Biblion Bible Commentary
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Large Letters in My Own Hand
Galatians 6:11-13
11 See with what large letters I write to you with my own hand. · WEB
Paul takes the pen himself for the closing, and then states the troublers' motive in two clauses that have nothing to do with theology.
See with what large letters I write to you with my own hand. The letter had been dictated to a secretary, as his letters were, and here he takes over. Why the letters are large the text does not say — emphasis is the natural reading, the ancient equivalent of raising the voice, and the letter has earlier hinted at trouble with his eyes without stating it Galatians 4:15.
What the gesture does is put his own hand behind the summary that follows.
Verse 12 gives the troublers' motive, the plainest diagnosis in the letter. They desire to make a good impression in the flesh — to present a fair face outwardly — and the purpose clause is damning: just so they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.
So the requirement was a shelter. Attaching circumcision to the gospel made it defensible to people who found the cross offensive, and those urging it were buying their own safety with someone else's flesh. Hence Paul's persecution as evidence a chapter earlier Galatians 5:11: the man who added nothing is the man being hunted.
Verse 13 adds the second motive and exposes the inconsistency. Even they who receive circumcision don't keep the law themselves — they are not law-keepers, so this was never about obedience — but they desire to have you circumcised, so that they may boast in your flesh.
The last three words are the point. A tally of converts, counted in other people's bodies. Nothing in the account is doctrinal at all.
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