Paul's rivals were proud of their Jewish birth and used it to claim authority at Corinth. Barnes describes them as men of Hebrew descent who prided themselves on being Jews, connected with the people and land from which the Corinthians' faith had come. Gill notes that Paul does not deny they were Jews; he grants it. So each question names one of their boasts: their people, their descent from Jacob, and their descent from Abraham. Paul answers each with "so am I." He is not boasting because birth matters most. He is showing that on this ground his rivals have nothing over him.

Paul answers each question himself with three words: "so am I." Then he moves past birth to service: "Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more" (2 Corinthians 11:23). He follows with a long list of labors and sufferings (2 Corinthians 11:23-28) and finally says, "If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities" (2 Corinthians 11:30).

Each title carried weight among Jews. Barnes explains, "The name Israelite denoted, properly, one descended from Israel or Jacob." For "Hebrews," the two differ: Gill follows the more common Jewish view, which he thinks most likely, that the name came from an ancestor named Heber, while Barnes says it meant properly one from beyond the Euphrates, the name foreigners used for them. On "seed of Abraham," Gill says, "The Jews mightily boasted" of it, as some did to Jesus: "We be Abraham's seed" (John 8:33). Paul's own background fits every title. He describes himself as "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews" (Philippians 3:5), a verse Barnes cites here.

Paul matches his rivals on birth and then refuses to stay there. Heritage is equal ground, so it proves nothing. What sets him apart is what he has suffered for Christ (2 Corinthians 11:23-28) and, finally, his weakness (2 Corinthians 11:30). In Philippians 3, after listing the same kind of credentials, he says, "what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ" (Philippians 3:7).

Barnes points to John the Baptist's warning, "think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father" (Matthew 3:9), and to Jesus' words, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham" (John 8:39). Descent from Abraham was a real gift, but it was never a substitute for faith and faithfulness.