Sunday, September 29, 2024

Ephesians 3:17-19

A couple weeks ago, I was looking at Ephesians 3:17-19:  "17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." [ESV]

I noticed that there are a number of rhetorical effects in the phrase "the breadth and length and height and depth" (τὸ πλάτος καὶ μῆκος καὶ ὕψος καὶ βάθος).  The list of various dimensions is something of a rhetorical catalogue; the dimensions all go in different directions, forming a sort of three-dimensional merism; and all of the elements are linked with polysyndeton.  Even just one of these effects would provide a sense of this vastness, but because there are multiple effects, the sense is compounded.

I also noticed that the phrase "filled with all the fullness of God" (πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ) is somewhat redundant, not only in "filled with... fullness" but also in "all the fullness."  As in Psalm 65:11, though, which I wrote about last month, these redundancies mirror this abundance.