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Eph_2:12. As regards the construction, see on Eph_2:11.
τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ] takes the place of the ποτέ , Eph_2:11, and means the pre-Christian, heathen period of the readers. On the dative of time without ἐν , see Winer, p. 195 f. [E. T. 273 f.].
χωρὶς Χριστοῦ ] aloof from connection with Christ; for “ χωρίς ad subjectum, quod ab objecto sejunctum est, refertur,” Tittmann, Synon. p. 94. It is dependent on ἦτε as its first sad predicate, and does not belong, as a more precise definition, to the subject (“when ye were as yet without Christ,” Bleek), in which case it would in fact be entirely self-evident and superfluous. In how far the readers as Gentiles were without Christ, we are told in the sequel. They stood afar off and aloof from the theocratic bond, in which Christ would have been to them, in accordance with the promise, the object of their faith and ground of their salvation. If Paul had wished to express merely the negation of the Christian relation (ye were without knowledge of Christ; comp. Anselm, Calovius, Flatt), how tame and idle would this in itself have been! and, moreover, not in keeping with the connection of that which follows, according to which, as is already clear from Eph_2:11, Paul wishes to bring out the disadvantage at which the readers, as Gentiles, had been placed in contradistinction to the Jews. Hence Grotius rightly indicates the relation as to contrast of Eph_2:12 to Eph_2:13 : “Nunc eum (Christum) non minus possidetis vos quam ii, quibus promissus fuerat.” Rückert refers χωρὶς Χ . to the activity of Christ under the O. T. previous to His incarnation, with an appeal to 1Co_10:4. Comp. Olshausen (“the immanence of Christ as regards His divinity in Israel”). But τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ , in fact, applies to the pre-Christian lifetime of the readers, and thus comprises a time which was subsequent to the incarnation. Χριστοῦ means the historical Christ, so far as He was the very promised Messiah. The relation χωρὶς Χριστοῦ is described from the standpoint of the apostle, for whom the bond with the Messiah was the bond with Christ.
The charge that the author here makes an un-Pauline concession to Judaism (Schwegler, i.e. p. 388 f.) is incorrect, since the concession concerns only the pre-Christian relation. Comp. Rom_9:4-5. A superiority of Judaism, in respect of the pre-Christian relation to Christianity, Paul could not but necessarily teach (comp. Act_3:25 f.; Rom_1:16; Rom_3:1 f.; Gal_3:13 f.); but that Christianity as to its essential contents was Judaism itself, merely extended through the death of Christ to the Gentiles also, he has not taught either here or elsewhere; in fact, the doing away of the law taught by him in this very passage is the very opposite thereof (in opposition to Baur, Paulus, p. 545; Christenth. der drei ersten Jahrh. p. 107).
ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι κ . τ . λ .] Comp. on ἀπαλλοτριόω , Dem. 255, 3; Polyb. i. 79. 6, i. 82. 9; often in the LXX. (Schleusner, Thesaur. I. p. 325) and Josephus, Krebs, Obss. p. 326. The notion of alien does not here (comp. also Eph_6:18; Col_1:21) presuppose the existence of an earlier fellowship, but it was their status ethnicus itself,[146] by which the readers were at one time placed apart from connection with the πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ , i.e. whereby this ἀλλοτριότης took place. The opposite: ἼΔΙΟΙ , ΟἸΚΕῖΟΙ , ΣΥΜΠΟΛῖΤΑΙ (Eph_2:19). ΠΟΛΙΤΕΊΑ signifies as well political constitution (Thuc. ii. 36; Plato, Polit. vii p. 520 B; Legg. iv. p. 712 E; Arist. Polit. iii. 4. 1; Isoc. Evag. viii. 10; Xen. Ages. i. 37; 2Ma_4:11; 2Ma_8:17) as right of citizenship (Herod, ix. 34; Dem. 161, 11; Thuc. vi. 104. 3; Diod. Sic. xii. 51; 3Ma_3:21; Act_22:28; Joseph. Antt. xii. 3. 1). The latter signification is assumed by Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Bullinger, Michaelis, and others. But the idea of right of citizenship was for the apostle, himself a Roman citizen, as well as for the readers, a secular privilege, and one therefore foreign to the connection of our passage, where everything points to the theocracy, and this was the political constitution of the Israelites.
