FOOTNOTES:

^a Or ‘through,’ as in ‘by means of’

^b Or ‘ligament’ which fits with the body metaphor of the following verse. Sundesmo (bond, ligament) is paired with eirenes, which is being taken as an ‘attributed genitive,’ which makes ‘bond’ describing ‘peace.’

^c ‘Peace’ here must be taken as harmony between people, not an individual’s interior serenity.

^d There is no verb in this sentence. ‘You are’ is supplied to make it work in English and is based on the context here. Other translations supply ‘there is.’

^e Or ‘faithfulness’ or ‘trust’

^f ‘through’ would work here, but it is about spatial location (in a metaphoric sense), like ‘passing through,’ not about means to say it is done ‘through/by’ everyone.

^g Or ‘among’

^h This is heni hekasto. Literally, it means ‘each one,’ but there’s an emphatic quality to it. Hekasto appears less often than pas, which can be translated as ‘each/every/all/whole.’ This word carries a sense of emphasizing the separate instances involved.

ⁱ Literally, ‘according to the measure/portion of’

^j The word ‘itself’ is not in the Greek, but it helps with the flow of the English to make sense of it.

^k This is almost—but not quite—a direct quote of the first half of Psalm 68:18. Psalm 68 is second person—‘you’—seemingly addressing Mt. Sanai. Robert Alter (2019) translates the whole verse this way: “O, Sanai in holiness! You went up to the heights, You took hold of your captives, the wayward as well— so that Yah God would abide.” The word ‘gave’ in Ephesians was ‘received’ (Alter’s translation seems to be missing) in the Greek translation of Psalm 68 as well as in the Hebrew text. It seems the author of Ephesians is making a reference to this passage, but not quoting it exactly, making changes to teach something important about what was involved in Jesus’ work. Another theory is that the author was quoting a song or poem inspired by Psalm 68 but not Psalm 68 itself. Also, most English translations read ‘captured captives’ rather than ‘captured captivity.’ The Hebrew of Psalm 68 could be translated either way: ‘captives’ or ‘captivity.’ The Greek of the Septuagint version of Psalm 68 and of Ephesians 4:8 should be translated as ‘captivity.’

^l Or ‘lower part of the ground/land’

^m The different levels of air/sky may be in view here with the distinction made in Ephesians 2:2 between the one who ruled the lowest atmosphere in contrast with God in the highest atmosphere and now Christ above all levels of the sky/heavens.

ⁿ The connection made between Jesus and a section of the Hebrew Bible calls to mind the sense of the text being ‘given a fuller meaning’ as was seen in Matthew; however, the same Greek word that traditionally is ‘fulfilled’ also just means ‘filled’ and is the same as is used in Ephesians 3:19, so allowing it to resonate with that use seems important in this context.

^o Colossians 1:25, Ephesians 3:2

^p The wording of the Greek is such that the people in these roles are what is given, i.e. other people received these people as gifts. It is not saying that the positions were given to the people occupying the positions.

^q The more traditional ‘building’ is correct, but it should be clear that is about putting together all the pieces, not about adding to its numbers/size. ‘Assembling’ could be another good word for it.

^r Grammatically, this is not about individuals, this is about the ‘we all’ who make up the ‘body of Christ.’ The ‘person’ in view here is a metaphor, it’s a reference to the whole church as Christ’s body.

^s This whole verse is known to be difficult to decipher. This phrase en te kubeia ton anthropon is very literally ‘with the dice playing of people.’ There are several variations of ways to interpret this. To translate it as ‘the way people roll dice’ is connecting it with the manner of randomness described to tossing waves and winds blowing around. Other translations assume it refers to the way people often cheat when playing dice and translate it as something like ‘human cunning’ (ESV) or ‘trickery of people’ (NET). This is the only place in the Bible where the word kubos (die/dice) appears, so there are not contexts other than this one to compare it.

^t Again, this whole verse is known to be difficult to decipher. This phrase en panourgia pros ten methodeian tes planes is either something like ‘with craftiness through deceitful schemes’ or ‘with deliberateness toward a misleading method/deliberate scheme.’ While the choice between the two is challenging, the first one seems to have no connection with the context. It assumes the teaching/dice playing is intentionally deceptive, but there is no other context to indicate that in this section. What seems more likely is that there are two ways to be infants: 1) impulsively follow every passing whim and 2) go the wrong way through misguided intentions.

^u The growing and building seem to have more to do with maturing and being unified than with recruiting more members.

