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Eph_4:8. If it had just been said that by Christ the endowment of grace was distributed in varied measure to each individual, this is now confirmed by a testimony of the Scripture. Nothing is to be treated as a parenthesis, inasmuch as neither course of thought nor construction is interrupted.
διὸ λέγει ] wherefore, because the case stands, as has been said, Eph_4:7, He saith. Who says it (comp. Eph_5:14), is obvious of itself, namely, God, whose word the Scripture is. See on 1Co_6:16; Gal_3:16; the supplying ἡ γραφή or τὸ πνεῦμα must have been suggested by the context (Rom_15:10). The manner of citation with the simple λέγει , obviously meant of God, has as its necessary presupposition, in the mind of the writer and readers, the Theopneustia of the O. T. The citation that follows is not “ex carmine, quod ab Ephesiis cantitari sciret,” and in which Psa_68:18 had partly furnished the words (Storr, Opusc. III. p. 309; Flatt),—which is quite an arbitrary way of avoiding the difficulty, and at variance with the divine λέγει ,—but is the passage of Scripture Psa_68:18 itself according to the LXX. with free alteration. This psalm, in its historical sense a song of triumph upon the solemn entry of God into Zion,[204] is here understood according to its Messianic significance—an understanding, which has its warrant, not indeed in the much too general and vague proposition, that one and the same God is the Revealer of the Old and of the New Covenant (Harless), but in the circumstance that the triumphal procession of Jehovah, celebrated in the psalm, represents the victory of the Theocracy; and that, as every victory of the Theocracy is of a typical and in so far prophetic Messianic character, the return of Christ into heaven appears as the Messianic actual consummation of the divine triumph. The free deviation from the original text and the LXX. consists partly in the immaterial circumstance that Paul transfers into the third person that which is said in the second, and adds to ἀνθρώποις the article wanting in the LXX.; partly in the essential point, that instead of the original sense: “Thou receivedst gifts (namely, gifts of homage) among[205] men” ( ìÈ÷ÇçÀúÌÈ îÇúÌÈðåÉú áÌÈàÈãÈí , LXX.: ἔλαβες δόματα ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ , or according to another reading: ἐν ἀνθρώποις ), he expresses the sense: He gave gifts to men, ðÈúÇï îÇúÌÈðåÉú ìÇàÂðÈùÑÄéí , while in other respects reproducing the transition of the LXX. Consequently Paul has, as regards the ἔδωκε , given a sense opposite to the original one—a degree of variation such as, with all freedom in the employment of Old Testament passages, is nowhere else met with in the writings of the apostle, on which account the book Chissuk Emuna accused him of falsifying the words of the psalm, while Whiston looked upon the Hebrew text and the LXX. in Psa_68:18 as corrupt. This difference is not to be explained, with Rückert, by lightly asserting: “Paul did not even perhaps know exactly how the words ran,” etc.; for in this way he would be chargeable with a shallow caprice, for which there is no warrant; moreover, the agreement, in other respects, of the citation with the original text and the LXX. leads us to infer too exact an acquaintance with the passage adduced, to allow us to assume that Paul adduced the words in the full belief that ðúï was read in the Hebrew, and ἜΔΩΚΕ in the LXX. Rather must he have in reality understood the passage of the psalm, as to its main substance, just as he gives it. Inasmuch, namely, as he had recognised the words in their bearing upon the antitypical Messianic fulfilment, and that as a confirmation of what had been said of Christ in Eph_4:7, this latter special application must either have been suggested to him by another reading, which he followed ( ðúú instead of ì÷çú ), or else—with the freedom of a Messianic interpretation of the words—by an exposition of the Hebrew words, which