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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Ephesians 6:20 - 6:20
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For - Greek, as in Eph 6:19, “On behalf of which.”
an ambassador in bonds - a paradox. Ambassadors were held inviolable by the law of nations, and could not, without outrage to every sacred right, be put in chains. Yet Christ’s “ambassador is in a chain!” The Greek is singular. The Romans used to bind a prisoner to a soldier by a single chain, in a kind of free custody. So Act 28:16, Act 28:20, “I am bound with this chain.” The term, “bonds” (plural), on the other hand, is used when the prisoner’s hands or feet were bound together (Act 26:29); compare Act 12:6, where the plural marks the distinction. The singular is only used of the particular kind of custody described above; an undesigned coincidence [Paley].