Ephesians 1:21 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

All principality, &c.— These abstract names are frequently used in the New Testament, according to the stile of theeastern languages, for "those vested with power and dominion, &c. and that not only here on earth among men, but in heaven, among superior beings;" and so are often taken to express ranks and degrees of angels. Though they are generally agreed to do so here, yet there is no reason to exclude earthly potentates out of this text, when πασης, all, necessarily includes them; for, that men in authority are one sort of principalities and powers, in a scripture sense, our Saviour's own words shew, Luke 12:11. Besides, the Apostle's chief aim here being to satisfy the Ephesians that they were not to be subjected to the law of Moses, and the government of those who ruled by it, but were called to be of the kingdom of the Messiah; it is not to be supposed that here, where he speaks of Christ's exaltation to a power and dominion paramount to all other, he should not have an eye to that earthly and inferior government of the Jews, to which it was beneath the subjects of so glorious a kingdom as that of Christ to submit themselves: and this is further inforced by the next verse.