Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Ephesians 6:2 - 6:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Eph_6:2. The frame of mind towards the parents, from which the ὑπακούειν just demanded of the children must proceed, is the τιμᾶν . Hence Paul continues, and that in the express hallowed words of the fourth commandment: τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου κ . τ . λ . (Exo_20:12; Deu_5:16). And as he had before subjoined the general motive of morality τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι δίκαιον , so he now subjoins the particular incitement ἥτις ἐστιν ἐντολὴ πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελ ., so that the relation as well of the two precepts themselves, as of their motives, Eph_6:1-2, is climactic, and ἥτις … ἐπαγγελίᾳ can by no means be a parenthesis (Griesbach, Rückert, and others).
ἥτις ] utpote quae, specifies a reason. See on Eph_3:13.
ἐντολὴ πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελ .] The article is not necessary with the πρώτη , which is in itself defining, or with the ordinal numbers generally (Kühner, ad Xen. Anab. vii. 7. 35). Comp. Act_16:12; Php_1:12, al. And the statement that the commandment first as to number in the Decalogue has a promise, is not inconsistent with the facts, since the promise, Exo_20:6, Deu_5:10, is a general one, having reference to the commandments as a whole. Just as little is it to be objected that no further commandment with a promise follows in the Decalogue; for Paul says πρώτη , having before his mind not only the Decalogue, but also the entire series of all the divine precepts, which begins with the Decalogue. Among the commandments, which God has given at the time of the Mosaic legislation and in all the subsequent period, the commandment: “Honour father and mother,” is the first which is given with a promise. The apparent objection is thus removed in a simple manner by our taking ἐντολή as divine commandment in general, and not restricting it to the sense “commandment in the Decalogue.” If Paul had had merely the Decalogue in mind, he must have written: the only commandment.[293] For the assumption that “it is the first, not with regard to those which follow, but to those which have preceded” (Harless), would not even be necessarily resorted to, if it were really established—which, however, is assumed entirely without proof—that Paul had taken into account merely the ten commandments, seeing that he and every one of his readers knew that no other commandment of the ten had a promise. From the arbitrary presupposition, that merely the Decalogue was taken into account, it followed of necessity in the case of other expositors, either that they restricted ἐντολή simply to the commandments of the second table[294] (Ambrosiaster, Zachariae, Michaelis, the latter misconstruing the absence of the article before ἐντολὴ πρώτη as favouring his view), in connection with which Holzhausen even maintained that ἐντολή never denotes a commandment in reference to God (see Mat_22:36; Mat_22:38; Mar_12:28); or else that they tampered with the numerical sense of πρώτη , and made out of it a very important, a chief commandment (Koppe, Morus, Flatt, Matthies, Meier). What a feeble motive would thus result! and πρώτη would in fact mean the most important, which, however, the fifth commandment is not (Mat_22:38; Rom_13:9-10; Gal_5:14). Further, the proposal of Erasmus, that πρώτη ἐν ἐπαγγελ . should be held to apply to the definite promise of Eph_6:3, mention of which first occurs in the fifth commandment, is not worthy of attention (Harless), but erroneous; because the same promise occurs after the fifth commandment only with a general reference to the commandments as a whole (Deu_5:33; Deu_6:2), as it has also occurred even before the fifth commandment in such a general form (Deu_4:40); and because, besides, ἐπαγγ . could not but have the article.
ἐν ἐπαγγελ .] is to be closely attached to πρώτη , as expressing that, wherein this commandment is the first, the point in which the predicate pertains to it. Comp. Diodor. xii. 37: ἐν δὲ εὐγενείᾳ καὶ πλούτῳ πρῶτος , Soph. O. R. 33: πρῶτος ἐν συμφοραῖς . In point of promise it is the first ( οὐ τῇ τάξει , Chrysostom).
[293] According to Bleek, Paul had not at the moment the form of the following commandments of the Decalogue definitely before his mind. But with such inadvertence no one is less to be charged than Paul.
[294] In opposition to this, Erasmus aptly remarks: “Haec distinctio non est fundata in s. literis, sed est commentum recentiorum theologorum.” In general it is to be observed that, according to Philo and Josephus, each of the two tables contained five commandments, not, as Augustine (whom Luther followed) supposed, the first three, and the second seven,—and thus two sacred numbers, in which case, moreover, there was found in the first table a reference to the Trinity.