Colossians 2:16

καὶ ἐν πόσει. καὶ is read only by B Pesh. Boh. Origen (once). Tert. (once), ἢ is read by Text. Rec. with אACD, etc. In spite of the following threefold ἢ the juxtaposition ἐν βρώσει καὶ ἐν πόσει is so natural that καὶ is very suspicious.

16. οὖν refers at least as far back as Colossians 2:9, but with special stress on Colossians 2:14-15; cf. οὖν, Colossians 2:6, note. εἰ τοιούτων τετυτήχατε, φησὶ, τί τοῖς μικροῖς ὑπευθύνους ἑαυτοὺς ποιεῖτε; Chrys.

μή … τις, cf. Colossians 2:8. Anyone, whatever his position, or whatever his supposed claims; more deictic than μηδείς (Colossians 2:18).

ὑμᾶς κρινέτω. Let no one continue to judge; implying that some one is doing so. Observe that St Paul takes a far wider view than that of forbidding the observance of dietary laws and of festival seasons. He leaves the matter free for the individual person. What he says is that the observance (or, by implication, non-observance) is not to form a basis for any one to sit in judgment on the Colossians. So at length in Romans 14:3-23; cf. 1 Corinthians 8:8; 1 Corinthians 10:29.

ἐν βρώσει, “in eating.” For St Paul always carefully distinguishes βρῶσις from βρῶμα: cf. Romans 14:17; Hebrews 9:10. Contrast John 4:32; John 6:27; John 6:55.

The dietary laws formed, and still form, a very important part of Judaism. For the Pentateuch see Leviticus 11. || Deuteronomy 14:3-21, and for the way in which pious Jews abstained, in consequence, from food provided by heathen see Daniel 1:8; Daniel 1:12; Tob 1:10-12; Jdt 10:5; Jdt 12:2; Jdt 12:19; Esth. Add. 14:17; 2Ma 5:27. For the practice in N.T. times see e.g. Acts 10:14; Acts 11:3; cf. Mark 7:2. But it is probable that among the Colossians a still stronger form of the question arose in the form of frequent or stringent fasting, see on Colossians 2:23.

καὶ ἐν πόσει. See notes on Textual Criticism.

Similarly St Paul means by πόσις the action of drinking, not the thing drunk; contrast 1 Corinthians 10:4.

Although laws forbidding drink are only for special circumstances according to the Pentateuch (Leviticus 10:9; Leviticus 11:34; Leviticus 11:36; Numbers 6:3), yet in passages quoted in the last note from Daniel, Judith, and Esther Add., heathen wine was refused as well as solid food; and in post-Biblical times, and presumably at least as early as the time of St Paul (cf. Matthew 23:24), strict laws about drink have been framed.

The prohibition against eating meat with milk by a deduction from Exodus 23:19 || Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21, is perhaps the most noticeable example. For elaborate rules on the subject see the Jewish Encyclopaedia, s.v. “Milk.” But wine also was forbidden if there was any suspicion of its being connected with idolatrous usage, and “even after the practice of idolatry lapsed, these prohibitions remained in force as rabbinic institutions; wherefore the wine of a non-Jew is forbidden,” ibid., s.v. “Dietary Laws,” IV. 598.

Lightfoot (Col. p. 104) sees Essene or Gnostic influence in prohibitions against drink, rather than Pharisaic or Jewish, but on this point Hort is right in opposing him (Jud. Christianity, p. 117).

ἢ ἐν μέρει. Apparently St Paul here changes from καί to ἤ because he is about to enter on a new group of subjects. But perhaps the reason is that the sentence is negative; see Winer, § LIII. 6; cf. Romans 4:13. Cf. also Blass, § 77. 11.

ἐν μέρει probably originally denoted the class, the category, but has become weakened to merely mean “in respect of,” so class., τὸ σὸν μέρος, “as to thee,” Soph., O. C., 1366. Cf. 2 Corinthians 3:10; 2 Corinthians 9:3.

ἑορτῆς. Since the monthly and weekly holy days are mentioned immediately after, this doubtless refers to the annual festivals. For the same gradation, though in reverse order, cf. 1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:3 (4), 2 Chronicles 31:3; also Galatians 4:10.

ἢ νεομηνίας. Here only in N.T. but frequent in LXX. The first day of the month, Numbers 10:10; Numbers 28:11, i.e. the first day that the new moon was seen. For its importance in O.T. times see Amos 8:5; Hosea 2:11; Isaiah 1:13, and Ezek. often, e.g. Ezekiel 26:1. For its observance in post-Biblical times see Isr. Abrahams in Hastings, D. B. III. 522.

ἢ σαββάτων, “or of a sabbath day.”

The Aramaic Shabbtha’ שַׁבְּתָא, fem. sing. (Dalman, Gram. 1894, p. 126, and Lexicon, s.v.), was transliterated into Greek as σάββατα and declined as a plural, a singular σάββατον, e.g. John 5:9, being even formed from it.

In Acts 17:2, ἐτὶ σάββατα τρία, it has a plural meaning, but everywhere else, probably, in the N.T. still the singular, e.g. Mark 1:21, where see Swete. Cf. Jos. Antt. I. i. 1, ἡμεῖς σχολὴν�· δηλοῖ δὲ�, and for a curious combination of the two forms, III. vi. 6, ἐν τῷ καλουμένῳ ὑφʼ ἡμῶν Σαββάτῳ· τὴν γὰρ ἑβδόμην ἡμέραν Σάββατα καλοῦμεν.

Observe
(1) Of the five points mentioned, σάββατα referred to exclusively Jewish days, and, so far as we know, νεομηνία also. Presumably therefore St Paul was thinking only of Jewish customs under the first three heads as well.

(2) The principle of St Paul’s “loosing” these laws has a wide application, not only to purely ecclesiastical laws about holy days, but even to the quasi-Biblical laws of fasting and the Sunday, The latter indeed is far the more important point, for the observance of a day of rest is certainly pre-Mosaic, and is indirectly enjoined in Genesis 2, besides being included in the entirely moral code of the Ten Commandments. The logical deduction from St Paul’s words would appear to be that to observe the Sunday solely for the reason that it is enjoined upon us (i.e. in the fourth commandment by a legitimate adaptation of the language) is to fall back to the position from which he was trying to keep the Colossians. But to observe it from other motives, e.g. the desire to glorify God and to make the best use of our time and to preserve to others the religious privileges that we possess, agrees completely with the liberty of the Christian. In these days of disregard of God’s will generally it is very hard to understand how a religious person can do anything to relax the religious observance of the Sunday. See Origen, c. Cels. VIII. 21–23. Compare also Romans 14:5; Galatians 4:10-11. For a convenient summary of Talmudic laws on the Sabbath see Edersheim’s Life and Times, II. Append. XVII.