Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Corinthians 15:55

"O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" — 1 Corinthians 15:55 (ASV)

O death. This triumphant exclamation is the beginning of the fourth division of the chapter—the practical consequences of the doctrine. It is an exclamation that every person with right feelings will be inclined to make, who contemplates the ravages of death, who looks upon a world where in all forms it has reigned, and who then contemplates the glorious truth that a complete and final triumph has been obtained over this great enemy of human happiness, and that humans would die no more.

It is a triumphant view that bursts upon the soul as it contemplates the fact that the work of the second Adam has repaired the ruins of the first, and that humanity is redeemed. Our bodies will be raised; not another human being will die, and the work of death will be ended.

Indeed, it is more. Death is not only at an end; it will not only cease, but its evils will be repaired. Glory and honor will encompass the human body, such as would have been unknown had there been no death.

No commentary can add to the beauty and force of the language in this verse. The best way to see its beauty, and to enjoy it, is to sit down and think of DEATH—of what death has been and has done; of the millions and millions that have died; of the earth strewn with the dead and "arched with graves."

Think also of our own death: the certainty that we must die, and our parents, and brothers, and sisters, and children, and friends—that all, all must die. Then let the truth, in its full-orbed splendor, rise upon us: that the time will come when DEATH SHALL BE AT AN END.

Who, in such contemplation, can refrain from the language of triumph and from hymns of praise?

Where is thy sting? The word rendered here as sting (kentron) properly denotes a prick or a point; hence a goad or stimulus (i.e., a rod or staff with an iron point for goading oxen (see Acts 9:5)); and then a sting properly, as of scorpions, bees, etc. It denotes here a venomous thing, or weapon, applied to death personified, as if death employed it to destroy life, as the sting of a bee or a scorpion is used. The idea is derived from the venomous sting of serpents or other reptiles, as being destructive and painful. The language here is the language of exultation, as if that sting were taken away or destroyed.

O grave (the term discussed is adh.), that is, Hades, the place of the dead. It is not improperly rendered, however, grave.

The word properly denotes a place of darkness, then the underworld, or abode of the dead. According to the Hebrews, Hades, or Sheol, was a vast subterranean receptacle, or abode, where the souls of the dead existed. It was dark, deep, still, and awful. The descent to it was through the grave, and the spirits of all the dead were supposed to be assembled there—the righteous occupying the upper regions, and the wicked the lower .

(Compare Lowth, Lectures on Hebrew Poetry, vii; and Campbell, Preliminary Dissertation, vi, part 2, section 2). It refers here to the dead and means that the grave, or Hades, will no longer have a victory.

Thy victory? Since the dead are to rise, since all the graves are to give up all who dwell in them, and since no one will die after that, where is its victory?

It is taken away; it is despoiled. The power of death and the grave is vanquished, and Christ is triumphant over all.

It has been well remarked here that the words in this verse rise above the plain and simple language of prose and resemble a hymn, into which the apostle breaks out in view of the glorious truth presented to the mind. The whole verse is indeed a somewhat loose quotation from Hosea 13:14, which we translate:

O death, I will be thy plagues;
O grave, I will be thy destruction.

But which the Septuagint renders:

O death, where is thy punishment?
O grave, where is thy sting?

Probably Paul did not intend this as a direct quotation. He spoke as a man naturally does who is familiar with the language of the Scriptures and used it to express the sense he intended, without meaning to make a direct and literal quotation. The form Paul uses is so poetic in its structure that Pope adopted it, with only a change in the location of the parts, in "The Dying Christian":

"O grave, where is thy victory!
O death, where is thy sting."