^ 
 
*" m: 
 
 *• > 
 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. ^^' 
 
 Shelf. 
 
 Division \J ^ ) ^/ \^ I 
 Section , /j| O .1 .^O 
 Number /^xKP 
 
 > -♦ -^ JT A 
 
 -^ -V Jt > 
 
 >-•*>( 
 
.-*' .A" •*» 
 
 ,.W- Jlr 
 
 m 
 
 ^ J>f 
 
 >- JH' Jit 
 
 ^y^: 
 
 >- .-«• ,if!:' Jc 
 
 -^ -^ -^t .^ --»< >»■ >>- 
 
 iJ? >' j*r > A- 
 
AN 
 
 AMERICAN COMMENTARY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 ALVAH HOVEY, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 
 1420 Chestnut Street. 
 
COMMENTARY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. C KENDRICK, D. D. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 
 1420 Chestnut Street. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by the 
 
 AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 Three among tlie New Testament Epistles may be regarded as of pre-eminent interest 
 and importance — namclj^ that to the Romans, the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and 
 the E]nstlo to the Hebrews. They differ, indeed, widely in purpose and character. The 
 Epistle to the Romans is an exposition, welling up from the large soul and ripe experi- 
 ence of the Apostle Paul, of the fundamental character, and world-wide relations of the 
 gospel. That to the Corinthians applies tlie principles of the gospel to the correction of 
 grave abuses and errors which had become rife in one of the most prominent New Testa- 
 ment Churches. The Epistle to the Hebrews, addressed to a body of believing Jews — 
 whether a single church or an aggregation of churches -i^seeks to hold them back from a 
 threatened apostasy to Judaism by exhibiting the transcendent superiority of the New 
 Covenant to the symbolical and transitory system to wluch they were returning. The 
 Epistle is thus more fundamental in character and scope than that to the Corinthians, and 
 yields in depth of view and the vital importance of its teachings, only to the Epistle to the 
 Romans. Indeed, selecting from the world's entire literature two among its most remark- 
 able productions, we should readily designate, I think, the Epistles to the Romans and 
 the Hebrews. To the former must be accorded the superiority in breadth, compi'ehen- 
 siveness, and power ; it glows throughout with the fiery energy of the great Christian 
 Demosthenes. The latter, apparently narrower in scope, makes up in depth what it lacks 
 in breadth ; in calm majesty what it lacks in vehemence ; and" pursues its even and tran- 
 quil course with an earnestness and intensity of purpose which are in striking contrast with 
 the placid smoothness of the style. *^' 
 
 But apart from style the Epistle to the Hebrews presents some aspects of striking 
 peculiarity. The authorship, date, purpose, and destination of the Epistle to the Romans 
 lie in the clearest sunlight ; that to the Hebrews is in all these points enveloped in an 
 almost impenetrable obscurity. It presents the singular problem of a composition written 
 in the very blaze of the early Christian period, on a practical topic of momentous interest, 
 by a man certainly of virtual apostolic dignity, yet over whose authorship, date, place 
 of composition, and immediate destination hangs a mystei"^ike that which surrounds its 
 own Melchisedec. These successive topics I will briefly notice. 
 
 I. AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 1. CURRENT TRADITION. 
 
 Current tradition in the church has assigned this Epistle to the Apostle Paul, and the 
 question of authorship turns largely on settling the grounds of this tradition. The evi- 
 dence divides itself into two branches — external or historical, and internal. Looking first 
 at the former, we find that in the Eastern Church the Epistle was fi'om the first regarded 
 as canonical, and was in some form generally attributed to Paul. Pantaenus, Clement. 
 
 5 
 
6 INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 and Origen, the successive heads of* the Alexandrian Catechetical School (180-250 A. D.), 
 all regard it in a qualified sense as his. Pantaenus, the first whom we know to have 
 attached to it the name of the apostle, mentions as an objection to this view the absence 
 in its opening of Paul's customary form of salutation, but explains it (fancifully, I think) 
 from the apostle's unwillingness to put himself into seeming rivalry with his Lord, God's 
 special apostle ("A7rocrToA.os) to the Hebrews. (Eusebius' "Hist. Ecf'les." VI. 14, 4.) Cle- 
 ment, his pupil, finds a weightier objection. He sees in the style the characteristics rather 
 of Luke than of Paul, and solves the difficulty by supposing that Paul composed it in 
 Aramaic, and Luke, his companion, rendered it into Greek. (Eusebius' "Hist. Eccles." 
 VI. 14, 2-4.) So Origen, while repeatedly citing the Epistle as Paul's, and declaring it 
 worthy of him in its wonderful depth of thought, yet regards the style as quite unlike his 
 and far more classical. "For no slight reasons," he says, "have ancient men handed 
 down the Epistle as Paul's, though by whom it was actually written God only knows. 
 Tradition ascribes it partly to Clement, Bishop of Rome, and partly to Luke." (Eusebius' 
 "Hist. Eccles." VI. 25, 11.) Whether these critical doubts died away or not, the later 
 Alexandrians, as Dionj'sius (about 250), Alexander (about 312), Athanasius (died 373), 
 Didymus (died 395), etc., simply cite the Epistle as Paul's. 
 
 In Syria the admission of the Epistle into the Peshito version (in the latter half of the 
 second century) shows its standing as canonical, though it appears as anonymous, and 
 nothing indicates it as being considered Pauline. Yet the later Syrian Church generally 
 held to its Pauline origin. Jacob, Bishop of Nisibis (about 325), cites it as from an 
 apostle, presumably from Paul ; and his disciple, Ephraem Sjtus (died 378), refers it 
 unhesitatingly to Paul ; and in Western Syria the Synod of Antioch (264), in an Epistle 
 to Paul of Samosata, couples citations from it with passages from the Corinthians as 
 belonging to the same author. 
 
 Elsewhere in the Eastern Church the view became general which ascribed the Epistle 
 to Paul. Eusebius of Caesarea (300-350) repeatedly refers to it as his, and enumerates 
 fourteen of his Epistles, thus clearly embracing this. (" Hist. Eccles." III. 3, 5.) Yet he 
 speaks of those in the Roman Church who denied its Pauline origin, and he himself, like 
 Clement of Alexandria, regards it as a translation from a Hebrew original of the apostle 
 ("Hist. Eccles." III. 38, 23) ; and he elsewhere classes it along with the Wisdom of 
 Solomon and that of Jesus, son of Sirach, and the Epistles of Barnabas, the Roman 
 Clement, and Jude, among the works that are disputed {ypa<t>ai ivTi.\ey6iievai, VI. 13, 6). It 
 is attributed, however, immediately to Paul in the sixtieth canon of the Council at Lao- 
 dicea (about 350), by Titus of Bostra (died 371), by Basil the Great (died 379), and his 
 brother, Gregory of Nyssa ; by Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (died 386) ; by Gregory 
 Nazianzen (died 389), by Epiphanius (died 402), by Chrysostom (died 407), by Theo- 
 dore of Mopsuestia, and others. Also Theodoret (died 457), in the introduction to his 
 interpretation of the Epistle ; still he does this to contend against the Arians, who rejected 
 it as un-Pauline and uncanonical. 
 
 The Eastern Church thus early regarded the Epistle as from Paul, though not until a 
 late period as proceeding from him in its present form. The weighty authority of the 
 Alexandrian Fathers — Pantoenus, Clement, Origen — turns, from our point of view, rather 
 against the Pauline authorship, when we reflect that it was probably because the stamp 
 of apostolic authority was deemed necessary by them to its canonical validity, and they 
 could give it this authority only by assuming that Paul was, at least indirectly, its author. 
 Their reasons for denying to the apostle its immediate, and, so to speak, literary author- 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 7 
 
 ship, are ftvi' weightier than those which lead tb.cm to bring it within the apostohc circle. 
 Witiiin that circle no name but that of Paul could be connected with the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews ; and thej' had the discernment to see the wide difference of style and manner 
 between this work and the acknowledged writings of the apostle. 
 
 We turn to the historj' of the Epistle in the Western Church. In Rome it must have 
 been early known and highly valued, as the Roman, Clement (about 100), employs many 
 expressions from it in his valuable Epistle to the Corinthians, though without formal 
 citation, or any allusion to its author. Later evidence renders it improbable that liej 
 attributed it to Paul, as the canon of Muratori, belonging to tlie end of the second 
 century, reckons thirteen epistles as attributed by the Roman Church to Paul, the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews being excluded from the list, and, indeed, entirely unmentioned. So 
 Caius, Presbyter at Rome (about 210), reckoned but thirteen epistles of Paul ; and 
 Novatian (about 250), in his works, " de Trinitate," and " de Cibis Judaicis," works 
 abounding in Biblical citations, makes no mention whatever of our E])istle, which he 
 could hardly have refrained from doing had he recognized it as canonical, not to say 
 Pauline. Outside of Rome, Xeilullian, of the North African Church, in the close of the 
 second, and the beginning of the third century, knows only thirteen Pauline epistles. He 
 cites the Epistle to the Hebrews in support of his Montanistic views, and attributes it 
 without questioning to 3Lj'nfiba.s. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (died 258), leaves it 
 wholly unmentioned. Irenaeus, the celebrated Bishop of Lyons (died about 202), rarely, 
 if at all, cited the book, — certainly not in his important work' against the heretics, — and 
 is said to have denied its Pauline authorship. Such was the state of opinion regarding 
 the Epistle in the Latin Church as late as the time of Eusebius of Caesarea. After the 
 middle of tlie fourth century the tide turned, probably under Eastern influence. Between 
 368 and 400, Hilary ofJBoitiej'S, Lucifer of Calaxis, C. Marius Victorinus, Philastrius 
 of Brescia, and Ambrose of Milan, attribute it to the apostle, while Rnfinus, Jerome, 
 and Augustine (between 411 and 430) receive the opinion with hesitation. The three 
 African Synods — of Hippo (303), and of Carthage (397, 419)— first put the express seal 
 of the Western Church upon the canonical validity and the Pauline authorship of the 
 Epistle ; the two former, indeed, cautiously (" thirteen epistles of the Apostle Paul, and 
 one by him to the Hebrews"); but the third decisively (" the epistles of the Apostle 
 Paul, fourteen in number "). The decree of the councils was confirmed by the Papal See ; 
 and thence onward' through the Middle Ages, with some lingering echoes of doubt among 
 Latin writers, the voice both of the Eastern and the Western churches was unanimous 
 down to the time of the Reformation. Of late opinions I shall speak subsequently. 
 
 2. INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 The historical testimony thus appears by no means decisive in favor of the Pauline 
 origin of the Epistle. To tiic view that it came from the apostle in il.<i present form, that 
 testimony seems to me decidedly adverse. The internal evidence, I think, bears against 
 it still more strongly. There is, neither in its style, nor form of doctrine, nor mode 
 of discussion, nor historical allusions, a single feature which requires, nor, except the 
 single allusion to Timothy (13 : 23), which would naturally lead us to attribute it to the 
 apostle. 
 
 First. The style hews almost no similariti/ to that of Paul. — It has nothing of his 
 impetuosity and abruptness, none of his favorite expressions and forms of transition ; but 
 moves on in an equable and uniform flow of (luiet majesty. In his utmost intensity of 
 
8 INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 emotion the writer is never insensible to, and never sacrifices, the graces of diction. He 
 is a rhetorician, trained in the culture of the schools, and always writing, as Paul never 
 writes, under the habitual sway of that culture. Paul is never a rhetorician ; our author 
 is always a rhetorician. Not, indeed, that Paul does not, in the grandeur of his thought, 
 and the native majesty and energy of his diction, often snatch spontaneously some of the 
 highest graces of art. And not that our author, with his soul profoundly penetrated 
 with Christian truth, does not uniformly rise above the sphere of the mere rhetorician. 
 Yet, in his noblest flights, he neither can nor would shake off his habits of rhetorical 
 expression — habits which are utterly alien to the mind of the apostle. Nor, while 
 certainly inferior in finish and grace of style, can we deny to the apostle, on the whole, 
 the superior place as a writer. His largeness and depth of view, his burning energy, his 
 confident and majestic tread amidst the Alpine heights ^f divine truth, give him a 
 Demosthenian pre-eminence in sacred oratory ; and his princii)al epistles stand as perpetual 
 proofs that if he often fed infantile Christians with the milk of sacred doctrine, he was 
 able to utter among the full grown and mature a wisdom which the wisdom of this world 
 has never transcended nor approached. The question between him and the writer to the 
 Hebrews is not one of relative excellence, but of likeness or unlikeness. And unlike, in 
 their native endowments and style of culture, they certaii% are. The one writer would 
 certainly never have written the opening verse of the Epistle to the Romans ; still less 
 would the other have written the sonorous and rolling periods of the opening of the 
 Hebrews. 
 
 Second. The mitlior of our Epistle classes himself (2 : 3) among those loho received the 
 gospd at second hand. — ^This position the Apostle Paul could never have assumed for a 
 moment. He repels almost indignantly any lowering of himself to the second rank, and 
 maintains that, equally with the greatest of the apostles, he stood in immediate commu- 
 nication with the fountain head of truth and authority. He stands on the highest level 
 of apostolic prerogative, having seen the Lord Jesus, and received from him directly his 
 commission. 
 
 Third. Paul torts an apostle to the Gentiles. — His whole course of life kept his mind 
 open to the world-wide scope and purpose of the gospel. Granting, then, that he might 
 write an apostolic letter to his Jewish brethren (whom he loved, we know, Avith most 
 intense and tenderest aflfection), it is scarcely conceivable that his discussion should not 
 have occasionally broken over its bounds, and regarded the relations of the gospel to the 
 world outside of Judaism. There are indeed abundant indications of our author's 
 recognition of this universal character of the gospel. Christ tasted death for every man. 
 He becomes the Son of man that he may share that flesh and blood of which all men 
 are partakers, and thus, through death, deliver men from that fear of death by which 
 universal humanity is held in bondage. Thus the idea of the all-embracing purpose of 
 redemption certainly lies at the basis of his Christology. Yet it is presujiposed and 
 hinted at merely. In no single instance does the writer depart from the Old Testament 
 representation of Israel as the " people of God," and declare directly its widening out 
 to the breakin-j; down of the separating wall, and the admission of the Gentiles to an 
 equal standing with the Jews. The discits.<iion confines itself to the Judaistic relations of 
 the gospel almost as closely as if the Gentile world had no existence. AVith a concentra- 
 tion of view remarkable under any conditions of authorship, but wholly inconceivable in 
 the case of the world-embracing and irrepressible spirit of the great a])ostle of the 
 Gentiles, with an unswerving singleness of purpose, the writer discusses the relations 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 9 
 
 of the New Covenant to tlie Old almost as if the extension of that covenant to all 
 peoples were wholly unknown to him. A discussion so conducted by one whose life and 
 soul were absorbingly devoted to. the evangelization of the Grentiles seems wholly incon- 
 ceivable. 
 
 Fourth. Form of citations from the Old Testament. — Another objection to the Pauline 
 authorship may be found in the form of the citations from the Old Testament. In his 
 acknowledged epistles, the apostle makes his citations indifferently from the Hebrew 
 original and from the Septuagint, translating and quoting from memory with great 
 freedom. Our author, on the other hand, makes his citations invariably from the 
 Septuagint, and gives no indication of even an acquaintance with the Hebrew. He 
 quotes, too, with verbal exactness, having apparently, at least in the longer passages, the 
 text from which he quotes Aefore him ; and Bleek has shown that in the citations from 
 the Septuagint, wherever uie readings differ, our author draws in general from the 
 Alexandrian Codex, while Paid uses exclusively the readings of the Vatican. In their 
 modes, too, of introducing Old Testament passages, the observing reader will find a 
 uniform and very striking difference. 
 
 Fifth. Difference in the coloring and the prominence given to different features of the 
 gospel. — While there is no ^ctrinal discrepancy, but, on the other hand, an entire 
 harmony in the two writers' fundamental conceptions of the gospel, there is yet a wide 
 difference in coloring, and in the^rominence given to different features of it. Both hold 
 to the pre-existence of Christ ; WDtli insist alike upon his sacrificial death. But Paul 
 dwells much upon the resurrection of Christ, while our author makes express mention 
 of it but once, and that in the very close of the Epistle. (13 : 20.) On the other hand, 
 he dwells upon the ascension and the heavenly high priesthood, while Paul refers but 
 once, and that passingly (Rom. 8 : 34), to his heavenly intercession, and in no single 
 instance employs the designation of high priest, of which the name (occurring seventeen 
 times), and the functions, are the main burden of our Epistle. So an aspect of faith to 
 which Paul makes but casual allusion (2 Cor. 5 : 7) our author makes the basis of his 
 formal definition and extended illustration (chapter 11), treating it from the Old Testa- 
 ment point of view, while Paul's favorite phrases, "justification," "righteousness of 
 fiiith," etc. {siKaiovv, SiKaiuxTis, SiKawirvvr] eK TTi'trTea.?), are entirely foreign to him. These illus- 
 trations of s])ecific differences might be greatly extended, and, in fact, drawn from every 
 part of the Epistle. They certainly indicate no contrariety of views in the two writers. 
 Every doctrine that is taught explicitely by the one is, I think, implied, if not expressly 
 affirmed, in the teachings of the other. We may, I think, in fact, detect in our author 
 traces of Pauline companionship and influence. Yet the diversities are very wide, as 
 might be expected from different minds, subjected to widely different modes of culture, 
 and dealing with a range of subjects exhaustless in their contents and infinite in their 
 variety. 
 
 Sixth. Historical reference. — Finally, there is but one historical reference in our 
 Epistle that would seem to favor its reference to Paul — namel}', the relations of our 
 author to the apostle's favorite young companion, Timothy. (13 : 23.) This, however, 
 on close examination, seems rather to bear a different testimonj'. We know of no impris- 
 onment of Timothy during the life of the apostle, a deliverance from which could here 
 be referred to. So f\ir as probabilities go, it would seem likely that Timothy, summoned 
 to Paul's side in his last impri.sonment, shared that imprisonment, and was released after 
 the death of the apostle. The most plausible conjecture, therefore, warranted by this 
 
10 INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 allusion, would point to a composition of the Epistle after the death of the apostle, and 
 would thus exclude him from the number of possible candidate^ for its authorship. With 
 any known event during the apostle's life it is wholly out of harmony ; and, so far as this 
 goes, it bears against the view which puts his name at the head of the Epistle. 
 
 Most of the above objections are equally adverse to any form of Pauline authorship, 
 whether immediate, or by a dictation of the substance put into form by another, or 
 through an Aramaic original translated into Greek by a friend or disciple. Indeed, we 
 may dismiss at once, and finally, the idea that the work is a translation. Its rhetoric, its 
 Septuagint quotations are against it, and nothing whatever in the Epistle favors it. If 
 any New Testament work, this surely bears the impress of an original. 
 
 To whom, then, are we to assign the Epistle? Antiquity connects with it, besides the 
 name of Paul, the names of Clement of Rome, Silas, Luke, and Barnabas. For the two 
 former there is really no evidence whatever. The use of the Epistle by Clement, in his 
 letter to the Corinthians, proves that it was extant in his time, but makes against, rather 
 than in favor of, the supposition that he was its author. Guericke, Ebrard, and Delitzsch, 
 follow Origen, in referring the substance of it to Paul and the form to Luke. But the 
 hypothesis of such dictation is an unwarranted conjecture, made, apparently, only to save 
 the apostolic dignity of the Epistle. The style of Luke has indeed a general superficial 
 resemblance to that of this work, in that it bears the impress of culture beyond any other 
 New Testament writings, and moves with a certain calm stateliness characteristic of our 
 author ; but in all radical resemblances to the style of our Epistle, it is, I think, wholly 
 wanting. And an independent authorship by Luke is certainly out of the question. He 
 was indeed one of those who received the gospel at second hand ; but his position in the 
 church lacked the almost apostolical dignity which clearly belongs to our author ; and he 
 was not a Jew, which the author of this Epistle certainly was. 
 
 Several modern scholars, as Twesten, UUniann, Wicseler, Conybeare and Howson, 
 follow Tertullian in assigning the Epistle to Barnabas. This is not without some plausible 
 grounds. As a Levite, Barnabas might be specially interested in those priestly aspects of 
 the gospel, which in our Epistle are so prominent ; as a Cypriote, he might have stood in 
 some special relations to Alexandria; and his title, Son of Exhortation — not "Son of 
 Consolation" (uibs t^? TrapaK^^o-eo)?) — might answer to some features, both of sentiment and 
 stj'le, of our Epistle. But nothing that we know of Barnabas warrants our expecting 
 from him any such profound Old Testament researches, or such elaborate graces of style 
 as characterize our Epistle ; and from his residence, more or less protracted, at Jerusalem, 
 we might expect clearer references to the temple service than are found in it. Our Epis- 
 tle connects the Jewish ritual service rather with the Mosaic tabernacle than with the 
 temple, which is not, I think, once expressly named in the Epistle. We may add that if 
 Barnabas was the author of the writings which have come down to us under his name, 
 then the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot be from his pen ; and if it is from him, it is cer- • 
 tainly an extraordinary ordering of Providence that the name of this great leader in the 
 church should be transmitted to later ages in connection with an almost worthless forgery, 
 and almost wholly dissevered from the work which would have placed him among the 
 noblest instructors of the church, and in the very first rank of Biblical authorship. 
 
 The only name, I think, connected with the authorship of our Epistle, for which any 
 strong argument can be made, is one wholly unknown in this connection to Christian 
 antiquity — that of Apollos, The first to ascribe the Epistle to him, breaking in on the 
 settled current of Mediaeval opinion, was Luther, followed by some of his compeers of the 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 11 
 
 Reformation. This lij'pothesis once started has found gradually increasing favor. Cleri- 
 ens and Semler, Bleek, the Coryphoeus among the e.xpounders of this Epi-stle ; more 
 recently, Tholuck, Credner, Alford, Lunemann, Kurtz, and among the very latest, W. F. 
 Moulton, have given in their adherence to the view which fixes the authorship upon 
 Apollu.s. The grounds for a certain conclusion are doubtless wanting ; but all the positive 
 evidence tend.'i in this direction. The author of the Epistle was certainly a Jew, and 
 neu'ly as certainly an extra-Palestinian Jew. He was a person of elegant culture, and 
 trained in the arts of rhetoric : for the Epistle is full of fine rhetorical points. He was 
 apparently acquainted with the writings of the Alexandrian Philo (though untinctured by 
 Piiilo's allegorizing and mystical tendencies) ; for the verbal coincidences are too numerous 
 and striking to be the result of accident. He was, therefore, in all probability from Alex- 
 andria. He stood as a teacher on high and independent ground, and yet was not of those 
 who had received the gospel at first hand. He differed widely from Paul in his mode of 
 presenting the gospel ; was a far more finished writer and commanded a more eloquent 
 style, and yet is actuated by the same spirit, and is in all fundamental points in perfect 
 harmony with him. He was profoundly versed in the Old Testament, and had that power 
 of fathoming and drawing out its hidden meanings, which would enable him " with great 
 power to convince the Jews from the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ," 
 as witness his treatment of Ps. 8 : 5->7 ; of Ps. 109 : 4 ; 39 : 40, and of the Lord's Mel- 
 chisedec priesthood. All these requisites to the authorship of this Epistle are fulfilled in 
 Apollos, and we could scarcely find them more significantly summed up than in the words 
 of Acts 18 : 24, 25 . "Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, an eloquent (or lettered) man, 
 mighty in the Scriptures, with great power convincing the Jews from the Old Testament 
 that Jesus is the Christ." Add to this his further training by Aquila and Priscilla. disci- 
 ples of Paul, his companionship with the apostle himself, and the crowning inspiration of 
 the Holy Spirit, and I doubt if we have much farther to seek for the man through whom 
 the Spirit enriched the church with this precious storehouse of sacred truth. 
 
