Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Timothy 4:16

"At my first defence no one took my part, but all forsook me: may it not be laid to their account." — 2 Timothy 4:16 (ASV)

At my first answer no man stood with me . . .—And then, after mentioning what his enemy had done out of hatred for the cause of Christ, the old man went on to speak of the conduct of his own familiar friends at that great public trial before—most probably—the city prefect, known as the Præfectus Urbi, a nominee of the Emperor Nero.

No friend stood by him; no “advocate” pleaded his cause; no “procurator” (an official who performed the functions of an attorney in an English court) helped him arrange and sift the evidence; no “patronus” from any noble or powerful house gave him his approval and support. The position of a well-known Christian leader accused in the years AD 66–67 was critical, and any friend who dared to stand by him would himself be in great danger.

After the great fire of Rome in AD 64, Christians were regarded as enemies of the state and were charged as the authors of that terrible disaster. Nero, to avert suspicion from himself, allowed Christians to be accused and condemned as incendiaries. A great persecution, in which, as Tacitus tells us, a very great multitude of the followers of Jesus perished, was the immediate result of this hateful charge.

It is most probable that St. Paul, as a famous Nazarene leader, was eventually arrested as implicated in this crime and brought to Rome. His implacable enemies among the Jews may well have been the agents who brought this about, and Alexander, mentioned in the previous verse, was possibly principally concerned in this matter.

But St. Paul, conscious of his own great peril, knew well that to stand by him now, implicated as he was in this network of false accusations, would be a service of the greatest danger. So he pleads for them—these weak, unnerved friends of his who had deserted him, not out of ill will toward the cause but solely from timidity—remembering, no doubt, his own Master, who also, in His hour of deadly peril, had been forsaken. (See John 16:32, Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and ye shall leave Me alone.)

But just as his own Master, who proceeded to say, Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me, so St. Paul went on to tell Timothy that he too was not alone, for One greater than any friend on earth stood by him.