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Eph_2:11. Διό ] Therefore, because such exalted and unmerited benefits have been imparted to us (Eph_2:4-10). These benefits should move the reader to remember his former miserable heathen state ( ποτέ , Eph_5:8; Col_1:21), in order the more gratefully to appreciate, by contrast with the past, the value of his present state.
ὅτι ποτὲ ὑμεῖς τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί ] Neither ἦτε nor ὄντες is to be supplied, but (observe the order critically vouched for: ποτὲ ὑμεῖς ) ὅτι is taken up again by the ὅτι of Eph_2:12, and ποτέ by τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ , Eph_2:12; while τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί is a descriptive definition to ὑμεῖς , to which it is related by way of apposition, and οἱ λεγόμενοι κ . τ . λ . is attributive definition to ὑμεῖς τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί : that at one time ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, ye who (quippe qui) were named Foreskin … that ye at that time, etc.
τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σαρκί ] is closely connected as one conception, and hence without the article before ἐν σαρκί . This ἐν σαρκί is, as to its meaning, necessarily defined by the undoubted meaning of the following ἐν σαρκί ; on which account it is neither to be taken, as a contrast to regeneration, of the former unholy life of the readers (Ambrosiaster, Calovius, Wolf, Holzhausen), nor as origine carnali, natalibus (Bucer, Grotius, Estius, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Flatt), nor is it to be generalized into respectu status externi (Morus). It has reference to the foreskin. In the flesh, on account of the non-circumcised foreskin, the character ethnicus was inherent.
The τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σ ., with the article, designates the readers as to their category. The contempt, however, incurred in their pre-Christian state lies not in τὰ ἔθνη ἐν σ . (for this they still remained), but in the following οἱ λεγόμενοι κ . τ . λ .; although we may not, by mentally supplying (with Chrysostom and his successors) the contrast οὐκ ἐν πνεύματι , make ἐν σαρκί into an element of recommendation.
οἱ λεγόμενοι … χειροπ .] is not to be placed in a parenthesis (Griesbach, Scholz), seeing that it is a continued description of the Gentile state of the readers. As the ἔθνη τῇ σαρκί , they were those designated by the name Foreskin! And, then, the delineation of this despised relation is brought to a yet higher climax when it is specified by whom they were thus reproachfully designated, namely, by the so-called Circumcision, which is made in the flesh with the hand. So low was the position you occupied! By those who bear the name of this surgical operation performed on the flesh (counterpart of the ideal circumcision, Rom_2:28 f.; Php_3:3; Col_2:11; Act_7:51), and hence have by it in and of itself no pre-eminence at all, you must allow yourselves to be designated, for want of this external rite, with the reproachful name of Foreskin! ἐν σαρκὶ χειροπ . does not pertain to λεγομ ., but is an addition of the apostle himself to περιτ ., describing how the matter stands. The abstracta ἀκροβ . and περιτ . do not here stand pro concretis, but are stated names, by which the concretes were in accordance with their peculiar character designated. Comp. 2Th_2:4 : ἐπὶ πάντα λεγόμενον Θεὸν ἢ σέβασμα . The circumstance that Paul, instead of ὑπὸ τῆς λεγομένης , has not again employed the plural expression ὑπὸ τῶν λεγομένων , is to be explained by the fact that he wishes to indicate the περιτομή as a name, which is not adequate to the idea of it in the case of the subjects so termed: by the so-called circumcision. The expression is depreciatory (comp. 1Co_8:5) as concerns the people who bore the name περιτομή ; whereas οἱ λεγόμενοι ἀκροβυστία would indicate not the conception of “so-called,” but, in a purely objective manner, the mentioned fact: “those called Foreskin” (Heb_9:3).