Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.

If then I know not the power of the voice, I shall be to him to whom I speak a barbarian; and he that speaketh, a barbarian to me.

If therefore I do not know the power of the sound, I shall be to him that speaks a barbarian, and he that speaks a barbarian for me.

if, then, I do not know the power of the voice, I shall be to him who is speaking a foreigner, and he who is speaking, is to me a foreigner;

Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaks a barbarian, and he that speaks shall be a barbarian to me.

If, however, I do not know the meaning of the particular language, I shall seem to the speaker of it, and he to me, to be merely talking some foreign tongue.

But if the sense of the voice is not clear to me, I am like a man from a strange country to him who is talking, and he will be the same to me.

Therefore, if I do not understand the nature of the voice, then I shall be like a foreigner to the one with whom I am speaking; and he who is speaking will be like a foreigner to me.

If, however, I do not happen to know the language, I will be a foreigner to those who speak it, and they will be foreigners to me.

I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian [1] The tongue ought to be an index of the mind -- not merely in the sense of the proverb, but in the sense that is explained by Aristotle in the commencement of his book -- "On Interpretation." [2] How foolish then it is and preposterous in a man, to utter in an assembly a voice of which the hearer understands nothing -- in which he perceives no token from which he may learn what the person means! It is not without good reason, therefore, that Paul views it as the height of absurdity, that a man should be a barbarian to the hearers, by chattering in an unknown tongue, and at the same time he elegantly treats with derision the foolish ambition of the Corinthians, who were eager to obtain praise and fame by this means. "This reward," says he, "you will earn -- that you will be a barbarian." For the term barbarian, whether it be an artificial one, (as Strabo thinks, [3] ) or derived from some other origin, is taken in a bad sense. Hence the Greeks, who looked upon themselves as the only persons who were good speakers, and had a polished language, gave to all others the name of barbarians, from their rude and rustic dialect. No language, however, is so cultivated as not to be reckoned barbarous, when it is not understood. "He that heareth," says Paul, "will be unto me a barbarian, and I will be so to him in return." By these words he intimates, that to speak in an unknown tongue, is not to hold fellowship with the Church, but rather to keep aloof from it, and that he who will act this part, will be deservedly despised by others, because he first despises them.

Footnotes

1 - "The Greeks, after the custom of the Egyptians, mentioned by; Herodotus, (lib. 2,) called all those barbarians who did not speak their language. In process of time, however, the Romans having subdued the Greeks, delivered themselves by the force of arms from that opprobrious appellation; and joined the Greeks in calling all barbarians who did not speak either the Greek or the Latin language. Afterwards, barbarian signified any one who spoke a language which another did not understand. Thus the Scythian philosopher, Anacharsis, said, that among the Athenians the Scythians were barbarians; and among the Scythians the Athenians were barbarians. In like manner Ovid. Trist. 5. 10, Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli;' -- I am a barbarian here, because I am not understood by any one.' This is the sense which the Apostle affixes to the word barbarian, in the present passage. McKnight. -- Ed.

2 - "La langue doit estre comme vn image, pour expimer et representer ce qui est en l'entendement;" -- "The tongue should be like an image, to express and represent what is in the understanding."

3 - He considers the term barbaros, (barbarian,) to be a term constructed in imitation of the sense -- to convey the idea of one that speaks with difficulty and harshness. See Strabo, Book 14. Bloomfield considers the term barbarian to be derived -- "not" as some think, "from the Arabic berber, to murmur, but from the Punic berber, a shepherd -- having been originally appropriated to the indigenous and pastoral inhabitants of Africa; who, to their more civilized fellow-men on the other side of the Mediterranean, appeared rustics and barbarians. Hence the term barbaros came at length to mean a rustic or clown." -- Ed

The meaning of the voice - Of the language that is uttered, or the sounds that are made.
I shall be unto him - What I say will be unintelligible to him, and what he says will be unintelligible to me. We cannot understand one another any more than people can who speak different languages.
A barbarian - See the note at Romans 1:14. The word means one who speaks a different, or a foreign language.

If I know not the meaning of the voice - Την δυναμιν της φωνης, The power and signification of the language.
I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian - I shall appear to him, and he to me, as a person who had no distinct and articulate sounds which can convey any kind of meaning. This observation is very natural: when we hear persons speaking in a language of which we know nothing, we wonder how they can understand each other, as, in their speech, there appears to us no regular distinction of sounds or words. For the meaning and origin of the word barbarian, see the note on Acts 28:2.

Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that (g) speaketh [shall be] a barbarian unto me.
(g) As the papists in all their sermons, and they that ambitiously pour out some Hebrew or Greek words in the pulpit before the unlearned people, by this to get themselves a name of vain learning.

Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice,.... The force and power of a language, the signification of it, the ideas its words convey, but only hear the sound of it:
I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me: like one of those rude and uncultivated people that inhabit deserts and wild places, who can neither understand the language of others, nor be understood by others; and indeed may be meant of any sort of people, that do not understand one another's language: the word "bar", and "bara", in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages, not only signifies a field, a wood, or desert place, but also without, or any thing extraneous; and being doubled, signifies one that lives without, in another land; a stranger, and that speaks a strange language; so all other nations of the world were barbarians to the Hebrews, and particularly the Egyptians; see the Targum on Psalm 114:1 and so were all other nations to the Greeks, see Romans 1:14 and also to the Romans: and the sense is, that where the signification of a language and the sense of words are not known, the speaker is like a man that lives in a strange country to him that hears him; and the hearer is like to one that lives in a strange country to him that speaks, since they cannot understand one another. The word sometimes is used for men, , (z), "that can neither speak nor hear", men dumb and deaf; and when words cannot be understood, the case is all one as with such persons.
(z) Scholia in Aristoph. in Avibus, p. 550.

Therefore--seeing that none is without meaning.
a barbarian--a foreigner (Acts 28:2). Not in the depreciatory sense as the term is now used, but one speaking a foreign language.

I shall be a barbarian to him - Shall seem to talk unintelligible gibberish.