yielded essentially the sense expressed by him. If the latter is the case (for in favour of the former there is no trace of critical support), he took ì÷çú , etc., in the sense: thou didst take away gifts, to distribute them among men (on the áÌÀ , see Ewald, Ausführl. Lehrb. der Heb. Spr. § 217 f. 1), and translated this in an explanatory way: ἔδωκε δόματα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ; in connection with which the transposing into the third person is to be regarded as an unintentional variation in citing from memory. ì÷ç , namely, has often the proleptic sense to fetch [Germ. holen], i.e. to take anything for a person and to give it to him. See Gen_18:5; Gen_27:13; Gen_42:16; Gen_48:9; Job_38:20 (and Hirzel in loc.); 2Sa_4:6, al.; see Gesen. Thes. II. p. 760, and Hoelemann, p. 97 f. Comp. Bengel: “accepit dona, quae statim daret.” The utterance, however, as thus understood,[206] Paul has reproduced, interpreting it as he has done, in order to place beyond doubt the sense which he attached to it, for the reader who might have otherwise understood the words of the LXX. The Chaldee Paraphrast likewise understood ì÷ç in such wise, that, while interpreting the passage of Moses, he could expound: ìÀäåÉï îÇúÀðÈï ìÄáÀðÅé ðÈùÑÌÈà , dedisti dona filiis hominum. It is evident from this, since there is good reason for presupposing in the Targum—the more so, as in our passage the Peshito agrees therewith (which likewise, Psalms 68 l.c., has dedisti dona filiis hominum)—older exegetical traditions, that Paul himself may have followed such a tradition (Holzhausen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Credner, Beiträge, II. p. 121 f.). To assume that he actually did so, is in itself, and in reference to the previous Rabbinical training of the apostle, free from objection, and has sufficient warrant in that old and peculiar agreement, even though we should explain the agreement between the same citation in Justin, c. Tryph. 39, 87, and the quotation of the apostle, by a dependence upon the latter (Credner, Beitr. II. p. 120). On the other hand, it is not to be said, with Beza, Calovius, and most older expositors,[207] that the explanation given by Paul really corresponds with the historic sense of the passage in the Psalm (see especially, Geier, ad Ps. l.c. p. 1181; comp. also Hoelemann, p. 98 f.), which, judging by the context, is decidedly incorrect3. Even Calvin says: “nonnihil a genuino sensu hoc testimonium detorsit Paulus;” and already Theodore of Mopsuestia aptly remarks: ὑπαλλάξας δὲ τὸ ἔλαβε δόματα οὕτως ἐν τῷ ψαλμῷ κείμενον , ἔδωκε δόματα εἶπε , τῇ ὑπαλλαγῇ περὶ τὴν οἰκείαν χρησάμενος ἀκολουθίαν · ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ (in the psalm) πρὸς τὴν ὑπόθεσιν τὸ ἔλαβεν ἥρμοττεν , ἐνταῦθα δὲ (in our passage) τῷ προκειμένῳ τὸ ἔδωκεν ἀκόλουθον ἦν . The deviation from the historic sense cannot be set aside with fairness and without arbitrary presuppositions. This holds not only of the opinions of Jerome and Erasmus (that in the psalm ì÷ç is used, because the giving has not yet taken place, but is promised as future) and of Calvin (“quum de Christi exaltatione pauca verba Psalmi citasset, de suo adjecit, eum dedisse dona, ut sit minoris et majoris comparatio, qua ostendere vult Paulus, quanto praestantior sit ista Dei ascensio in Christi persona, quam fuerit in veteribus ecclesiae triumphis”), but also of the expedients to which Harless and Olshausen have recourse. According to Harless, namely, Paul wishes to express the identity of God, whose deeds at that time the word of Scripture represents in a form which, as identical with the form of Christ’s action, makes us recognise the word of the O. T. as pointing forward. to what was to come, and the Christ of the N.T. as the God who already revealed Himself under the O. T.; in the words of the psalm the captives themselves are described as sacrificial gifts, which the victor as God takes to Himself among men; the apostle changes merely