Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 2 Thessalonians · About this commentary
Eternal Comfort and Good Hope
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, · WEB
The chapter ends in prayer, and what it asks for is the exact opposite of what the false report had produced.
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father. The Son is named first, which is unusual and probably deliberate after a chapter defending his coming; and the verbs that follow in the Greek are singular, with the Father and the Son together as their subject.
What is said of them is stated in the past tense: who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace. Both gifts are already given, which is the argument. The comfort is paraklēsis G3874, the word for encouragement brought alongside, and it is called eternal — set against a panic caused by a report about timing.
The request is that they be comforted in heart and established in every good work and word. Established is the same idea as standing firm in verse 15, now asked for rather than commanded, which is how this letter consistently handles the relation between duty and gift. And the pairing of work and word closes the chapter where chapter 3 will begin: with people who are steady enough to be useful.
settled What this mark means