2 

2:1 What was proposed, Th1 1:5-6, is now more largely treated of: concerning Paul and his fellowlabourers, Th1 2:1-12; concerning the Thessalonians, Th1 2:13-16.

2:2 We had suffered - In several places. We are bold - Notwithstanding. With much contention - Notwithstanding bothinward and outward conflicts of all kinds.

2:3 For our exhortation - That is, our preaching. A part is put for the whole. Is not, at any time, of deceit - We preach not a lie, but the truth of God. Nor of uncleanness - With any unholy or selfish view. This expression is not always appropriated to lust, although it is sometimes emphatically applied thereto.Nor in guile - But with great plainness of speech.

2:5 Flattering words - This ye know. Nor a cloak of covetousness - Of this God is witness. He calls men to witness an open fact; God, the secret intentions of the heart. In a point of a mixed nature, Th1 2:10, he appeals both to God and man.

2:6 Nor from others - Who would have honoured us more, if we had been burdensome - That is, taken state upon ourselves.

2:7 But we were gentle - Mild, tender. In the midst of you - Like a hen surrounded with her young. Even as a nurse cherisheth her own children - The offspring of her own womb.

2:8 To impart our own souls - To lay down our lives for your sake.

1 

1:10 The people were praying without, at the time of the incense - So the pious Jews constantly did. And this was the foundationof that elegant figure, by which prayer is in Scripture so often compared to incense. Perhaps one reason of ordaining incense might be, to intimate the acceptableness of the prayer that accompanied it; as well as to remind the worshippers of that sacrifice of a sweet - smelling savour, which was once to be offered to God for them, and of that incense, which is continually offered with the prayers of the saints, upon the golden altar that is before the throne, Rev 8:3-4.

1:12 Zacharias was troubled - Although he was accustomed to converse with God, yet we see he was thrown into a great consternation, at the appearance of his angelical messenger, nature not being able to sustain the sight. Is it not then an instance of the goodness is well as of the wisdom of God, that the services, which these heavenly spirits render us, are generally invisible?

1:13 Thy prayer is heard - Let us observe with pleasure, that the prayers of pious worshippers come up with acceptance before God; to whom no costly perfume is so sweet, as the fragrancy of an upright heart. An answer of peace was here returned, when the case seemed to be most helpless. Let us wait patiently for the Lord, and leave to his own wisdom the time and manner wherein he will appear for us. Thou shalt call his name John - John signifies the grace or favour of Jehovah. A name well suiting the person, who was afterward so highly in favour with God, and endued with abundance of grace; and who opened a way to the most glorious dispensation of grace in the Messiah's kingdom. And so Zacharias's former prayers for a child, and the prayer which he, as the representative of the people, was probably offering at this very time, for the appearing of the Messiah, were remarkably answered in the birth of his forerunner.