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Eph_2:14.[148] Confirmatory elucidation to Eph_2:13, especially as to the element implied in the ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ ἸΗΣΟῦ , and more precisely in the ἘΝ Τῷ ΑἽΜΑΤ . ΤΟῦ ΧΡΙΣΤΟῦ .
ΑὐΤΌς ] ipse; as regards His own person, is not put in opposition to the thought of ourselves having made the peace (Hofmann), which is in fact quite foreign to the passage; but—and what a triumph of the certainty and completeness of the blessing obtained is therein implied!—“non modo pacificator, nam sui impensa pacem peperit et ipse vinculum est utrorumque,” Bengel. See what follows. Observe also the presence of the article in ἡ εἰρήνη , denoting the peace ΚΑΤʼ ἘΞΟΧΉΝ (Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 109 [E. T. 125]); He is for us the peace absolutely, the absolute contrast to the ἔχθρα , Eph_2:15. The Rabbinical passages, however, in which the Messiah (comp. Isa_9:6) is called ùìåí (Wetstein in loc.; Schöttgen, Horae, II. p. 18), do not bear on this passage, since in them the point spoken of is not, as here,[149] the peace between Jews and Gentiles.
ὁ ποιήσας κ . τ . λ .] quippe qui fecit, etc., now begins the more precise information, how Christ has become Himself our peace.
τὰ ἀμφότερα ] the two [Germ. das Beides], i.e. the two existing parts, the Jews and Gentiles. The neuter expression corresponds to the following ἕν . Nothing is to be supplied (Grotius: γένη ).
ἕν ] not so, that one part assumed the nature of the other, but so that the separation of the two was done away with, and both were raised to a new unity. That was the union of the divine οἰκονομία . See the sequel. Comp. Col_3:11; Gal_3:28; Rom_10:12; 1Co_12:13; Joh_10:16.
καὶ τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φρ . λύσας ] is related to the foregoing as explicative of it ( καί , see Winer, p. 388 [E. T. 546]; Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 9 f.). τοῦ φραγμοῦ is genitive of apposition: the partition-wall, which consisted in the (well-known) fence. What is meant by this, we are then told by means of the epexegetic τὴν ἔχθραν ; hence Paul has not by the figurative τὸ μεσότ . τοῦ φραγμοῦ λύσας merely wished to express the (negative) conception that Christ has done away with the isolation of the O. T. commonwealth, as Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 375, holds, refining on τὸ μεσότ . τ . φρ ., and connecting τὴν ἔχθραν with καταργήσας . De Wette censures the “extreme tameness” of the explanation, according to which τὸ μεσότ . κ . τ . λ . is taken not as a designation of the law, but as a preliminary designation of the ἔχθρα . But the twofold designation of the matter, describing it first figuratively and then properly, is in keeping with the importance of the idea, the direct expression of which produces after the previous figure an effect the more striking.
To take the genitive in an adjectival sense, as equivalent to τὸ μεσότοιχον διαφράσσον (Vorstius, Grotius, Morus, Koppe, Rosenmüller, Meier, and others), is wrong, because the characteristic adjective notion is implied in τὸ μεσότοιχον (paries intergerinus, found elsewhere only in Eratosthenes quoted by Athen. vii. p. 281 D, in Hesychius under κατῆλιψ , and in the Fathers[150]), which has been felt also by Castalio and Beza, inasmuch as they erroneously translated it as though ΤῸΝ ΦΡΑΓΜῸΝ ΤΟῦ ΜΕΣΟΤΟΊΧΟΥ were used. A reference, we may add, to a definite φραγμός , which underlies the figurative expression, is not to be assumed, since the words furnish nothing of the sort, and any kind of fence serving as a partition-wall illustrates the ἔχθρα . Some have thought of the stone screen which in the temple-enclosure marked off the court of the Gentiles, and the inscription of which forbade every Gentile from farther advance (Josephus, Bell. v. 5. 2, vi. 2. 4; Antt. viii. 3. 2 f., xv. 11. 5, al.; Middoth, ii. 3). So Anselm, Ludov. Cappellus, Hammond, Bengel, Wetstein, Krebs, Bretschneider, Holzhausen, and others. But at most this could only be assumed, without arbitrariness, if that screen had statedly borne the name of φραγμός . Other references, still more foreign to the matter, which have been introduced, such as to the Jewish districts in large towns, which were marked off by a wall or otherwise (Schöttgen and others), may be seen in Wolf. Among the Rabbins, too, the figure of a fence is in very frequent use. See Buxtorf, s.v. ñéâ .
ΛΎΣΑς ] in the sense of throwing down (Wetstein, ad Joh. ii. 19), belongs to the figure, and is not chosen on account of the ΤῊΝ ἜΧΘΡΑΝ which does not come in till afterwards, although it would be chosen suitably thereto (see Wetstein in loc.).
It has been wrongly designated as an un-Pauline idea, that Christ through His death should have united the Jews and Gentiles by means of the abolition of the law (see Schwegler, l.c. p. 389 f.). This union has in fact taken place as a raising of both into a higher unity, Eph_2:16; Eph_2:18; Eph_2:21 f.; hence that doctrinal principle is sufficiently explained from the destination of Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles and his personal experience, and from his own elsewhere attested universalism, and need not have as a presupposition the post-apostolic process of development on the part of the church gradually gathering itself out of heterogeneous elements into a unity, so as to betray a later “catholicizing tendency” (Baur).
[148] “Ver. 14–18 ipso verborum Lenore et quasi rhythmo canticum imitatur,” Bengel.
[149] In opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 374, who, at variance with the context, understands εἰρήνη primarily in relation to God; similarly Calovius and others.
[150] In Athen. l.c. it is masculine: τὸν τῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ ἀρετῆς μεσότοιχον .