τοῦ Ἰσραήλ ] The divine name of Jacob (Gen_32:28; Gen_35:10) is, according to the traditionally hallowed usage of the O. T., the theocratic name of his posterity, the Jewish people, Rom_9:6; 1Co_10:18; Gal_6:16, al. The genitive, however, is not to be explained like ἄστυ Ἀθηνῶν (Harless); for Ὁ ἸΣΡΑΉΛ is the people, which has the polity.
καὶ ξένοι τῶν διαθηκῶν τῆς ἐπαγγ .] and foreign to the covenants of the promise (not belonging thereto); these words are to be taken together (in opposition to Ambrosiaster, Cornelius a Lapide, Morus, Rosenmüller, and others, who attach τῆς ἐπαγγ . to what follows); for only thus do the two elements belonging to each other and connected by ΚΑΊ , which serve for the elucidation of ΧΩΡῚς ΧΡΙΣΤΟῦ , stand in harmonious symmetry; only in this way, likewise, is similar justice done to the two last particulars connected by ΚΑΊ ,
ἘΛΠΊΔΑ ΜῊ ἜΧΟΝΤΕς ΚΑῚ ἌΘΕΟΙ ἘΝ Τῷ ΚΌΣΜῼ —which in their very generality and brevity carry the description of the Gentile misery to the uttermost point; only in this way, lastly, does ΞΈΝΟΙ ΤῶΝ ΔΙΑΘΗΚῶΝ acquire the characteristic colouring which it needs, in order not to appear tame after ἈΠΗΛΛΟΤΡ . Τ . ΠΟΛ . Τ . ἸΣΡ ., for precisely in the characteristic Τῆς ἘΠΑΓΓ . lies the sad significance of the being apart from the πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ . The covenants of the promise, i.e. the covenants with which the promise κατʼ ἐξοχήν , namely, that of the Messianic salvation (Rom_9:4; Galatians 3), was connected, are the covenants made with Abraham (Gen_12:2 f., Gen_12:7, Gen_13:15, Gen_15:18, Gen_17:20, Gen_22:17 ff.) and repeated with the other patriarchs (Gen_26:2 ff; Gen_28:13 ff.), as also the covenant formed with the people through Moses. The latter is here (it is otherwise at Rom_9:4, where there specially follows ἡ νομοθεσία ) neither excluded (Rückert, Harless, Olshausen, and others), seeing that this covenant also had the promise of Messianic life ( Ὁ ΠΟΙΉΣΑς ΑὐΤᾺ ΖΉΣΕΤΑΙ ἘΝ ΑὐΤΟῖς , Gal_3:12), nor exclusively meant (Elsner and Wolf, as was already suggested by Beza). Either is arbitrary, and against the latter there may be urged specially the plural, as well as the eminent importance which Paul must have attributed to the patriarchal covenants in particular. On ΞΈΝΟς with a genitive (Kühner, II. p. 163), comp. Xen. Cyr. vi. 2. 1; Soph. Oed. R. 219; Plato, Apol. p. 17 D, al.
ἐλπίδα μὴ ἔχ . κ . ἄθεοι ἐν τῷ κ .] consequence of the preceding ἈΠΗΛΛΟΤΡ .… ἘΠΑΓΓ ., and in what a tragic climax! The very generality of the expressions, inasmuch as it is not merely a definite hope (Paul did not write τὴν ἐλπίδα ) and a definite relation to God that are denied, renders these last traits of the picture so dark!
ἘΛΠΊΔΑ ] Bengel: “Si promissionem habuissent, spem habuissent illi respondentem.” But in this way Paul must have written ΤῊΝ ἘΛΠΊΔΑ . No, those shut out from the promise are for the apostle men without hope at all; they have nothing to hope for, just because they have not to hope for the promised salvation. Comp. 1Th_4:13. Every explanation of a definite hope (of the resurrection and life everlasting, Bullinger, Grotius, and many; of the promised blessings, Estius; of deliverance, Harless; comp. Erasmus and others) conflicts with the absence of the article, and weakens the force of the picture.
