Verses 29-30 are placed within parentheses by Good News Translation to make clear that the quotation of Genesis 2.24 in verse 31 is made in support of what the writer says in verse 28 and not in support of what is said in verses 29-30. The Genesis declaration shows why in loving his wife a man loves himself: the two are one.
The two verses are one sentence in Greek. Here body translates the Greek word for “flesh.” The close proximity to wife in verse 28, and the comparison between how a man treats his own “flesh” with Christ’s care for the church, could mean that the word here refers to the wife: she is her husband’s “flesh” (Gen 2.23). Or else, as Good News Translation and others have it, it means “body” as a synonym of himself in verse 28: “The man who loves his wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own body….” This seems more likely, since the writer could not dogmatically say that no man ever hated his own wife, for this is obviously untrue. The writer uses the word “flesh” in anticipation of its use in the quotation from Genesis 1.24. So Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible, and others all translate “body”; Goodspeed has “hates his own person.” It is better to use “body,” because if the translation says “hates himself” or “hates his own person,” this does not fit as well with the quotation from Genesis in verse 31. In addition, “body” fits better with the figure of speech that is used of the church as the body of Christ.
Feeds it and takes care of it: the first verb in Greek is used also in 6.4 and nowhere else in the New Testament; the second one is used in 1 Thessalonians 2.7 and nowhere else in the New Testament. Barclay “nourishes it and cherishes it” makes for a pleasing alliteration in English; New English Bible “provides and cares for it.” Both words have an emotional content; they express tenderness and concern.
A man’s treatment of his body is compared to Christ’s treatment of the church; he “nourishes and cherishes” the church, and verse 30 gives the basis for this declaration. It is as though the writer were saying “We know this to be a fact because we are members of his body” (see a similar affirmation in 4.25, where the members’ relation to one another is stressed; here the members’ relation to the body is stressed). So the translation may be “as we know, since we are members of his body” or “we are members of his body and we know the care he gives.” Verse 30 should not be translated as though it gives the reason why Christ nourishes and cherishes the church. New English Bible departs rather radically from the form of the Greek text by translating “this is how Christ treats the church because it is his body, of which we are living parts” (similarly Jerusalem Bible). Bible de Jérusalem, by using a rhetorical question, effectively translates the meaning set forth here: “This is precisely what Christ does for the Church: are we not the members of his Body?”
As in other passages, it may be necessary to translate we are members of his body as a simile, for example, “we are, so to speak, members of his body” or “we are like parts of his body.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1982. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .