Guest of

God (Lev. 25:35), earthly homelessness (Psa. 119:19), etc.

The LXX uses xenos to translate the following Hebrew words:

Traveller, helek (2 Sam. 12:4).  This word means primarily to go, or

to walk, and so by an easy transition it becomes a tax, custom or

duty, laid on ports or ways.  Should the reading arach be preferred

here, there is no essential difference, arach meaning `to go in a

track' and as a noun, `a common road, highway, a traveller'.

Stranger gur (Job 31:32).  To sojourn, to dwell anywhere for a time,

to live as not at home.  Translated `alien' in Exodus 18:3,

associated with the name Gershom.

Stranger, nokri (Ruth 2:10).  A foreigner, outlandish.  As a verb

the word means `to alienate'.

Nekar is used of `the stranger' and `the alien' as contrasted with

Israel in Exodus 12:43; Isaiah 60 and 61.  In Lamentations the word is

used in a sense very suggestive of Ephesians 2:12.

`Behold our reproach, our inheritance is turned to strangers, our

houses to aliens' (Lam. 5:1,2).

Those bidden qara (1 Sam. 9:13).

This passage indicates that xenos is once used in the LXX in the

sense of `guest'.

The reader can see for himself that `stranger', `alien', `foreigner', is

the primary significance of the word xenos and that `guest' and `host' is a

derived or secondary meaning.

We now come to Ephesians 2:12 to see what the context demands.  The scale

is already tipped by the weight

of Scripture usage in favour of the translation `stranger', and there will have

to be very strong reason to justify any alteration.  The phrase under

consideration is in correspondence with another of like import:

`Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel' (Eph. 2:12).  This

alienation finds its dreadful echo in the practical section of the same epistle

where we read:

`That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of

their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the

life of God' (Eph. 4:17,18).

The reader may have seen in his newspaper some sort of `Quiz' in which

general knowledge and intelligence tests are a feature.  One such test is that

which is known as `spot the intruder', or some such name, and is generally a

collection of words containing one that is outside the category.  For example,

in such a list of names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Shelley, Beethoven, Byron and

Browning, it is obvious that Beethoven is the intruder, a musician among poets.

Ephesians 2:11-13 contains a list of words and it will be seen that `guest'

would be an intruder among such words and phrases as, Gentiles in

the flesh, uncircumcision made by hands, without Christ, aliens, guests, no

hope, without God, in the world, and far off.