Editor’s Preface
EDITOR’S PREFACE
In carrying out their policy of keeping the volumes of the New International Commentary up to date, the publishers and editor realize that, without such a policy, the adjective “new” as a description of the series would soon become absurdly irrelevant. As far as possible, they have preferred to entrust the revision of the earlier volumes to their original writers. Sadly, however, the death of some of those writers has made it necessary for others to undertake the revision or replacement of their contributions.
The commentary on Philippians and Philemon, which was published in 1955, was written by Professor Jacobus J. Müller of Stellenbosch, who died in 1977. When another scholar was invited to write a new commentary on Philippians, taking up a full volume by itself, it was decided to detach Philemon from Philippians and include it along with Colossians and Ephesians. There was indeed a notable precedent for presenting commentaries on Philippians and Philemon in one volume, by one author: that was Marvin R. Vincent’s work on these two epistles in the International Critical Commentary (1897). But there are even better precedents for linking Philemon with Colossians: one need look no farther than Lightfoot’s volume (1875).
The exposition of Ephesians by the veteran scholar E. K. Simpson (who died at an advanced age in 1961) was a work of literary distinction, well worthy of preservation in its own right; but it never fitted easily into the general pattern of the New International Commentary. It appeared in 1957, sharing one volume with a commentary on Colossians by the present general editor. When the time came to revise the commentary on Colossians, the writer of that commentary arranged, after completing the revision, to write new companion commentaries on Philemon and Ephesians. All three commentaries are now presented to the reader in this volume.