the form of the words, so far as the context makes it necessary, inasmuch as he wishes to make out that those vanquished ones—who have not made themselves what they are, but have been made so of God—are those, of whom he had said that on every one according to the measure of the gift of Christ the grace had been bestowed which was already pointed to in the psalm. “There is no other there,” says the apostle, “than He who had descended to earth, to gain for Himself His own; not that they would have presented themselves to Him, but He takes them as it pleases Him, and makes them what it pleases Him.” But (1) Paul does not wish to express the identity of God, etc., but to show that what is said of Christ in Eph_4:7 was also already prophesied Psa_68:18; it was a question of the identity of the thing, as to which it was self-evident that the triumph celebrated in Psalms 68 is in the N.T. fulfilment celebrated by Christ, who had come in the name of the Lord. (2) In the Ps. l.c., ì÷çú îúðåú applies to the gifts of homage which the triumphing Jehovah has received among (from) men. Certainly, according to another explanation (see above, Ewald’s view, and comp. also Bleek), the men themselves, namely, the vanquished, may be regarded as the gifts or offerings which God has received; but who could withal read between the lines in the apostle’s citation what, according to Harless, one ought to read between them, in order in the end to find only the form of the words changed? Olshausen, who, we may mention, quite erroneously (see Eph_4:9-10) specifies ΤΟῖς ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΙς as the point of the citation,[208] agrees with Harless in so far as he is of opinion that the thought of the psalmist: “Thou hast taken to Thyself gifts among men,” affirms nothing else than: “Thou hast chosen to Thyself the redeemed as offerings;” but further adds: “But the man whom God chooses as an offering for Himself, i.e. as an instrument for His aims, He furnishes with the gifts necessary to the attainment of the same; and this side (?) the apostle, in accordance with his tendency, here brings into special prominence.” Similarly also Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 484 f., who is of opinion that here, in the N.T. application of the passage from the psalm, it is one and the same thing whether one say: that Christ has, for the accomplishment of the work of His honour, caused to be given to Himself by His vanquished that which they possessed, or: that He has given them gifts to this end; “for He takes that which is theirs into His service, when He gives to them what is His, to make them capable of service.” Essentially so also Delitzsch on the Psalm, l.c. Such subtleties, by means of which any quid pro quo at pleasure may easily enough be got out of the alleged light and significance of the “history of the fulfilment” (Delitzsch), may be conveniently foisted upon the words of the apostle, but with what right?
ἈΝΑΒᾺς ΕἸς ὝΨΟς ] Whether we understand the òÈìÄéúÈ ìÇîÌÈøåÉí in the original text of the ascending of the victorious God into heaven (Hengstenberg, Lengerke, Hitzig, Harless, Hoelemann, and others) or to Zion (Ewald, Bleek), or leave it without more precise definition of place (Hofmann); according to the Messianic accomplishment of the divine triumphal procession, which takes place through Christ, the words apply to Christ ascended (comp. ὙΨΩΘΕΊς , Act_2:33) to heaven (Psa_102:20, al.; Sir_13:8; Luk_1:78), who has brought in as captives enemies that have been vanquished by Him upon this triumphal march.
