Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 5:16

ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρὸν. ‘Buying up the opportunity,’ cf. Lightfoot on Colossians 4:5. The reference in Col. and, in view of the preceding paragraph, here also, is to the opportunity of influencing ‘those without,’ which is given us now. The ‘day of salvation’ which St Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:2 following Isaiah 49:8 recognized as present, was, as the context both in Isaiah 49 and in 2 Corinthians 6 implies, a day for bringing salvation to others, not primarily a day for making sure of our own. See esp. Isaiah 19:6 = Acts 13:47; cf. 1 Peter 1:9. τὸν καιρὸν most probably refers to the whole period of life granted to each man, cf. John 7:6; John 11:9; John 12:35; though it might be taken of each opportunity of helping another that comes in our way. In any case 2 Timothy 4:2 ἐπίστηθι εὐκαίρως�, is in the same strain.

ὅτι αἱ ἡμέραι πονηραί εἰσιν, cf. Ephesians 6:13; Amos 5:13. Days take their character from the forces that are dominant in them. In St Paul’s view though the present was in a true sense ‘a day of salvation,’ it was also an ‘evil day.’ The present age was evil (Galatians 1:4). The present was a time of distress (1 Corinthians 7:26) with a prospect of yet harder times in store (1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1) owing both to persecution coming from without and to false teachers within. Here the evil of the time would seem to be connected with the moral corruption of society. In the presence of such an all-pervading atmosphere of evil to relax vigilance for a moment would be to court disaster. The thought has no doubt its root in the Gospels (cf. Luke 17:22; Luke 21:21-34). But in the form in which it comes before us in Eph., the thought is not of the special tribulation that marks the end of the age, ‘the birth pangs’ of the Messiah, but of the abiding moral characteristic of the present dispensation. It is the same thought which finds expression in the last clause of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:13; cf. John 17:15; 1 John 5:19). We have indeed been transferred from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13), the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2). Yet as long as we are in the flesh we are open to attack from the Evil One, as we shall see in Ephesians 6:10 ff. Contact with the world may at any time sully our purity, James 1:27 (cf. Hort in loc.). The thought is saved from pessimism and becomes a salutary stimulus to unceasing watchfulness under the conviction that the Evil One has in fact been overcome. Cf. 1 John 2:13.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Ephesians 5:16

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