Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets (twn kai ton Kurion apokteinantwn Ihsoun kai touv profhtav). First aorist active participle of apokteinw. Vivid justification of his praise of the churches in Judea. The Jews killed the prophets before the Lord Jesus who reminded them of their guilt (Matthew 23:29). Paul, as Peter (Acts 2:23), lays the guilt of the death of Christ on the Jews.
And drove us out (kai hmav ekdiwcantwn). An old verb to drive out or banish, to chase out as if a wild beast. Only here in N.T. It is Paul's vivid description of the scene told in Acts 17:5 ff. when the rabbis and the hoodlums from the agora chased him out of Thessalonica by the help of the politarchs.
Please not God (Qew mh areskontwn). The rabbis and Jews thought that they were pleasing God by so doing as Paul did when he ravaged the young church in Jerusalem. But Paul knows better now.
And are contrary to all men (kai pasin anqrwpoiv enantiwn). Dative case with the adjective enantiwn (old and common word, face to face, opposite). It seems like a bitter word about Paul's countrymen whom he really loved (Romans 9:1-5; Romans 10:1-6), but Paul knew only too well the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile as he shows in Eph. 2 and which only the Cross of Christ can break down. Tacitus (Hist. V. 5) says that the Jews are adversus omnes alios hostile odium.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 Thessalonians 2:15:
Romans 9:22
Galatians 4:29
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