μὴ ἔχοντες ] μή is not to be explained from the dependence of the thought on what immediately precedes (“foreign to the covenants of the promise, without having hope,” as Harless would take it), by which the independence of the element ἐλπ . μὴ ἔχ . would be sacrificed to the injury of the symmetry and force of the passage; but the subjectivity of the negation results from ΜΝΗΜΟΝΕΎΕΤΕ , ὍΤΙ … ἮΤΕ , in accordance with which ΜῊ ἜΧΟΝΤΕς is a fact now conceived in the recollection of the readers (comp. Kühner, II. § 715, 3). The μή refers the ἘΛΠ . ΜῊ ἜΧ . to the conception of the subject of the governing verbum sentiendi ( μνημονεύετε ).
ἄθεοι ] the lowest stage of Gentile misery. We may explain the word (see, generally, Diog. Laert. vii. 119; Sturz in the Comm. soc. phil. Lips. II. p. 65 ff.; Meier in the Hall. Encykl. I. 24, p. 466 ff.), which occurs only here in the N.T., and not at all in the LXX. or Apocrypha, either: not believing in God, atheists (Plato, Apol. p. 26 C; Lucian, Alex. 25; Aelian, V. H. ii. 31; comp. Ignat. ad Trall. 10: ἄθεοι ὄντες , τουτέστιν ἄπιστοι ), or godless, impii, reprobate (Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 E; Xen. Anab. ii. 5. 39; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 288), or: without God, sine Deo (Vulgate), i.e. without divine help, without the protection and assistance of God (Soph. Oed. R. 633: ἄθεος , ἌΦΙΛΟς , comp. 254). The last-mentioned sense, as yielding the saddest closing predicate (comp. ἀθεεί , Hom. Od. xviii. 352; Mosch. ii. 148), is here to be preferred. The Gentiles had gods, which, however, were no gods (Act_19:26; Act_14:15; Gal_4:8); but, on the contrary, what they worshipped and honoured as divinities, since the forsaking of the natural knowledge of God (Rom_1:19 ff.), were demons (1Co_10:20); so that for them with all their δεισιδαιμονία (Act_17:22) God was really wanting, and they apart from connection with God’s grace and help lived on in a God-forsaken state. Paul might have written θεοστυγεῖς , as at Rom_1:30, but he continues in the stream of negative designations, which gives to his picture an elegiac colouring.
ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ] is referred by Calovius and Koppe to the preceding elements as a whole. But in this way it would have something of a dragging effect, whereas it attaches itself with force and suggestiveness to the bare ἌΘΕΟΙ , whose tragical effect it serves to deepen. Only it must not be explained, even when so connected, with Koppe: “inter ceteros homines, in his terris,” in which sense it would be devoid of significance. Nay rather, profane humanity (observe the contrast to the πολιτεία τοῦ Ἰσραήλ ), the Gentile world, was the unhallowed domain, in which the readers in former time existed without God. It adds to the ungodly How the ungodly Where. Olshausen explains: “in this evil world, in which one has such urgent need of a sure hope, a fast hold to the living God;” but this is imported, since no predicate stands beside κόσμῳ . According to Rückert, it is to form a contrast to ἌΘΕΟΙ , and that in the sense: “in the world, of which the earth is a part, and which stands under God’s government.”[147] But Paul must have said this, if he had meant it (by ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ , or something similar). Oecumenius and Meier: ἘΝ Τῇ ΚΑΤᾺ ΤῸΝ ΠΑΡΌΝΤΑ ΒΊΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΊᾼ , etc. This would be expressed by ΚΑΤᾺ ΤῸΝ ΚΌΣΜΟΝ .
The question, we may add, whether the ἘΛΠΊΔΑ … ΚΌΣΜῼ applies to all Gentiles, not even a Socrates or a Plato excepted, is, in the view of the apostle, to be answered affirmatively, at all events in general (Rom_3:10 ff; Rom_11:16 ff.; 1Co_1:19 ff.), but has only an indirect application here, since the apostle is speaking of his readers, whom he describes as to their category. That, if the subject of his discourse had called for it, he would have known how to set limitations to his general judgment, may be assumed of itself, and in accordance with Rom_2:14 f. Comp. Act_17:28.
[146] Not, as Grotius would have it (whom Rosenmüller follows): the diversity of political institutions: “In illa republica a Deo instituta non modo honores non poteratis capere, sed nec pro civibus haberi; adeo distabant instituta.”
[147] So in substance also Grotius: “per omnes terrarum oras verum Deum, mundi sc. opificem, aut ignorabatis, aut certe non colebatis, sed pro eo Deos ab hominibus fictos.”