I N D E X
the Old Testament, the meaning of which is carried over into the Greek of the
New.
Forgiveness.  This word translates the Hebrew selichah (Psa. 130:4), which
means `a sending away', and is derived from salach in verse 3.  Other words used
are kaphar `to cover', the word which gives us the Old Testament term
`atonement', nasa `to lift up', `to bear', `to carry'.  The New Testament words
are apoluo `to loose away' (Luke 6:37), charizomai `to be gracious to' (Eph.
4:32), aphesis and aphiemi `to send or to let off or away'.  The word used in
Ephesians 1:7 is aphesis, `a discharge', `a setting free as of a prisoner', `the
putting away as of a wife' (Exod. 18:2) or `the remission of a debt' (Deut.
15:3).  In the New Testament aphesis speaks of (1) the remission or forgiveness
of sins (Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:22; Acts 26:18, etc.), and (2) deliverance, or
setting at liberty of captives (Luke 4:18).  Aphiemi from which aphesis is
derived, has a greater variety of renderings and usages.  Perhaps the most
primitive of these usages is where it is translated `cry' (Mark 15:37) and
`yield up' (Matt. 27:50), the idea of sending forth being uppermost.  `Put away,
lay aside, leave, let go, send away' are other ways in which the word is
rendered, the one great covering word being `release'.
Aphesis occurs many times in the LXX, and its usage in the twenty-fifth
chapter of Leviticus gives the Scriptural colouring to every one of its
occurrences.  The great theme of this chapter is `the Jubile'.  `And ye shall
hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all
the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile (LXX a year of release) unto you:
and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man
unto his family' (25:10).  Aphesis occurs fourteen times in this chapter, where
it is usually equivalent to the word Jubile in the Authorized Version.  Land
might be sold as a temporary measure against need, but at the Jubile, if not
redeemed before, it reverted to its original owner.  An Israelite who became a
hired servant might serve until the year of Jubile, but no longer, and at the
year of release he returned to his family and his possessions.  A Hebrew sold to
a foreign resident could be redeemed at any time, but at the Jubile, under all
circumstances, he had to be set free.
Josephus states in his Antiquities, that `debtors are freed from their
debts', which the reader will readily associate with the clause concerning
forgiveness in the `Lord's Prayer'.  The better to appreciate what this
`forgiveness' of Ephesians 1:7 embraces, we must acquaint ourselves with some
features of the manumission of slaves that were customary during the period
prior to and during Apostolic times.  Manumission means literally `to send from
the hand', where the `hand' indicates the master, just as `the soul' and `the
body' often indicate the slave.  North, in his Plutarch speaks of the act of
Valerius, who, desiring to recompense the bondman Vindicius for his services,
`caused him not only to be manumitted by the whole grant of the people, but made
him a free man of the city besides'.  The force of many passages in the New
Testament is blunted because the word doulos is mostly translated `servant',
whereas it means `a bond-servant' or `slave'.  The principal means of
enlightening us today as to the nature and ritual of manumission, comes from the
inscriptions at Delphi, but records are found of the Jewish practice, one dated
a.d. 81:
`Among the various ways in which the manumission of a slave could take
place by ancient law, we find the solemn rite and fictitious purchase of
the slave by some divinity.  The owner comes with the slave to the temple,
sells him there to the god, and receives the purchase money from the
temple treasury, the slave having previously paid it in there out of his
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