For the greater part of western history, monarchs ruled their countries. Kings and queens ruled over England, France, Spain, etc. These monarchs represented their peoples so thoroughly that they were in corporate solidarity with their nations. So extensive was the representation of the peoples they ruled that the monarch could simply be called by the name of the nation (England, for example).
In Ephesians 1:6, Paul refers to Christ Jesus as ho ēgapēmenos, “the Beloved,” a term that describes Israel in the Hebrew Bible but does so with even more clarity in the Old Greek translations, popularly called the Septuagint. Paul uses a term that echoes or signals to his readers that Christ is the New Israel—consequently, Gentile believers are incorporated into the New Israel since they have been chosen in him.
To discern whether Paul intended to allude to Jeshurun—an Old Testament term of endearment for Israel—we must analyze the Greek term he used in Ephesians 1:6 against its usage in the Septuagint. While the discussion will be slightly technical, the results are significant, for they potentially add another layer to Christ’s identity that further illuminates the identity of Gentile believers in Paul’s theology.
The Context of Ephesians 1:6
Ephesians 1:3–6 says,
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (ESV, emphasis added)
The church was blessed in Christ, chosen in Him, predestined through Jesus Christ to the praise of his glorious grace which God gave us in the Beloved.
In the original Greek, the discourse resumes in verse 7 with relative clauses until the end of verse 14, which perhaps marks vv. 3–6 as a unit. The Nestle-Aland 27 edition of the Greek New Testament deemed vv. 3–6 as a paragraph. Within this unit, the expressions “in Christ” (en Christō) and “in the Beloved” (en tō ēgapēmenō) are parallel with each other, since the former is at the end of the first line (indicating the location of all the spiritual blessings), while the latter is at the end of the final line (indicating the location of the glorious grace given to us). The intervening lines use pronouns referring to the first line and mention election and predestination. We will return to the significance of this parallelism below.
Here’s where we get slightly into the weeds, but it will be worth it. The latter term tō ēgapēmenō is a perfect middle/passive participle dative masculine singular from agapaō, “to love,” and it is used as a substantive to translate as “the one having been loved” or “the beloved.” In Greek, there are at least two other ways of communicating this idea: 1) a –tōs adjective agapētos, which is how Paul describes Christians in a number of places (e.g., Eph. 5:1 “beloved children”) and how Matthew describes Jesus at his baptism and his transfiguration [“This is my beloved Son”; Matt. 3:17; 17:5] and 2) the use of a simple relative clause with an active verb [e.g., ho huios sou . . . , hon agapas], “your son, whom you love” in Old Greek Isaiah 3:25). Thus, it may be significant that Paul chose the participle rather than the other two constructions.
In the Septuagint, the perfect middle/passive participle is used in two ways: 1) it renders Hebrew words for “love” or “beloved” including references to Israel and individuals in Israel, and 2) significantly, it renders Hebrew Yeshurun/Jeshurun in four places, which is an unexpected translation as we shall see.
References to the Nation of Israel
In seven texts in the Old Testament (e.g., Isaiah 5:1) and the non-canonical Apocrypha (e.g., Baruch 3:37), the participle often translated as “beloved” describes Israel or Judah as a whole.[1]
1. See 2 Chr. 20:7 (Abraham or seed of Abraham); Judith 9:4 (sons of Israel); Hos. 2:23(25) (variant reading and Paul’s wording in Rom 9:25: “I will love the one unbeloved”); Isa. 5:1, 7 (Yahweh).
References to Individual Israelites
In nine texts, the participle modifies individuals, tribes, or even a wife in Israel’s case laws.[2]
2. See Deut. 21:15-16 (beloved wife in contrast to a hated one); Deut. 33:12 (tribe of Benjamin); 2 Sam. 1:23 (Saul and Jonathan are called beloved); 2 Esdras 23:26 (Neh. 13:26; Solomon is “beloved to God”); Jer. 12:7 (Jeremiah’s soul is “beloved;” Sirach 24:11 (the beloved city in the A line and Jerusalem is the city mentioned in the B line); Sirach 45:1 (Moses is beloved by God and men); Sirach 46:13 (Samuel is beloved by the Lord); LXX Dan. 3:35 (Abraham beloved by God).
Thus, this participle refers either to Israel or to individuals within Israel’s history in both texts of the Old Testament and Apocrypha. In all of the Old Testament examples, the Greek word renders the following Hebrew words for love/beloved: yadid, yadiduth,’ahab, sha’ashu’im, which means the Greek translations were predictable in these instances and thus could not be used to determine whether the Septuagint translators were making distinct rhetorical or theological points. When translators use predictable equivalents, it is impossible to parse the theology of the Hebrew Bible from the theology of the Septuagint translators. But what if the translators went off script? What if they also used this perfect middle/passive participle in unexpected ways? I believe that these translators did exactly this when they used this participle to render Jeshurun in four places. Let’s look at each of these in turn in the English Standard Version (which translates the Old Testament primarily from the Hebrew Masoretic Text) and the Lexham English Septuagint (a new translation as of 2012 that translates the Old Testament from the Greek Septuagint).
