Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil
This seems to be the same person that was at Ephesus in the
tumult, when the apostle was there, ( Acts 20:33 Acts 20:34 ) and whom he
afterwards delivered to Satan, along with Hymenaeus, for
blasphemy, ( 1 Timothy
1:20 ) . It was very likely he had lately been at Rome,
though now returned to Ephesus, and had done great injury to the
apostle's character, and had reproached and reviled him as a man
of bad principles and practices; his business is mentioned, to
distinguish him from any other of that name, and to show the
insolence of the man, that though he was an illiterate person,
and in such a mean station of life, yet took upon him to resist
the apostle and his doctrine.
The Lord reward him according to his works;
which may be considered either as an imprecation upon him, as
knowing him to be a wicked blasphemer, and a reprobate person;
and which arose, not from private resentment, and on account of
the private injury he had done to him; but from a pure zeal for
the glory of God, and the honour of his name, without mingling
his own spirit and passions with it: or as a prophecy, or
declaration of what would be; and so the Alexandrian copy, and
the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions, read, "the Lord will
render to him"