Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 1:10

"who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us;" — 2 Corinthians 1:10 (ASV)

Who delivered us from so great a death.—Death in itself hardly seems to allow such a qualifying adjective, but the words appear to have been used to represent the incidents of the death which seemed so near: the bodily anguish, the sense of prostration, almost, one might venture to say, the very presence of the king of terrors. As the word translated “so great” is, strictly speaking, used of quality rather than quantity, we might almost translate it, so terrible a death.

And doth deliver.—These words are missing in some of the better manuscripts, and others give them in the future. They may possibly have been inserted to carry the thought of the deliverance into the present, as well as through the past and the future.

In whom we trust.—Better, in whom we have hoped. The verb is not the same as the “trust” of the preceding verse. These words imply that he was not yet altogether free, as one would judge, from the danger of a relapse. Life was for him, in relation both to bodily infirmities and perils of other kinds, a perpetual series of deliverances.