Psalms 68:18

68:18 You ascend on high, ¹ 

you have taken many captives. ² 

You receive tribute ³  from ⁴  men,

including even sinful rebels.

Indeed the Lord God lives there! ⁵ 

John 10:28

10:28 I give ⁶  them eternal life, and they will never perish; ⁷  no one will snatch ⁸  them from my hand.

Ephesians 4:8

4:8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he captured ⁹  captives; he gave gifts to men.” ¹⁰ 

[68:18]  ¹ tn Heb “to the elevated place”; or “on high.” This probably refers to the Lord’s throne on Mount Zion.

[68:18]  ² tn Heb “you have taken captives captive.”

[68:18]  ³ tn Or “gifts.”

[68:18]  ⁴ tn Or “among.”

[68:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “so that the Lord God might live [there].” Many take the infinitive construct with -לְ (lamed) as indicating purpose here, but it is unclear how the offering of tribute enables the Lord to live in Zion. This may be an occurrence of the relatively rare emphatic lamed (see HALOT 510-11 s.v. II לְ, though this text is not listed as an example there). If so, the statement corresponds nicely to the final line of v. 16, which also affirms emphatically that the Lord lives in Zion.

[10:28]  ⁶ tn Grk “And I give.”

[10:28]  ⁷ tn Or “will never die” or “will never be lost.”

[10:28]  ⁸ tn Or “no one will seize.”

[4:8]  ⁹ tn Grk “he led captive captivity.”

[4:8]  ¹⁰ sn A quotation which is perhaps ultimately derived from Ps 68:18. However, the wording here differs from that of Ps 68 in both the Hebrew text and the LXX in a few places, the most significant of which is reading “gave gifts to” in place of “received gifts from” as in HT and LXX. It has sometimes been suggested that the author of Ephesians modified the text he was citing in order to better support what he wanted to say here. Such modifications are sometimes found in rabbinic exegesis from this and later periods, but it is also possible that the author was simply citing a variant of Ps 68 known to him but which has not survived outside its quotation here (W. H. Harris, The Descent of Christ [AGJU 32], 104). Another possibility is that the words here, which strongly resemble Ps 68:19 HT and LXX (68:18 ET), are actually part of an early Christian hymn quoted by the author.