Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 11:29

"Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to stumble, and I burn not?" — 2 Corinthians 11:29 (ASV)

Who is weak and I am not weak . . .?—These words obviously spring from a recollection of all that was involved in that “rush” of which he had just spoken. Did anyone come to him with their account of physical illness or spiritual sickness, he, in his infinite sympathy, felt as if he shared in it.

He claimed no exemption from their infirmities and was reminded by every such account of his own susceptibility to them. The words that follow have a still stronger significance.

The word “offended” (better, made to stumble—that is, led to fall by a temptation which a person has not resisted) suggests the thought of some grievous sin, as distinct from weakness. The dominant sense of the word, as in Matthew 5:29-30, Matthew 18:8–9, Mark 9:42–43, Mark 9:45, Mark 9:47, and 1 Corinthians 8:13, is that of the sins to which people are led by the temptations of the senses.

The other word—“to burn”—is even more startling in its suggestiveness. It had been used in 1 Corinthians 7:9 of the “burning” of sensual passion, and it is scarcely open to a doubt that the associations thus connected with it mingle with its meaning here. People came to the Apostle with their accounts of shame and told how they had been tempted and had fallen; and here, too, he, in his illimitable sympathy, seemed to have travelled with them on the downward road. He felt himself suffused, as it were, with the burning glow of their shame. He blushed with them and for them, as though the sin had been his own.

It should be added that, simply as a word, “burn” is equally applicable to any emotion of intense pain or fiery indignation, and many interpreters have understood it this way. The view presented above, however, seems most in harmony with the Apostle’s character.