References to Jeshurun as “Beloved” by the Septuagint Translators
Deut 32:15
“But Jeshurun (Yeshurun) grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation. (ESV)
“And Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one (ho ēgapēmenos) kicked; he grew fat, he grew thick, he became large. And he forsook the God who made him, and he drew away from God his Savior.” (LES)Deut 33:5
Thus the Lord became king in Jeshurun (Vishurun) when the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Israel together. (ESV)
And he [the Lord] shall be a ruler with the beloved one (en tō ēgapēmenō); rulers of people have been gathered with the tribes of Israel. (LES)Deut 33:26
“There is none like God, O Jeshurun (Yeshurun), who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty. (ESV)
There is none like the God of the beloved (tou ēgapēmenou), who goes upon the heavens as your helper, and the glorious one of the firmament. (LES)Isaiah 44:2
Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun (Vishurun) whom I have chosen. (ESV)
This is what the Lord, the God who made you and who formed you from the belly, says, “You will still receive aid; do not be frightened, my servant Jacob, and beloved (ho ēgapēmenos) Israel, whom I have chosen,” (LES)
A few comments on these texts are in order. First, “Jeshurun” is a nickname or pet name for Israel (a hypocoristicon) that is also a term of endearment and that refers to loyalty in the covenant relationship in its Hebrew root.
Second, the translation of the Septuagint is not a straightforward “literal” translation of Jeshurun. The slightly later work of the Three Jewish Revisers (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) renders Jeshurun with Greek equivalents of a Hebrew word meaning “straight” (Hebrew yashar; see Deut. 32:15: Aquila: euthytatos “rather straight”; Symmachus & Theodotion: ho euthēs “the straight one” [cp. tō euthei in Deut. 33:5]). The Three used a rather formal approach to translation— they often rendered Hebrew words with the same stereotypical Greek equivalents, sometimes even using one equivalent Greek root and derivatives for one Hebrew root and derivatives. They were not always concerned with the most contextual rendering. In this case, the Three’s word choice highlights the Septuagint’s word choice for the Hebrew, for “love” for “straight” is not immediately obvious.
Third, there is no possibility of a Hebrew scribal error in this situation, and therefore, I conclude the translators diverge from the plain sense of their Hebrew parent text for rhetorical and theologizing purposes. Their contextual rendering of the pet name or term of endearment for Israel, but it emphasizes God’s love for them in election (e,g., Deut. 7:8).
Fourth, the Greek Isaiah translator is likely dependent on the work of the Deuteronomy translator, who preceded him. LXX of Isaiah also provides a doublet for Jeshurun when he translates it ho ēgapēmenos Israēl, “The Beloved Israel.” It is also important to note the election of Israel (Jacob) in Isaiah 44:1–4, which could also have triggered Paul’s allusion to Jeshurun in Ephesians 1:3–6.
Paul’s Use of “Beloved” in Ephesians 1:3–6
The above analysis leads to the following conclusions for Paul’s use of the Old Testament in Ephesians.
First, ho ēgapēmenos (“the beloved”) is used of both individuals in Israel’s history and of Israel itself. Since the LXX of Deuteronomy translates Jeshurun(a pet name for Israel) with this word and form, we can thus conclude the phrase “Beloved Israel” originated in the Greek of Deuteronomy, and that later books, both canonical and Apocrypha, borrowed the expression. As noted above, LXX of Isaiah combined the terms of Beloved Israel and election, and Paul was influenced by and aware of this connection, even as he now interprets Israel and Jeshurun in light of Christ’s appearance.
Second, Paul capitalizes on the term’s meaning in the Septuagint. The term refers corporately to Israel and to individuals within Israel. He places it in parallel with en christō “in Christ” in Ephesians 1:3, referring to an individual and the Messiah’s people. Primarily via the parallelism, Paul communicates that Christ is the true Beloved or Jeshurun. Paul also uses the terms christō and ēgapēmenos as incorporating (en “in”) terms. Regarding “in Christ,” N.T. Wright rightly says, “I suggest, in other words, that Paul uses ‘Christ’ here as a shorthand way of referring to that unity and completeness, and mutual participation, which belongs to the church that is found ‘in Christ’, that is, in fact, the people of the Messiah”[3]
3. N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 54.
Third, regarding “Beloved,” that term was originally intended to be a title for God’s people, Israel, and it expressed God’s covenant love for them. Now, Paul applies it to Christ Jesus. This conclusion, of course, fits with Matthew’s own use of the term in Matthew 3:17 and 17:5, where Jesus is called by the Father “my beloved Son.” Matthew has already clarified that Jesus is the true Israel on a new exodus from his use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15.
Fourth, “in Christ” (en christō) and “in the Beloved” (en tō ēgapēmenō), therefore, denote Christ as the true Israel and thus further define the new and true Israel with respect to one’s incorporation into Christ. Believers in Christ are incorporated into Christ, the Beloved. Frank Thielman rightly concludes, “It seems likely, therefore, that when Paul calls Jesus, “the Beloved,” in this passage he has in mind Jesus’s embodiment within himself of the beloved and elect people of God”.[4]
4. Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 54.
Conclusion
Given the overall context of the letter to the Ephesians, Paul’s use of the Old Testament is astounding. Here, he comments on the status of Gentile believers and says they are elect in Christ, that is, incorporated into the true people of God, for whom the Messiah stands. By being incorporated into Christ, the Gentiles have become full and bona fide members of the people of God. In the Beloved, Israel’s history has become ours. It is important to see that this text does not support supersessionism or a replacement theology in which the Church replaces Israel as God’s people. Instead, Paul clearly identifies Christ Jesus as the true Israel, the Jeshurun or Beloved of old, and grounds one’s membership in God’s people in Christ himself. As Israel’s king, Christ embodies and represents Israel, and one’s faith-union with him tethers one to membership in the true Israel.
