The Far Off Are Brought Into the House

“Hath he quickened” is printed in italics in the King James because it is not in the Greek: the sentence begins “And you, being dead” and its main verb does not arrive until verse 5. “Quickened” is 1611 English for made alive, the “quick” of “the quick and the dead”.

“Course” is aion, age: they walked according to the age of this world. In ancient cosmology the air, the aer, was the lower sky between earth and moon, where spirits were thought to move. “Children of disobedience” is a Hebrew idiom: sons of a thing are those marked by it.

“Children of wrath” uses the same idiom as verse 2, as David calls a man “son of death” in 1 Samuel 20:31 when he means one who must die. “Others” is hoi loipoi, the rest, the same phrase 1 Thessalonians 4:13 uses for “others which have no hope”.

“Rich” picks up a thread: besides this verse, Ephesians speaks of God’s riches five times (1:7, 1:18, 2:7, 3:8, 3:16). “His great love wherewith he loved us” repeats the root, love with which he loved, a Hebrew way of adding weight by saying a thing twice.

“Quickened us together with” is one compound verb, synzoopoieo, found only here and in Colossians 2:13; verses 5 and 6 carry three such “with” compounds in a row. “Ye are saved” is perfect in tense, saved and remaining so, and the parenthesis breaks into the sentence before Paul can finish it.

The verbs are past, not future: believers are already raised and seated, in the same heavenly places where 1:20 set Christ. Romans 6:5 keeps the resurrection of believers in the future tense, which is one reason readers compare the two letters closely here.

“Shew” is endeiknumi, to display, as evidence laid out in court. “Ages” is plural, age after age, so the exhibit is not a single occasion. “Exceeding” is the hyperballo of 1:19 again, throwing past the mark, now applied to riches instead of power.

“Ye are saved” is again perfect in tense. “Through faith” uses dia, faith as the channel rather than the source. The Greek puts God’s name before the noun, “of God the gift”, so the last words of the verse lay all the emphasis on the giver.

Boasting is a word family Paul uses more than all the other New Testament writers together. Behind it stands Jeremiah 9:23–24, “let not the wise man glory in his wisdom”, which Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 1:31 as “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord”.

“Workmanship” is poiema, a thing made, the root of the English poem; its only other New Testament use is Romans 1:20 for “the things that are made” in creation. “Before ordained” is proetoimazo, to prepare beforehand, as a road is laid before the traveller arrives.

Both labels are held at arm’s length: “called Uncircumcision” by what is “called the Circumcision”. “Made by hands” is cheiropoietos, the word the Greek Old Testament uses for idols and Stephen uses in Acts 7:48 for temples “made with hands”.

Five losses are listed. “Commonwealth” is politeia, citizenship and civic life. “Without God” is atheoi, the only New Testament use of the word behind “atheist”, applied to people who had many gods but not the one who made promises to Israel.

“Sometimes” is 1611 English for once or formerly. “Far off” and “nigh” come from Isaiah 57:19, which verse 17 will quote. In Jewish usage, to bring someone near was a phrase for making a proselyte; here the bringing is done by blood, not by circumcision.

In Herod’s temple a stone balustrade divided the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts, with notices in Greek and Latin warning any foreigner who passed it of death. Two of those inscriptions have been found. Paul was arrested because he was thought to have taken Trophimus the Ephesian past it (Acts 21:29).

“Ordinances” is dogmasin, decrees, from which the word dogma comes. “Of twain one new man” describes neither Gentiles turned into Jews nor Jews into Gentiles but a third thing; second-century Christian writers took up the phrase “a third race” for themselves.

“Reconcile” is apokatallasso, a double compound found only here and in Colossians 1:20–21, the prefix suggesting restoration to a former state. “Having slain the enmity” is a grim wordplay: the one put to death on the cross puts enmity to death by it. “One body” may mean the crucified body, or the church, or both.

The words are Isaiah 57:19, “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near”, joined to the language of Isaiah 52:7 about one who “publisheth peace”. Since Jesus did not preach to Gentiles in Asia in person, most take the coming as the risen Christ speaking through his messengers.

“Access” is prosagoge, the introduction given at a royal court, where an official ushered a visitor into the king’s presence; Romans 5:2 uses the same word. The sentence has a threefold shape: through the Son, by the Spirit, to the Father.

“Strangers” are xenoi, foreigners passing through with no rights. “Foreigners” are paroikoi, resident aliens, people who lived in a city and paid its taxes but could not vote or own land, like the metics of Athens. “Fellowcitizens” reverses both at once.

“Chief corner stone” is akrogoniaios, taken from the Greek of Isaiah 28:16. It may be the stone set at the base to align the walls, or the keystone at the top that holds them; scholars have argued both. The prophets listed after the apostles are most likely those of the church, as in 3:5 and 4:11.

“Fitly framed together” is synarmologeo, a mason’s word for dressing stones so their joints fit; it comes back in 4:16 for the body. “Temple” is naos, the sanctuary proper, not the whole precinct. At Ephesus the temple of Artemis was counted among the seven wonders of the world.

“Ye also” turns once more to the Gentile readers, as in 1:13. “Habitation” is katoiketerion, a settled dwelling rather than a tent; Revelation 18:2 uses the same word of fallen Babylon become a “habitation of devils”. “Are builded” is present in tense: the building is still going up.