 II. DESTINATION OF THE EPISTLE. 
 
 All that is clear in regard to the destination of the Epistle is that it was directed to 
 Hebrew Christians, who had distinguished themselves by their fidelity and Christian benefi- 
 cence (6 : 10), but had declined from their steadfastness, and had ceased from their 
 Christian progress, and were relapsing into Judaism. That they were Christians in Pales 
 tine was generally assumed by antiquity, and might naturally be inferred from there being 
 no mention of an intermixture of Gentile believers. Yet this reason is scared}' decisive, 
 as there may have been in many places Christian bodies prepondei'antly Hebrew ; and 
 assuming Apollos to be the author, it seems scarcely likely that he stood in any such rela- 
 tion to the churclies of Palestine as this letter would imply. It would be more natural to 
 find its first readers in Alexandria, a place swarming with Hebrews, and to which the 
 style of thought and diction would seem more fitted than to Palestine. This hypothesis 
 has been adopted by Credner, Hilgenfeld, Wieseler, Biuisen, Conybeare and Howson, and 
 others. Yet it lacks positive support ; there is no certainty that any Christian churches yet 
 existed in Alexandria, and the entire ignorance of the Alexandrian Fathers regarding its 
 author and history is strongly against it. Stronger reasons, I think, exist for finding, with 
 Alford, Kurtz, and others, its original circle of readers in Rome. This view would explain 
 the early knowledge and use of the Papistic by the Roman Clement, would harmonize 
 with the references (10 : 32-34) to persecutions experienced by the Cliristians under Nero 
 
12 INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 in tlie year 64, and under Domltian in about 74, in which express mention is made (Euse- 
 bius' " Hist. Eceles." III. 17) of the confiscation of their goods (10 : 34), and is strongly 
 supported by the language of the closing salutation, ''those from Italy (oi <i77b t^s 'iraAias) 
 salute j'ou." Were the language "those of Italy" (o; fV rijs 'iTaAiw), "they that belong 
 to Italy," it might naturally be referred to one who was writing from Italy, and was 
 giving to foreigners the salutations of his Italian brethren. But the phrase "those 
 from" Italy (ol in-o), indicates rather Italians absent from Italy, and making his letter the 
 vehicle of their greetings to their countrymen. Or, of course, it might indicate Italian 
 companions of the writer, addressing their greetings to friends in some other region than 
 Italy. Yet of the suppositions the former is the more probable, and it harmonizes Avith 
 the intrinsic probability that an Epistle of so great importance would be more likely to 
 find its destination in Rome. The question stands open. 
 
 III. PLACE AND DATE OF COMPOSITION. 
 
 The place of composition of the letter lies in still deeper obscurity than its destination, 
 and is indeed of less importance. According to our i)revious view, it was not written in 
 Italy, and as the place where it was written contained evidently Italian residents, it may, 
 as supposed b}' Bleek, Kurtz, etc., be some seaport town, as Corinth or Ephesus, easilj' 
 accessible to fugitives from the Roman persecutions, espeeiall}' as these towns had been 
 the former scenes of the labors of Apollos. 
 
 As to the time of composition, there is a very general concurrence among all expositors 
 in the opinion that it was written somewhere between the years 62 and 67. That the 
 Jewish Temple was still standing cannot be inferred from chapter 10, where the present is 
 certainly the historical present, and is describing under the present time the arrangements 
 of the JMosaic tabernacle, and therefore has no necessary reference to the temple at Jeru- 
 salem. Still, if so great a blow to Judaism as the destruction of the temple liad actually 
 been experienced, it seems hardly credible that the Epistle, reticent as it is regarding his- 
 torical events, should not have given some intimation of it ; and it seems, on the whole, 
 safest to fix the date of the Epistle a little before the year 70, when the flames of civil 
 war were reddening the horizon, and giving a fearful significance to the words "and so 
 much the more as ye see the dai/ [the dies irce, the day of the great impending catastrophe) 
 approaching." (10 : 25; compare 1 Cor. 3 : 13.) 
 
 IV. PURPOSE AND CONTENTS. 
 
 The immediate object of the Epistle is to arrest the backsliding of a body of Jewish 
 Christians who, having once distinguished themselves by their Christian activity, benefi- 
 cence, and constancy under persecutions, were now relapsing into Judaism. To the 
 attainment of this end it jn-oceeds with a singleness and intensity of purpose which con- 
 trast strikingly with the placid smoothness of the style. It divides itself in general into 
 a doctrinal or argumentative, and a practical or hortatory part. The argumentative part 
 extends from the beginning to chapter 10 : 19. The i>ractical part extends from chapter 
 10 : 20 to the end. In the theoretical portions, however, are interspersed hortatory pas- 
 sages of greater or less length, and the hortatory portion is more or less tinged with argu- 
 ment. Yet the general dividing line is clear and unmistakable, and the argument proceeds 
 on a single line of discussion, aimijig to show the superiority of the New Covenant to the 
 Old by showing the measureless superiority of Him who was the Introducer, Founder, and 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 13 
 
 High Priest of the New Covenant to the corresponding classes of personages in the Old. 
 The analysis of the Epistle is as follows : 
 
 PART I. ARGUxMENTATIVE AND DOCTRINAL. 
 
 1. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS. 
 
 Ch. 1. (1) The manifold and frag mentdry forms of Revelation in the Old Covenant 
 have been replaced by one final Revelation in the Son, who, as Mediator of the New Cove- 
 nant, is exalted as high above the angels (messengers), mediators of the Old, as his name 
 (Son) IS more excellent than theirs. (1 : 1-4.) 
 
 (2) Proof and illustration from the Old Testament of Chi'ist's superiority as Son of 
 God to the angels. (5-14.) 
 
 Ch. 2. (3) Brief exhortation to heed a revelation made by so extraordinary a person- 
 age. By as much as the Son is superior to the angels, by so much greater the peril of dis- 
 obeying hi<i message than theirs. (1-4.) 
 
 (4) Christ, though as Son infinitely superior to the angels, yet was humbled temporarily 
 below them, that, suffering and dying as man, he might rescue and elevate his human 
 brethren, and, as a faithful High Priest, reconcile them to God. (5-18.) 
 
 2. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO MOSES. 
 
 Ch. 3. (1) Christ, as Leader of the New Testament Israel and founder of the New 
 Testament house of God, greater than Moses, leader of ancient Israel, and founder of the 
 Old Testament hotie of God. (1-6.) 
 
 (2) Solemn coaming to the readers against rep)eating the rebellion of their fathers and 
 excluding themselves from Gods Sabbatic rest, as the rebels under Moses forfeited the rest 
 of Canaan. (7-19.) 
 
 Ch. 4. (3) The rest of God forfeited by ancient Israel, still open under its higher form, 
 as God's Sabbatic rest, to the spiritual Israel. (1-10.) 
 
 (4) Renewed exhortation in view of the renewed promise of a higher rest, and based on 
 the spiritual and searching qualities of the roord ; and transition, through their need of a 
 syrnpathising high priest, to the next and chief topic of the Epistle. (11-16.) 
 
 3. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO AARON. 
 
 Christ, the High Priest of the New Dispensation, superior to Aaron, the high priest 
 of the Old. 
 
 Ch. 5. (1) Necessary qualities of the high priest. (1-10.) 
 
 (a) He is taken from among men, that he, as man, may deal tenderly with men. (1-3. ) 
 
 (b) Christ is not self-appointed, but called of God. (4. ) 
 
 (c) Christ received his priestly office from God, (5, 6. ) 
 
 {d) In his fleshly nature as man, Christ wrestled with the fear of death, and, learning 
 obedience from suffering, was perfected for his saving and priestly work. (7-10.) 
 
 (2) Long hortatory passage, suggested by the incapacity of the readers to enter on the 
 profound discussion before them ; namely, the priesthood of Christ. (5:11-6: 20.) 
 
 (a) Failure of the readers in that spiritual maturity which they should, by this time, 
 have attained. (11-14.) 
 
 Ch. 6. {b) To this condition of spiritual maturity just described the writer exhorts 
 his readers to hasten forward, and not linger among the elements of the religious life. 
 He alarms them with the possibility that their backsliding may become irretrievable, but 
 assures them of his better and brighter hope for them. (1-8.) 
 
14 INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 (c) Tlie brighter aspects of the case. The author would encourage as well as alarm. 
 He declares to his readers his confidence that under God's covenant faithfulness better 
 things await them ; cites his oath to Abraham as a sure ground of confidence, and, remind- 
 ing them of their hope which enters the heavenly sanctuary, and rests on the heavenly 
 High Priest, thus brings his subject gracefully round to the starting point in the heavenly 
 high priesthood of Jesus, from which he had digressed. (9-20.) 
 
 Ch. 7. (3) The royal Melchisedec priesthood of Chrvit. (1-28.) 
 
 {a) Summary of the Old Testament description of Melchisedec in those historical feat- 
 ures which determine the character of his priesthood. (1-3.) 
 
 {h) Personal greatness of Melchisedec illustrated by his receiving tithes from Abraham, 
 and that under extraordinary conditions. (4-JO. ) 
 
 (c) Application of these facts in regard to Melchisedec to the subject. The intro- 
 duction of a new priesthood in) plies the failure of the Levitical, and the abrogation of the 
 law for which it stood responsible. (11, 12.) 
 
 (d) This change in the law shown historically in the change of tribe to which the priest 
 belongs. (13, 14.) 
 
 (e) The change is shown more clearly in the intrinsic character of the new priesthood, 
 ■which is constituted not after a carnal ritual, but after the power of an endless life. (15-19.) 
 
 (/) A further proof of the superiority of the Melchisedec priesthood, is that it is insti- 
 tuted with the sanction of an oath. (20-22.) 
 
 {g) Christ's Melchisedec priesthood, unlike the Levitical succession, is a single, per- 
 petual, everlasting priesthood, which can thus carry through to completeness its work of 
 salvation. (23-25.) 
 
 (/i) Exultant summing up of the qualities of Christ's Melchisedec priesthood neces- 
 sary to be allied with those of the Aaronieal high priest, to which topic ver. 26-28 form 
 a transition. (26-28.) 
 
 Ch. 8. (4) The efficient Aaronieal high priesthood of Christ in the heavenly sanctu- 
 ary. (8 : 1-10 : 18.) 
 
 (a) As a royal Melchisedec Priest, Christ has taken his seat at the right hand of God, 
 and as Levitical High Priest, he has gone into the heavenly tabernacle. (1, 2.) 
 
 (6) As such a High Priest, Christ must of necessity have something to offer, (3.) 
 
 (c) So vitally connected are these two, the priesthood and the offering, that on earth 
 there would be no place for his priesthood, as there exist already there those who make 
 the offerings of the law, and whose prerogatives are inviolate. (4. ) 
 
 {d) But, in foct, he is a High Priest, and can, therefore, make offerings, because he 
 has the true tabernacle and the true priesthood, of which theirs were but a shadow, and 
 a priesthood as much better than theirs as is the covenant, of which he is the Mediator, 
 better than theirs. (5,6.) 
 
 (e) For that it is better than the first (this subordinately and in passing) is clear from 
 its having superseded it. For God, having found the first inefficacious, replaces it by a 
 new. and the former one becomes antiquated and expires. (7-13.) 
 
 Ch. 9. (/) But that First Covenant (for to see how the New is organized, we must 
 look back to that, its copy ; and to see what the new High Priest must offer, we must 
 look back and see what the old one offered) had its ordinances of service, and its sanctu- 
 ary consisting of two tabernacles, an outer or more common, and an inner and holier one. 
 (9:1-6.) 
 
 {g) Now in the outer sanctuary the priests performed constant ministrations, but into 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 15 
 
 this inner sanctuary the hight priest went alone once a year, not icithovt blood — he carried 
 in there the blcod of slaughtered victims, symbolically, though not really expiatory of 
 sin. (6-10.) 
 
 (h) We see, then, what is demanded of our High Priest. It is hlood. And as his 
 is the true, and not the symbolical priesthood, as he is in the genuine, and not the copied 
 sanctuary, he must offer blood that is really, and not symbolically, cleansing. He brings 
 Ills oivn. (11-14.) 
 
 (t) This spiritual efficacy of the blood of Christ warrants and demands a New Cove- 
 nant, inaugurated, like the First, with blood, but the blood of a nobler victim than that 
 of the Old ; for Christ has entered into the true antitypical sanctuary, not, like the 
 earthly high priests, for repeated entrances, but once for all, never to leave it until he 
 comes without sin unto salvation. (15-28.) 
 
 Ch. 10. (5) Summing up of the entire high priestly argument. (10:1-18.) 
 
 [a] Finality of Christ's voluntary sacrifice as opposed to the symbolical sacrifices of 
 the law. (I-IO ) 
 
 (/;) Finality of Christ's priestly ministration as opposed to the oft-repeated ministra- 
 tions of the Levitical priesthood. (11-14.) 
 
 (c) Finality of the New Covenant, and of the sacrifice which seals it as efi"ecting the 
 absolute remission of sins. (15-18.) 
 
 PART II. HORTATORY. 
 
 (a) Exhortation to approach God boldly, to stir up each other to love, and not to 
 forsake the Christian assemblies. (19-25.) 
 
 (6) The exhortation sharpened by the terrible consequences of apostasy. (26-31.) 
 
 (c) Encouragement from past fidelity, and exhortation not to throw away its fruits. 
 (32-39. ) 
 
 Ch. 11. (2) Encouraging survey of the achievements of faith in Jewish history. 
 Muster roll of the heroes of faith. (1-40.) 
 
 (a) Illustrations of faith in the antediluvian believers. (1-7.) 
 
 (b) Example of Abraham and Sarah. (8-12.) 
 
 (c) Retrospective glance at the above-cited believers. (13-16.) 
 {d) Examples of the Jewish patriarchs. (17-22.) 
 
 (ft) Example of Moses. (23-29.) 
 
 (/) Examples from the Exodus of Israel to the time of the Maccabees. (30-40.) 
 Ch. 12. (3) Reneived exhortations, suggested chiefly by this historical survey. (12 : 1-29. ) 
 (a) Incitement to endurance from the encompassing presence of this host of witnesses, 
 
 and especially of Jesus, their Leader. (1-3.) 
 
 (6) Their afflictions the fruits of God's chastening love. (4-11.) 
 
 (c) They are to resist firmly all relaxing tendencies by cultivating unity, purity, and 
 
 constant watchfulness. (12-17.) 
 
 {d) They are to hearken to these exhortations in view of the grandeur and exalted 
 
 character of the New Covenant, and the danger of disregarding its blessings and claims. 
 
 (18-29.) 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 Ch. 13. (1) Practical admonitions of a general character. (1-9.) 
 
 (2) Reneiced exhortations against apostasy. (10-21.) 
 
 (3) Final injunctions, personal references, and sahitations. (22-25. ) 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 GOD, who at sundry times and in divers manners 
 spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 
 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by /lis Son, | 
 
 1 God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers 
 in the prophets by divers portions and in divers 
 
 2 manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto 
 
 PART I. 
 
 1. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO THE ANQELS. 
 
 Ch. I. (1) The manifold and fragmentary 
 fortns of Revelation in the Old Covenant have 
 been replaced by one Jinal Revelation in the 
 Son, who, as Mediator of the New Covenant, is 
 exalted as high above the angels (messengers), 
 mediators of the Old, as his name (Son) is 
 more excellent than theirs. (1 : 1-4.) 
 
 1. At sundry times and in divers man- 
 ners. The full sounding words of the origi- 
 nal {no\vfjiepCii, in inany parts, and iroAuTpoTrus, 
 in m,any ways) open with sonorous asso- 
 nance the majestic sentence. The former, 
 not 'at sundry times' (which in itself might 
 show the privileged character of the Old Dis- 
 pensation), but in m,any parts, by piecemeal, 
 fragm,entarily {tt-fi-sxa, divide; y-ipoi, a part); 
 the ancient revelation being made, not in one 
 complete whole, but gradually and in frag- 
 ments, as by Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, 
 Malachi, etc., each in his own separate way 
 lielping to complete the slowly developed sys- 
 tem. The 'various ways,' or m,odes, are by 
 promise and vision, as to Abraham : by the 
 giving of the Law and the instituting of sym- 
 bolical expiations through Moses; bj' lyrical 
 song through David ; by oral and symbolical 
 prediction through Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, 
 Malachi, etc. The two terms together denote 
 the whole variety of promises, predictions, 
 and symbols by which the divine plan was 
 gradually unfolded under the Old Covenant, 
 as against the one complete revelation made 
 through the Son under the New. Spake — 
 having spoken} The verb (XaAe<o) in the class- 
 ics, ordinarily to talk, prattle, is used in the 
 New Testament habitually of dignified speak- 
 ing. Unto the fathers — the wiiole body of 
 the ancient Jewish people, as a term of affec- 
 
 tionate reverence. By (in) the prophets* 
 
 "In" — either Hebraistic for by, as instru- 
 mental, or better, strictly in, as denoting the 
 sphere of God's speaking. He was in the 
 prophets and in the Son; and as being in, 
 spoke through them. (So De Wette, Laiige, 
 Liinemann, Delitzsch.) Prophets— not here 
 prophets in the narrower sense, as Samuel, 
 Isaiah, etc., but all the great men who in 
 various ways were organs of the divine com- 
 munications, as Abraham, Moses, David, 
 Isaiah. So a prophet is not merely, perhaps 
 not properly, a /ore-speaker, but a forth- 
 speaker, an utterer of God's thoughts. 
 
 2. In these last days, or, at the close of 
 these days. 'These days.' Looking down 
 the vista of the future, the Jewish prophets 
 saw the then present period ('these days') 
 bounded and succeeded by the age of the 
 Messiah. 'These days,' therefore, as "this 
 age" (o aioii' ouTot), became a sort of term,inus 
 techniciis for the ante-Messianic period, and 
 "the coming age" for the Messianic time 
 which was to succeed it. Jewish prophecy, 
 indeed, drew no clear dividing line between 
 the first and ."second comings of the Anointed 
 One. The actual unfolding of events broke 
 this period into two portions — that which pre- 
 ceded and that which followed the Second 
 Coming. The time between the First and the 
 Second Coming became a sort of intermediate 
 period, a transient interval before the great 
 drama of eternity was fully inaugurated. 
 Christians during this period were living in 
 "the last time" ; but they were alread3'- sub- 
 stantially in "the coming age," and had 
 "tasted the powers of the coming age" («: 5), 
 and it wis at the introduction of this first 
 section, at the " interlocking of the ages" 
 (iTvvTtKeCa rutv aiuiviov, 9 : 26) that Christ had ap- 
 peared. Hath spoken unto us— literally. 
 
 ' Kakriaat, predicate participle, not who spoke, 6 AaAijaas. 
 The aorist participle is never in itself exactly equiva- 
 lent to the perfect. But the Greek is fond of the aorist 
 form, and especially prefers the aorist participle to the 
 
 more cumbrous perfect (compare AaA^aot and A«AoA- 
 r)<«ut), and the difference in meaning is often not mate- 
 rial. 
 
 B 17 
 
18 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom 
 also he made the worlds; 
 
 3 Who being the lirightness of his glory, and the 
 express image of his person, and upholding all things 
 
 us in I his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, 
 
 3 through whom also he made the ' world'^ ; who being 
 
 the effulgence of his glory, and ^the very image of 
 
 his substance, and upiiolding all things by the word 
 
 1 Gr. a Son 2 Gr. ages 3 Or, the impreea o/hi» tubatance. 
 
 spoke; but the perfect here is more idiomatic 
 English. The verb points back to the time 
 of the historic act. Observe that God is the 
 common subject alike of the participle (" hav- 
 ing spoken ") and the verb ("hath spoken "). 
 Of both Dispensations God is the author. He 
 instituted the first, and when its purpose was 
 fulfilled he removed it that he might establish 
 the second. By (in) liis Son — in one who 
 was Son. In the original the article is omitted 
 to emphasize, not the individual, but the char- 
 acter — in him who bears the character o( Son. 
 The term here refers, I think, to the historic 
 Son of God — to that thcanthropic personage, 
 who, of both human and divine parentage, 
 was at once "Son of Man" and "Son of 
 God." See Luke 1 : 35; Matt. 3 : 17; 16 : 
 16; John 17 : 1. That Christ's Sonship in- 
 volves essential equality with God is certain. 
 The relation is grounded in his essential 
 and eternal nature; but more commonly, in 
 Scripture the term designates his historic 
 manifestation. Scripture certainly does not 
 lift the veil from the mode of Christ's pre- 
 historic existence ; its utmost reach of unveil- 
 ing is " the glory which I had with thee before 
 the world was." Perhaps the mystery, like 
 that of the divine nature itself, could not be 
 made intelligible in human language, or to 
 the finite understanding. Whom he hath ap- 
 pointed — placed, appointed, constituted. (So 
 often in the classics, as Herodian, "Hist."5: 7, 
 10; Xenophon "Cyropsedia," 4 : 6, 3; ^Elian, 
 " Variae Historiae" 13 : 6.) This refers not to 
 an appointment in God's eternal purpose and 
 counsel (as Bleek, Bengel, Liinemann), but to 
 his historical exaltation after his resurrection. 
 (Tholuck, Ebrard, De Wette.Delitzsch, Moll.) 
 The thought is thoroughly Scriptural. Christ's 
 supreme authority, purposed in the eternal 
 counsels, promised before his incarnation 
 (Matt. 26:64; 28: 18), bcstuwcd at his asccnsiou, 
 which he retains until the Second Coming, 
 
 when it is enhanced in glory, while restricted 
 in sphere (i Cor. i5:28), is here A>noted. The 
 term heiv {inheritor) o( SiW things is selected 
 with reference to his Sonship. The Son in- 
 herits his Father's dominion, whicli is %mi- 
 versal (all things). By {through) whom (Si 
 o5). Christ, while essentially equal, appears 
 subordinate in his working, to the Father, 
 He also made (or, had made) the Avorlds, 
 and might therefore properly appoint him 
 Kuler. The present clause steps back to find 
 in the Son's pre-incarnate relation to the uni- 
 verse a fitting reason for his being now ap- 
 pointed its Lord.' Worlds {aii>va%), properly 
 ages; hence worlds as existing in time, as 
 kosmos (koct/xos) is world existing in space. 
 
