enmity: the settled state of being enemies, the hostile opposite of friendship
This word names a relationship, not just a feeling. It is the condition of being enemies: two parties set against each other, the exact opposite of friendship. The closely related word for the enemy as a person is ἐχθρός; enmity is the standing hostility that lies between such enemies.
The single word can hold three things together, and context decides which comes forward: an inner attitude of hostility, the plain fact of standing on opposite sides, and open acts of conflict. Sometimes the feud is between people, as when two rulers who had long been enemies become friends. Sometimes it describes how human beings stand toward God, a posture that one writer says the mind set on the flesh does not merely feel but actually is.
In ordinary Greek life an enmity was a recognized, often long-running feud that lawcourts and treaties worked to "dissolve." The New Testament takes that everyday word and presses it into service for the gospel: what human diplomacy could only patch up, the cross is said to have destroyed outright, killing the enmity between estranged peoples and between humanity and God. When the same word turns up in a list of the things that tear a community apart, it sits next to division (διχοστασία) and names the settled hostility that feeds such splits.
Nuances
In Ephesians 2:14-16, what the ἔχθρα ("enmity") abolished through the cross refers to, and how it relates to the law of commandments.
- majorityThe enmity is primarily the hostility between Jew and Gentile in verse 14, widening in verse 16 to include the hostility between humanity and God; the law's dividing commandments were its cause rather than its identity.; Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, ICC (1998), on 2:11-22; Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (1999), on 2:14-16; Frank Thielman, Ephesians, BECNT (2010), on 2:11-22
- minorityThe enmity is identified with the law of commandments itself, so that the Torah's separating function is the enmity Christ abolished.; Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (1990), on 2:14-16
- minorityThe term stands on its own and denotes a comprehensive, fourfold enmity (between Israel and the nations, in the law, between Jew and Gentile, and of both toward God), to be read holistically.; Markus Barth, Ephesians 1-3, AB 34 (1974), on 2:14-16
In Ephesians 2:14-16, what the ἔχθρα ("enmity") abolished through the cross refers to, and how it relates to the law of commandments.
- majorityThe enmity is primarily the hostility between Jew and Gentile in verse 14, widening in verse 16 to include the hostility between humanity and God; the law's dividing commandments were its cause rather than its identity.; Ernest Best, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians, ICC (1998), on 2:11-22; Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians, PNTC (1999), on 2:14-16; Frank Thielman, Ephesians, BECNT (2010), on 2:11-22
- minorityThe enmity is identified with the law of commandments itself, so that the Torah's separating function is the enmity Christ abolished.; Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (1990), on 2:14-16
- minorityThe term stands on its own and denotes a comprehensive, fourfold enmity (between Israel and the nations, in the law, between Jew and Gentile, and of both toward God), to be read holistically.; Markus Barth, Ephesians 1-3, AB 34 (1974), on 2:14-16