Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
Mortify--Greek, "make a corpse of"; "make dead"; "put to death."
therefore--(See on Colossians 3:3). Follow out to its necessary consequence the fact of your having once for all died with Christ spiritually at your regeneration, by daily "deadening your members," of which united "the body of the sins of the flesh" consists (compare Colossians 2:11). "The members" to be mortified are the fleshly instruments of lust, in so far as the members of the body are abused to such purposes. Habitually repress and do violence to corrupt desires of which the members are the instruments (compare Romans 6:19; Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:24-25).
upon the earth--where they find their support [BENGEL] (Compare Colossians 3:2, "things on earth"). See Ephesians 5:3-4.
inordinate affection--"lustful passion."
evil concupiscence--more general than the last [ALFORD], the disorder of the external senses; "lustful passion," lust within [BENGEL].
covetousness--marked off by the Greek article as forming a whole genus by itself, distinct from the genus containing the various species just enumerated. It implies a self-idolizing, grasping spirit; far worse than another Greek term translated "the love of money" (1 Timothy 6:10).
which is--that is, inasmuch as it is "idolatry." Compare Note, see on Ephesians 4:19, on its connection with sins of impurity. Self and mammon are deified in the heart instead of God (Matthew 6:24; see on Ephesians 5:5).
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Job 31:24-25
Isaiah 23:15
Isaiah 57:17
Ephesians 4:19
Ephesians 5:5
Ephesians 6:11
2 Timothy 3:2
1 John 5:21
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