Eph. ii. 4, 5. The words, took away (ypxsv, ver. 14), and made a show (efaytAdritevj ver. 15), which have no copulative conjunction connecting them, either with one another or with ffwe^uovo/TiffM,1 depend on this expression, along with the annexed participles, all of which (viz. both the verbs and the participles) are to be referred to God the Father. — xapiffdpevog) The aorist is deter mined by the tense of the verb, to wrhich it is added. Now, I adopt this reading, ^apiffd/^svog vp/v,2 and connect this clause with the preceding words. In this view, ver. 13, along with those that precede it, addresses the Gentiles ; and ver. 14 introduces the Jews speaking. — capa-rrw/^aT-a, offences) from which death had arisen. Deliverance from the reproach of sin, ver. 14, and deliverance from the power of darkness, ver. 15, are united with this deliverance from sin.
14. 'Ega/.s/4-ag, having blotted out) A word appropriate in regard to writing : join it with qpxsv, took away. — natf JI/AUV, against us) This verse brings in the Jews speaking. [Not only was the law against us, xce0' ^wy, by its demands, but also an ad versary to us, vvsvdvnov jj^ft (Engl. Vers. contrary to us), by its accusation. — V. g.] — xzipoypatpov, handwriting) When a debt has been contracted, it generally follows, that the debtor by his hand writing acknowledges himself to be bound. The debt is for given : and then, and not till then, the handwriting is blotted out. Our sins were debts : our sins themselves were not the hand writing, but that which flowed from them as a consequence, the undeniable stain, the remembrance, the outcry (see Jer. xvii. 1, 2), not so much in our conscience, as in the presence of God, while the law in various ways accuses and condemns us. [All this constitutes the handwriting.] Heb. x. 3, 17 : 1 Cor. xv. 56. To be against (xatf qpuv), and to be our adversary or inimi cal (vKtvdvTiov ^/x?v), differ, as a state of war and an actual engage ment. The handwriting was against us, but God blotted it out.
1 For the xa,l before O.VTO qualifies it, and is not a copulative of the verbs, as the Engl. Vers. makes it — ED.
2 For the reading vfAiv, in the larger Ed., is considered not so certain: whereas by the margin of 2d Ed., with the concurrence of the Germ. Vers., it is reckoned among those that are more certain. — E. B.
'H,t«7v is read by ABCDG^r Hilar. 204, 773. 'TfAiv is supported by Vulg. Hilar. 990, 1067, and according to Lachm. by B (but Tisch. claims B for 5?,«n/. — ED.