Ephesians 4:8

8. Wherefore In illustration of these gifts, St. Paul now quotes a passage (Psalms 68:18, where see note) in which Jehovah is represented as having ascended on high, and applies it to the ascended Christ, just mentioned as the divine giver. The psalm is a song of Jehovah’s victory, on what occasion written is not certain, but unquestionably applicable to Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. But the particular verse quoted seems to describe the triumphant Jehovah ascending Mount Zion, or some other capital, leading his captives and spoils won in battle. The He may refer to Christ, who spoke through the inspired psalmist, and thus shadowed his future triumphant ascension. Yet the same method of introducing Scripture quotation is used at Ephesians 5:14; 1 Corinthians 6:16; Galatians 3:16; and even in the Apocrypha, ( 1Ma 7:16 ,) and by Philo; from all which it is clear that a divine He was reverently held as speaking, with more or less distinctness and personality, through the old Scriptures. That Jehovah-Jesus is that divine He, is strikingly stated in Revelation 19:10: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

When he St. Paul, for convenience of application without changing the sense, changes thou to he.

Led captivity captive Literal Greek, He captured a captivity; or, He captured a capture. That is, He took a body of captives. Dr. Craven, the American editor of Lange’s “Revelation,” maintains that the phrase implies simply a rescue of friends from captivity in the hands of enemies. But the Greek verb, which is rendered by the phrase led captive, or captured, must mean to reduce to captivity, not deliver from it.

Gave… men The words of the psalm are, “He received gifts for men;” that is, to bestow upon men. Paul simply supplies the sense which the psalmist implies. The psalmist says that the ascending Jehovah took gifts for men; that is, to bestow on men; the apostle, now that the giving is being done, says, he gave gifts unto men. Yet a more literal rendering would be, “he took gifts in men;” that is, he took captives to be distributed as spoils or gifts to his followers.