Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Corinthians 12:9

"And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." — 2 Corinthians 12:9 (ASV)

And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you.—The words fit, more or less, with each of the two views previously discussed. From one point of view, however, it seems infinitely more in harmony with our thoughts of God that the prayer to be relieved from pain should be refused (because it was working out a higher perfection than was attainable without it) than that a deaf ear should have been turned to a prayer to be relieved from the temptation to impurity. Such a prayer seems to us to carry with it something like an assurance of its own prevailing power. Some of the better manuscripts omit the possessive “My,” and with that reading, the words take the form of a general axiom affirming that, in the highest sense, “might is perfected in weakness.” The last word is the same as that translated “infirmity” in the next clause. The variation, by concealing this, is to that extent unfortunate.

Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities.—The word, as has just been said, is the same as the “weakness” in the answer to his prayer. He finds not only comfort but actual delight in his consciousness of weakness, because it is balanced by the sense that the might of Christ dwells in him and around him. The word for “rest” is literally, like a similar word in John 1:14, to dwell as in a tent, and suggests the thought that the might of Christ was to him as the Shechinah cloud of glory encompassing and protecting him.