He didn't say "abomination in God's sight" but He did say, " “Is it not written,
d‘
My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?But e you have made it a den of robbers.”
And after Jesus' resurrection and ascension.....
while the temple was still standing, Paul had proclaimed that:
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility ~ Ephesians 2:14
To clarify: it's not what you're quoting about history that I have a problem with. I have never doubted the wall of separation existed. It's the original claim that you made that God had created that division. There is nothing to support that statement - but plenty of verses that show it's against God's nature/plan for there to be separation between any of God's followers worshipping Him.
Good post mk.
The physical barriers/wall that existed in the 1st century were brought down in 70ad. Muslims, Christians and Jews can now live as neighbors in the City
NIV)
Ephesians:2
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and
has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,
20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit
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Ephesians 2:14 Commentaries: biblehub
Expositor's Greek Testament
Ephesians 2:14. αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ἡ εἰρήνη ἡμῶν: for He is our Peace. As most commentators notice, the emphasis is on the αὐτός—“He and no other”. But there is probably more in it than that. The selection of the abstract εἰρήνη, instead of the simple εἰρηνοποιός, suggests that the point of the αὐτός is not only “He alone,” but “He in His own person”. It is not only that the peace was made by Christ and ranks as His achievement, but that it is so identified with Him that were He away it would also fail,—so dependent on Him that apart from Him we cannot have it. And He is thus for us “the Peace” (ἡ εἰρήνη), Peace in the absolute sense to the exclusion of all other. Peace, the peace of the Messianic age, the peace that is to come by Messiah, is a frequent note in OT prophecy (
Isaiah 9:5-6;
Isaiah 52:7;
Isaiah 53:5;
Isaiah 57:19;
Micah 5:5;
Haggai 2:9;
Zechariah 9:10).
Here, as the next sentence shows, the peace especially in view is that between Jew and Gentile,—ὁ ποιήσας τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν: who made both one. Not “hath made,” but “made,” with reference to the definite act of His death, as suggested by the ἐν τῷ αἵματι. The ἀμφότερα is the abstract neuter—the two parties or classes. The sing. neut. ἕν (= one thing, one organism) expresses the idea of the unity, the new unity which the two long separate and antagonistic parties became; cf. the ἕν used even of the relation between Christ and God in
John 10:16, and for the unity here in view, cf.
Romans 10:12;
1 Corinthians 12:13;
Galatians 3:28;
Colossians 3:11.—καὶ τὸ μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ λύσας: and broke down the middle wall of the partition. The former clause began the explanation of how Christ became our Peace.
That explanation is continued in this clause and in the following. The καί, therefore, is epexegetic = to wit, or in that (cf. Win.-Moult., p. 545). The gen. φραγμοῦ is not a mere equivalent to an adject. or a partic., as if = τὸ μεσότοιχον διαφράσσον (Grot., Rosenm., etc.), nor is it the gen. of quality, = “the middle wall whose character it is to divide”; but either (a) the appos. gen. or gen. of identity, = “the middle wall that is (or, consists in) the partition,” or (b) the posses. gen., = “the wall pertaining to the partition”. On the latter view of the gen. the μεσότοιχον (a word found only this once in the NT and of rare occurrence elsewhere) becomes the more definite and specific term, the φραγμός the more general, the former being, indeed, a part of the latter. That is to say, the φραγμός is the whole system of things that kept Jew and Gentile apart, and the μεσότοιχον is the thing in the system that most conspicuously divided them, and that constituted the “enmity,” viz., the Law. It is best, however, to take the terms μεσότοιχον and φραγμός in the simple, literal sense of division and separation, which are not explained to be the Law till the νόμος is actually introduced in the subsequent clause; and, therefore, the former view of the gen. appears to be preferable.
It is suggested that what Paul really expresses then is the fact that the legal system, which was meant primarily to protect the Jewish people against the corruption of heathen idolatry, became the bitter root of Jewish exclusiveness in relation to the Gentiles. This is to give the φραγμός here the sense of something that fences in or encloses, which it occasionally has (Soph., Œd. Tyr., 1387). But that is a rare sense, and the idea seems to be simpler. It is doubtful, too, whether Paul had in view here any material partition with which he was familiar. It could scarcely be the veil of the Temple that was rent at the Crucifixion; for that veil did not serve to separate the Gentile from the Jew. It might rather be (as Anselm, Bengel, and many more have thought) the wall or screen that divided the court of the Gentiles from the sanctuary proper, and of which Josephus tells us that it bore an inscription forbidding any Gentile from penetrating further (Jew. Wars, v., 5, 2; vi., 2, 4; Antiq., viii., 3, 2; xv., 11, 5). But even this is questionable, and all the more so as the wall was still standing at the time when this was written. For the use of λύσας cf.
John 2:19.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
14. he is our peace] “He:”—the glorious living Person gives its essence to the sacrificial Work.