 3. Who (the pre-incarnate Son) being from 
 eternity as the eternal Logos, or Word, who 
 was originally with God (John i : i) : the bright- 
 ness — better, the effulgence, raj'ing forth, 
 radiance (an-aiiyoaMa), a rare Pliilonian word, 
 more elevated than brightness (Aa/nTrpoTTjs). It 
 is not the abstract action of shining forth 
 (aTrauyoffis), but tlic Concrete result oi the pro- 
 cess, the radiant and abiding image or reflec- 
 tion of the divine glory, implying at once 
 derivation, essential likeness, and indejiendent 
 existence.^ The word is no Pauline word — 
 found only here in the New Testament. But 
 the thought is a Pauline thought, for which 
 Paul uses image (t'lKiuy), and form, {uop<i>rj). 
 Compare Col. 1:15; Phil. 2:6. And the 
 express image of his person, or, substance. 
 'Express image.' The Greek word rendered 
 express image (xopoKT^p, from x«P'><''<»'<«>, sharpen, 
 make pointed, scratch, grave) is, properly, the 
 person or instrument that graves, the en- 
 graver; then the^^^wre cut in, the stamp, tlie 
 impress answering to the die that stamps it. 
 Thus, under a different figure, the thought is 
 essentially the same as above. There the 
 glory of the Deity is a permanent raying 
 forth, effulgent image; liere it is the divine 
 
 1 Kcu. ivoiyitrtv Toiis aliovai is, therefore, a more appro- 
 priate a.s well as better attested reading than the (caV row? 
 aiujvai €noi-qaev, which throws the emphasis on alCiva^. 
 
 * So Wisdom of Solomon 7 : 26, whece it is explained 
 by iaonrpov, mirror, and ttKuii', image; Philo " de Con- 
 
 cupisc. Mang." p. 357, § 11 ; " De Opif. Mundi," M. p. 35, 1 
 (t^V fiaKapiat <^u<rea)9 ixnaytiov t) a.n6inTa(Ttia, tj airav- 
 yo<r(xa, an impres.i, or effulgence of the Blessed Nalvre) ] 
 "De Plantat. Noe." M. 1, 337, where it is equivalent to 
 nifLJiiJLa and (tKuc, the embodied imiialion and image. 
 
Ch. I] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 19 
 
 by the word of his power, when he had by himself 
 purged our sins, sat down ou (he right hand of the 
 Majesty on high ; 
 
 4" Being made so much better than the angels, as he 
 bath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name 
 than they. 
 
 of his power, when he had made purification of 
 
 sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on 
 
 4 high; having become by so much belter than the 
 
 angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name 
 
 essence stamped upon the Son.' 'Substance' 
 (iijTocTToo-is, a standing under, substantia'). The 
 original word denotes, hence : (1) foundation, 
 origin; (2) substance, essence; (3) ground of 
 trust, boldness, confidence — in the New Testa- 
 ment, in signification (3) in Heb. 3: 14 ; 11:1; 
 2 Cor. 9:4. In signification (2) only here; 
 namely, substance, essential being. In the 
 sense of joersort (persona) as marking the divine 
 tripersonality, it belongs to later ecclesiastical 
 writers, not to the New Testament. Uphold- 
 ing (<&epo>r, bearing), partly passively, sus- 
 taining ; partly actively, carrying forward, 
 administering, all things— that is, the uni- 
 verse. By, or, with, the word, the utterance 
 or mandate (p^nan, not Adyw), of his power 
 — the utterance in which his power is put 
 forth; more forcible than "by his powerful 
 word." The words express the absolute ease 
 with which the Son eflfects his work: he 
 speaks, and it is done. The same word, or 
 utterance, which called into existence the 
 universe, sustains and administers it. When 
 he had by himself purged our sins — better. 
 After making a cleansing of sins. A brief 
 expression for making an expiatory sacrifice, 
 which ensured the cleansing; and, again, the 
 cleansing of sins is equivalent to the cleansing 
 of persons from their sins. Tlie author, at 
 this early stage, introduces Christ's high- 
 priestly character; the middle participle 
 (meaning, making for himself) shows how 
 closely the sacrificial act belonged to the 
 Son. "With the commencement of this verse 
 the thought had receded from the Son's his- 
 toric manifestation to his pre-incarnate and 
 eternal relation; the last clause has stepped 
 forward again to the historical sphere. Sat 
 down, or. Took his seat. See Ps. 110 : 1. 
 The original idea was that o? protection from. 
 an enemy (Rev. 12:5), rather than of honor and 
 sovereignty. Yet it came to imply this, as 
 
 Matt. 26 : 64, "sitting at the right hand of 
 power." The sitting marks calmness and 
 repose; the "standing," of Acts 7 : 55, marks 
 activity and protection. At the right hand 
 of Msuesty. ' Majesty ' for the Majestic 
 One (the abstract for the concrete), as at Matt. 
 26 : 64, 'Power' {T9i<r Swi^L^wi) for the Powerful 
 One. On high (literally. In the lofty heavens) 
 belongs to took his seat ("took his seat in 
 the lofty heavens;" heavens is understood, 
 as at Luke 2 : 14, "glory to God in the 
 highest heavens "). This connection is shown 
 in the original by the absence of the article 
 (t^s) before the lofty heavens (e*' tois v^jijiKoU)." 
 4. Becoming, not, being made, as in the 
 Common Version, nor "having become," as 
 in the Revised Version. The meaning is, 
 that in thus taking his seat, he became, ctc.» 
 So much better — that is, mightier, superior 
 in position and authority. Than the an- 
 gels. Introduced here with reference to the 
 name m.essengers, which was derived from 
 their function. We scarcely need say that 
 the language implies no enhancement of the 
 Son's intrinsic excellence, power, or dignity; 
 but only a display or exercise of them cor- 
 responding to his nature, and to the work 
 which he had wrought in the great redemptive 
 system. As he hath by inheritance ob- 
 tained a more excellent name than they. 
 He has received by inheritance as Son; the 
 verb is adapted to the relation ; ' a more excel- 
 lent name,' a name transcending, surpassing 
 theirs. Their name is m,essenger ; /us name 
 is Son. 'Name' is here equivalent to title. 
 Hi? proper earthly name was "Jesus"; the 
 name of his divine relation was "Son," which 
 was gloriously confirmed when, by his resur- 
 rection and ascension, he was constituted 
 "Son of God with power." See Rom. 1 : 4. 
 The name, or title, conferred upon him in his 
 exaltation, and to which answers the " becom- 
 
 ' \ai>aKrr)(t in the New Testament only here. Compare 
 Philo " De Plantat. Noe." M. 1, p. 332, where the rational 
 soul is stamped with the seal of God, whose impress 
 (xopatTrip) is the eternal Word (ot'Sios Aoyo?). 
 
 * ' The Majesty on high ' would require x^t illiyaKorqro'; 
 rq? iv Toi<: vifi<Tr]\oi^. There are many cases in the New 
 Testament in which the absence of the article indicates 
 
 a different construction from that of the Common Ver- 
 sion. Rom. 8:2," in Christ Jesus " belongs to " made 
 me free " (ijAev?€pcj<r«i/). 
 
 s The aorist participle here, as not unfrequently else- 
 where, though not commonly, is complementary, ijce 
 John 1 : 14. The word became, not, wot made. 
 
20 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, 
 Thou art ray Son, this day have I begotten thee? And 
 again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me 
 a Son? 
 
 5 than they. For unto which of the angels said he at 
 any time. 
 
 Thou art my Son, 
 
 This day have I begotten thee? 
 and again, 
 
 I will be to hini a Father, 
 
 And he shall be to me a Son ? 
 
 ing SO much mightier" of our passage. The 
 name above every name, of Phil. 2 : 9-11, 
 was " Lord." * 
 
 (2) Proof and illustration from the Old Tes- 
 tament of Christ's superiority as Son of God 
 to the angels. (5-14.) 
 
 5. Unto which of the angels said he at 
 any time. An emphatic form of denial 
 equivalent to "unto none," and involving 
 an emphatic inferential affirmation tliat lie 
 did say it to another. Thou art my Son. 
 Taken from Ps. 2 : 7 — one of the most re- 
 markable of the Psalms, and always regarded 
 as either directl}' or indirectly (at all events, 
 ultimately) Messianic. It points to no event 
 in the Messiah's history so naturally as to 
 its closing scene, his crucifixion, resurrec- 
 tion, and glorification. This suits the tenor 
 of the Psalm, with its banded foes, leagued 
 against Jehovah and his anointed; their baf- 
 fled rage, and the Son, the more immediate 
 object of the insurrection, seated in triumph 
 above their fury on the holy hill of Zion. 
 It evidently refers to the same scene, whether 
 real or ideal, typical or historical, as Ps. 
 110:1: ^'Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit 
 thou at my right hand until I make thine 
 enemies thy footstool." The scene of the 
 Psalm is certainly not applicable to the incar- 
 nation, but fits perfectly to the crucifixion and 
 ascension. So the New Testament applies it 
 (Acts 4: 25-28; 13:33) whcrc there is no hesitation 
 in referring our passage to tlie death and res- 
 urrection of Jesus. To understand the full 
 force of the " my Son " in such a connection, 
 we may look at the next citation, I will be 
 to him a Father, and he shall be to me 
 a Son. This is from 2 Sam. 7 : 14, where the 
 connection shows that, though uttered appar- 
 ently of Solomon, it in reality applied to the 
 great descendant of David, of whom David 
 himself, and Solomon, and their successors, 
 are severally types, and without whom to 
 close and crown the succession, the royal line 
 of Judah was "as a body without a head." 
 
 The purport of the promise is shown in the 
 angel's announcement to Mary ( Luke i : 32,33) : 
 " He shall be called the Son of the Highest, 
 and the Lord God shall give unto him the 
 throne of his father, David; and of his king- 
 dom there shall be no end." The promise, 
 then, of 2 Sam. 7 : 14 belonged to all the de- 
 scendants of David in their theocratic and 
 typical character. It belonged to them as 
 representing the Messiah, and was true of 
 them in a sense which applied to no other, 
 either man or angel. The throne itself was 
 invested with a new dignity and sacredness: 
 around every successive prince gathered the 
 Messianic hopes of the nation. Each new 
 investiture, with its })rerogatives, inspired 
 fresh expectations; each successive ))rince 
 might be the expected deliverer; each coro- 
 nation, each marriage, each martial achieve- 
 ment, stood connected with these national 
 hopes, and might call forth from Judah's 
 minstrel some strain of prediction which he 
 hoped would find fulfillment in the present 
 prince, but whose realization the inspiring 
 Spirit reserved to a far- distant day. Some- 
 times the song would pass beyond the prompt- 
 ing occasion to an ideal future, and sometimes, 
 without special immediate occasion, it sprang 
 immediately forward to the glories of the 
 Messianic era. Thus strains immediately and 
 exclusively Messianic, and strains secondarily 
 and typically so, would mingle themselves in 
 the Hebrew minstrelsy. It is most interesting 
 to see how the great promise— at first attached 
 generally to the seed of the woman, then 
 narrowed to the line of Abraham — had now, 
 under this prediction of Nathan, become 
 centered in the line of David, Irom whose 
 descendants, even after the roj'alty of Judah 
 was smitten to the dust, it was unwaveringly 
 believed that the Promised One would appear. 
 Eeturning to our first citation from the Sec- 
 ond Psalm, we see how the author of our 
 Epistle could find in it a Messianic signifi- 
 cance. Who was its author and what its 
 
 1 Aiai^opwTcpoi' ira'p avroi^. The Greek construction 1 comparison with or beyond them." The simple con- 
 involves a double comparative: "More excellent in I struction would be, Siai^opioTtpoc toO «ic«i>'iu»' (or ovruf. ) 
 
Ch. I] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 21 
 
 6 And again, when he brinfjeth in the firstbegotten 
 into the world, he saith. And let all the angels of God 
 worship him. 
 
 6 1 And when he again ^bringeth the firstliorii into 
 3 the world he saith, And let all the angels of Ciod 
 
 7 worship him. And of the angels he saith. 
 
 1 Or, And again when he bringeth in.. 2 Or, thaU have brought in 3 Or. the inhabited earth. 
 
 immediate occasion we do not know. It 
 may have sprung from some liistorioal scene 
 in Jewisli history', or it may liave been, as it 
 most probably was, primarily and directly 
 Messianic. Its author may liave been David ; 
 but I think the lofty tone of its sentiment, 
 and the majestic "thunder roll" of its style, 
 gives probability to Delitzsch's conjecture, 
 which attributes its authorship to the evan- 
 gelical prophet, Isaiah. In any case, the 
 scene of the dramatic lyric, whether primarily 
 or typically Messianic, can, as Messianic, be 
 laid only in the time of his ascension. At 
 his birth was no such combined uprising of 
 his and God's enemies ; at his Second Coming 
 all his foes have been long since put under his 
 feet. The New Testament actually applies it 
 to this period. Hence, in '^to-day have I 
 
 •egotteii thee,^' "to-day" is not the 'to-day' 
 of eternity; the begetting is not spoken of 
 the Son's eternal generation, or of his essen- 
 
 ial and eternal filial relation to the Father; 
 but of that exaltation of Jesus at God's right 
 hand, and investing of him with universal 
 sovereignty, which Paul calls (Rom. i:*) "con- 
 stituting him Son of God in power." In his 
 resurrection and ascension (they are virtually 
 one), the rage and hopes of his enemies had 
 been baffled, and his utmost pretensions to 
 divine Sonship had been completely vindi- 
 cated. He came into earth the "Son of 
 man"; he re-ascended to heaven the declared 
 Son of God. 
 
 But his superiority to the angels is to be 
 further vindicated. In his incarnate life his 
 glory was veiled, and he appears lower than 
 the angels. Their ministry to him looks like 
 a ministry of compa.«sion, rather than of ser- 
 vice. And now his exaltation above them, 
 though real and transcendent, is outside the 
 sphere of his humiliation, and beyond the 
 limits of the inhabited universe. He is to 
 come again in circumstances which will dis- 
 play the relative position of Son and angels 
 within our visible heavens, and in the sphere 
 of his former humiliation. The author, there- 
 fore, adds: 
 
 6. And again, when he brin$;eth in 
 (he firstbegotten into the world, etc. ; 
 
 we may render, And when he shaii conduct 
 back again into the iiihabited world the 
 firstborn., he saith (proleptic for he will say). 
 And let all the angels of God worship 
 him. This verse completes the picture of 
 Christ's exaltation by pointing forward to 
 the glory of his Second Coming, when his 
 superiority to the angels will be signally dis- 
 played ; and forms a latent contrast to the 
 humiliation of his first appearance. His first 
 coming was in lowliness, and placed him be- 
 low the angels. His resurrection and ascen- 
 sion exalted him, indeed, to transcendent 
 glory, but it was extra-mundane, and had no 
 earthly witnesses. His next coming, the author 
 exultingly adds, in answer to the lurking ob- 
 jection drawn from that former humiliation, 
 will be after a different fashion. It will be 
 with a retinue of adoring angels, who will 
 hasten to anticipate the decree, 'And let all 
 the angels of God worship him.' It has been 
 objected that if this verse be understood of 
 Christ's Second Coming, there must have im- 
 mediately preceded a reference to his first 
 entrance, or incarnation. But of this there is 
 no necessity. The first coming was of so recent 
 occurrence that it may well be assumed to 
 have been in every one's mind, as the lurking 
 background to the present contrast. The pas- 
 sage admits no other reference, and in this 
 connection is strikingly pertinent. As to the 
 words, the position of ' again ' {iTakiv) is unfortu- 
 nate in the Common Version, making the 
 clause appear a second quotation ("And again, 
 when he bringeth in," etc.), thus throwing 
 great obscurity over the passage and iraking 
 its reference utterly uncertain, so that Prof. 
 Stuart and others would have had excuse for 
 supposing it to refer to some unnamed event 
 in Hebrew history. But the original leaves 
 no ground of doubt; the 'again' belongs to 
 the verb and points to a second introduction, 
 a bringing back of the Son into a realm he 
 had formerly visited. The verb "conduct 
 into," "introduce" («<ray€ti') refers probably 
 to God's introducing the Son into the inherit^ 
 ance that had been settled upon him. and to 
 which he is brought back, his enemies sub- 
 dued, to take formal possession. The term 
 
22 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 7 And of the angels he saith, Who raaketb his angels 
 spirits, and his uiinisters a flame of fire. 
 
 Who niaketh his angels winds, 
 And his ministers a flame of fire: 
 
 'firstbegotten ' {or firstborn, ttpuitotokov) is an 
 elegant periphrasis for Son, but used with 
 special appropriateness to liis present histori- 
 cal relation. As the Father's eternal Son, 
 dwelling in his bosom (John i: is), he was the 
 "only begotten" (fiot-oytv^s) ; as the firstborn 
 from the dead, the "first fruits of them that 
 sleep"; the "firstborn among many bretli- 
 ren" (Rom. 8:29)'. he was the firstborn, tlie 
 term implying heirship of all things, and pre- 
 eminence over the wliole creation. (Coi. i:i5.) 
 He descended from heaven as the only be- 
 gotten of the Father, he reascended to it as 
 the firstborn, installed, in the world of re- 
 demption, chief of the creation of God. The 
 world (oLKov ixivri, inhabited earth or region) 
 has probably special reference here to tlie in- 
 habited portion of the universe in contrast 
 with that extra-mundane realm into which 
 he passed when he ascended "above all hea- 
 vens" to the right hand of God. His return, 
 led back by the Father, with a retinue of 
 worshiping angels, will be to our inhabited 
 world. The citation, 'And let all the angels 
 of God worship him,' is either from Ps. 97 : 7, 
 " And let all his angels worship him " (so the 
 Septuagir.t; Hebrew, "Worship him all ye 
 Gods"); or from the song of Moses (oeut. 32:43), 
 where we have in the Vatican text of the Sep- 
 tuagint, and in that copy of the song which is 
 found affixed to the Psalter in the Codex 
 Alexandrinus, the one generally employed 
 by our author, the precise language of our 
 passage, "Rejoice, ye nations, with him, and 
 let all the angels of God worship him."' 
 From this the citation is probably taken, the 
 Septuagint translators having doubtless found 
 the words in their copy of the Hebrew text, 
 although they have disappeared from ours. 
 
 There may seem a difficulty in the applica- 
 tion of this passage to Christ, inasmuch as the 
 song of Moses has no declared reference to 
 the times of the Messiah. But Moses himself 
 was a tj'pe of Christ. As a prophet, he wrote 
 and spoke of him (Luke 21:27; John 5: 46), and in 
 fcuch passages as this song contains would such 
 references be naturally found. In the early 
 part of the song, Moses speaks of the corrup- 
 tion and apostasy of the people of God, then 
 of their punishment and restoration, when 
 God "will repent himself for his servant.?," 
 
 and visit judgment on these enemies. And 
 in view of this he calis on the heavens to re- 
 joice, and the angels of God to worship him. 
 But who is to do all this but he who shall sit 
 on David's throne and give to his royal line 
 its everlasting succession? And when shall 
 this be, but when he comes in the consum- 
 mated majesty of his kingdom? Rightly, 
 therefore, has our author judged the purpose 
 of the inspiring Spirit in finding this applica- 
 tion of the passage; and looking at the whole 
 scope of the Old Testament no o;her interpre- 
 tation is legitimate. Unless such intimations 
 of the Messiah are found flashing out along 
 the Old Testament pages, both the Old Testa- 
 ment and the New become an unsolvable 
 enigma. One further remark against the ap- 
 plying of this passage to the time of the incar- 
 nation. The angels did indeed then worship 
 the lowly Messiah, always and everywhere, 
 as an infant, as transfigured, on the cross. 
 But it was no time to challenge their worship 
 of him. His place, his work, was one of 
 humiliation, and their manifested worship 
 was occasional and sporadic. They doubtless 
 met him behind the cloud which bore him 
 back from earth, with all the blazing chivalry 
 of heaven ; and with even j-et more resplend- 
 ent pomp they will usher him back when 
 God, his Father, conducts him back into his 
 predestined inheritance. 
 
 7. Continued illustration of the difl^eronce 
 of the two parties, drawn from their respect- 
 ive names. And of (that is, iyi respect, indeed, 
 to) the angels (messengers) he saith — that 
 is, God saith in the Scripture, the utterances of 
 Scripture being the utterances of God — Who 
 maketh his angels spirits, etc.; or, his mes- 
 sengers winds, not 'spirits,' as in the Common 
 Version, and even in the margin of the Revised 
 Version, but which is here totally out of place. 
 The angels are brought down, by virtue of 
 their name, to a level with the agencies of na- 
 ture. It would be no disparagement of them 
 to call them 'spirits.' And his ministers a 
 flame of fire. The citation is from Ps.l04 : 4, 
 after the Septuagint, except that the Codex 
 Vaticanus (and probably, originally, also the 
 Codex Alexandrinus; the other reading being 
 apparently a correction from our Epistle) has 
 "flaming fire" (irDp4>A6yox), insteadof a "flame 
 
Ch. I.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 23 
 
 8 But unto the Son he suilh. Thy throne, O God, is for 
 ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre 
 of thy kiugdoui. 
 
 8 but of the Son he sitith, 
 
 Thy thrcine, O (iod, is for ever and ever; 
 And the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of 
 ' thy kingdom. 
 
