Ephesians 4:26

ὀργίζεσθε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε : be ye angry, and sin not. The words are taken from Psalms 4:4, and follow the LXX rendering. The original Hebrew, רִגְזוּ וְאַל־תֶּחֱטָאוּ, is rendered by some “Tremble and sin not” (Ewald; AV, “Stand in awe and sin not”), i.e., = “let wholesome fear keep you from this sinful course”; by others, as the LXX gives it (Hitz., Del., etc.). As used by Paul here the words recognise the fact that anger has its rightful place and may be a duty, while they indicate also how easily it may pass into the sinful. Great difficulty has been felt with this, and in various ways it has been sought to empty the injunction of its obvious meaning. Some take the first imperative conditionally, as if = “if ye are angry, do not sin” (Olsh., Bleek, etc.); others, in a way utterly at variance with the quotation, take ὀργίζεσθε as an interrogative (Beza, Grot.); others declare it impossible to take the first command as direct (Buttm., Gram. of N. T. Greek, p. 290), or deal with the first imper. as permissive, and with the second as jussive (Winer, De Wette, etc.), as if = “be ye angry if it must be so, but only do not sin”. Such a construction might be allowable if the first imper. were followed by ἀλλὰ καί or some similar disjunctive: but with the simple καί it is inadmissible. Both impers. are real jussives, the only difference between them being in the μή which also throws some emphasis on the second. The καί has here the rhetorical sense which is found also in atque, adding something that seems not quite consistent with the preceding or that qualifies it, = “and yet” (cf. Matthew 3:14; Matthew 6:26; Matthew 10:29, etc.). Nor is the difficulty in admitting ὀργίζεσθε to be a real injunction of anger anything more than a self-made difficulty. Moralists of different schools, the Stoics excepted. have recognised the place of anger in a moral nature; cf., e.g., Plato's τὸ θυμοειδές; Butler's statement of the function of anger in a moral system as “a balance to the weakness of pity” and a “counterpoise to possible excess in another part of our nature,” Sermons, Carmichael's ed., pp. 126, 128. A righteous wrath is acknowledged in Scripture as something that not only may be but ought to be, and is seen in Christ Himself (Mark 3:5). So Paul speaks here of an anger that is approvable and to be enjoined, while in the καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε he forbids only a particular form or measure of anger. As the following clause suggests, even a righteous wrath by over-indulgence may pass all too easily into sin. ὁ ἥλιος μὴ ἐπιδυέτω ἐπὶ τῷ παροργισμῷ ὑμῶν : let not the sun go down upon your provocation. For the expression ὁ ἥλιος μὴ ἐπιδυέτω cf. Deuteronomy 24:13; Deuteronomy 24:15; Jeremiah 15:9; also Hom., Il., ii., 413, and Plutarch's statement of the Pythagorean custom εἴποτε προαχθεῖεν εἰς λοιδορίας ὑπ ὀργῆς, πρὶν ἢ τὸν ἥλιον δῦναι τὰς δεξιὰς ἐμβάλλοντες ἀλλήλοις καὶ ἀσπασάμενοι διέλυοντο (De Am. frat., p. 488 B). τῷ, inserted by the TR, is supported by [454] [455] [456] [457] [458] 3, etc.; it is omitted by the best critics (LTTrWHRV) on the authority of [459] [460] 1 [461], etc. The noun παροργισμός occurs only here in the NT; never, as it would appear, in non-biblical Greek; but occasionally in the LXX (1Ki 15:30; 2 Kings 23:26; Nehemiah 9:18). It differs from ὀργή in denoting not the disposition of anger or anger as a lasting mood, but provocation, exasperation, sudden, violent anger. Such anger cannot be indulged long, but must be checked and surrendered without delay. To suppose any allusion here to sunset as the time for prayer or to night as increasing wrath by giving opportunity of brooding, is to import something entirely foreign to the simplicity of the words as a statement of limitation.

[454] Codex Claromontanus (sæc. vi.), a Græco-Latin MS. at Paris, edited by Tischendorf in 1852.

[455] Codex Augiensis (sæc. ix.), a Græco-Latin MS., at Trinity College, Cambridge, edited by Scrivener in 1859. Its Greek text is almost identical with that of G, and it is therefore not cited save where it differs from that MS. Its Latin version, f, presents the Vulgate text with some modifications.

[456] Codex Mosquensis (sæc. ix.), edited by Matthæi in 1782.

[457] Codex Angelicus (sæc. ix.), at Rome, collated by Tischendorf and others.

[458] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[459] Codex Vaticanus (sæc. iv.), published in photographic facsimile in 1889 under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi.

[460] Codex Sinaiticus (sæc. iv.), now at St. Petersburg, published in facsimile type by its discoverer, Tischendorf, in 1862.

[461] Codex Alexandrinus (sæc. v.), at the British Museum, published in photographic facsimile by Sir E. M. Thompson (1879).