human
The husbandman that laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits: not, as the A. V.,
gpt
which seems to imply that he must partake of the fruits before he labours. What is the meaning of
human
? Some commentators resort to the rather desperate hypothesis that this word is misplaced, as it sometimes is in careless writing and conversation: and they suppose that what St. Paul means is, that
gpt
or, more clearly,
human
The margin of the A. V. suggests a similar translation. But this is to credit the Apostle with great clumsiness of expression. And even if this transposition of the
gpt
could be accepted as probable, there still remains the fact that we have the present and not the aorist participle (κοπιῶντα and not κοπιάσαντα). Had St. Paul meant what is supposed, he would have said
human
The husbandman who _has_ first _laboured_, not
gpt
But there is no transposition of the
human
The order of the Greek shows that the emphatic word is
gpt
human
It is the _labouring_ husbandman who must be the first to partake of the fruits.