 I The two olde^jt Greek luauuscripts read hii 
 
 of fire." The Conimon Version of the Psalm 
 reads, "who maUeth his angels spirits, and 
 his ministers a flume of fire." The Hebrew 
 original reads most naturally, according to 
 the scope of the context, " who maketh winds 
 his messengers, and flaming fire (equivalent 
 to lightiiiiKj) his ministers." But the double 
 accusative allows the construction, "who 
 maketh his messengers winds, and his min- 
 isters flaming fire," which is the rendering 
 of the Septuagint, only that by placing the 
 article before "messengers" and "ministers" 
 it shows that it regards them as angels. This 
 rendering is adopted by our author as pre- 
 cisely fitting his purpose, who also writes 
 "flaming fire" for a " flame of fire" (perhaps 
 with reference to Exod. 3 : 2). Delitzsch 
 claims, <in grammatical grounds, that the 
 Septuagint rendering is the only right one, 
 and appeals to the Hebrew conception, which 
 informed all things with life, as likely to min- 
 gle the mention of angels with that of inani- 
 mate agencies. One might either conceive 
 these elemental powers, as, at the breath of 
 God, quickened into living agents to do his 
 will, or the living intelligencies before his 
 throne, drawing on a vesture of wind or fire, 
 resolving themselves into apparent elemental 
 forces, and flying off at the divine mandate 
 to execute his purposes. Not improbably the 
 author conceived the law-giving of Sinai 
 (»: 2) as thus accomplished by God's descend- 
 ing on the mount in storm and lightning, 
 which may have disguised the ministry of 
 angels. Under any rendering the passage fits 
 our author's purpose, which is to draw from 
 the angelic name of messenger the mark of 
 their inferiority, as they share the name with 
 inanimate agencies. Two properties in the 
 angels are probably emphasized — their sub- 
 ordinate and ministerial position, and their 
 changeableness, as exchanging their proper- 
 
 ties with the elements of nature. The word 
 'ministers' (AeiTowpyoi) is not the familiar and 
 lower Greek word for "servant" (as iiajcofos, 
 5oDAo?), but the word used in the classics for 
 one who renders unrequited service (whether 
 voluntary or involuntary^) in the state, and 
 then, in general, marks free and unselfish 
 service. In the Septuagint it is the standing 
 expression for priestly service, and so in our 
 Epistle. The ministry of the angels here 
 conceived, would be rendered in the great 
 temple of the universe. They are a leading 
 part of the grand system of agencies by which 
 God carries forward the administration of the 
 world. 
 
 8. Bull (he saith) of (or, in respect to) the 
 Son. (Not 'unto,' asin theCommou Version, 
 but of, in 7'espect of, which the Greek prepo- 
 sition admits equally well (Luke 12: 41 ; 20:19; Rom. 
 10:21), and SO here the rendering should follow 
 that of ver. 7). He saith here, as above, in 
 Scripture: whether to the Son, or of him, it 
 is not given as the direct utterance of God ; 
 but, given as of equal weight with that direct 
 utterance, it is the author's attestation to the 
 divinity of the Scriptures. (The correlatives, 
 — fteV, &i — often used with classical elegance in 
 this Epistle, imply that the first idea is intro- 
 duced to prepare the way for, and as a sort of 
 foil to, the second, to which it is subordinate. 
 Thus, "Of the angels indeed" (= while of the 
 angels) he uses such language, of the Son he 
 employs the following:* Thy throne, O 
 God, is for ever and ever. The passage is 
 from Ps. 45, apparently an epithalamium, or 
 marriage song, perhaps on the marriage of 
 Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh ; or, 
 rather (as Delitzsch), of Joram with Athalia, 
 sprung, on the mother's side, from the royal 
 family of T^^re. The minstrel, in his con- 
 gratulatory strain, addresses in the first part 
 of the Psalm (ver. 7,8), the bridegroom; in the 
 
 • The concessive, lUv, conceding;, but never emphati- 
 cally alfirniing (except when used in certain cases for 
 tt-riv), has generally for its correlative Se, and the two 
 answer to our indeed, to be sure, but, as <TO<t>o<; >ieV, 
 KOKOi it, wise indeed, but wicked ; d«Xci fieV, ov irocci &i, 
 be wilU itideed, to be sure, but doe* not do. In the New 
 
 Testament its force is often disguised by omission or 
 false translation, and in our Epistle it is rendered by 
 vfrily, trull/, implying an eniphaxi.i, which it never lias. 
 The peculiarity of the particle consists in its lightness, 
 which often makes it too delicate to be expressed in 
 English, except by intonation. 
 
24 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity ; 
 therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with 
 the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 
 
 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated in- 
 iquity ; 
 Therol'ore ^ God, thy (led, hath anointed thee 
 With the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 
 
 1 Or, O God. 
 
 latter part, the bride. The Psalm, however, 
 is essentially Messianic, as the poet addresses 
 to tlie royal bridegroom languasj;e that would 
 be intolerably extravagai.t, e.\cept on the 
 assumption that in him were to be realized 
 the Messianic hopes of the nation. Whether 
 the Psalm was originally suggested by some 
 splendid marriage scene, in which the hope 
 of the people regarding the great promise 
 blazed forth enthusiastically, or, which is not 
 improbable, was originally intended as an 
 ideal picture of the future Deliverer in his 
 mystical espousal of the church, in either 
 case it was Messianic — in the latter case, pri- 
 marily ; in the former, secondarily so. Or, 
 rather, in the one case it terntinated but indi- 
 rectly, in the other directly, on that Prince of 
 tlie house of David, whose reign was to absorb 
 and crown the glories of all preceding reigns. 
 If an actual marriage festival called forth the 
 exulting strain, it might easily kindle the hope 
 that now was conie the fulfillment of the 
 promise. If it did not come now, the language 
 did not fall to the ground ; but as dealing with 
 a typical line, every member of which stood 
 in provisional and representative relation to 
 the Messiah, it only passed over, and received 
 from the unfoldings of history its full import 
 and final application. If it be objected that 
 this is creating a hypothesis to meet the facts, 
 I answer that it is the principle which gener- 
 ally controls the prophetic utterances and 
 divine promises of Scripture. In nearly all 
 cases, the recipient of the promise, or the 
 human utterer of the prediction, was nus- 
 taken, or at a loss in regard to the time. 
 Prophets made it a subject of study (i Peter i:u), 
 and apostles, under the clearer light of the 
 New Testament, were not allowed to measure 
 the limits of the future. The Son himself, as 
 a human Seer, knew not the precise day or 
 hour of his Second Coming. 
 
 Messianic, however, either directly or indi- 
 rectly, this Psalm certainly was; and so was 
 interpreted by the rabbis, and as such held 
 its place in the temple worsliip. Apart from 
 this, its language is impious or unmeaning ; for 
 only to the Messiah, under God, could its epi- 
 
 thets be addressed. As Messianic, too, says De- 
 litzsch, it was referred to by the prophets after 
 Jehoshaphat. Isaiah combines the 'mighty,' 
 of ver. 4, and the 'Elohim,' of ver. 6, in the 
 'mighty God,' descriptive of the Anointed 
 One in Isa. 9: G; and at 61 : 3 makes the 
 "servant of Jehovah" bestow the "oil of 
 gladness" (ver. 7) for mourning; and Zech. 
 12 : 8 declares that " the house of David shall 
 be as God, as the angel of the Lord." 
 
 The passage is quoted from the Septiiagint. 
 The original admits either rendering: "Thy 
 throne is a throne of God" (that is, a divine 
 throne) for ever and ever; or, "Thy throne 
 of God " (that is, thy divine throne) is for 
 ever and ever; or, 'Thy throne, O God, is for 
 ever and ever.' The latter Delitzsch declares 
 to be perfectly admissible, and Hengstenl:jerg 
 to be the only one admissible, and sustained 
 by all the early versions. The passage brings 
 out the transcendently exalted nature of the 
 Messiah, as against the servile relation of the 
 angels, and his immutable and eternal being, 
 as against their changeableness. 
 
 A sceptre of righteousness (Greek, "the 
 sceptre of rectitude," evevTia, strair/htness, 
 Tightness, uprightness ; not 'righteousness' 
 (SiKaioavvii). The word is found only here in 
 the New Testament, but repeatedly in the 
 Septuagint. See Ps. 9 : 8 ; 67 : 4, etc. Equity, 
 rectitude was to be the characteristic of the 
 Messiah's kingdom, which might be partially, 
 though never perfectly, exhibited by his theo- 
 cratic representative. 
 
 9. Thou hast loved righteousness and 
 hated iniquity. The Hebrew original is 
 rendered in the Common Version "lovest" 
 and "hatest." The Septuagint gave "didst 
 love" and "didst hate," which is adopted by 
 our author, but to which "hast loved" and 
 " hast hated " sufficiently correspond. In 
 the writer's conception, the time is the Mes- 
 siah's earthly life. "Iniquity" {ivoniay, law- 
 lessness) is the reading of the Codex Vati- 
 canus and most lesser MSS ; the Sinaitic and 
 Alexandrian Codices read "unrighteousness"' 
 (aSiKiW). Therefore God . . . thy God. So 
 also the Revised Version. But many scholars 
 
Ch. I.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 25 
 
 \0 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the I 10 And, 
 foundationof the earth; and the heavens are the works Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the 
 
 of thine hands. foundation of the carlh, 
 
 I And the heavens are the works of thy hands : 
 
 prefer to render, as certainly the Greek orig- 
 inal allows, "therefore, O God, thy God hath 
 anointed thee," etc., which seems to me the 
 most natural construction, the "O God" 
 (o fled?) corresponding to the same word in ver. 
 8, and the two identical words, in their two- 
 fold application, being brought into forcible 
 juxtaposition. We certainly need not shrink, 
 in either passage, from rendering "O God" 
 on account of the thought. The author of 
 our Epistle certainly takes the Psalm as essen- 
 tially, probably as immediately Messianic, and 
 thus as ascribing to the Anointed One the attri- 
 butes of Deity. Hath anointed thee with 
 the oil of gladness. Many good inter- 
 preters (as Bleek, Ebrard, Alford, Liine- 
 mann), understand this as the figurative 
 anointing of Jesus, after his accomplished 
 earthly career, as Heavenly King, and thus, 
 of his exaltation above the angels; others (as 
 M()ll,:Kurtz), laying the stress chiefly on the 
 gladness, sink the figure of the anointing, and 
 make it denote simply the pourmg out upon 
 him of an overwhelming fullness of blessing. 
 The expression, 'oil of gladness' (or, exulta- 
 tion, rejoicing ; the original word is stronger 
 than the customary Greek word for joy or 
 gladness), seems to me decidedly to favor the 
 latter interpretation. Above thy fellows. 
 Who are these 'fellows' (fie'roxot), shai'ers, 
 participators? With Bleek, Liinemann, etc., 
 angels — but angels were never fellows of 
 Christ, either in his pre-existent, or incarnate, 
 or post-incarnate condition ; with Bengel, all 
 men, as partakers of his flesh and blood, shar- 
 ers of his humanity; with Delitzsch, Ebrard, 
 Moll, kings and princes in general, with whom 
 Christ shares the kingly office, while exalted 
 immeasurably above them. " I will make him 
 my firstborn, higher than the kings of the 
 earth." (ps.89:27.) "The first-begotten of the 
 dead, and the Prince of the kings of the 
 earth." (Rev. i:5) Others, still, make them 
 Christians, Christ's human brethren, sharers 
 at once of his human nature, and of his 
 heavenly anointing and divine Sonship; he, 
 as firstborn among many brethren, being pre- 
 eminent among them. The reference of the 
 Hebrew bard would seem, most naturally, to be 
 to the monarch's/e/^ow princes. Perhaps our 
 
 author's conception did not trace it minutely 
 — he is simply quoting; yet chapter 2 might 
 warrant our transferring the 'fellows' to his 
 Christian brethren. 
 
 10. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning 
 hast laid the foundation of the earth. 
 The 'and' stands elliptically for and this too, 
 as introducing a new quotation, descriptive of 
 the majesty of the Son (ps. iw : 26-28), calling 
 him "Lord" («">«, the Septuagint and New 
 Testament equivalent of Jehovah), attribut- 
 ing to him the work of creation and affirming 
 his perpetual abiding, while all created things 
 perish. The sentiment creates no difficulty, 
 for such is the uniform New Testament repre- 
 sentation of Christ. Yet by the term " Lord " 
 (xvpte), found in the Septuagint, but wanting 
 in the Hebrew, some have supposed the author 
 to have been misled to the applying of the 
 language to the Messiah. Yet such a suppo- 
 sition is unnecessary. The author certainly 
 makes no indiscriminating application of Old 
 Testament passages to the Messiah ; and while 
 we need not hold that the Old Testament 
 Scripture in speaking of God uniformly in- 
 cludes the Son, yet where the language, as 
 here, points clearly to events which can only 
 have their complete fulfillment, or indeed 
 any proper fulfillment, through the Messiah, 
 the Messianic reference is certainly justified. 
 The Psalm from which this is taken belongs 
 to a late period of the exile, and deplores, 
 along with the writer's personal sorrows, the 
 desolations of Zion, and the sufferings of his 
 people. Yet her future glory breaks upon 
 him, and the appeal for the certainty of this 
 is to him who made the earth and heavens, 
 and who, while they peri.sh, will himself re- 
 main unchangeable, and whose unchange- 
 ableness guarantees the permanent abiding of 
 his people. But this has its accomplishment 
 only in Christ. The Being who as God's om- 
 nipotent Word made the heavens, whose breath 
 will sweep them away (John 1 :S; Rev. 20:n;, and 
 who, amidst universal change, is himself un- 
 changeable, is none other than Clirist. The 
 whole Psalm, then, is profoundly Messianic. 
 However dimly the Old Testament seer may 
 have recognized its deeper import, the New 
 Testament seer, in the triple light of proph- 
 
26 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. I. 
 
 11 Tliey shall perish, but thou remainest: and they 
 all shall wax old as doth a garment; 
 
 li And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they 
 shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years 
 shall not fail. 
 
 la But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit 
 on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
 stool ? 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 They shall perish ; but thou continuest: 
 And t hey all shall wax old as dot h a garment ; 
 And as a mantle shalt thou roll them up, 
 As a garment, and they shall be changed: 
 But thou art the same. 
 And thy years shall not fail. 
 13 But of which of the angels hath he said at any time, 
 Sit thou on luy right hand, 
 Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy 
 feet? 
 
 ecy, history, and inspiration, clearly discerns 
 it, and applies to the Son the language which, 
 according to the whole tenor of the New Tes- 
 tament, belongs strictly to him, and to him 
 alone. 
 
 11. They (the heavens with emphasis, but 
 including doubtless the earth) shall perish, 
 not of course by annihilation, but by change 
 in their mode of existence. But thou re- 
 mainest — continuest through all changes and 
 convulsions. And they all shall wax old 
 as doth a §:arment. Spread out {un.M-.Ti) as 
 a curtain, they will grow old and be worn 
 out. 
 
 12. And as a vesture (anything thrown 
 about one (n-fpi/SdAaior), as a vail, a mantle) 
 shalt thou fold them up' — as a mantle is 
 rolled up and laid aside. And they shall be 
 changed — poetic Hebrew parallelism. But 
 thou art the same — unchanging. (i3:8.) 
 And thy years shall not fail— again poetic 
 parallelism, the thought being essentially the 
 same as in the preceding clause. 
 
 13. But to which (rather, and in respect to 
 which) of the angels. In respect to, or of, 
 should here, as in ver. 8, take the place of 
 'to,' and and {S4, continuative) is here better 
 than 'but.'^ Hath he said at any time 
 (it is flpriKtv, perfect, hath said, not finev, did 
 say, as in ver. 5). The perfect exhibits the 
 saying as standing before hs in its continuous 
 result. Sit on my right hand, until I make 
 thine enemies thy footstool. From Ps. 
 110 : 1, a psalm perhaps doubtful, whether 
 primarily or typically Messianic. It may 
 possibly have originated in some historical 
 incident, as some victory of David (or one of 
 his successors) over his enemies, which had 
 established anew his throne upon Mount Zion. 
 Under the influence of such a triumph there 
 is opened to David a vision of the higher ex- 
 altation, at once royal and priestly, of his Son 
 
 and Lord. And if it started as typical, it 
 passes over into a directly Messianic charac- 
 ter. This is attested by the nature of the 
 Psalm itself, as (1) the Theocratic King, rul- 
 ing on Mount Zion, might be properly said to 
 be enthroned beside Jehovah, but scarcely at 
 his right hand, which implies transcendent 
 honor (see ver. 3); and (2) the permanent 
 priestly functions of Melchisedek could be 
 ascribed neither to David, nor to any of his 
 successors. And again, (3) our Lord himself 
 (Matt. 22:42.15) makcs it a direct address by Da- 
 vid to his Son and Lord. The words, "in 
 Spirit call him" add weight to the interpreta- 
 tion (as showing very clearly how our Lord 
 regarded it), and are probably suggested by 
 the Hebrew word of the Psalm (D>5J), which 
 puts it into the categor3'^ of a prophecy. (See 
 Acts 2:34, 35.) The military tone of the 
 Psalm may be the echo of the recent signal 
 victory, and is in harmony with many repre- 
 sentations of the Messiah. Compare Ps. 2:9; 
 45 : 3-5 ; Eev. 6:2. ' On ' {out of—ix, equiva- 
 lent to close upon) * my right hand,' which is 
 always the side of honor. 'Until I make' (or, 
 shall have made) thine enemies thy foootstool, 
 referring to the Oriental custom of putting 
 the foot on the neck of conquered enemies, 
 (josii. 10:24; 1 Kings 5:17.) Looking, then, at the 
 extraordinary' language of this Psalm itself, 
 at the almost una.nimous interpretation of the 
 Synagogue, certainly in New Testament 
 times, and the probable references to it in the 
 later prophets (as Dan. 7:13; Jer. 23:5; 
 Zech. 6 : 12, 13), we are authorized in break- 
 ing away, in our interpretation, from all local 
 and temporal limitations, and referring the 
 Psalm, in its origin under the inspiring Spirit, 
 directly to Christ. Indeed, I doubt if, with 
 the exception possibly of the Second, there is 
 another Psalm in the whole collection so 
 purely Messianic. As such, it declares his 
 
 iSo the Sinaitic and the Alexandrian Codices. The 
 Vatican Codex reads aAAafcit, shalt change, after the 
 Hebrew original. 
 
 *Ae' almost as frequently admits of the rendering 
 
 'and 'as 'but,' the slight contrast! ve force being too 
 weak to beexpressed in Engli.sh. The Revised Version, 
 I think, is occasionally unfortunate in preferring ' but ' 
 to ' and.' 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 27 
 
 14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to | 14 Are they not all ministering spirits 
 iiuister for ihem who shall be heirs of salvation? do service for the sake of tUem who 
 
 salvation? 
 
 , sent forth to 
 lio shull inlierit 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THEREFORE we ought to give the more earnest heed 
 to the things which we have heard, lest at any time 
 we should let t/ttin slip. 
 
 1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to 
 the things that were heard, lest hai)ly we drift away 
 
 united kingly and priestly character, the re- 
 sistless march of his empire, and, by implica- 
 tion, as sharing tlie throne of Jehovah, his 
 supreme divinity. With his eternal kingship 
 at the right hand of God, we find also united 
 his eternal priesthood after the order of Mel- 
 chisedek. The priestly dignity finds its rest 
 and support in his eternal being and kingly 
 exaltation. Thus Christ enjoys a prerogative 
 unknown to men (except as represented in 
 him), and utterly foreign to angels. They 
 bow before the throne of Jehovah, encompass 
 it with adoring homage, hasten abroad as the 
 glad messengers of its will, but not the loftiest 
 of them dreams of aspiring to the transcend- 
 ent dignity of a partner of the throne of the 
 Infinite. 
 
 14, The proper functions of angels as mes- 
 sengers, in contrast with the lofty position of 
 the Son. Are they not all. 'AH' (rai-T*?) 
 placed here emphatically in advance — all 
 without exception, even the highest of them. 
 Their verj'^ na^ne pledges them to this. Minis- 
 tering spirits— with reference to ver. 7. But 
 here there is no purpose of disparagement, 
 and the terms are used in their utmost dig- 
 nity. The angels render public and, as it 
 were, priestly service in the divine economy; 
 there is no reference to the heavenly sanct- 
 uary. 'Spirits' — here the angels take their 
 proper designation (the nvfvti.ara are 'spirits,' 
 not ' winds,' as at ver. 7). The emphasis is on 
 'ministering.' Sent forth — present contin- 
 ued participle (an-o<rTcAAdjU€»'a, habitually ^ Sent 
 forth') — to minister, for rendering service 
 (not the elevated word used above, but the 
 ordinary Greek word (SiaKovU) for helpful ser- 
 vice; whether the 'service' here is conceived 
 as rendered also to God, for the benefit of his 
 people (as Delitzsch, Liinemann, Lange), as 
 the structure of the sentence would seem to 
 imply' (they are God's ministers for) ; or goes 
 with the following — thus: service for the sake 
 of (as Kurtz), cannot perhaps be certainly I 
 
 determined. At all events, the subordinate 
 ministry is to God ; the service is for them 
 who shall be heirs, or, for the sake of them 
 that are to inherit salvation. The Scrip- 
 tures abound in records of these angelic min- 
 istrations; the service may assume many 
 forms, but it is primarily for the heirs of spir- 
 itual salvation, not conferred by the angels, 
 but inherited as sons of God and brethren of 
 Christ (2:10,12: Rom. 8:29), and as such minis- 
 tered to, waited upon, by the angels. 
 
 I think we have a right to assume, apart 
 from the question of inspiration, that the Mes- 
 sianic application of the Psalms and other Old 
 Testament passages in this chapter have not 
 been made by our author carelessly and with- 
 out adequate ground. A study of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures in question points, I 
 think, decisively in this direction; and the 
 entire treatment of the Old Testament in this 
 Epistle shows a profound and far-seeing and 
 sagacious study of these older Scriptures ; and 
 if the author of the Epistle was Apollos (to 
 whose authorship the best modern criticism is 
 rapidly converging), the whole Epistle is a 
 striking commentary on the description of 
 him as "mighty in the Scriptures," fully vin- 
 dicating and explaining it. The manner of 
 handling the Scriptures is as remote as is the 
 style from that of the Apostle Paul, while in 
 all fundamental views they are perfectly at 
 one. That Paul was the wider, deeper gen- 
 eral thinker; that our author had been a 
 closer Old Testament student, I see no reason 
 to doubt. 
 
 Ch. 2. (3) Brief exhortation to heed a reve- 
 lation made by so extraordinary a personage. 
 By as much as the Son is superior to the 
 angels by so much greater the peril of disobey- 
 ing his message than theirs. (1-4.) 
 
 1. Therefore (for this reason) we on^ht, 
 or must; yet a logical, not a natural or monil 
 necessity'. The author has through the whole 
 
 1 As serraDts 4io, on account of, for the sake a/, the iia implying the purpose of the service. 
 
28 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 2 For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and 
 every transgression and disobedience received a just 
 recompense of reward : 
 
 3 How siiall we escape, if we neglect so great salva- 
 
 2 from. them. For if the word spoken through angels 
 proved stedfast, and every transgression and disobe- 
 
 3 dience received a just reconii>ense of reward; how 
 shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? 
 
