29: 40).
When we read in Exod. 37: 16 that the vessels for pouring the drink offering
were "of pure gold", it seems impossible to believe that Paul would not have had this in
his mind, when he wrote about those vessels of gold that were "unto honour" and "meet
for the Master's use".
Apart from the offerings in the tabernacle and temple, and the idolatry into which
Israel fell, the only other use of spendomai in the LXX is that act of David in connexion
with the water of the well of Bethlehem:
"And David, longed and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the
well of Beth-lehem, that is at the gate! And the three brake through the host of the
Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Beth-lehem, that was by the gate, and took
it and brought it to David: but David would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord"
(I Chron. 11: 17, 18).
To this drink offering and its associations of joyful sacrifice the apostle referred when
he likened himself to the wine poured out upon the sacrifice and service of faith.
The last thing one would think of doing to such a man as Paul at this time, would be to
have commiserated with him. He needed no comfort, mourners, tears, his departure was
triumph and his hope full of glory.
"Depart" analusis, in English analysis. The word means, as the English equivalent
shows, the breaking up of a body into its constituent parts, and is a fit expression to
describe that which is written in Gen. 3::
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground: for out
of it wast thou taken: dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (19).
By no manner of means can analysis be made to teach that Paul was about to "depart
to glory".
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith"
(II Tim. 4: 7).
The position of the article, and the adjective in the words "the fight, the good one, I
have fought", indicates strong emphasis.
The word translated "fight" is agona, and "to fight" is agonizomai. The English word
agony is of course derived from this word, and the word agonistic refers to sport,
especially the ancient Greek sports. The word "fight" is misleading, and should be