αἰχμαλωσία , namely, is the abstract collective for αἰχμάλωτοι (Jdt_2:9; Ezr_6:5; Rev_13:10; Diod. Sic. xvii. 70), like ξυμμαχία for ξύμμαχοι , etc. See on Eph_2:2. On the connection with the kindred verb (to take captive, to lead, to bring in as such), comp. 2Ch_28:5; 1Ma_9:72; and see, in general, Winer, p. 201 [E. T. 282]; Lobeck, Paral. p. 501. The character ΑἸΧΜΑΛΩΤΕΎΩ of as Greek is even worse than that of ΑἸΧΜΑΛΩΤΊΖΩ . See Lobeck, ad Phryn p. 442. But what subjects are meant by ΑἸΧΜΑΛΩΣΊΑ ? Not the redeemed, as already Justin, c. Tryph. 36; further, Theodoret ( Οὐ ΓᾺΡ ἘΛΕΥΘΈΡΟΥς ὌΝΤΑς ἩΜᾶς ᾘΧΜΑΛΏΤΕΥΣΕΝ , ἈΛΛʼ ὙΠῸ ΤΟῦ ΔΙΑΒΌΛΟΥ ΓΕΓΕΝΗΜΈΝΟΥς ἈΝΤῌΧΜΑΛΏΤΕΥΣΕ , ΚΑῚ ΤῊΝ ἘΛΕΥΘΕΡΊΑΝ ἩΜῖΝ ἘΔΩΡΉΣΑΤΟ ), Oecumenius, Thomas, Erasmus (“captivorum gregem e peccati diabolique tyrannide liberatum”), and others, including Meier, Harless, Olshausen (“men upon earth, so far as they are held captive by sin and in the ultimate ground by the prince of this world, and among these, in particular, the Gentile world”), Baumgarten-Crusius (“those gained for the kingdom of Christ”), have interpreted it; seeing that the captives, both according to the original text and according to our citation, are different from the ἀνθρώποι who are subsequently mentioned, namely, such vanquished ones as are visited by the victor with the hard penal fate of captives in war. Hence also it cannot be the souls delivered by Christ from Hades (Lyra, Estius, and many Catholic expositors; König, von Christi Hbllenfahrt, p. 26; Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 414; and Baur) that are spoken of. It is the enemies of Christ and His kingdom, the antichristian powers, including those of hell (but not these alone); their power is broken by the completed redeeming work of the Lord. By His resurrection and exaltation they have been rendered powerless, and subjected to His victorious might; consequently they appear, in accordance with the poetical mould of our passage, as those whom He has vanquished and carries with Him on His procession from Hades into heaven (see Eph_4:9), so that He, having gone up on high, brings them in as prisoners of war. Not as if He has really brought them in captivity to heaven, but under the figure of the triumphator, as which the ascended Christ appears in accordance with the prophetic view given in Psalms 68, the matter thus presents itself, namely, the overcoming of His foes displaying itself through His ascension. This vanquishing, we may add, in its actual execution still continues even after the entering upon the kingly office which took place with the exaltation of Christ; δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρις οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ , 1Co_15:25. Not the final overcoming of the foes of Christ is thus meant, but the actual αἰχμαλωτεύειν αἰχμαλ . ofttimes recurs until the final consummation, until at length ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος , 1Co_15:26, namely, at the resurrection on the last day. In this case, however, there is the more reason for leaving the matter without more precise definition of the hostile powers vanquished (Satanic and human), as the context suggests nothing more special, and as, speaking generally, the ᾐχμαλώτ . αἰχμαλ . does not form for the aim and connection of our passage the essential point of the psalmist’s saying, but the latter would have been quite as fully in its place here, even though that ᾘΧΜΑΛΏΤ . ΑἸΧΜ . had not been inserted, since the element confirmatory of Eph_4:7 lies simply in the ἈΝΑΒᾺς ΕἸς ὝΨΟς ἜΔΩΚΕ ΔΌΜΑΤΑ ΤΟῖς ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΙς .[209] Yet we have not, with Morus (comp. flatt), to rationalize the conception of the apostle: “removit omnia, quae religionis suae propagationi et felicitati hominum obstarent impedimenta,” by which the sense is altered, and vanquished foes become obstacles taken out of the way.
δόματα ] according to Paul, gifts in which ἘΔΌΘΗ Ἡ ΧΆΡΙς 7, thus equivalent to ΧΑΡΊΣΜΑΤΑ . An appropriate commentary on the sense in which Paul has taken the citation, is Act_2:33. But to look upon the interpretation of the ἜΛΑΒΕ ΔΌΜΑΤΑ of the Ps. l.c., in the sense of gifts of the Spirit as current among the disciples of the apostles (de Wette), is the more arbitrary, inasmuch as de Wette himself finds it probable that some apostle has allegorized the passage of the psalm.
