I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
Paul had a grateful spirit, and though the Philippians owed him their very souls, he speaks of their gift as if it were generous charity rather than a just debt. What they sent was small, yet he records it for all ages to read; their kindness shall be a memorial wherever this epistle goes. They alone helped him when he left Macedonia, when no other church did so.
AI summary
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...
abased--in low circumstances (Co2 4:8; Co2 6:9-10). everywhere--rather, "in each, and in all things" [ALFORD]. instructed--in the secret. Literally, "initiated" in a secret teaching, which is a mystery unknown to the world.