Psa 85:10, Eph 2:14, Col 1:21 | JFB | STEP | 10. God's promises of "mercy" will be verified by His "truth" (compare ); and the "work of righteousness" in His holy government shall be "peace" ( ). There is an implied contrast with a dispensation under which God's truth sustains His threatened wrath, and His righteousness inflicts misery on the wicked.

Psalms 85:10

10. God's promises of "mercy" will be verified by His "truth" (compare Ps 25:10; 40:10); and the "work of righteousness" in His holy government shall be "peace" (Isa 32:17). There is an implied contrast with a dispensation under which God's truth sustains His threatened wrath, and His righteousness inflicts misery on the wicked.

Ephesians 2:14

14. he—Greek, "Himself" alone, pre-eminently, and none else. Emphatical.

our peace—not merely "Peacemaker," but "Himself" the price of our (Jews' and Gentiles' alike) peace with God, and so the bond of union between "both" in God. He took both into Himself, and reconciled them, united, to God, by His assuming our nature and our penal and legal liabilities (Eph 2:15; Isa 9:5, 6; 53:5; Mic 5:5; Col 1:20). His title, "Shiloh," means the same (Ge 49:10).

the middle wall of partition—Greek, ". . . of the partition" or "fence"; the middle wall which parted Jew and Gentile. There was a balustrade of stone which separated the court of the Gentiles from the holy place, which it was death for a Gentile to pass. But this, though incidentally alluded to, was but a symbol of the partition itself, namely, "the enmity" between "both" and God (Eph 2:15), the real cause of separation from God, and so the mediate cause of their separation from one another. Hence there was a twofold wall of partition, one the inner wall, severing the Jewish people from entrance to the holy part of the temple where the priests officiated, the other the outer wall, separating the Gentile proselytes from access to the court of the Jews (compare Eze 44:7; Ac 21:28). Thus this twofold wall represented the Sinaitic law, which both severed all men, even the Jews, from access to God (through sin, which is the violation of the law), and also separated the Gentiles from the Jews. As the term "wall" implies the strength of the partition, so "fence" implies that it was easily removed by God when the due time came.

Colossians 1:21

21. The Colossians are included in this general reconciliation (compare Eph 2:1, 12).

sometime—"once."

alienated—from God and salvation: objectively banished from God, through the barrier which God's justice interposed against your sin: subjectively estranged through the alienation of your own wills from God. The former is the prominent thought (compare Ro 5:10), as the second follows, "enemies in your mind." "Actual alienation makes habitual 'enemies'" [BENGEL].

in your mind—Greek, "in your understanding" or "thought" (Eph 2:3; 4:18).

by wicked works—rather as Greek, "in your wicked works" (wicked works were the element in which your enmity subsisted).

yet now—Notwithstanding the former alienation, now that Christ has come, God hath completely reconciled, or restored to His friendship again (so the Greek, compare Note, see on Col 1:20).