“Our peace:”—i.e., as the connexion indicates, the “peace” between the Tribes of the New Israel, the Gentile and Jewish believers; such peace that now, within the covenant, “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (
Galatians 3:28;
Colossians 3:11). The special aspect of this truth here is the admission of the non-Jewish believer to the inmost fulness of spiritual privilege; but this is so stated as to imply the tender companion truth that he comes in not as a conquering intruder but as a brother, side by side with the Jewish believer, in equal and harmonious peace with God.
who hath made both one] Lit., Who made both things one thing. “Both” and “one” are neuters in the Gr. The idea is rather of positions and relations than of persons (Monod).—“One:”—“one thing,” one community, or rather, one organism. (By the same word is expressed the Unity of the Father and the Son,
John 10:30.) In
Galatians 3:28 (“ye are all one”) the Gr. has the masculine, “one [person],” “one [man],” as expressly in the next verse here.
hath broken down … partition] Lit., did undo the mid-wall of the fence, or hedge. The next verse makes it clear that this means the Law. In Divine intention the Law was a “hedge” (
Isaiah 5:2) round the Old Israel, so long as their chief function was to maintain a position of seclusion. And it thus formed a “partition” between the Old Israel and the outer world, not only hindering but, for the time, forbidding such fusion as the new order brought in.
It is possible that the phrase was immediately suggested by the demarcation between the Court of the Gentiles and the inner area of the Temple.
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Bengel's Gnomen
Ephesians 2:14. Αὐτὸς) He.[28] We have here Emphasis.[29]—ἡ εἰρήνη) peace, not merely, the peace-maker; for at the cost of Himself He procured peace, and He Himself is the bond of both (Israel and the Gentiles).—ὁ) Apposition: Peace; He who hath made, etc. A remarkable saying,
Ephesians 2:14-18. He imitates poetry [canticum, a song of joy] by the very tenor of the words, and almost by the rhythm.—We have a description—(α.) the union of the Gentiles with Israel,
Ephesians 2:14-15; and then (β.) the union of the Gentiles and Israel, as now one man, with God,
Ephesians 2:15, middle of verse—
Ephesians 2:18.
The description of each is subdivided into two parts, so that the first may correspond to the first, concerning the enmity that has been taken away; the second to the second, concerning the ordinances of the Gospel.—τὰ ἀμφότερα, both) The neuter for the masculine,
Ephesians 2:18 [οἱ ἀμφότεροι], properly, because ἓν, one [neuter], follows.—μεσότοιχον τοῦ φραγμοῦ, the partition wall of the fence [the middle wall of partition]) It is called τοῖχος, a wall, because the separating space between [Jews and Gentiles] was very strongly fortified; φραγμὸς, a fence, because it is easily removed at the proper time.
The partition wall separates houses; the fence separates tracks of land; comp.
Ephesians 2:19.[30] Therefore the distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision is hinted at. The very structure of the temple of Jerusalem was in conformity with it. The wall and the fence prevent an entrance; and the Gentiles were prevented from entering, inasmuch as they were not permitted to approach so near as the Israelites, even as those who were in the humblest rank.—λύσας, who hath broken down) Who hath broken down—who hath abolished, and not being repeated, very closely cohere.
This short clause, and hath broken down, is explained in
Ephesians 2:15, in the first half of the verse; He hath abolished the enmity in His flesh; comp.
Ephesians 2:16, at the end. The law of commandments, which was properly adapted to the Israelites, He hath abolished, in the universal ordinances of grace;[31] comp.
Ephesians 2:17, at the beginning of the verse.
[28] He alone and pre-eminently.—ED.
[29] See App. An addition to the ordinary meaning of a word, with the power of increasing its force on either side.
[30] Where ξένοι refers to the separation of countries by the fence, φραγμὸς: παροικοι to the separation of houses by the μεσοτοιχος, or partition wall; to which are opposed respectively συμπολῖται and οἰκεῖοι.—ED.
[31] But Engl. Vers. takes ἐν δόγμασιν with τῶν ἐντογῶν, “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.”—ED.
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https://www.preteristarchive.com/JewishWars/timeline_military.html
The Destruction of Jerusalem - George Peter Holford, 1805AD
Meanwhile the horrors of famine grew still more melancholy and afflictive. The Jews, for of food were at length compelled to eat their belts, their sandals, the skins of their shields, dried grass, and even the ordure of oxen. In the depth or this horrible extremity, a Jewess of noble family urged by the intolerable cravings of hunger, slew her infant child, and prepared it for a meal ; and had actually eaten one half thereof, when the soldiers, allured by tile smell of food, threatened her with instant death if she refused to discover it. 'Intimidated by this menace, she immediately produced the remains of her son, which petrified them with horror. At the recital of this melancholy and affecting occurrence, the whole city stood aghast, and poured forth their congratulations on those whom death had hurried away from such heartrending scenes.........................
Before their final demolition, however, Titus took, a. survey of the city and its fortifications ; and, while contemplating their impregnable strength, could not help ascribing his success to the peculiar interposition of the ALMIGHTY HIMSELF. "Had not God himself (exclaimed he) aided out operations, and driven the Jews from their fortresses, it would have been absolutely impossible to have taken them ; for what could men, and the force of engines, have done against such towers as these ?"
After this he commanded that the city should be commanded razed to its foundations, excepting only the three lofty towers Hippocos, Phasael, and Mariamne, which he suffered to remain as evidences of its strength, and as trophies of his victory.
There was left standing, also, a small part of the western wall; as a rampart for a garrison, to keep the surrounding country in subjection.
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The Great City/Harlot/Queen Revelation chapts 17-19
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