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Eph_5:14. This necessity and salutariness of the ἔλεγξις , which Paul has just set forth in Eph_5:12-13 (not of the mere subsidiary thought, πᾶν γὰρ κ . τ . λ .), he now further confirms by a word of God out of the Scripture.
διό ] wherefore,—because the ἐγέγχετε is so highly necessary as I have shown in Eph_5:12, and of such salutary effect as is seen from Eph_5:13,—wherefore he saith: Up, thou sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee. This call of God to the υἱοὶ τῆς ἀπειθείας to awake out of the sleep and death of sin confirms the necessity of the ἔλεγξις , and this promise: “Christ shall shine upon thee,” confirms the salutary influence of the light, under which they are placed by the ἐλέγχειν . Beza refers back διό to Eph_5:8, which is erroneous for this reason, if there were no other, that the citation addresses the as yet unconverted. According to Rückert (comp. Erasmus, Paraphr.), the design is to give support to the hope expressed in Eph_5:13, namely, that the sinner, earnestly reproved and convicted, may possibly be brought over from darkness into light. But see on Eph_5:13. With the correct interpretation of πᾶν γὰρ κ . τ . λ ., the expositions are untenable, which are given by Meier: “on that account, because only what is enlightened by the light of truth can be improved;” and by Olshausen: “because the action of the light upon the darkness cannot fail of its effect.” Harless indicates the connection only with the words of Plutarch (tom. xiv. p. 364, ed. Hutt.): χαίρειν χρὴ τοῖς ἐλέγχουσιν · … ἡμᾶς γὰρ λυποῦντες διεγείρουσιν . Inexact, and—inasmuch as with Plutarch χαίρειν and λυποῦντες stand in emphatic correlation, and λυποῦντες thus is essential—inappropriate.
λέγει ] introduces, with the supplying of ὁ Θεός (as Eph_4:8), a passage of Scripture, of which the Hebrew words would run: òåÌøÈä éÈùÑÅï åÀäÈ÷ÄéöÈä îÄïÎäÇîÌÅúÄéí åÀäÅàÄéø ìÀêÈ îÈùÑÄéçÇ . But what passage is that? Already Jerome says: “Nunquam hoc scriptum reperi.” Most expositors answer: Isa_60:1. So Thomas, Cajetanus, Calvin, Piscator, Estius, Calovius, Surenhusius, Wolf, Wetstein, Bengel,[263] and others, including Harless and Olshausen; while others at the same time bring in Isa_26:19 (Beza, Calixtus, Clericus, Meier, Baumgarten-Crusius, and others), as also Isa_52:1 (Schenkel) and Isa_9:1 (Baumgarten, Holzhausen). But all these passages are so essentially different from ours, that we cannot with unbiassed judgment discover the latter in any of them, and should have to hold our citation—if it is assumed to contain Old Testament words—as a mingling of Old Testament reminiscences, nothing similar to which is met with, even apart from the fact that this citation bears in itself the living impress of unity and originality; hence the less is there room to get out of the difficulty by means of Bengel’s expedient: “apostolus expressius loquitur ex luce N.T.” Doubtless Harless says that the apostle was here concerned not about the word, but about the matter in general, and that he cites the word of pre-announcement with the modification which it has itself undergone through fulfilment, and adduces by way of analogy Rom_10:6 ff. But in opposition to this may be urged, first generally, that such a modification of Isa_60:1 would have been not a mere modification, but would have quite done away with the identity of the passage; secondly, in particular, that the passage Isa_60:1, specially according to the LXX. ( φωτίζου , φωτίζου Ἰηρουσαλὴμ , ἥκει γάρ σου τὸ φῶς , καὶ ἡ δόξα κυρίου ἐπὶ σὲ ἀνατέταλκεν ), needed no change whatever in order to serve for the intended Scriptural confirmation, for which, moreover, various other passages from the O. T. would have stood at the command of the apostle, without needing any change; and lastly, that Rom_10:6 is not analogous, because there the identity with Deu_30:12-14 is unmistakeably evident in the words themselves, and the additions concerning Christ are not there given as constituent parts of the Scripture utterance, but expressly indicated as elucidations of the apostle (by means of τοῦτʼ ἔστι ). Quite baseless is the view of de Wette, that the author is quoting, as at Eph_4:8 (where, indeed, the citation is quite undoubted), an O. T. passage in an application which, by frequency of use, has become so familiar to him that he is no longer precisely conscious of the distinction between text and application. Others, including Morus, have discovered here a quotation from an apocryphal book, under which character Epiphanius names the prophecy of Elias, Georgius Syncellus an apocryphal authority of Jeremiah, and Godex G on the margin, the book (“Secretum”) of Enoch. See, in general, Fabricius, Cod. Pseudepigr. V. T. pp. 1074, 1105; Apocr. N.T. I. p. 524. That, however, Paul wittingly cited an apocryphal book,[264] is to be decisively rejected, inasmuch as this is never done by him, but, on the contrary, the formula of citation always means canonical passages. Hence, also, we have not, with Heumann (Poicile, II. p. 390), Michaelis, Storr, Stolz, Flatt, to guess at an early hymn of the Church as the source.