Let such an one think this ... - Let them not flatter themselves that there will be any discrepancy between my words and my deeds. Let them feel that all which has been threatened will be certainly executed unless there is repentance. Paul here designedly contradicts the charge which was made against him; and means to say that all that he had threatened in his letters would he certainly executed unless there was a reform. I think that the evidence here is clear that Paul does not intend to admit what they said about his bodily presence to be true; and most probably all that has been recorded about his deformity is mere fable.

Such as we are in word - A threatening of this kind would doubtless alarm the false apostle; and it is very likely that he did not await the apostle's coming, as he would not be willing to try the fate of Elymas.

Let such an one think this,.... The apostle seems to have in view some one particular person, though he does not choose to name him, who had more especially reproached him after this manner; and who was either one of the members of this church, or rather one of the false apostles: and so in the foregoing verse, instead of "say they", in which way both the Syriac and Vulgate Latin read, and is followed in our version, it is in the original text "says he", or "he says"; and so a certain particular person seems designed in 2 Corinthians 11:4 whom the apostle would have to know and conclude with himself, and of which he might fully assure himself, that such as we are in word by letters, when we are absent, such will be also in deed, when we are present: he threatens the calumniator, that he should find him, to his sorrow, the same man present as absent; that what he sent by letters, should be found to be fact, when he came again; whose coming would not be with all that tenderness and gentleness, as when he first preached the Gospel to them, for which there was then a reason; since he and others had swerved from the truths of the Gospel, and the right ways of God, which would require the severity he threatened them with, and the execution of which might be depended upon.

Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.

10:11 Let such an one think this. Let all who make such statements know that when I come I will in presence do just as I have written.

11. think this-"consider this."

such will we be-or "are," in general, not merely shall we be at our next visit.

10:7-11 In outward appearance, Paul was mean and despised in the eyes of some, but this was a false rule to judge by. We must not think that none outward appearance, as if the want of such things proved a man not to be a real Christian, or an able, faithful minister of the lowly Saviour.