 Epistle a practical end in view, of which he 
 never loses sight, to call back to the Christian 
 faith those who were relapsing to Judaism. 
 To give the more earnest heed to the 
 things which we have heard — literallj', 
 the. things luhich were heard when God spoke 
 to us through his Son.' The gospel revelation 
 is called collectively the things which we 
 have heard as corresponding to the speaking 
 of the Son, in whose speaking are comprised 
 the New Testament revelations. At 12 : 18, 
 et seq., tiie author, changing his representa- 
 tion, brings the spiritual Israel to the foot of 
 the heavenly Zion (as the temporal Israel had 
 come to the earthly Sinai), represents God as 
 now speaking (\a\ovvTa) from heaven, as he 
 then spake on earth ; that earthly 'speaking' 
 was from Sinai. Lest at any time we 
 should let them slip — rather, lest perchance 
 we drift by or away froin them, as a stream 
 flows by, or a vessel drifts by or aside upon a 
 stream. ' Drift by or away from,' not so as to 
 lose the recollection (a meaning too weak for 
 the connection), but so as to fail of the salva- 
 tion which they proffer.^ 
 
 3. For — ground of the exhortation just 
 given — if the word spoken by (through) 
 angels — so immeasurably inferior to the Son 
 — was steadfast, proved abiding. ' The word 
 spoken through angels'; the law given on 
 Sinai, assumed to have been given by the 
 ministry of angels. In the account of the 
 legislation of Sinai in Exodus, there is no 
 mention of angels. But the song of Moses 
 (Deut. .33:2), whcrc God is Said to have come 
 forth with myriads of his holy ones (Septua- 
 gint, "angels"), and Psalm 68: 17, where God 
 appears in Sinai among thousands of angels, 
 might justify the current tradition of the syn- 
 agogue tliat the law was promulgated through 
 angels. So in the New Testament (Acts 7:53) : 
 ye "received the law by the dispensation of 
 angels"; and (Gai. 3:19) ^'^ by being ministered 
 
 through angels.^' To this testimony add our 
 own passage. So Herod, in Josephus ("An- 
 tiquities," XV ; 5. 3): "Having learned the 
 holiest things in our law through angels from 
 God." ^Proved, abiding, valid,^ so that its 
 authority was upheld, and its violation pun- 
 ished. And every transgression and dis- 
 obedience — a descending climax: trans- 
 gression (irapajSao-is), a going beyond, or aside 
 from, a positive overstepping of the law; 
 ' disobedience ' (n-apaicoij), disregard, refusal to 
 hear. The one, false or perverse going; the 
 other, false or perverse hearing; the latter a 
 more subtle, less palpable violation of the 
 law; but both equally punished, alike the 
 acting in violation, and the refusal to give 
 heed to it. Received a just [righteous, right- 
 ful, eVSticov Rom. 3 :8) recompense of reward. 
 Strictly, rendering of revjard. All know how 
 striotlj' the Mosaic legislation was adhered to; 
 its claims were inexorable. 
 
 3. How shall we escape. 'We' em- 
 phatic; who have been taught by one so in- 
 finitely superior. 'Escape,' used absolutelj', 
 as at 12 : 25; 1 Thess. 5 : 3, for escaping the 
 judgment of God and final condemnation. 
 "And thinkest thou, O man?" (Rom. 2:3.) If 
 we neglect (after neglecting) so great 
 salvation. The argument still drawn from 
 the greatness of its author, though including, 
 as shown by its description as salvation, its 
 intrinsic superiority. The words "s© great," 
 as this must be and is; the " so great " does 
 not look forward to the following description. 
 The following clause is added to explicate 
 and enforce the idea. The dillerence is 
 already implied in the words employed to de- 
 note the respective communications. The 
 revelation through angels is marked by the 
 general term 'word'; its special nature is 
 not indicated ; if it had been it must have 
 pointed to wrath. That made through the 
 Son is specifically a salvation. The writer 
 
 1 The Greek aorist (light and flexible in its use) 
 throws back the action to the time when God spoke in 
 bis Son. In this case, as often, the English perfect is 
 not objectionable. 
 
 2 So Clemens Alexandrinus: "To flow aside from, to 
 lose hold of the truth'' (Trapappu^vai T^s aAji9<ias). 
 
 With substantial correctness Theodore of IMopsuestia : 
 " Lest perchance we receive a diversion, a turning aside 
 from the belter things " (/mjiroTe TropaTpoTT-jji' nva aito rStv 
 KpeiTToviDV £ef uj;Ltc0a. Ilesychius ; «'{ oAiaflui/xev, slip, slido 
 away. 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 29 
 
 tion ; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, 
 and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ; 
 
 4 God also bearing Ihein witness, both with signs and 
 ■wonders, and u ith divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy 
 Ghost, according to his own will? 
 
 which having at the first been spoken through the 
 I,ord, was confirmed unto us l)y those who heard; 
 4 God also bearing witness with them, both by signs 
 and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by 'gifts 
 of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. 
 
 I Gr. (attribution: 
 
 thus suggests a double criminality and peril 
 in neglecting the message of the Lord; first, 
 f'rotn the aiigustncss of its source, the Son; 
 second, from its intrinsic nature as a 'salva- 
 tion,' the neglect of which leaves them to the 
 ruin from which it proffers them deliverance. 
 On both grounds the 'how' is equivalent to 
 an emphatic negative. Which at the first 
 began* to be spoken by the Lord. The 
 high prerogative of this salvation is that its 
 original announcement was not through 
 angels, but the Lord (the naine which is 
 above every name). Both the dispensations 
 are ultimately alike from God, but neither 
 from him directly; and their relative excel- 
 lence may be inferred from the dignity of 
 their respective mediators. In giving the law 
 God employed angels, in giving the gospel, 
 his Son; in the one, servants; in the other, 
 the Lord. The beginning, then, is here not the 
 ultimate, but the historical origin of the two 
 dispensations. " The Lord " is here, as often, 
 used absolutely. It is the Septuagint and New 
 Testament equivalent, sometimes of Jehovah, 
 sometimes of Adonai. And was confirmed 
 (transmitted with firm and reliable testimony, 
 placed beyond all doubt) unto (or, for) us — 
 tiie succeeding generations. By them that 
 heard him (or, that heard it, that is, from 
 him). It came to us from immediate»eye and 
 ear witnesses, the personal followers of .Jesus. 
 The writer classes himself with his readers as 
 those who received the gospel at second-hand. 
 This of itself would decide the authorship of 
 the Epistle as non-Pauline. Paul claims uni- 
 fnrmly and positively to " have seen the Lord 
 Jesus Christ," to have received both his com- 
 mission and his doctrine from the revelation 
 of .Jesus Christ (Gai. i : 12; 2:4), and admits no 
 dependence on, or inferiority to, the other 
 Apostles (1 Cor. 15:10; 2Cor. 11 : 5). It is incredible 
 that when opposing Judaising teachers and 
 tendencies, he should so strenuously vindicate 
 his apostolical prerogatives, and here so ut- 
 terly ignore them. We certainly have not 
 
 here the always lofty, though never arrogant, 
 tone of the apnstle to the Gentiles. 
 
 4. But the testimony of these disciples did 
 not stand alone — God also bearing them 
 witness (God along with them bearing added 
 witness). To the testimony of their words he 
 added that of supernatural deeds, wrought 
 through their hands. Both with signs and 
 wonders, and with divers miracles. The 
 words denote the same thing under different 
 points of view; they are 'signs,' or proof s, as 
 confirming the genuineness of the messenger 
 or message; 'wonders,' or portents, as trans- 
 cending tiie ordinary course of nature ; ' mir- 
 acles ' — strictly, acts of power, mighty works, 
 as wrought by divine power. Miracles con- 
 firmed the divine mission of our Lord and the 
 divine origin of the infant church. Powers 
 (iui/o/iieis) is the name of a special charisma 
 (1 cor.i2:28), probably the working of miracles; 
 here the reference is probably to the general 
 workingof miracles by the apostles. (Acts2:43.) 
 And gifts of the Holy Ghost — impartings 
 of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the 
 genitive of the object, not of the subject ; dis- 
 tributions, bestowments of the Holy Spirit. 
 According to his own will — that is, accord- 
 ing to God's will. The Holy Spirit is sent by 
 Christ or the Father, as the fruit of Christ's as- 
 cension (John 16:7,8; Eph. 4:7; Act3 2: 38), " who be- 
 ing by the right hand of God exalted." The 
 Spirit sent of God, with almighty agency, 
 ministered those various gifts, as prophecy, 
 miraculous healings, speaking with tongues. 
 From another point of view, bestowed by 
 the sovereign pleasure of the Spirit, who 
 acts freely, though subordinately. 'Accord- 
 ing to his own will.' They could not be 
 taken at the option of the individual, and 
 were legitimate objects of desire and praj'er 
 (1 Cor. i2-.il; 14: 13); and while God imparted them 
 as he would, doubtless in the church they were 
 bestowed according to special exigencies and 
 peculiar individual endowments. All these 
 are "powers of the world ta come." (« : s ) 
 
 1 ' First beg.an '—literally, fo take a beginning : ap\r)v Kafitlv, not found elsewhere in the New Testament, but in 
 Philo, " Vita Moses," i, 614, E. 
 
30 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 5 For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection 
 the world to come, whereof we speak. 
 
 For not unto angels did he subject 'the world to 
 
 1 Gr. the inhabited earth. 
 
 Thus t'loses this first hortatory passage. Each 
 of tlie three grand argumentative sections of 
 the Epistle (see Analysis) contains such a hor- 
 tatory passage, being successively longer and 
 more cogent, as the argument deepens in 
 intensity. This is naturally the shorter of the 
 ttiree, yet in this is cogently put the peril of 
 disregarding the salvation brought by the 
 Lord, and implied that the readers are in 
 danger of disregarding it. 
 
 (4) Christ, though as Son infinitely superior 
 to the angels, yet was humbled temporarily 
 below them, thaty suffering and dying as 
 man, he might rescue and elevate his htiman 
 brethren, and, as a faithful High Priest, rec- 
 oncile thetn to God. (5-18.) 
 
 5. For unto the angels hath he not 
 (For not unto angels did he) put in subjec- 
 tion the world to come (or, the coming age) 
 whereof we speak (are speaking). The 
 practical passage just closed leads to a new 
 stage in the discussion. It has presented the 
 Son of God as the Son of man, as the Bearer 
 of salvation, first publishing it in his own 
 person, and then carrjnng it forward by di- 
 vinely commissioned and divinely equipped 
 human agents. The world of redemption 
 ojiens upon our view, that 'future world,' 
 which, with all its spiritual powers, its preg- 
 nant hopes, its accomplished salvation, had 
 been the theme of prophecy, and the expecta- 
 tion of Israel. This also has been placed 
 under the government of the Son. He has 
 been exalted as its Supreme Head; but no 
 longer as the absolute Son of God, the Eternal 
 Logos, the Creator and Sustainerof the uni- 
 verse, but as the Son of man, raised, in his 
 human nature, above every name that is 
 named, and crowned with glory and honor. 
 This topic then subserves a double purpose: 
 it illustrates Christ's super-angelic dignity, 
 and it opens the way, by an easy transition, to 
 the fact so offensive to every Jewish mind, of 
 Christ's humiliation and death on the cross. 
 "Why did he who was exalted infinitel3' above 
 the angels appear far below them? It was to 
 restore to man his pristine and normal dignity, 
 to bring universal humanity into new relations 
 to God, and, by an expiatory death, to become 
 qualified to lead unnumbered sons of (Jod to 
 
 glory. Under this view, the course of thought 
 of the following verses will be clear. 'For' 
 refers not (with De Wette) back to 1 : 14, nor 
 (with Delitzsch) does it merely take up and 
 carrj' forward the general thought of the fore- 
 going passage, but (with Moll and Kurtz) 
 enforces the exhortation to give heed to the 
 things which have been heard, and not neglect 
 the Messianic salvation, inasmuch as it is not 
 to angels, but to the Son— not now the Son of 
 God, but the Son of man — that this coming 
 age, this world to be, lias been placed in sub- 
 jection* The Old Testament law was given 
 through angels; the New Testament salvation 
 was brought through Christ. There may, 
 perhaps, be also a reference to the Jewish con- 
 ception that the several departments of the 
 world were under the guardianship of angels; 
 though this was true but of heathen nations 
 and princes (see Deut. 32 : 8, Septuagint; Dan. 
 4 : 13), while the Jews are under immediate 
 divine guidance. But at all events, angels, 
 except as mere ministers, retire from the scene, 
 and nia7i, glorified and ideal in the person of 
 his Representative, fills the foreground of the 
 picture. Most beautifully approjjriate becomes 
 the following citation, which connects Christ's 
 humiliation with his exaltation, and this again 
 with the restoration of humanity to its ideal 
 position: 'Not unto angels did he put in 
 subjection.' Angels placed emphatically in 
 advance, and without the article, to emphasize 
 not the individuals, but the class. ' Put in 
 subjection' might easily be suggested by the 
 just enumerated tokens of power that marked 
 the Messianic era, and also by that coming 
 passage from the Psalms, which the writer 
 already has in his mind, 'The world to come' 
 — the world to be, the future, or coming world ; 
 here, not the ''age to come," but the concrete 
 inhabited (oiicou/neVrji') world (a.iin 1 : 6), the world 
 created good, and laid under the curse of sin 
 and death, and now to be filled with the bless- 
 ings of redemption ; a world already existing in 
 its spiritual agencies, but demanding for its full 
 development of blessedness a new heaven and 
 a new earth. The full gospel salvation, "the 
 city that hath foundations," is through this 
 Epistle (as everywhere with Paul) still in the 
 future. As the "future age," it consists of 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 31 
 
 6 But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is 
 man, Ibat ttioii art mindful of him? or the sun of uian, 
 that thou visitesl him? 
 
 7 Thou niadest hiui a little lower than the angels; 
 thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst 
 set him over the works of thy hands: 
 
 6 come, whereof we spcik. But one hath soiuewhere 
 testihed, saying, 
 
 What is man that Ihou art mindful of him? 
 Or the son of man, that thou visiti'st him? 
 
 7 Thou madest him ' a little lower than the angels; 
 Thou crowneilst him with glory and honour, 
 
 2 And didst set him over the works of thy hands: 
 
 I Or. /or a Utile white lower 'J Many authorities oiiiit And didat 
 
 the brief ante-resurrcction period and the 
 infinite beyond; as tiie 'coming world,' it 
 consi.sts of the thi'eshold of the temple and 
 the infinite temple. 'Whereof we are speak- 
 ing' — referring, probably, not to tlie entire 
 scope of the Epistle, but to this particular 
 section of it. 
 
 6. With the declaration 'not unto the 
 angels,' etc., the author had doubtless in 
 mind, "but unto the Son," or "unto the Son 
 of man," or some such expression. But hav- 
 ing in mind the passage in the Psalm, from 
 which he was to draw his illustration, he over- 
 les'.ps the intermediate step, and lets the cita- 
 tion, which virtually involves the contrasted 
 statement, take the place of the statement it- 
 self.' But one in a certain place (some- 
 where) testified, etc. 'But' (Se) is here 
 slightly adversative, as introducing over 
 against the negative statement that it is not 
 angels to whom the world of salvation was 
 subjected, the counter and positive doctrine 
 that it is mcai, and especially as idealized 
 and represented in the Son of man, the 
 Messiah. The citation is from Ps. 8 : 4-6. 
 The words 'some one,' 'somewhere,' do not 
 imply ignorance or doubt of the authorship 
 or locality of the passage. The accuracy of 
 the citation shows that it is not from mem- 
 oi'y, and a like 'somewhere' occurs at 4:4, 
 concerning a passage regarding which there 
 could be no doubt. The use of the words is 
 purely rhetorical. The half mysterious mode 
 of citation lends a certain dignity and ele- 
 gance to the style, and while withholding the 
 name of the author, leaves the attention fixed 
 on the passage.^ Liinemann notices a similar 
 reticence in Philo. 
 The passage here introduced is felicitously 
 
 selected as pointing to the ideal character and 
 natural destination of humanity, that it may 
 be therein shown howtiieseare realized in the 
 glorified Jesus, and that, too, on behalf of 
 humanity, and thus be explained the enigma 
 of his humiliation. 
 
 What is man, that thou art mindful of 
 him? or the Son of man, that thou vis« 
 itest him ? Better, perhaps, a 7nan and a 
 Son of man. The second clause is a mere 
 poetical pai'alle! of the fii'st. The theme of 
 the Psalm (8) is the dignity of humanity and 
 its exaltation above all inanimate nature on 
 the gi'ound of the utterance in Gen. 1 : 26, 28, 
 of man's creation in the image of God, and his 
 investiture with the lordship of this lower 
 ci'eation. The introduction of the Psalm 
 points, as against the glory and magnificence 
 of the heavens, to that littleness and apparent 
 insignificance of man, which only makes more 
 wonderful his moral elevation, and his rule 
 over this wide creation. s Whether our author 
 introduces tlie Psalm primarily in its earthly 
 and natural charat ter (as Delitzscli, Moll), or 
 as immediately Messianic (as Bleek, Liine- 
 mann, Kui-tz), I shall consider by-and-by. 
 But having directed attention to man's little- 
 ness, he proceeds to declare his loftiness, 
 
 7. Thou madest him a little lower than 
 the angels. The author quotes fi'om the 
 Se])tuagint: ^^ Thou didst lower him some little 
 below (in comparison with) angels." The 
 Hebrew original reads: "Thou didst lower 
 him some little below Elohim," which with- 
 out the ai-ticle may very properly be rendered 
 angels (instead of God), as the Septuagint 
 and the Targumists and modern scholars; 
 and the more appi-opriatcly, says Kurtz, as 
 "the Psalmist's reference is not so much to 
 
 J Under the handling of Paul such a procedure would 
 have marked the fiery energy of his style; under that 
 of our author it marks deliberate and elegant art, as 
 also the some one and somewhere that introduce the quo- 
 tation. 
 
 *I doubt, indeed, if the ' somewhere,' both here and 
 at 4 : 4, should not rather be " perhaiJs," " I suppose," 
 not as implying any doubt more than above^ but as a 
 
 particle of modesty, a mere, mode of pntlinf) the case. 
 That T-oi; is frequently so used, both in 6>? nov and alone, 
 I need not argue. 
 
 3 1 think it worth our reflection that when we look at 
 the mental and moral positions of man in the universe, 
 every enlargement by science of the realm of nature 
 only lends in our conception added majesty to man's. 
 
32 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his 
 feet. For in that he i)ut all in subjection under hiiu, he 
 lelt nothing thai is not put under hiui. But now we see 
 not yet all things put under him. 
 
 Thou didst i)ut all-things in subjection under bis 
 feet. 
 For in that he sul)jected all things unto bin), be left 
 nothing that is not subject to hiiu. But now we see 
 
 the personality as to tlie si>iritual nature of 
 angels which they share with God." Tiie 
 "little lower" is here oi degree: in the subse- 
 quent application it becoines a "little lower" 
 of time. Thou crownedst him with glory 
 and honour — referring to man's original con- 
 stitution; 'glory' — his intrinsic brightness, 
 the image of the divine, and but little inferior 
 to the angelic; ' honour' — his elevation above 
 the earth and its creatures in dignity and 
 authority. The two passages illustrate each 
 other. And didst set him over the works 
 of thy hands. This passage is found in the 
 Codex yinaiticus, but is wanting in many 
 MSS. It was omitted by our author, as not 
 essential to his purpose. 
 
 8. Thou hast put (or, didst put) all things 
 in subjection under his feet. In the Psalm 
 this clearly refers to the dominion over the 
 earth with which man was invested at his cre- 
 ation. Tiiat this is man's ideal position is evi- 
 dent enough even amidst all the wrecking of his 
 nature, and darkening of his glory, which has 
 been made by sin. For in that he put all in 
 subjection under him, literally, /or in sub- 
 jecting to him all things. He left nothing 
 that is not i)ut under him — unsubjected to 
 him. The writer has finished his quotation, and 
 proceeds to a logical deduction. That the j)ass- 
 age was commonly used as ]\Iessianic may be 
 inferred from a like mode of reasoning from 
 it (though for a different end) in 1 Cor. 15 : 27. 
 " But when he saitii," etc. The author here, 
 however, draws simjily the natural inference 
 from the language ; he merely explicates wliat 
 it contains by implication. It has declared 
 that God has subjected to man all things (the 
 'to him' refers, of course, to 'man'). The 
 expression, says the author, is absolute; it im- 
 plies an unlimited and universal subjection. 
 The writer is not stating what God did, but 
 what the language implies that he did, and 
 which yet we do not see verified in the case of 
 actual humanity. But now we see not yet 
 all things put under him. The 'now' and 
 
 the ' not yet' are generally taken as temporal, 
 not logical. I prefer to regard them, especiallj' 
 the 'now' {viv), as logical, and would give to 
 the 'under him' {avT<Z) the force of its em- 
 phatic position. I would render: "But as it 
 is, as the case stands, we do not at all see, we 
 by no means see that to him all things have 
 been subjected." Tiiat they will bear this 
 rendering (especially the vvv Si) just as easily 
 as the other, both by classical and New 
 Testament usage, I need not stop to argue.i 
 That this is the sense here, at least of 'now' 
 (fwK), I feel certain. The author is reason- 
 ing. A certain statement is made in rela- 
 tion to man which is not actualized in the 
 condition of humanity, and which therefore is 
 transferred to a Representative of that hu- 
 manity in whom it is. The 'but now' and ' not 
 yet' then as particles of time are here out of 
 place ; as ftir as they go they weaken the argu- 
 ment, for it becomes a matter of time: if by- 
 and-b^' the realization may occur, the author 
 need not look elsewhere for its true original. 
 But in fact the picture is not ful filled in man, 
 and has no prospect of being, until a heavenly 
 man appears on tlie scene, in whose exaltation 
 he finds a precursor and pledge of the future 
 exaltation of humanity. But that is not here 
 in question, but simply the discrepancy be- 
 tween the portraiture and tlie supposed origi- 
 nal, whence he argues to a true original of the 
 portraiture itself. The temporal force of the 
 particles^ therefore is less relevant, and mars 
 the purity of the reasoning. The declaration 
 then is that the Psalmist's ascription of a uni- 
 versal ascendancy to man is not borne out by 
 man's actual condition. He is a slave to a 
 blighted and barren earth, to disordered ele- 
 ments, to savage beasts, and to pain, sickness, 
 and death. Those who (as Bleek, Lunemann, 
 Kurtz) apply the qriotation directly to Christ 
 take, of course, these particles temporally, 
 and with a very modified interpretation of the 
 jiassage. They distinguish expressly between 
 being "crowned with glory and honour,'' and 
 
 • The ouTTco, properly not at all, in no way, is indeed, in 
 its ordinary use, not yet, and has chiefly, though not 
 exclusively, in poetry, the meaning, " by no means." 
 