^v ‘Insisting’ here is literally ‘testifying.’ Doing so ‘by the Lord’ seems to be something placing a hand on the Bible when being sworn into the witness stand in court. The author really means what is written.

^w Think Ecclesiastes… ‘vanity, vanity’… it’s about being useless, pointless, like catching the wind in your fingers.

^x Literally, ‘darkened.’ It seems to be in contrast with ‘illuminated’ in Ephesians 3:9, so darkened here gives an image of something obstructing the light from God that is meant to shine on their thinking.

^y This is something like ‘vitality,’ the life force from God, not the ‘manner of living’ which is what is meant by ‘walking’ in verse 17.

^z Or more literally, ‘ignorance.’ ‘Unawareness’ seems to make more sense in the context of the following verses.

^aa Literally, ‘callused.’ This is not about stubbornness but about being unfeeling after too much friction, too many wounds.

^bb Literally, ‘heart’ did not represent inner being or all emotion as it does in our culture. It represented desire or motivation.

^cc The word is related to ‘avarice’ or ‘covetousness.’ Some kind of excessive desire is in view.

^dd This seems to be a continuation referring back to verse 17 that the author is ‘insisting by the Lord…. you are to strip off…”

^ee Many translations say ‘self’ but it literally just says ‘you’ which makes it sound like this is trying to be more informal when it’s actually being more literal.

^ff ‘Old’ as in ‘elderly’ whereas the ‘way of life’ is ‘old’ as in ‘former.’

^gg All these words could be made as moralistic judgments, and ‘corrupted’ or even ‘ruined’ would work, but taking it at its more literal meaning actually brings it away from those types of judgements. This is literally an emphatic word for ‘shriveled’ or ‘withered.’

^hh Or ‘delusional’ or ‘deceptive’

ⁱⁱ ‘Way of thinking’ or ‘mind’ is singular, but ‘your’ is plural.

^jj The word is ananeoo. It’s a compound of ana, re-, and neoo from the noun neos. Neos carries the meaning of ‘new’ and according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, it can be transated as ‘fresh’ for things and ‘young’ for people. ‘To make young again’ would be an appropriate translation in this context.

^kk This is not the usual word for ‘holiness,’ though most translations use that word here. Traditionally, ‘holiness’ comes from hagios, while this word is hostiotes. This word is used much less frequently and because of that fact is harder to define based on context.

^ll This is a reference to be parts of the same body. Literally, it says, ‘we are each other’s parts,’ that sounds awkward in English, though maybe it’s supposed to be uncomfortable.

^mm This is not a conditional, as if were saying, ‘if/when you’re angry, do not deviate.’ It is directing the reader both to feel angry about something and also not to deviate.

ⁿⁿ This seems to refer not to limiting the time of feeling angry but to not letting the source of anger hide from attention, get out of the light. It may be a reference to Joshua 10, especially verses 12-14. See also the next footnote regarding ‘cause of your anger.’

^oo ‘Anger’ is orgismos. This word is parorgismos, which only occurs in this one place in the Bible. In other Greek literature of the era, it specifically referred to what caused anger, not the anger itself.

^pp The Greek here is a 3rd person command, which does not exist in English, so it’s difficult to translate well. A traditional way to translate 3rd person Greek commands into English is “May/let so-and-so do such-and-such,” but the difficulty is that it sounds like more of a hope than a command, which misses the meaning of the word.

^qq Compare to the whole chapter of Matthew 12 but especially verses 43-45.

^rr Literally, ‘give.’ It is a versatile verb with many possible appropriate English translations, such as ‘give,’ ‘bestow,’ ‘present,’ ‘supply,’ ‘suggest,’ ‘distribute alms,’ ‘pay tribute,’ ‘permit,’ ‘allow,’ ‘deliver,’ ‘reveal,’ ‘teach,’ ‘expose oneself,’ ‘repay,’ ‘attribute,’ ‘ascribe,’ ‘put,’ ‘affix,’ ‘inflict,’ ‘assign,’ and more. The meaning must be determined by the context. The context here is in how speaking can ‘give’ generosity to those who hear what is said. ‘Teaching’ seems the best option of those listed in the dictionary.

^ss Something literally like ‘intent toward harm’ or ‘ill-will.’

^tt Not a good word since it’s so uncommon in English, but it gets at the heart of the meaning. Have an attitude that actively seeks the good of someone else. Traditionally, ‘kind.’

^uu Literally, ‘good-boweled’ or ‘kind-wombed’