Text -- Ephesians 5:9 (NET)

5:9 for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth–

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Eph 5:9

¹ tc Several mss (Ì⁴⁶ D² Ψ Ï) have πνεύματος (pneumatos, “Spirit”) instead of φωτός (fwtos, “light”). Although most today regard φωτός as obviously original (UBS⁴ gives it an “A” rating), a case could be made that πνεύματος is what the author wrote. First, although this is largely a Byzantine reading (D² often, if not normally, assimilates to the Byzantine text), Ì⁴⁶ gives the reading much greater credibility. Internally, the φωτός at the end of v. 8 could have lined up above the πνεύματος in v. 9 in a scribe’s exemplar, thus occasioning dittography. (It is interesting to note that in both Ì⁴⁹ and א the two instances of φωτός line up.) However, written in a contracted form, as a nomen sacrum (pMnMs) – a practice found even in the earliest mss – πνεύματος would not have been easily confused with fwtos (there being only the last letter to occasion homoioteleuton rather than the last three). Further, the external evidence for φωτός is quite compelling (Ì⁴⁹ א A B D* F G P 33 81 1739 1881 2464 pc latt co); it is rather doubtful that the early and widespread witnesses all mistook πνεύματος for φωτός. In addition, πνεύματος can be readily explained as harking back to Gal 5:22 (“the fruit of the Spirit”). Thus, on balance, φωτός appears to be original, giving rise to the reading πνεύματος.

² tn Grk “in.” The idea is that the fruit of the light is “expressed in” or “consists of.”