 * The Lexicons scarcely do justice to ovitia ; yet its 
 
 logical force is far less to be assumed ; (be coniljinatiou 
 vvv Se is more common in the New Testament in its 
 logical than in its temporal sense (^yuv S4 and yvvX Si"), 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 33 
 
 9 But we see Jesus, who was raade a little lower than 
 the angels for the sutlering of death, erowiietl with glory 
 and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste 
 death for every man. 
 
 9 not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold 
 him who hath been made 'a little lower than the 
 angels, even Jesus, because of the sutlering of death 
 crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace 
 
 1 Or, for a little while lower. 
 
 having "all in subjection under him." The 
 former Christ has already received ; the latter 
 is in the future, awaiting him at the final 
 judgment, when all his enemies shall have 
 been put under him. But to this interpreta- 
 tion there are strong objections. (1) We can 
 scarcely doubt that the phrases, "crowned 
 with glory and honour'' and having "all 
 things in subjection under him," are used as 
 substantial equivalents, the one implying all 
 that is expressed by the other. (2) Witli this 
 distinction the second thought should not come 
 in here at all (as tlie purpose is to dechire his 
 present exaltation), unless perhaps as a mere 
 subordinate proposition, with a particle (mcV), 
 signifying, indeed, to be sure, simply to pave 
 the way for the etriphatic affirmative state- 
 ment: "But now we do not as yet indeed 
 (oviTui /xec) see all things put under him; but 
 wcdo see him crowned with glory and honor." 
 (.3) Tiie formal and elaborate manner in which 
 Jesus is introduced at ver. 9, in manifest con- 
 trast with the previously mentioned person- 
 age, shows unmistakably that theii first the 
 author bends upon him the conclusions of the 
 preceding citation. In short, the view which 
 makes Jesus at once the object of the entire 
 citation destroys its coherence of thought and 
 the clearness of the argumentation, makes in- 
 explicable the formal opening of ver. 9, and 
 entangles inextricably the whole passage. In 
 contrast with the fact that all things are not 
 yet, or, not at all, subjected to man, the author 
 proceeds. 
 
 9. But we see Jesus, who was made a 
 little lower than the angels — or, more ex- 
 actly. But him loho had been lowered for some 
 Utile below the angels, Jesus, we behold. The 
 author elegantly puts the description before 
 the name as more characteristic — as also else- 
 where, "the Apostle and High Priest of our 
 confession, Jesus" (3:i); as in the Greek, "the 
 Leader and Perfecter of faith, Jesus" (12:2) — 
 and adds, thoughtfully, and, as it were, lov- 
 ingly, for the first time, the earthly human 
 name of him whom he had before styled Son, 
 God, Lord. He here turns the passage to 
 
 Christ, and shows that in him both parts of 
 the description are substantially realized, ami 
 that he, therefore, is the true archetype and 
 realization of the Psalmist's picture. Tlie 
 language of the Psalm, then, naturally modi- 
 fies itself (the Holy Spirit recasting his own 
 language) to meet the new exigencies. The 
 " being lowered" is the Lord's own voluntary 
 stoop; the "some little" of degree passes into 
 a "some little" of time (and the more easily, 
 as suggested by Delitzsch, because humanity's 
 own subordination to the angels is rather an 
 accident of its position, than grounded in its 
 essential nature), and the "being crowned 
 with glory," instead of being coincident in 
 time with the humiliation, is at once its suc- 
 cessor and its reward. With great skill has 
 the writer, in addressing Hebrews, to wliom 
 the incarnation was naturally an ofl^ense, 
 united in one the ideal condition of man with 
 the humiliation of the Son of man, as he im- 
 mediately after makes his suffering of death 
 the condition of his glorification. For the 
 suffering of death, crowned with glory 
 and honour. Rather, On account of his suf- 
 fering of death, crowned with glory and 
 honor. By this exacter rendering, 'the suf- 
 fering of death ' paves the way for his glori- 
 fication, instead of being represented as the 
 purpose of his humiliation ;' according, also, 
 to the more usual New Testament mode of 
 representation. Here, where the author first 
 expressly mentions the suffering of death, he 
 would aflfect most favorably his Hebrew breth- 
 ren by introducing it, not as the object of the 
 humiliation, but as the condition of the exal- 
 tation. Below, when he has familiarized his 
 readers with the idea and the purpose of his 
 death, he may speak of iiis assuming flesh and 
 blood in order to die, and by dying rescue 
 humanity. But here it accords with the gen- 
 eral careful strain of the Epistle, to put the 
 first reference to the death in the most favor- 
 able light. ' Crowned with glory and honour' 
 is here the clear equivalent of the having 'all 
 things subjected to him,' with which it is asso- 
 ciated in ver. 7, 8. It refers to Chri.«t's exal- 
 
 '^The purpose would have been more naturally expressed by ivfKa toO naBflv, than by fiia to va.8tlv, or naSri/jia. 
 
 C 
 
34- 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Cii. II. 
 
 tation after his resurrection, wiien God raised 
 him above tlie rage of his enemies, anointed 
 him eternal King and Priest, dechired him 
 his Son in power, and gave him all power in 
 heaven and earth. The author, then, has 
 reached the proof of the thesis, virtually in- 
 volved in ver. 5, that not to angels, but to the 
 Son of man, and that, as man's representative 
 and head, God had subjected this new and 
 opening world of redemption. With circuit- 
 ous, but sure step, he has brought round his 
 argument, till he finds in him who has had 
 all things subjected to him, and lias been 
 crowned with glory and ht)nor, the true ideal 
 of the Psalmist's picture, and the One to whom 
 this coining world has been really made sub- 
 ject. But into the web of his reasoning he 
 has skillfully woven the fact of the humili- 
 ation and death of this glorious Personage, 
 and shown the two classes of facts inseparably 
 united. This point being established, and 
 the humiliation and death, as it were, inci- 
 dentally introduced, he passes to them as the 
 principal objects of his picture. The glorified 
 Messiah recedes; the sutlering and dying Jesus, 
 brought forward with exquisite art, comes into 
 the foreground. The whole arrangement he 
 tells us — alike the humiliation and tiie exalta- 
 tion has been made— that he by the grace 
 of God should taste death for every man 
 — or. In order that by the grace of God, on 
 behalf of every -man, he might taste of death. 
 This clause has been very variously con- 
 structed. For "in order that" (ottus) some 
 render 'so that' (equivalent to ware), others, 
 'after' — both erroneously. The particle de- 
 notes piirjjose. But with what is it connected ? 
 The construction with 'made lower' across 
 the intervening clause is extremely harsh; 
 that witli 'crowned' — as the crowning /o^- 
 lows the death — is no less so (he was crowned 
 that he might taste, etc.); unless we eitlier 
 render the verb "that he might have tasted," 
 which is scarcely possible, or throw the em- 
 
 phasis entirely on 'for every man' (iw«p 
 TToi/Tos), and make the clause pregnantly equiv- 
 alent to "that the death which he has tasted 
 might be on behalf of every one" (somewhat 
 analogously to 1 Peter 4 : 6). The passage, so 
 explained, would yield a good sense, but 
 would deprive the words 'taste of death' 
 of their apparently' intended emphasis. Tho- 
 luck, Liinemann and Kurtz make the clause 
 a resumption, and a brief, but pregnant, 
 exponent of the words, "on account of his 
 suffering of death" ; the author returning to 
 it to add, " to wit, that by the grace of God," 
 etc. So, pretty nearly, Delitzsch, who, how- 
 ever, refers it rather to the entire clause, "on 
 account of liis suffering of death, crowned," 
 etc., making it assign the reason why Christ's 
 glorification was made conditional upon his 
 previous suffering of death ; namely, that 
 being thus exalted (passing through death to 
 exaltation) his death might be for the exalta- 
 tion of Inimanity. The clause seems ap))ended 
 rather loosely to the entire verse, to bring out 
 the general idea that the entire arrangement 
 — the humbling and the subsequent exaltation 
 — was for the good of universal humanity. 
 The humiliation was, that he might taste of 
 death ; the exaltation was, that the death might 
 be effectual for every man — the whole was by 
 the grace of God. The emphasis is about 
 equally distributed on the three clauses — the 
 less welcome being reserved to be prepared for 
 by the other two. A humbled and dying 
 Messiah was utterly repugnant to the Jewish 
 notions of their expected Messiah ; its mention 
 is naturally preceded by the glories that are 
 to crown it. First, is the grace of God. The 
 author commends the fact about to be stated 
 by assuring his readers that it was by the gra- 
 cious purpose of God. To such an arrange- 
 ment no Jew could urge objection. This 
 fact must reconcile him to a suffering and 
 dj'ing Messiah, and this clause is.of great sig- 
 nificance. i Secondly, the arrangement is rec- 
 
 1 On tlie other liand, the reading found in many MSS., 
 namely, x""?'* Ocov, but which, in the sixth century, 
 had disappeared entirely, yet has found some recent 
 advocates, is devoid of any intelligible purpose. It has 
 been interpreted with veueo-Soi Bavdrov, " to taste of 
 death apart from God "—that is, purely in his human 
 nature; or, separately from— that is, forsaken of God ; 
 or, with iinip Trairos, " on behalf of every creature ex- 
 cept (iod," analogously to 1 Cor. 15:27. But the 
 exception in the case of God to the otherwise universal 
 
 subjection so appropriate there, would be childish and 
 unmeaning here. Man is here alone referred to; if 
 any exceptions were in order, it would much more 
 naturally be angels. The critics are probably right in 
 supposing the words originally a marginal gloss on the 
 phrase, "left nothing unsubjected to him" (that is, 
 writes the commentator, "except God," x^P" ^eoC), 
 and this, mistaken by a careless copyist for a correclion 
 of the text (xopiTi fltoO) a little below, was put into its 
 place. 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 35 
 
 10 For it became hira, for whom are all things, and 
 by whom ai-c all things, in Ininging many sons unto 
 glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect 
 through sutierings. 
 
 10 of God he should taste death for every mnn. For it 
 became him, for whom are all things, and through 
 whom are all things, ' in bringing many sons unto 
 glory, to make the ^author of their salvation perfect 
 
 1 Or, having brought 2 Or, eapta 
 
 ouunended as being "on behalf of every man." 
 It was in the interest of individual and collect- 
 ive liunianity ; it was to realize the Psalmist's 
 description of the normal condition of hu- 
 manity, and thus fulfill the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. Thus he might become the Saviour 
 of all men, especially of them that should be- 
 lieve. The extension of the 'every' (TravTo?) 
 beyond man— either as neuter, every thing, to 
 the whole creation ; or as masculine, to other 
 beings, as angels — is without the scope of the 
 writer. He is thinking of the effects of re- 
 demption, not on the universe generally, but 
 on the human race; and here, not so much of 
 the realized results in individual salvation, as 
 of the general scope and purpose of Christ's 
 death in bringing man into new relations to 
 God, and in making possible to all, and actual 
 to many, the fulfillment of their original desti- 
 nation. It is the inference from the passage 
 so skillfully chosen as the text, that man, 
 ideally placed above all, is actually so placed 
 through his Kepresentative and Deliverer, 
 Jesus. Thirdly, and emphatically, that which 
 Christ, by the grace of God and for the benefit 
 of all, was to do, was to 'taste death." It is 
 this with which the author is familiarizing his 
 readers in connection with, and as a means of, 
 the exaltation of man. 'Tasting of death ' is 
 a figure familiar enough to poetry generally, 
 and common in the Greek classics, yet here 
 probably of Hebrew origin. It is not designed 
 to indicate a brief iynd transient experiencing 
 of death {as but a mere tasting), but is rather 
 an emphatic and elegant periphrasis. ' Tasting 
 of death,' as referring to a sense which tests 
 things in their inner nature, denotes rather 
 intimacy and depth, than superficiality of 
 experience. 
 
 10-18. These verses expand and vindicate 
 the sentiment of the last clause ; namely, that 
 by God's gracious arrangement Jesus Christ 
 suffered death on behalf of every man. The 
 passage is one of great tenderness, the terms 
 "sons," "brethren,"' "children," indicating 
 the sympathetic compassion which prompted 
 the humiliation of the Redeemer. 
 
 10. This states in fuller form, and as leading 
 to still further expansion, the threefold idea of 
 the last clause, and in the same order: (1) An- 
 swering to the ' by the grace of God,' we have 
 For it became him, for (5td with accusative) 
 whom are all things, and by (through) 
 whom are all things. The first preposition — 
 for, on account of —as naturally applies to the 
 Father as to the Son ; for the second — by, 
 through — we might have expected from, out 
 o/(«f)i or, perhaps, by (vn-d), of ultimate agency, 
 though with an intransitive verb; but the rea- 
 soning can scarcely be mistaken. God is de- 
 scribed by those attributes which vindicate 
 his right to arrange, unchallenged, for advanc- 
 ing the dignity of hiscreatures; and the phrase 
 'it became' — was becoming, befitting — marks 
 an internal reason for the arrangement lying 
 in the very nature of the case and in his rela- 
 tions to man. Answering to the 'for (o» 
 behalf of ) every man,' we have next, bring- 
 ing many sons unto glory. This indicates 
 the largeness of God's purpose regarding the 
 death of Christ, and vindicates his subjection 
 to the suffering which should qualify him for 
 the work. God is everywhere the ultimate 
 agent in bringing sinners to salvation. Jesus 
 Christ becomes the file-leader (ipxivyd?) and 
 Captain of the sacramental host. "God so 
 loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son,"' etc. (John 3: 16.) God savcs and Icads to 
 glory his people, as he made the world, through 
 his Son. ' Many sons ' stands (Delitzsch ) here 
 distinguished from one, and in antithesis to 
 fern. Had God been satisfied (the writer inti- 
 mates) with the eternal glory of the One and 
 Only-begotten, he might have spared that one 
 his path of trial and suffering. But he would 
 have it partaken by ' many sons,' and shrunk 
 not from the steps required for its accomplish- 
 ment. It has been questioned whether the 
 participle "bringing" (ayayovra, leading) refers 
 back to "him" — namely, God, or forward to 
 'Captain,' Leader; whether to the Father, 
 or to Christ; whether the 'leading' is here 
 supreme or subordinate. Both constructions 
 are grammatically possible; but the former is 
 
56 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 easier and more natural.' But applying the 
 participle to God, what is its import? Not 
 that of a contemporaneous and continued act, 
 while leading {ayovra.), nor of purpose, in order 
 to lead (a^ovTa), nor, in leading (iv tw ayeiv). It 
 might be used, perhaps, here in the sense of 
 *' as leading, as one who led " ; and thus be- 
 long equally well to the preceding or following, 
 marking God's leadership, or Christ's leader- 
 ship ; but a construction somewhat harsh 
 and doubtful. The two regular and natural 
 constructions are: (1) '■'■ after leading, having 
 led — to })erfect,^^ etc.; (2) leading, to perfect, 
 equivalent to, to lead and to perfect, making 
 the participle and the infinitive co-ordinate. 
 But in what sense the former? It might de- 
 note that God, after leading many Old Testa- 
 ment saints to glory, must now, at the opening 
 of the New Testament times, perfect, through 
 suffering, their Leader, with the unexpressed 
 thought of his being Captain of a yet mightier 
 host in the future. Considering the relation 
 of this Epistle to the Old Testament, I do not 
 think this view unworthy of consideration. 
 If the Old Testament saints only are men- 
 tioned, the New Testament saints would, of 
 course, be understood as to follow under the 
 new and perfected conditions. Kurtz modi- 
 fies this view, adopting this as the only 
 natural construction. Answering to God 
 as the Author of all things, the 'sons' are 
 God's sons by creation, ar^d thus all men ; and 
 tlie 'bringing to glory' thus far realized is 
 only the bringing them on the way to that 
 glory into whicli none of them had as yet 
 entered, but which awaited them in the Mes- 
 sianic times.2 The second (2) of the views 
 above given virtually co-ordinates the partici- 
 ple with the verb; namely, leading many sons to 
 perfect, etc., equivalent to, to lead many .sons 
 and to perfect. Thus the action expressed by the 
 
 participle, as well as that of the infinitive, falls 
 under the ' it became' (tTrpeirti/). It not merely 
 'became' God, as one leading, or after lead- 
 ing,' etc., to perfect their leader by sufferings, 
 but it became him to do the one as well as the 
 other. The fitness consisted not merely in 
 appointing him to die after he had undertaken 
 a certain work, but also in undertaking the 
 work which would require him to die. It 
 gives more breadth and force to the argument 
 to throw back the fittingness from the adjust- 
 ment of the means to the end, to the enr" 
 itself.* Thus I incline on the whole to rendei 
 as if it were "to bring many sons to glor^', 
 and perfect through sufferings the leader of 
 their salvation." An objection urged against 
 connecting the participle with the following, 
 so as to make Christ the one bringing the 
 many sons to glory is that in that case thej' 
 would be spoken of not as 'sons,' but as 
 'brethren.' This, however, would be by no 
 means certain. In relation to him, indeed, 
 they would be 'brethren,' but in his and their 
 common relation to God they are sons; and it 
 would not be unnatural that he, as Son, should 
 be spoken of as bringing inany sons to glory. 
 To make the captain (or, leader) of their 
 salvation perfect through sufferings. 
 This clause answers finally to 'taste of death' 
 in the preceding verse. It is put euphemisti- 
 cally, for the humiliation and crucifixion of 
 the Son. It is conceived not in the light of a 
 death; it is a perfecting, qualifying both by 
 internal discipline and by outward glorifica- 
 tion. The emphasis is generally said to lie 
 on 'suffering' ; but whether in the author's 
 conception it quite does so may be doubted. 
 He is softening to his readers the doctrine of 
 the cross, exhibiting it in its most fiworable, 
 and at the same time its justest, light. Does 
 he not therefore reserve for final and special 
 
 1 With the second, the predicate participle (ayayovra) 
 may be const rued with the following noun,' the Captain 
 «f their salvation,' as one leading, or having led. With 
 the first, the participle would naturally, indeed, be dya- 
 yoi'Tt, agreeing with aiiTw, or might equally welI,asdyo- 
 yovTa, agree with the accusative subject of reAeiuxrai. 
 
 ^Hofuiann's ingenious conceit that the many sons 
 brought to glory were, Moses to the prophetic dignity, 
 Aaron to the high priesthood, David to the kingship, 
 etc., as the Son was now to be brought to the honor of 
 glorifying humanity, with its strange perversion of the 
 words'glory' (Sofa) and ' salvation ' (acoTijpi'a), needs 
 BO refutation. As ordinarily explained, the pasisage is 
 
 a grand appeal to the benevolence of God on behalf of 
 the unpalatable facts of the incarnation and crucifix- 
 ion, and all that lay between. It is difficult to see what 
 purpose Hofmann's view could subserve. 
 
 3This double use of the aorist participle is among the 
 most familiar in Greek. Thus : " He bade them, opening 
 their treasures, present gifts" (iKiXtvirfv avTov% 8r)aav- 
 povi avot^avTa^ Supa Soiivai), might be either, " He bade 
 them, after opening their treasures, present gifts," or, 
 " He bade them open their treasures and present gifts." 
 The participle might equally well be an incidental prece- 
 dent and condition of the "presenting," or a required 
 condition coming under the eKfXevaev. 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 37 
 
 11 For both he that sanctificth and they who are 
 saiiL-titifd are all of one: for which cause he is not 
 aihaiiJLil to call them Itrelliren, 
 
 lli Saviiifj;, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, 
 iu the liiidst of the church will 1 sing praise uuio thee. 
 
 11 through sufferings. For both he who saiiclitielli and 
 they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause 
 
 12 he is not ashamed to call ihem lirethren, saying, 
 
 1 will declare thy name unlo my brcllireii, 
 In the midst of the 'congregation will 1 sing thy 
 praise. 
 
 einphasi.-? the word ' perfect' (xeAcMlxrat) as con- 
 taining tlie whole fullness of his vindication? 
 thus, not 'to make perfect through sufferings,' 
 but througk sufferings to make perfect. The 
 sufferings are of no value except as they qual- 
 ify their sul>ject for his work; they are sub- 
 ordinate to the perfecting and consuni mating 
 for his work the Leader of salvation. Hence, 
 if it behooves God to lead him through suffer- 
 ings, much more through these sufferings to 
 make him perfect. The word is complex in 
 meaning: the "perfecting" is partly inward, 
 partly outward. It embraces at once the legal 
 fitness which Christs death imparted to him 
 to become a Saviour, the moral fitness which 
 it engendered to become a sj-mpathizing high 
 T)riest, and the glorified state to which it 
 raised hiin ; and as the Leader of his fol- 
 lowers, it was not intrinsic, but relative jterfec- 
 tion — perfection for his followers, that required 
 his death. 'Through .sufferings' is used preg- 
 nantly (5"i), at once as a means and a way. 
 He attained his legal and moral fitness as a 
 Redeemer, through sufferings as a medium ; 
 he passed to his heavenly glory through suf- 
 ferings as a way. The 'salvation' of this 
 clause is the 'glory' of the preceding; it is 
 that side of the glorification which belongs to 
 the 'many sons,' but not to the single Son. 
 He was glorified, but not saved (except in a 
 very qualified sense); they were both saved 
 and glorified, their salvation being completed 
 and crowned by glorification. Till then they 
 are saved but in hope (Kom. 8 : -n) ; saved but ap- 
 proximately. "Now is our salvation nearer 
 than when we believed." In like manner it 
 presently appears as sanctification. 'Captain' 
 or Leader {ipxny^i) \ properly y??-s< in a series, 
 file leader, then Prince, Leader; then,/o?<«(/e?*, 
 originator, which seems its meaning here, as 
 at 5 : 9 — " author (alnos) of eternal salvation." 
 Philo calls Adam the (ipxivw) head and file 
 leader of the race, conducting them on to a 
 common goal with himself. The common 
 Sonship to God of Christ and his people, 
 
 stated above, is now further developed a» 
 ground of the fittingne.ss (eTrpeirei') of God's 
 thus humbling his Son. The following pass- 
 age is not a mere incidental justification of 
 the ' many sons' above, but a link in the chain 
 of argument that establishes the necessity 
 (since thei-efore, eirei oC»', ver. 14) of the incar- 
 nation and sufferings of the Lord. 
 
