translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: EPH

label: NET study note

text: Chapter starts off with a participle, although you were dead , that is left dangling. The syntax in Greek for vv. 1-3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4 ) to their spiritual dilemma.


text: The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins , indicating that sins is the antecedent.


text: The ruler of the kingdom of the air is also the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience . Although several translations regard the ruler to be the same as the spirit , this is unlikely since the cases in Greek are different ( ruler is accusative and spirit is genitive). To get around this, some have suggested that the genitive for spirit is a genitive of apposition. However, the semantics of the genitive of apposition are against such an interpretation (cf. ExSyn 100).


text: Sons of disobedience is a Semitic idiom that means “people characterized by disobedience.” However, it also contains a subtle allusion to vv. 4-10 : Some of those sons of disobedience have become sons of God.


text: Among whom. The relative pronoun phrase that begins v. 3 is identical, except for gender, to the one that begins v. 2 ( ἐν αἵς [ en Jais ], ἐν οἵς [ en Jois ]). By the structure, the author is building an argument for our hopeless condition: We lived in sin and we lived among sinful people. Our doom looked to be sealed as well in v. 2 : Both the external environment ( kingdom of the air ) and our internal motivation and attitude ( the spirit that is now energizing ) were under the devil’s thumb (cf. 2 Cor 4:4 ).


text: Children of wrath is a Semitic idiom which may mean either “people characterized by wrath” or “people destined for wrath.”


text: Eph 2:1-3 . The translation of vv. 1-3 is very literal, even to the point of retaining the awkward syntax of the original. See note on the word dead in 2:1 .


text: Apostles and prophets. Because the prophets appear after the mention of the apostles and because they are linked together in 3:5 as recipients of revelation about the church, they are to be regarded not as Old Testament prophets, but as New Testament prophets.