I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
12 I know both how to be abased There follows here a distinction, with the view of intimating that he has a mind adapted to bear any kind of condition. “Il fait yci vne diuision, disant qu’il est tellement dispose en son coeur qu’il scait se cornporter et en prosperite et en adversite;” — “He makes a distinction here, saying that he is prepared in...
In these verses we have the thankful grateful acknowledgment which the apostle makes of the kindness of the Philippians in sending him a present for his support, now that he was a prisoner at Rome. And here, I. He takes occasion to acknowledge their former kindnesses to him, and to make mention of them, Phi 4:15, Phi 4:16.
Commenting on Philippians 4:10-19
I know both how to be abased,.... Or "humbled"; to be treated with indignity and contempt, to be trampled upon by man, to suffer hardships and distress, to be in a very mean and low condition, to work with his own hands, and minister to his own and the necessities of others in that way; yea, to be in hunger and thirst, in cold and...