 11. For both he that sanctitieth and 
 they who are sanctified i are all of (jmo])- 
 erly, from) one — that is, fronj one Father, 
 and this not from one earthly' father, Adam, 
 but from one Heavenly Father, God; and 
 from him, not as universal Father (Creator and 
 Preserver), but as spiritual Father and Regen- 
 erator; "sons of God, which were born not of 
 blood, . . . but from God." See John 1 : 18; 
 Rom. 8 : 14, seq. ; 1 John 3:1. As equivalents 
 of 'leading to glory,' 'glorified,' we have 
 'sanctificth' and 'sanctified,' describing the 
 glorification in its deojjer spiritual character, 
 the moral transformation tliat must precede, 
 and be the essence of, any true outward exal- 
 tation. The verb (iyia^ui, consecrate, make 
 holy) is doubtless chosen with reference to the 
 " make perfect" (n^noiiv), and denotes ritual, 
 and then moral perfection. "For their sakes," 
 says the Saviour, " I sanctity, consecrate, nij-- 
 self." (John 17: 19.) He, already hol\', needed 
 but the formal and ritual sanctification; they, 
 fallen and guilty, needed an internal and spir- 
 itual one. For which cause he is not 
 ashamed to call them brethren. The 
 language delicately intimates both the like- 
 ness and the unlikeness, both the parity 
 and the disparity of the Redeemer and the 
 redeemed. As being from one Father, they 
 are alike sons, yet as infinitely superior to 
 them in original glory and in moral purity, it 
 is a condescensi(m in him to acknowledge the 
 fraternal tie. He might bo 'asiiained to call 
 them brethren,' but is not. He concedes to 
 them at once the name of brethren, and the 
 affection which the name implies. 
 
 12. Saying, I will declare thy name 
 
 ' Oi ayiaiofifvoi, present, not perfect participle, either as denoting those who are in process of sanctification, 
 or the successive subjects of sanctiticatioD. 
 
HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 1:5 Atxl agiiiii, I will i)tit my trust in liini. And I 13 Aiid again, I will put my trust in him. And again, 
 again, Heboid 1 and tlju cblldren' which God hath given Beliold, 1 and the children whom Ood hath given 
 
 me. I 
 
 iiuto my brethren, in the midst of the 
 church (congregation) will I sing praise 
 unto thee. This is from Ps. 22 : 22, a P.salin 
 of David wliicl), with its many striking corre- | 
 si)on(k'iu'C's to the Lord's earthly historj', may I 
 clearly be called typico-proi)lietical ; in whicii j 
 the niihstrel-proi)het, already anointed by 
 Samuel and speedily destined to the throne, 
 yet now jHTsecuted and in flight, pours out his 
 comi)laints over the wretchedness of his con- 
 dition, yet finally rejoices in the assurance of 
 ultimate deliverance, and the universal tri- 
 umi)h of the kingdom of God. It is one of 
 those Psalms which, originally uttered by 
 David, the type of Christ in rosjjcct to his own 
 personal condition, had, in the purpose of the 
 inspiring Spirit, a still higher application to 
 the Son of David, while, in the days of his 
 flesh and a subject of exile and persecution, 
 he with strong crying and tears called uj)on 
 God, and saw in the far-off distance his crown 
 and trium|)h. The anointed, yet temporaril}' 
 e.xiled David stands for the anointed, yet ex- 
 iled Jesus. History unrolls the scroll of 
 prophecy. Christ, as the antitype of Mo.ses, 
 of David, of Solomon, gives the true signifi- 
 cance to their character and history', just as 
 the Christian Church reproduces and illus- 
 trates the fortunes of the Jewish congregation ; 
 and the heavenly Canaan and the New Jeru- 
 salem furnish their "true rest" and "the city 
 which hath foundations" to the people of 
 God. The Messianic character of the Psalm 
 is indicated by our Lord's borrowing its lan- 
 guage on the cross: " My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me?" The citation is 
 made verbally from the Septuagint, with the 
 exchange of (Sirj-yijo-oMai), / xvilL recount, de- 
 clare, for (airayytkii), I will report, will bring 
 back tidings, which, less applicable to David, 
 is beautifully so to Christ, who brings back to 
 liis earthly' brethren a report from his hea- 
 venlj' home. (Joi.na: ii.seq.) The passage ini- 
 plics David's, and through hiin his greater 
 Son's, recognition of Israel, here, of course, 
 the si)iritual Israel, as his brethren. A conde- 
 scetision in the earthly David, it was infinitely 
 more so in the heavenly. 
 
 13. And again, 1 will put my trust in 
 him. And again, Behold I and the chil- 
 
 dren which God hath given me. Still 
 other citations to illustrate the community of 
 Sonship between Christ aiid his i)eople. The 
 previous one was taken from David, who, as ii 
 tj'i)e of Christ, recognizes the brotherly rela- 
 tion between himself and the congregation of 
 Israel ; these two are from Isaiah, also a type 
 of Christ, whose very name means Saviour, 
 and whose clear predictions of the Messiah 
 constitute him the "evangelical prophet." 
 They are taken from Isa. 8 : 17, 18, from a 
 transaction in which Isaiah ai)pears sjiccially 
 in his t^-pical character. Thej' occur contin- 
 uously, but are separated by the author by an 
 'and again,' ])robal)ly because they bring out 
 difiV'rent phases of the Messiah's relation to his 
 brethren and to God. The entire passage is 
 beyond a question t^'pical. Isaiah, fraught 
 with the "si)irit of Jestjs," tj'pifies the Saviour; 
 and his children, given him s))ecially from 
 God, having s^'inbolical significance, betoken 
 partly' present wrath and distress, ])artly the 
 deliverance which will yet break througli the 
 surrounding judgments. 'I will jjut.my tnist 
 in him' for future deliverance, exclaims the 
 llei)resentativeof the Messiah, and, as a i)h'dge 
 of that deliverance, ' Behold I and the chil- 
 dren that God hath given to ine.' The bearing 
 of the first of these citiitions upon the iiuthor's 
 l)uri)o.se consists in the fact that it represents 
 (typically) the Messiah as ]>utting his trust in 
 God, and thus exhibits him and his followers 
 in a common relation of dependence, and 
 therefore virtuallj' on a level. The .'iecond 
 points out this community still more directly. 
 The si)eaker and the childr(;n that God gave 
 to him are jilaced in the same category, and 
 appear as brethren. In the mouth of the 
 jjrophet, the type, the children are Ins chil- 
 dren, given him by G(jd. In the mouth of 
 .Jesus, the antitype, they are God's children, 
 whom he gave to his Son, and of whom, there- 
 fore, he is the elder brother. (John6;S7; 17-6.) 
 The difference in the cases is accidental ; the 
 likeness is essential. In both, the children are 
 given to the tyi)ical and to the real IMessiah, 
 specially and marvelously by God; in both, 
 they sustain a relation of de])endence; in both, 
 by community of nattire, a virtual eijuality. 
 The human father is the fleshly brother of his 
 
Ch. II.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 39 
 
 cliilclron. The entire j)urpi)se of our autlior i 
 sends him to tlie Old Testament for iilustra- i 
 tions of tlie ciiaraeter and relations of Ciirist. j 
 From the nature of the ease, then, his iliustra- j 
 tions must be drawn Uirgely from its symbols, 
 for in those are its Messianie predictions mostly \ 
 contained. The merely verbal i)rophecies (»f| 
 Christ in the Old Testament are far less nu- 
 merous than its acted prophecies, and not a 
 whit more pertinent and satisfactory. Our 
 author's u.se, therefore, of symbolical cases, 
 like the i»resent, was legitimate, not merely 
 from the Jewish point of view, but from every 
 point of view. A reference to the ninth chap- 
 ter abundantly confirms here the Messianic 
 interpretation.' Tiie first step in the proof of 
 the tittingness of God's proceeding in humb- 
 ling his Son is taken in showing tiie relation of 
 Orulkerhood existing between the Saviour and 
 the saved. In this relation the author latently 
 finds already an argument for this proceeding. 
 Tiiey for whom the Son of God died are sons 
 of God ; th(^y for whom the Redeemer suft'ered 
 are his brethren. It may, indeed, be objected 
 tiiat, as they are not sons and brethren until 
 after they are redeemed, their being such can 
 bo no logical ground for the redemi)tive sacri- 
 fice. True, in strict logic. But that which 
 God saw that they were capable of becoming, 
 and would become, may, without violence, be 
 ideally transferred to their previous condition. 
 They were sons, prolepticnUi/ ; by anticipation. 
 God saw in them sons; Ciirist saw in them 
 brethren; and hence it became God to hum- 
 ble his Son, and Christ to humble himself, in 
 order to lead them to glory. Kurt/, avoids the 
 jiroleptic view by taking, as already seen, the 
 'sons' to be ransomed, not as sons, by their de- 
 
 scentfrom'Adam, but by virtue of theircreation 
 in tlie image of God: and the Ransonier then 
 becomes, not the Theanthropic Son of God, but 
 the pre-incarnate and eternal Son of God, as 
 the "cH'ulgence of his glory and the impress 
 of his substance." There can be no doubt 
 that in this essential and eternal Sonship is 
 laid the basis of his theanthropic relation; it 
 is only as being the Only liegotten that he 
 could become the First Begotten, and thus the 
 First born among many brethren. And so in 
 the surviving and unextinguished wrecks of 
 that original Sonship in man is found the basis 
 for rearing the structure of his new Christian 
 Sonship. It is one who appears not " less than 
 Archangel ruined" that Christ comes to clothe 
 with more than his "original brightness." But 
 we must still think that the common Sonship 
 and the mutual brotherhood of our |)assage lie 
 within the sphere of redcMuption, and that the 
 explanation is found in the pregnant language 
 of Rom. 8 : " Whom he did foreknow he also 
 did predestinate to be conformed to the image 
 of his Son" (that is, to be brought with him 
 into a common relation of Sonshi])) "that he 
 might be a first-born among many breth- 
 ren." But the argument is not finished. These 
 sons of God and brethren of Christ must bear 
 his nature, or, rather, he must bear theirs. As 
 he has undertaken to make them his brethren, 
 to all which that relation implies he must con- 
 descend, and all which that relation demands 
 he must fulfill. 
 
 14. Forasmuch (or, since) then the chil- 
 dren — children of God and ])rethren of Christ: 
 but he here adopts the term from the last verse, 
 and dwells upon it with a tender sense of the 
 ideas of dependence and aflection which clu.ster 
 
 • The superficial difficuUies attending the alleged Mes- 
 sianic citations iu tlie New Testament from the Old, 
 vanish on a deeper investigation. The case, in fact, 
 becomes reversed, and the unsolvable difficulties are 
 found to attend the ?iOH-Messianic interpretation. 
 Deny this, and the whole Old Testament becomes an 
 inexplicable enigma. The whole signiticance of the 
 Old Dispcn.sation is its foreshadowing of, and prepar- 
 tion for, the New. Its whole history is a history of the 
 preliiniiiary stages of redemption ; its whole structure 
 a grand forecourt to the still grander Christian temple. 
 Abraham was chosen to be the founder of the Seed, In 
 whom all the nations should be blessed ; his descendants 
 were set apart as the birth-nation of the Messiah ; all its 
 institutions were organized on this basis, and the whole 
 history typified tliat of the spiritual Israel. Bearing 
 this in miud, we cannot be surprised or stumbled that 
 
 under the clearer lights of the New Testament the 
 pregnant hints of the Olil take a new and unexpected 
 meaning; and to find the Spirit of inspiration, in- 
 terpreting his own words and symbols into a clearer 
 development of Christ. The author of our Epistle, 
 too, was addressing Jews — and Jews who, though (^hri.s- 
 tians, were still held more or less under the traditionary 
 trammels of the synagogue. We cannot, then, doubt 
 that his Interpretations would be .scrutinized with jeal- 
 ous rigor, and that they must, therefore, as to their 
 general Christological character, have coincided with 
 its prevalent views; and (here is no so rational mode 
 of accounting for the prevalence of these views among 
 the earlier Jews as to supjwse that they were founde.l 
 in truth. Their dillerence from the apostle's was not 
 as to their application to Christ, but their application 
 to Jesus. 
 
40 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
 flesh ami blood, he also hiiuselC likewise took part of 
 the same; that through death he might destroy him 
 that had the power of death, that is, the devil ; 
 
 14 me. Since then the children are sharers in i flesh 
 and blood, he also himself in like manner partook 
 of the same; that through death he 2 might bring 
 to nought him who 8 had the jiower of death, that is, 
 
 1 Gr. blood andfie.sh 'i Or, may :! Or. hath. 
 
 about tlie term (rd n-aiiia, the little children) — 
 are partakers of flesh and blood (Greek, 
 bldod and flesh), he also himsell' likewise 
 took part of the same. Here the proliptic 
 character of the previous argutnent fully comes 
 out. Because the children — tliat is, those who 
 were to be children — were mortal, therefore 
 Christ became mortal ; because those vjho were 
 to be his brethren were in the flesh, therefore 
 he becaine flesh. Tiie argument, apparently 
 faulty, is simply so from the brevity of the 
 statement. Christ saw in these future heirs of 
 salvation brethren and children of God, and 
 hastened to j)Ut himself into the position which 
 would enable him to realise this ideal picture. 
 Its touching beauty lies in the fact that the 
 author disguises, holds in the background, the 
 depraved, guilty, rebellious character of the 
 objects of redemption. Jesus dies not for 
 apostates, but for sons; not for aliens, but for 
 brethren. His compassionate love already 
 invests them with the character to which it is 
 eventually to bring them. There is a double 
 logic— that of the head and that of the heart; 
 that of fact and that of feeling. The one sees 
 in men enemies whom Christ intends to con- 
 vert into friends, children, brethren, and for 
 whom he therefore assumes human nature; 
 the other sees in men by anticipation, breth- 
 ren, children, friends, and for whom, there- 
 fore, because they are human, he assumes 
 human nature. In the one case, he dies for 
 them as they are; in the other case, he dies 
 for them as they are to be.* In order that 
 through death he might destroy (bring to 
 mnt(jht) him that had the power of death, 
 that is, the devil. In harmony with the 
 tender strain of the preceding verses is the 
 representation here. It is not the guilt of 
 humanity that the com))assionate Saviour sees, 
 but its wretcliedness. He takes flesh and blood, 
 not to reclaim rebels and reconcile enemies, 
 but to ransom brethren who were in bondage 
 to death and its terrors. We need not say that 
 
 each point of view has equally its truth, and 
 that the gospel equally contemplates both — 
 man's depravity, and his ruin; his wicked- 
 ness, and his weakness; the criminality which 
 has subjected him to death, and the death 
 under whose burden and curse he groans. 
 And, indeed, the hereditarrj chaiacter of the 
 curse of humanity, the fact that death reigns 
 "even over them that had not sinned after the 
 similitudeof Adam's transgression" (Rom. 6; u); 
 the fact that sin is not, as in the ease of the 
 devils, purely individual, but a matter of 
 birth and race, renders eminently natural and 
 proper the second point of view, and creates a 
 presumption that God intended to provide a 
 deliverer to open a fountain of cleansing and 
 life, whose streams should run alongside those 
 of pollution and death. It is as a victim of 
 death that man is here regarded ; as the sub- 
 ject of the penalty which was denounced upon 
 his transgression in Eden. All that is involved 
 in this death — the ruin of the soul, as well as 
 the dissolution of the body — is, of course, re- 
 trieved in the deliverance. But the idea is 
 conceived more concretely. Man is a slave, 
 not to death, but to the devil, who has the 
 power of death, and who, through and in 
 death, holds dominion over the race. Satan 
 has the power of death — not, indeed, abso- 
 lutely; for absolute dominion belongs only 
 to God, but as having originally, by his subtle 
 arts, brought it into the world — being a homi- 
 cide, a murderer from the beginning — and 
 still, as "the god of this world," struggling 
 to perpetuate his disastrous sovereignty. The 
 writer, however, intends no nice distinction. 
 The expression is figurative and far-reaehing. 
 It simply conceives Satan as monarch in the 
 realm of death, originating, controlling it, and 
 through it wielding his tyrannical sceptre over 
 man. To destroy the monarch of death, then, 
 is to destroy death ; to destroy death, is to de- 
 stroy its monarch (leaTopveii', a word rare in the 
 classics, but common in the New Testament, 
 
 » The Greek verb translated 'are partiikers,' is in the I flesh ; the aorist ttetiaxfv, 'took part of,' or, partook, 
 perfect tense ('ceKOK'oii'TjKei'), meaning, Awre /((!(/, (i?i(Z4<i// denotes the act of entering into and putting on li\i- 
 lidve part in, and denotes, properly, those whose perma- nianity. napan-Ajjo-iws, m like manner, or, similarly, is 
 neut aud normal condition is that of being in the I used elegantly for ofiotoit. 
 
Ch. IL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 41 
 
 15 And deliver theiu, who through fear of death were 
 all their liCetiiue sulyeet to bondage. 
 
 16 For verily he took not on him the nature o/ angels; 
 but he took on kiia the seed of Abraham. 
 
 15 the devil ; and ' might deliver all them who through 
 
 fear of death were all their lifetime .sulijei-t lo iMjnd- 
 
 11) age. «For verily not to angels doth ho give help, but 
 
 1 Or, may 2 Or, For verily not of angels doth he take hold, but he takcth hold of. 
 
 render inoperative — hence, nullify, overthrow, 
 destroy, (i cor. 15:24.) " When he shiill have 
 annihilated (Cointnon Version, put down) all 
 rule iind all authority anci power." It is used 
 specifically of abolishing death. (iCor.i5:26; 
 2 Tim. 1 : 10.) The dostruction of Satan, the lord 
 of death, Clirist accomplishes through death — 
 not simply by his death, but by death, taUen 
 abstractly and absolutely; by turning the en- 
 ginery which Satan wields, the forces of his 
 kingdom against himself, and making death 
 itself the instrument of the destruction of its 
 lord. How the death of Christ accoinplishes 
 this it is not here our province to discuss. His 
 death mtiy be regarded in several aspects, 
 each, no doubt, essential to a just estimate of 
 it. In one most obvious aspect, it appears as 
 a triumphant resistance to the temptations of 
 Satan. In the beginning of our Lord's min- 
 istry, the tempter had concentrated upon him 
 in vain his arts of seduction. He returned, 
 at its close, with tenfold and desperate malice, 
 and in the garden and on the cross exhausted 
 on him his hellish fury. Jesus maintained his 
 integrity, drank resolutely the cup which was 
 commended tohislips, wrestled with the Poten- 
 tate of death, and, even in dying, achieved a 
 victory. Thus, as Representative Man, he 
 triumphed over him to whom the first repre- 
 sentative man had succumbed. Adam, in 
 possession of life, yielded to temptation, and 
 incurred death ; Jesus, bound to death, resisted 
 the temptation to avoid it, and in facing and 
 enduring it, procured life both for himself 
 and his people. Yet, more than this, our 
 Lord's death was a strictly expiatory sacrifce 
 ff)r human guilt. His resistance of the devil 
 was not the expiation itself, but was its indis- 
 pensable condition. If the victim had not 
 been perfect the sacrifice would have be(Mi 
 without efficacy. He must first struggle witii 
 Satan in life ; he must then struggle with 
 Satan in death, and, as it were, with death 
 itself; and by dying in and through holy 
 obedience, as Adam had died in and through 
 transgression and guilt, wrest the sting from 
 death, and lift its curse from the soul of hu- 
 
 manity. The destruction of death, I may 
 add, was to be the grand feature of the Mes- 
 sianic era. (isa. 25 : s; Hosea 13 : u.) Clirist accom- 
 plishes this work — first, by delivering his 
 people from the fear of death, and destroying 
 within them that principle of sin wliich is 
 its cause and sting; and, finally, by annihi- 
 lating all its effects in the resurrection of the 
 
 body. (1 Cor. 15.) 
 
 15. And deliver them who through fear 
 of death were all their lifetime subject 
 to bondage. 'Them who.' Thesepersonswho- 
 soever, or, as many as. The phrase designates 
 the class to whom the redemption is applicable. 
 Itatonce limits the class, and declares its univer- 
 sality within the sphere of that class. It re- 
 stricts the redemption to man, and declares — as 
 above (ver.9), 'for every man,' or, on behalf of 
 every one — the applicability of redemption to 
 the entire race. Not that it teaches the actual 
 salvation of all, any more than John 1 : 9, 
 '^'The light that lighteneth every man that 
 Cometh into the world," or John 12 : 32, "And 
 I, if I be lifted uj) from the earth, will draw 
 all men unto me." The passage thus marks a 
 peculiar and striking characteristic of hu- 
 manity. As alone possessing body and soul, 
 man alone is liable to death ; and thus liable 
 and having sinned, he groans under its per- 
 petual dread, is in bondage to its terrors, and 
 to the tyrant who swtiys its sceptre. Death is 
 the great dread and terror of the race. Even 
 the saints of the Old Testament stood in fear of 
 the darkness and gk)om of the grave. Hades, 
 with his deep and dismal recesses, his silence, 
 solitude, and corruption, they regarded with 
 shuddering. Contrast the prayer of Heze- 
 kiah and many of the psalms with the jo3-ous 
 and triumphant tones of the New Testament 
 regarding death. To the apostle, ''to die is 
 gain." He longs to be absent from the bod^-, 
 and at home with the Lord. He .sees a house 
 not made with hands, an undecaying, heav- 
 enly, eternal htibitation, replacing the tninsient 
 tiiberniiclo of flesh. 
 
 1(». For verily he took not on him the 
 nature of angels, etc., or. For it is not, 
 
42 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 17 Wherefore in all things it behooved hiiu to be 
 made like unto his brethren, that he might be a mer- 
 ciful and faithful hijjh priest in things perhiining to 
 tiod, to make recouciliatioii for the sins of the people. 
 
 17 he giveth help to the seed of Abraham. Wherefore 
 it behoved him in all things to be made like unto 
 his l)iethren, that he might become a merciful and 
 faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to 
 
 doxibtlet-s} angels whom he rescueth, but he 
 resciteth the seed of Abraham. The once 
 wick'ly received, but now exploded, rendering, 
 " taketh not on him the nature of angels," 
 makes the sentence little better than a tauto- 
 logical platitude. The author has said that 
 the Redeemer took part in the flesh and blood 
 that are shared by the children. It is no ad- 
 vance on the thought to say that he took not 
 on him the nature of angels ; but it is a decided 
 advance in' the thought to say, in accounting 
 for his assuming flesh and blood, that he was 
 not coitiing to the rescue of angels, who possess 
 not bodies, and are not subjects of death. The 
 verb in this sentence {k-niKaix^averai) may be 
 translated layeth hold upon. The force of the 
 preposition uj^on (k-ni) goes over to the person 
 laid hold of It is not "takes ujion himself," 
 but, "lays hold ?/ji3on another'^ for rescue or 
 relief, as in 8 : 9, "in the day when I took 
 them by the hand," or, laid hold of them. 
 The present tense either marks the act con- 
 ceived as abiding, or is put spiritedly for the 
 past. ' The seed of Abniham.' Not that the 
 apostle intends to restrict the redemjition to 
 the Jews, in denial of the broader destination 
 of the gospel ; but the Epistle, in its practical 
 scope, expressly designed for Hebrews, keeps 
 here, as elsewhere, the Hebrew point of view. 
 It is doubtful, perhaps, whetlicr 'the seed of 
 Abraham' denotes, here, Abraham's spiritual 
 offspring, — the spiritual Israel — or rather, as 
 I think, 'the seed of Abraham' as the pre- 
 destined centre and source of salvation to the 
 world. In Abraham's seed all the nations of 
 the earth were to be blessed; and, therefore, 
 in coming to the rescue of the seed of Abra- 
 ham, Christ comes to the rescue of entire 
 humanity. It stands as the representative of 
 the race. The ' seed of Abraham ' is not 
 placed in contrast to the rest of the race of 
 men, but to angels. 
 