[265] Others have found therein a saying of Christ, like Oeder in Syntagm. Obss. sacr. p. 697 ff., in opposition to which may be urged, not indeed the following ὁ Χριστός , which Jesus might doubtless have said of Himself, but rather the fact that the subject ΧΡΙΣΤΌς to ΛΈΓΕΙ could not be at all divined, as indeed Paul has never adduced sayings of Christ in his Epistles. This also in opposition to the opinion mentioned in Jerome (comp. also Bugenhagen and Calixtus), that Paul here, after the manner of the prophets (comp. the prophetic: thus saith the Lord), “ προσωποποιΐαν Spiritus sancti figuraverit.” Grotius (comp. Koppe) regards even ΤῸ Φῶς as subject: “Lux illa, i.e. homo luce perfusus, dicit alteri.” As if previously the φῶς were homo luce perfusus! and as if every reader could not but have recognised a citation as well in διὸ λέγει as in the character of the saying itself! Erroneously Bornemann also, Schol. in Luc. p. xlviii. f., holds that λέγει is to be taken impersonaliter; in this respect it is said, one may say, so that no passage of Scripture is cited, but perhaps allusion is made to Mar_5:41. This impersonal use is found only with φησί . See the instances cited by Bornemann, and Bernhardy, p. 419. In view of all these opinions, my conclusion, as at 1Co_2:9, is to this effect: From ΔΙῸ ΛΈΓΕΙ it is evident that Paul desired to adduce a passage of canonical Scripture, but—as the passage is not canonical—in virtue of a lapsus memoriae he adduces an apocryphal saying, which, citing from memory, he held as canonical. From what Apocryphal writing the passage is drawn, we do not know.
ἔγειρε ] up! Comp. ἄγε , ἜΠΕΙΓΕ . See, in opposition to the form of the Recepta ἔγειραι (so also Lachmann), Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 55 f.
ὁ καθεύδων ] and then ἘΚ ΝΕΚΡῶΝ form a climactic twofold description of the state of man under the dominion of sin, in which state the true spiritual life, the moral vital activity, is suppressed and gone, as is the physical life in the sleeping (comp. Rom_13:11) and in the dead respectively. Comp. Isa_59:10. How often with the classical writers, too, the expression dead is employed for the expression of moral insensibility, see on Mat_8:22; Luk_15:14; Musgrave, ad Oed. R. 45; Bornemann, in Luc. p. 97. On ὁ καθεύδων , comp. Sohar. Levit. f. 33, c. 130: “Quotiescunque lex occurrit, toties omnia hominum genera excitat, verum omnes somno sepulti jacent in peccatis, nihil intelligunt neque attendunt.”
ἀνάστα ] On the form, see Winer, p. 73 [E. T. 94]; Matthiae, p. 484.
ἘΠΙΦΑΎΣΕΙ ] from ἘΠΙΦΑΎΣΚΩ , see Winer, p. 82 [E. T. 110]; Job_25:5; Job_31:26. The readings ἘΠΙΨΑΎΣΕΙ ΣΟΙ Ὁ ΧΡ . and ἘΠΙΨΑΎΣΕΙς ΤΟῦ ΧΡ . are ancient (see Chrysostom and Jerome ad loc.), and are not to be explained merely from an accidental interchange in copying, but are connected with the preposterous fiction that the words were addressed to Adam buried under the cross of Christ, whom Christ would touch with His body and blood, thereby causing him to become alive and to rise. See Jerome. The words themselves: Christ shall shine upon thee, signify not: He will be gracious to thee (so, at variance with the context, Bretschneider), but: He will by the gracious operation of His Spirit annul in thee the ethical darkness ( λύων τὴν νύκτα τῆς ἁμαρτίας , Gregory of Nazianzus), and impart to thee the divine ἈΛΉΘΕΙΑ , of which He is the possessor and bearer (Christ, the light of the world). Observe, moreover, that the arising is not an act of one’s own, independent of God and anticipating His gracious operation, but that it takes place just through God’s effectual awakening call. On this effectual calling then ensues the Christian enlightening.
[263] Who, however, at the same time following older expositors in Wolf (comp. Rosenmüller, Morgenland, VI. p. 142), called to his aid a reminiscence of the “formula in festo buccinarum adhiberi solita.” See, in opposition to the error as to the existence of such a formula, based upon a passage of Maimonides, Wolf, Curae.
[264] According to Jerome, he is held not to have done it, “quod apocrypha comprobaret, sed quod et Arati et Epimenidis et Menandri versibus sit abusus ad ea, quae voluerat, in tempore comprobanda.”
[265] This opinion is already mentioned by Theodoret: τινὲς δὲ τῶν ἑρμηνευτῶν ἔφασαν πνευματικῆς χάριτος ἀξιωθέντας τινὰς ψαλμοὺς συγγράψαι , in connection with which they had appealed to 1Co_14:26. Bleek, too, ad loc. and already in the Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 331, finds it probable that the saying is taken from a writing composed by a Christian poet of that early age.