*ON THE PREPOSITIONS APO
The
primary meaning of apo is “off”; this is illustrated in such compounds as
apokalupto, “to take the veil off, to reveal”; apokopto, “to cut off”; hence
there are different shades of meaning, the chief of which is “from” or “away
from,” e.g., Matt. 5:29,30; 9:22; Luke 24:31, lit., “He became invisible from
them”; Rom. 9:3. The primary meaning of ek is “out of,” e.g., Matt. 3:17, “a
voice out of the heavens” (RV); 2 Cor. 9:7, lit., “out of necessity.” Omitting
such significances of ek as “origin, source, cause, occasion,” etc., our
consideration will here be confined to a certain similarity between apo and ek.
Since apo and ek are both frequently to be translated by “from” they often
approximate closely in meaning. The distinction is largely seen in this, that
apo suggests a starting point from without, ek from within; this meaning is
often involved in apo, but apo does not give prominence to the “within-ness,”
as ek usually does. For instance, apo is used in Matt. 3:16, where the RV
rightly reads “Jesus ... went up straightway from the water”; in Mark 1:10 ek
is used, “coming up out of the water”; ek (which stands in contrast to eis in
ver. 9) stresses more emphatically than apo the fact of His having been baptized
in the water. In all instances where these prepositions appear to be used
alternately this distinction is to be observed.
The
literal meaning “out of” cannot be attached to ek in a considerable number of
passages. In several instances ek obviously has the significance of “away
from”; and where either meaning seems possible, the context, or some other
passage, affords guidance. The following are examples in which ek does not mean
“out of the midst of” or “out from within,” but has much the same significance
as apo: John 17:15, “that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil one”; 1 Cor.
9:19, “though I was free from all men”; 2 Cor. 1:10, “who delivered us from so
great a death” (KJV); 2 Pet. 2:21, “to turn back from the holy commandment”;
Rev. 15:2, “them that had come victorious from the beast, and from his image,
and from the number of his name” (ek in each case).
Concerning the use of ek, in 1 Thess. 1:10, “Jesus, which delivereth (the present tense, as in the RV, is important) us from the wrath to come” [or, more closely to the original, “our Deliverer (cf. the same phrase in Rom. 11:26) from the coming wrath”], the passage makes clear that the wrath signifies the calamities to be visited by God upon men when the present period of grace is closed. As to whether the ek here denotes “out of the midst of” or “preservation from,” this is determined by the statement in 1 Thess. 5:9, that “God appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation”; the context there shows that the salvation is from the wrath just referred to. Accordingly the ek signifies “preservation from” in the same sense as apo, and not “out from the midst of.”