The Lord Stood by Me
14 Alexander the coppersmith did much evil to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15 Beware of him, for he greatly opposed our words. 16 At my first defense, no one came to help me, but all left me. May it not be held against them. 17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear. So I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. 18 And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and will preserve me for his heavenly Kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Everyone deserted him at the hearing, and his comment on it is a prayer that they not be charged with it.
Alexander the coppersmith did much evil to me. The response is handed over rather than acted on: the Lord will repay him. Paul warns Timothy to beware of him and leaves the account where he had said such accounts belong Romans 12:19.
Verse 16 is bleaker. At his first defense nobody came to help; all left him. Roman practice allowed supporters to stand with a defendant, and the empty benches would have been visible to the court.
Then the sentence that measures the man: may it not be held against them. It is what Stephen prayed while being stoned Acts 7:60, and Paul had been standing there Acts 7:58. The disciple who watched that death asks the same thing at his own.
Verse 17 supplies what the benches did not. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me — the verb means to take a position beside someone, which is exactly what no human did. And the purpose was not comfort: that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles hear. His trial became a pulpit.
Rescued from the lion's jaws, he expects rescue from every evil work — and then names what that means, which is not release but a heavenly kingdom.
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