If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.
The division of the Chapter being so absurd, I could not refrain from changing it, especially as I could not conveniently interpret it otherwise. For what purpose did it serve to connect with what goes before a detached sentence, which agrees so well with what comes after — nay more, is thereby rendered complete? It is likely, that it happened through a mistake on the part of the transcribers.
Here the apostle shows what more excellent way he meant, or had in view, in the close of the former chapter, namely, charity, or, as it is commonly elsewhere rendered, love - agapē: not what is meant by charity in our common use of the word, which most men understand of alms - giving, but love in its fullest and most extensive meaning, true love...
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Though I speak with the tongues of men,.... That is, of all men, all languages that men anywhere speak, or have been spoken by them. The number of these is by some said (i) to be "seventy five"; but the general opinion of the Jews is, that at the confusion of languages at Babel, they were seventy; for they say (k), that then "the holy...