[204] On what particular historic occasion this highly poetic song was composed, is for our passage a matter of indifference. According to the traditional view, it was composed by David on the occasion of the removal of the ark of the covenant from the house of Obed-edom to Jerusalem (2Sa_6:12 ff.; 1 Chronicles 15 f.); according to Ewald, for the consecration of the new temple after the captivity; according to Hupfeld, upon the return from the captivity and the restoration of the kingdom; according to Hitzig, in celebration of the victory after the war of Jehoram and Jehoshaphat against the Moabites (2 Kings 3). Others explain it otherwise. See the different views and explanations in Keuss, d. acht u. sechzigste Psalm, tin Denkmal exeget. Noth u. Kunst, 1851, who, however, himself very inappropriately (without “exegetical exigency and art”) places the Psalm in the late period between Alexander and the Maccabees, when the wish for the reunion of the scattered Israelites in Palestine is supposed to be expressed in it; while Justus Olshausen even interprets it of the victories of the Maccabees under Jonathan or Simon. See Ewald, Jahrb. IV. p. 55 f. Certainly the psalm is neither Davidic nor of the Maccabaean age, but belongs to the restoration of the Theocracy after the captivity.
[205] Yet áàãí might also denote that men themselves are the gifts. So Ewald takes it, l.c. (and comp. his Ausführl. Lehrb. der Hebr. Sprache, § 287 h), referring it specially to the humbler servants of the temple, whom David and Solomon, e.g., gathered from among the subjugated peoples and settled around the temple, whom thus God, as if in a triumphal procession from Sinai to Zion, Himself brought in as captives, and then caused to be devoted by men to Him as offerings, in order that they, who were once so turbulent, might dwell peacefully in His service (“even rebellious ones must dwell with Jah God,” as Ewald renders the closing words of the passage). The sense: “through men,” which Hoelemann, on account of ver. 11, finds as a “secondary” meaning in áàãí , is not to be thought of, not even according to the apostle, who has expressed his view with such simple definiteness by ἔδωκε τοῖς ἀνθρώποις .
[206] The phrase formerly so often compared, ìÈ÷Çç àÄùÑÈä ìÄáÀðåÉ (Exo_21:10; Exo_34:16), is not in place here, since ìÈ÷Çç , in that phrase, signifies nothing else than the simple take.
[207] Chrysostom, without, however, entering into any particulars, says merely: the prophet says thou hast received, but Paul: he has given; and the two are one and the same. Theodoret more precisely explains himself: ἀμφότερα δὲ (the taking and giving) γεγένηναι · λαμβάνων γὰρ τὴν πίστιν ἀποδίδωσι τὴν χάριν . Comp. Oecumenius.
[208] “Paul does not wish by the quotation primarily to represent Christ as the dispenser of the gifts, but to prove from the O. T. itself the universality of the gifts of Christ, consequently the equal title of the Gentiles; He has by His redemption conferred gifts not merely on this one or that one, not upon the Jews alone, but upon men as such, upon mankind.” What Olshausen has further advanced respecting the dative expression with the article (instead of which the Hebrew text has among men, while no article is used in the LXX.)—to wit, that by ἔδ . δόμ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις , which applies to all men, it is not intended to say: all men must be redeemed, and as redeemed receive gifts; but: all men may be redeemed, and as redeemed obtain gifts of grace; and in so far this deviation from the original was altogether immaterial—is pure invention. The difference certainly does not lie in the fact that áÌÈàÈãÈí points only to some, and the expression of Paul to all men, as Olshausen supposes, but solely in the ì÷çú of the original text and the ἔδωκε of Paul. As well áàãí as τοῖς ἀνθρώποις designates men according to the category; but according to the original text it is men who are the givers, so that the Triumphator takes them; whereas, according to Paul, the men are the recipients, to whom He gives.
[209] Chrysostom, Theophylact, Beza, Calovius, and many others understood specially the devil and those things connected with him, death, condemnation, and sin. Comp. Luther’s gloss: “that is sin, death, and conscience, that they may not seize or keep us.” Grotius rationalizes: “per apostolorum doctrinam vicit et velut captivam egit idololatriam et vitia alia.” Most comprehensively, but with an admixture of heterogeneous elements, Calvin says: “Neque enim Satanam modo et peecatum et mortem totosque inferos prostravit, sed ex rebellibus quotidie facit sibi obsequentem populum, quum verbo suo carnis nostrae lasciviam domat; rursus hostes suos, i.e. impios omnes quasi ferreis catenis continet constrictos, dum illorum furorem cohibet sua virtute, ne plus valeant, quam illis concedit.”