Matthew Poole and continuators on Ephesians 6:12

12. For we wrestle not against flesh and bloud , but against principalities, against powers , against the rulers of the darkness of this world v, against spiritual wickedness in high places .

Not onely or not principally.

Men, consisting of flesh and bloud, Math. 16.17. Gal. 1.16.

Devils, Col. 2.15. see ch. 1.21.

Either wicked Spirits, or Emphatically spiritual wickednesses for wickednesses of the highest kind, implying the intenseness of wickedness in those Angelical substances, which are so much the more wicked, by how much the more excellent in themselves their Natures are.

Or Heavenly, taking heaven for the whole expansum or spreading out of the Air between the Earth and the Stars, the Air being the place from whence the Devils assault us, as ch. 2.2. Or rather in for about heavenly places or things, in the same sense as the word rendred heavenly is taken four times before in this Epistle, ch. 1.3.20. & 2.6. & 3.10. being in none of them taken for the Air; and the then sense must be, that we wrestle about heavenly places, or things, not with Flesh and Bloud, but with Principalities, with Powers, &c. Obj. The Gr. preposition will not bear this construction. Ans. Let Chrysostom and other Greeks answer for that. They understood their Language best, and they give this interpretation.

Either that Rule in the dark Air where God permits them to be for the punishment of Men, see ch. 2.2. or rather, that Rule in the dark places of the Earth, the dark minds of Men, and have their rule over them by reason of the darkness that is in them, in which respect the Devil is called the God of this World, 2 Cor. 4.4. and the Prince of it, Ioh. 14.30. So that the dark World here seems to be opposed to Children of light, ch. 5.8.

Marginal references: Gr. bloud, and flesh.; Joh. 12.31. Col. 1.13.; Or, wicked spirits.; Or, heavenly.