It’s always interesting to trace themes and trends across Paul’s letters. Throughout this series, we’ve occasionally paused to consider how each book fits within the whole body of Paul’s writing. One distinctive feature of Ephesians is the pair of quotations Paul includes in his argument. Of course, quoting the Old Testament is fairly common in Paul—over half his letters contain at least one quotation. Generally speaking, the more Jewish the expected audience, the more likely Paul is to quote the OT, though this is not an iron rule. Quotations also tend to appear when Paul is making extended arguments, such as in Romans or Galatians.

Ephesians, then, is something of an anomaly. Although the first three chapters contain sustained theological argument, Paul’s two quotations appear only in the second half of the letter, when he turns to application. Add to this the fact that the Ephesian church was likely composed mainly of Gentile Christians, and the situation becomes even more curious. Both quotations themselves also present interpretive difficulties.

The first quotation (Eph. 4:8) is notably inexact. Paul writes, “he gave gifts to men,” while the original text reads, “receiving gifts from men” (Ps. 68:18). Much scholarly energy has been expended trying to explain this. Richard Taylor summarizes eight common proposals (as cited in Stephen Baugh’s excellent commentary on Ephesians):

  1. Paul intentionally misquotes the psalm.
  2. He cites an early Christian hymn rather than the psalm itself.
  3. He suffers a memory lapse.
  4. He quotes a collection of OT passages used in catechesis.
  5. He corrects a common Jewish interpretation of Psalm 68.
  6. The meaning is effectively the same despite the verbal difference.
  7. Paul engages in midrash pesher.
  8. Paul uses a variant textual form of Psalm 68 no longer extant in either Hebrew or Greek.

Among these, the most popular is that Paul was drawing on an Aramaic translation. Baugh, however, ultimately dismisses all the options, preferring instead the explanation common among several recent commentators: Paul is offering a paraphrase that captures the teaching of the psalm in context (Baugh, Ephesians). This seems to me the most compelling view, and it fits well with the flow of Paul’s argument.

The second quotation presents a different kind of difficulty. Here the issue is not altered wording but the fact that Paul’s quotation simply does not appear anywhere in the Old Testament. Some scholars have therefore suggested that Paul is citing an early Christian hymn. New Testament scholars are forever discovering supposed hymn fragments in Paul—usually any passage that feels the least bit lyrical in English translation. Baugh dismisses these suggestions with some humor, noting that they ignore the nature of Greek poetry and music. Even if a passage has poetic qualities in translation, it often lacks the regular metrical structure that Greek songs would require. As Baugh puts it, “If the Ephesians knew the text Paul cites and sang it at their rites as a Greek song, we would naturally expect the passage which Paul cites to have one of the regular, repeated meters of Greek music, but it does not” (Baugh).

The most plausible explanation, then, is that Paul is paraphrasing a cluster of Old Testament prophecies that use imagery of light. Writing to a largely Gentile audience, he has no need for exact quotation; his readers would not have known the original texts anyway. Instead, he summarizes their meaning, weaving together their themes to support his exhortation.

Baugh, S. M. Ephesians. Evangelical Exegetical Commentary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016.