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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Ephesians 3:5 - 3:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5. ἑτέραις γενεαῖς. ‘In former generations.’ Cf. Eph 2:12; Rom 16:25.
τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Contrast Eph 3:10 (ταῖς ἀρχαῖς καὶ ταῖς ἐξουσίαις ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις).
ὡς νῦν ἀπεκαλύφθη. For the ignorance even of the O.T. Prophets, cf. 1Pe 1:10. For νῦν with aor. cf. Hort on 1Pe 1:12.
τοῖς ἁγίοις ἀποστόλοις αὐτοῦ καὶ προφήταις. Cf. Col 1:26. It is not easy to say when this revelation was granted. St Paul felt that it was included in the revelation that he received at his conversion. But it does not seem to have been fully accepted at Jerusalem before the conference in Acts 15. The terms of the letter to Antioch written in the name of the Apostles and Elders (including at least Judas and Silas who were prophets, Act 15:32), ἔδοξεν γὰρ τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁλίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν, would satisfy St Paul’s language here exactly. Everything in fact falls naturally into its place if we may suppose that St Paul had the decision of such a representative gathering in mind from which he was himself excluded (cf. Hort Chris. Eccl., p. 166). If the Western reading τοῖς ἁγίοις αὐτοῦ ἀπ. καὶ προφ. be adopted, it would be possible to take ἁγίοις as a substantive, as in Col 1:26. The punctuation of Lachm. and Treg., retaining the common text with a comma after ἁγίοις, is surely impossible. ἁγίοις, epithet constantly applied to prophets (Luk 1:70; Act 3:21; 2Pe 3:2; Wis 11:1). Here only with ἀπόστολοι (cf. Rev 18:20).
ἐν πνεύματι. To be connected with ἀπεκαλύφθη. The truth was one which it needed special illumination to apprehend.