 17. Wherefore ... it behooved him — 
 (tvhcnce he was bound by Hie work of deliver- 
 ance which he had undertaken : it was what 
 he owed to the nature of the enterprise) in all 
 
 things ... to be made like unto his 
 brethren. 'In all things,' and, therefore, in 
 the assumption of flesh and blood. The reas- 
 oning is elliptical. Its exact import is: AVhence, 
 as he was bound in all things to be a.«similated 
 to his brethren, therefore he must take human' 
 nature, with all its infirmities, including lia- 
 bility to temptation and death. The preceding 
 idea of the incarnation and death is broadened 
 by the 'all things' (Kora TtivTa), so as to open 
 the way for the idea — not merely of a com- 
 plete and perfect Saviour in his death, but of 
 a perfect, living High Priest. That he mi^ht 
 be (^become) a merciful {cotnpassionate) and 
 faithful high priest in things pertaining 
 to God. The term 'become' ajiplies not only 
 to Christ's becoming a high priest (and, as such, 
 compassionate and faithful), but also a com- 
 passionate 'ii\g\\ Priest; because, although he 
 was previously compassionate — and, in fact, 
 his compassion dictated his incarnation and 
 his becoming a High Priest — j-et we might say 
 that the divine compassion evinced in originat- 
 ing the plan of redemjjtion differs from the 
 human compassion requisite to the priestly 
 intercession of the glorified Jews. The writer 
 conceives sj'mpathy and compassion as requi- 
 site qualities of a high priesthood; and these 
 could be possessed only by a high priest taken 
 from ainong men, and who shared, or had 
 shared, the frailties and sufferings of humanity. 
 Hence, merciful as Christ may have been be- 
 fore, the peculiar form of tenderness here 
 conceived could spring only through his incar- 
 nation. It is the com passion of the .sy mpath izing 
 High Priest, not the meicy of the spiritual God. 
 The position of the original words is peculiar. 
 It is such as to show that while the epithet 
 'merciful' looks back, and is an inference 
 from the preceding, 'faithful' is an additional 
 thotight looking forward to the immediately 
 following discussion. Such is one of the char- 
 acteristics of the style of this Epistle. While 
 reviewing, and, as it were, gathering up the 
 results of a preceding discussion, it introduces, 
 as if accidentally, what serves as a transition 
 
 1 Aq TTou, " 5'ou know, I suppose," " doubtless," appeals 
 to a well-known fact, and is a particle at once of em- 
 phasis, vivacity, and modesty j the jrov, perhaps, I sup- 
 
 pose, softening the force of the i>i ; not implying doubt, 
 but removing the appearance of dogmatism. It is 
 in no way represented by " verily." 
 
Ch. IL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 43 
 
 18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, 
 he is able lo succour them that are tempted. 
 
 18 make propitiation for the sins of the i)Coi)le. ' For 
 2 in that he himself hath sutl'ered being iciujttcd, he 
 is able to succour them that are templed. 
 
 1 Gr. For having been himtel/ tempted in that wherein he hath suffered '2 Or, wherein. 
 
 to that which follows, and makes the parts of 
 the discourse, as it were, gripe into each other. 
 'Faithful' (77i<rTd«), not here merely ' worthy 
 of confidence,' 'reliable'— hut rather, actively 
 faithful, evincing fidelity. The term 'in things 
 pertaining to God ' refers not merely to the 
 term High Priest, but to the whole sentence, 
 "that he might become, in things pertaining 
 to God, a merciful and faithful High Priest." 
 To make reconciliation {propitiation) for 
 the sins of the people. To make propiti- 
 ation for (iKiaKeaeai), and hcnce, as means of 
 propitiation, to expiate, atone for. (In clas- 
 sical use with the accusative, to propitiate a 
 jjcrson.) 'The people,' used in conformity 
 with the limited phrase, 'seed of Abraham,' 
 as applicable, properly-, to the Jewish people, 
 but to them as representatives of the world 
 for whom the expiation was equally made. 
 Christ came as the Deliverer of Israel, but, in 
 Israel, as the Deliverer of the world. He died 
 to e.xpiate the sins of the people, but, in the 
 people, the sins of the world. The introduc- 
 tion of the high priesthood of Christ, at the 
 dose of this discussion of his superiority to 
 the angels, as alio of that of his superiority to 
 Moses, has its evident purpose. It brings for- 
 ward from time to time, and keeps under the 
 reader's eye, that which was to be tiie central 
 theme of the Epistle, as it was the vital feature 
 of the New Dispensation, the intercessory 
 high priesthood of Christ, a high priesthood 
 commencing in his offering of himself as a 
 spotless sin-offering to God, and consum- 
 mated in his entrance, with his own blood, 
 into the heavenly Holy of holies, there to 
 appear in the presence of God for us. 
 
 !8 For in that he himself hath snf- 
 fered being tempted, he is able to suc- 
 cour them that are tempted. The passage 
 admits of various constructions, which, in 
 the main, but slightly modify the sense. 'In 
 that,' or, wherein, render well the Greek 
 {ev &). The ideas are not very widely apart, as 
 the one (' wherein ') circumscribes his power 
 to succor within the sphere of his experience 
 of temptation and suffering; and the other 
 ('in that') makes his power to succor depend- 
 ent on that experience. The difference is but 
 
 slight. Again, the first clause may be ren- 
 dered (with Delilzsch), "For after being 
 himself tempted in that he has suffered, or in 
 his experience of suffering"; or (as Liine- 
 mann and Moll), " For in that he has suffered, 
 being himself tempted"; or, as seems to me 
 more natural, ' For in that he has himself suf- 
 fered, being tempted, he is able,' etc. The ren- 
 dering of Delitzsch mtikesa l)r()ader distinction 
 between the 'suffering' and the 'temptation' 
 than do the others, and throws greater stress 
 on the temptation apart from the suffering. 
 In this I think he errs. The suffering and the 
 temptation seem to me to have each stood 
 prominent in the author's mind; or, rather, I 
 think it is only at the very close of this verse 
 that the idea of suffering gradually passes 
 over into that of temptation. True, again, 
 the clause can be read, 'For in that he has 
 suffered, after being himself tempted,' thus 
 making the temptation distinctly precede the 
 suffering, instead of being coincident with it, 
 and mainly constituting it ; but this, too, seems 
 to me less probable. 'He is able' {&<>varat.) 
 refers simply to his moral capacity, produced 
 by his personal experience of suffering. 'Them 
 that are tempted' — his hutnan brethren, who 
 are alwaj^s in the condition of being subject 
 to temptation. 
 
 2. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO MOSES. 
 
 Having delineated the superiority of Christ 
 to the angels, the ministerial revealers of 
 the Old Testament, the author proceeds to 
 show his superiority, as founder of the New 
 Dispensation, to Moses, the earthly founder of 
 the Old. Next follows an extended warning 
 and exhortation founded on this comparison. 
 Then he shows that the rest of God, forfeited 
 by ancient Israel, is still open, in a higher 
 form, to the spiritual Israel. La?tly follows 
 exhortation to heed the word of God, and 
 transition to the high priesthood, the chief 
 topic of the Epistle. 
 
 Ch. 3. (1) Christ, as Leader of the New 
 Testament Israel and Founder of the New 
 Testament house of God, greater than Moses, 
 leader of ancient Israel, and founder of the 
 Old Testament house of God. (1-C.) 
 
44 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 WHEREFORE, holy brethren, partakers of the heav- 
 T t euly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest 
 of our profession, Christ Jesus; 
 
 1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly 
 calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our 
 
 1. Wherefore ('6eev, whence, a favorite par- 
 ticle of inference with the author, and by him 
 alwaj's — except, perhaps, 11 : 19 — used logi- 
 cally, not locally) — that is, in consideration of 
 the qualities thus found in Christ, his personal 
 greatness and his admirable fitness as a Sav- 
 iour. Holy brethren. 'Holy,' an epithet 
 given here, perhaps, with reference to the idea 
 (•^:ii) of Christ, as Sanctifier, making holy 
 (ayidioju), and his people the sanctified (ayiaioixe- 
 voi.). It also, however, grows out of the whole 
 topic of the redemption and priestly work of 
 Christ. It is not so much a term of individual 
 character as of general relation, marking the 
 char:icteristic of the children of God as such. 
 In their general relation to Christ they are all 
 'holy' (oiyiot, sacred, saints), while having 
 attained actual personal sanctification in very 
 difierent degrees. The term 'brethren,' too, 
 we can hardly help feeling to have here an 
 especial significance. While they are 'breth- 
 ren ' immediately in their relation to the 
 writer and to each other, the author yet seems 
 lingering over the term so expressive of the 
 tender relation between the sons and the Son, 
 the redeemed and their Redeemer. The ' holy 
 brethren,' then, is the gathering up and the 
 echo of all that deeply touching strain in which 
 the author has portrayed the humiliation and 
 the redeeming sufferings of Christ. The com- 
 bination, I believe, is found only here. Par- 
 takers of the (a) heavenly calling. As 
 'holy brethren' indicates the relation of be- 
 lievers to Christ, as Kedeemer and Sanctifier, 
 so 'partakers of a heavenly calling' refers to 
 their relation to him as the heavenly-commis- 
 sioned One, sent forth to 'call' (xaKelv) men 
 into his kingdom. As God's Ambassador, or 
 Apostle,' he comes to call men to salvation ; 
 as incarnate Redeemer and High Priest, he 
 sanctifies and saves them. The calling is 
 doubly 'heavenly' — alike in its origin and 
 destination. They are called frotn heaven 
 and to heaven by One who descended from 
 heaven to conduct them thither. As such, he 
 
 exhorts them: Consider — or. Contemplate 
 (ieaTavorj(TaTe, Jix your mind v}:)on, give careful 
 heed to, treat not with indifference or neglect.) 
 As (2:i) he exhorts his readers to heed the 
 revelations of this Great Messenger, so now, 
 in like manner, to heed the Messenger himself. 
 The exhortation is no merely formal one. His 
 readers have indicated a disposition to turn 
 away from, and treat with indifference this 
 great Saviour. He solemnly and impressively 
 warns them against it, and calls them back to 
 a steadfast contemplation of his claims. The 
 Apostle and High Priest of our profes- 
 sion (co7ifessioti), Christ Jesus. The two 
 predicates here applied to Jesus answer chias- 
 tically (Delitzsch) to the two designations just 
 given to his Christian readers. In reversed 
 order, as 'partakers of a heavenly calling,' 
 they are to give heed to the heavenly Mes- 
 senger (iTToo-ToAo?), who was sent forth com- 
 missioned {iiTti<jTaKy.4vo%) to bring that calling, 
 with all its consequences ; as 'holy brethren' 
 they are to give heed to tlie High Priest, who, 
 by his sacrifice and mediation, cleansed their 
 sins and made them sons of God. The two 
 grand characteristics in Christ's character and 
 work as Saviour, are, in the two epithets, preg- 
 nantly designated; his descent from heaven 
 as God's Ambassador of salvation; his re- 
 ascent to heaven as man's interceding High 
 Priest. In the one feature he is the divine 
 and divinely commissioned organ of the New 
 Revelation ; in the other, he is the true high- 
 priestly Sacrifice, and Intercessor before God. 
 In the one character, he announces salvation; 
 in the other, he accomplishes it. The words 
 ' o/ our confession' belong to both epithets, 
 'Apostle' and 'High Priest.' Jesus is the 
 Apostle and High Priest whom we confess or 
 acknowledge. We see, finally, that in the 
 designations applied to Christians and the 
 designations applied to Christ, all the grand 
 idetis of the two preceding chapters are preg- 
 nantly summed up. The author is prepared 
 to turn to another aspect of the Redeemer's 
 
 1 'Attoo-toAo?, commissioned one, rather th:in oyyeAo?, 
 tnessenr/ri-, because this term has just lieen distinctively 
 appropriated to an inferior class of lieings, and also, 
 perhaps, with reference to that office which had become 
 
 consecrated under the New Dispensation. The Old 
 Testament had itsmessengeis, oyyeAoi ; the New has its 
 apostles, airdffToAot, 
 
Ch. III.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 45 
 
 2 Who was faithful to him that appointed biiu, as 
 also Moses was J'dUhJ'nl in all his house. 
 
 2 confession, even Jesus; who was faithful to him that 
 1 appointed him, as also was Moses in all '^ bis house. 
 
 1 Gr. made 2 That is, God't house. See Num. xii. 7. 
 
 character, already prepared for by the ' faith- 
 ful ' (irio-To?) just above. 
 
 2. Who was faithful to him that ap- 
 pointed him, as also Moses was faithful 
 in all his house. After comparing Christ 
 with the angels, the revealers of the law, and 
 showing the reason of his temporary humili- 
 ation below them, that he might redeem a 
 people and found a church of God, it is natural 
 that he should next compare him, as the 
 Founder of that church, with Moses, the de- 
 liverer and organizer of the ancient theocratic 
 community. Moses and Aaron were, respect- 
 ively, the apostle, or commissioned one, and 
 the high priest, of the Israelitish confession. 
 The people "were baptized to Moses" in the 
 Red Sea; he was their great lawgiver and 
 prophet; he gave them the law, and in him 
 they trusted (Johns-. 45); they styled them- 
 selves, specially, his disciples (John 9: 29) ; they 
 gloried in their political relation to him, as 
 in their lineal descent from Abraham. It is, 
 hence, not arbitrary, but natural, that Christ 
 should next be put in contrast with Moses; 
 the apostle of our confession with the apostle 
 of the confession of ancient Israel. 'Who 
 was faithful' (toi- ovra Ttiarov). The phrase is 
 predicative, as being faithful, as one who was 
 faithful; and the being {ovto.) by no means 
 (as Bleek) marks, necessarily, the time now 
 present to the writer, and thus points to Christ's 
 present fidelity as High Priest in God's heav- 
 enly house, but simply the time indicated by 
 the connection which, as shown by the word 
 'Jesus,' and by the whole train of thought, is 
 that of our Lord's sojourn on earth. Here he 
 came as God's 'apostle,' ambassador, to pro- 
 claim salvation, to call out his people from the 
 spiritual Egypt, and, by his appointment and 
 his obedience to his will, to found a new theoc- 
 racy', to inaugurate a spiritual kingdom, to 
 rear a spiritual house, over against the national 
 theocracy', the temporal kingdom, the ritual 
 
 household of ancient Israel. To this work 
 God appointed {made, ttoitjo-o?) him, as he 
 aj>pointed Moses to the founding of the old 
 theocracy. > The author (as conjectured by 
 Bleek, followed by Delitzsch) has probably in 
 mind 1 Sam. 12:6, "The Lord that made 
 (that is, appointed, jroiijcras) Moses and Aaron" 
 (compare ver. 8), " sent {forth, a-n«jT(.i.Kt) 
 Moses and Aaron." He then recurs to Num. 
 12 : 7, which was probably in his mind when 
 he used the word 'faithful,' and which again 
 maj' have suggested the passage from Samuel, 
 and adds, as also Moses {was faithful) in 
 all his house. Some interpreters put a com- 
 ma after "Moses," and refer the words, "in 
 all his house," to Christ, which the language 
 of Numbers scarcely favors. It reads, "My 
 servant Moses is not so, whom I have found 
 faithful in all mine house." The citation, 
 too, shows that the " his " refers not to Moses, 
 but to God. The elliptical j)assage, then, insti- 
 tutes a comparison between Jesus and Moses, 
 in their relation to the house or household 
 over which God had respectively appointed 
 them. The relation is, thus far, one of equalitj'. 
 Moses had been faithful in all God's house: so 
 Jesus was faithful in all God's house. It is 
 important to determine whether it is one house 
 or two ot which the author speaks, and in or 
 over which Moses and Jesus were both faithful. 
 Most interpreters, misled, I think, by the ellip- 
 tical language, have confounded the two houses 
 into one, to the serious darkening of the pas- 
 sage. The houses, it seems to me, were cer- 
 tainly two — Moses led out the people of God 
 from the temporal, Christ from the spiritual, 
 Egj'pt. Moses was God's ancient apostle to 
 Israel, of temporal salvation ; Christ his recent 
 Apostle of spiritual salvation . Moses founded, 
 by God's express appointment, the ancient 
 household of Israel, with its laws, ritual, and 
 ministry; Christ founded, hy like divine ap- 
 pointment, the household of the spiritual 
 
 1 The admissibleness of taking itoi.fiv, make, used 
 absolutely, without a second accusative, as appoint, 
 constitute, is questioned by many. They refer it, there- 
 fore, either to God's making, producing of the Son, in 
 his eternal generation (as Bleek, Liineniann), or (as 
 Athanasius, Ambrose, and Kurtz) to his human birth 
 iu his incarnation. Delitzsch applies it to a figurative 
 
 creation, or constituting, on the stage of history. Many 
 of tlic interpreters— taking it in the sense of a|)poiiit- 
 ing, establishing— have supplied a word (as aitoaroKov, 
 a|)ostle) after n-oirjcra?. On the whole, I think we must 
 leave it doubtful between 'making him, 'giving hiiu 
 bis incarnate life,' and ' appointing ' hiiu. 
 
46 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 3 For this man was counted worthv- of more glory 
 thaii Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the 
 house hath more honour than the house. 
 
 3 For he hath heen counted worthy ot more glory than 
 Moses, by so much as he that i built the house hath 
 
 4 more honour than the house. For every house is 
 
 1 Or, established. 
 
 Israel, with its laws, rites, and ministry. Each 
 household thus founded by comtnand of God 
 was a house of God. Moses was faithful in 
 all God's house, in or over which he was 
 ap[)ointed ; Christ, in like manner, in and 
 over all God's New Testament house. I do 
 not see how we can reasonably doubt that the 
 reference is to two houses, and not to one ; and 
 that tiie coin])arison is between two divinely 
 ajipointed earthly founders, each of his re- 
 spective house. The name 'Jesus,' the words 
 'that appointed him,' the words 'whose 
 house are we' (marking a new spiritual 
 house), show the nature of the parallel. It is 
 run between Moses and the incarnate Jesus; 
 and any reference to the Eternal Logos, as 
 founding "the church in the wilderness," in 
 which Moses was a servant, is out of the ques- 
 tion. Christ, as the Eternal Logos, was, 
 doubtless, the God of Sinai and the Jewish 
 Theocrac3', as he was the "Word of the Cre- 
 ation ; but that is here out of the scope of the 
 writer. He is considering not the Logos of 
 the Old Testament, but the Jesus, the Incar- 
 nate Word of the New, and, in this relation, 
 comparing him with Moses. In the first place, 
 he isthroughoutbringingthe New Dispensation 
 alongside of the Old ; Jesus, the Bringer of sal- 
 vation alongside of the angels; Jesus, the New 
 Testameiit High Priest, alongside of Aaron; 
 and, therefore, assuredly Jesus, the Founder of 
 the NewTestamentchurch,alongsideofthe01d 
 Testament theocrac\'. To this points the name 
 'Jesus' that ushers in the comparison ; to this 
 the 'being faithful,' which can only refer to 
 Jesus in his humiliation (his fidelity as pre- 
 incarnate Logos could never come into ques- 
 tion) ; to this the word made (irottjcra?. whether 
 understood as appointed or produced), for of 
 the appointment of the pre-existent Logos we 
 have no trace; and, finallj', to this, the house 
 (ver.6) which Jcsus founded, a spiritual edifice 
 of actual believers. In these two houses, they 
 were alike faithful. Thus far the similarity and 
 apparent equality ; but afterward, the real dif- 
 ference, that Moses, though seemingly a head, 
 was, in reality, but a servant, and Chri.st, though 
 temporarily a servant, was, in reality, a Head, 
 
 and sustained a like relation to Moses as does 
 the head and founder to the household; which 
 does not at all require that they be in the 
 same household. 
 
 3. For — either explicative (as De AVette), 
 or unfolding the last thought of the preceding 
 verse, or better, perhaps, referringback to "con- 
 sider" (ver.i), and finding a ground for that — 
 this man (^this perso7iaffe) Avas {has been) 
 counted worthy olmore glory than 3Ioses. 
 Not, as some, the glory which overspread the 
 face of Moses when he descended from the 
 mount, though we, perhaps, can scarcely 
 avoid assuming a covert ctmparison between 
 the glory which transfigured the face of Moses 
 on Sinai, and the glory which wrapt the whole 
 person of Jesus (in the presence of Moses) 
 on Mount Hermon. It is safe, however, and 
 amply sufficient, to refer it to the immeasurably 
 higher exaltation in dignity and glory of the 
 Founder of the New Covenant, advanced to 
 supreme dominion, than was accorded to the 
 founder of the Old. Inasmuch (as much) 
 as he who hath builded the house, etc. 
 (ZJy how miich m.ore honor than the house 
 hath he that founded it). From this it has 
 been hastily concluded that INIoses was the 
 house, and Christ the Founder of the house 
 of which Moses was the subordinate head; 
 that Christ, therefore, appears as the Eternal 
 Logos, and as such infinitel3' superior to Moses. 
 But this mistakes the entire j)urpose of the 
 author, who is comparing Closes and Jesus 
 each in the earthlj' sphere in which God had 
 placed him. In this sphere they first appear 
 on an equality, each faithful in h.is allotted 
 province. But the author now states, in 
 general terms, the difference. Equal, ap])ar- 
 ently, there existed between them, in reality, 
 the dis))arity which exists between a house- 
 hold and its founder and head. It by no 
 means follows that they were in, or over, the 
 same house; but that belonging to diflTerent 
 houses, and sustaining the same, or a like, 
 relation to each, at once of subordination and 
 headship, there was, in realitj', the utmost 
 conceivable interval between them. How this 
 could be is immediately stated. 
 
Ch. III.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 47 
 
 4 For every house is builded by some man ; but he 
 that liuilt all things is (iod. 
 
 5 And Jloses v; lily uas laitliful in all his house as a 
 servant, for a testimony ol those things which were to 
 be spoken after; 
 
 6 liut Christ as a son over his own house; whose 
 
 1 builded by some one; but he who i built all Ihinga 
 
 5 is (iod. And Moses indeed was (ailhfiil in all -hisj 
 house as a servant, for a testimony of those things 
 
 6 which were afici ward tobesi)oken: but t'hri»t as a 
 son, over - his house ; whose house are we, if we hold 
 
 1 Or, ettablisUed 'i Tliai is, God't Aouse. See Num. xii. 7. 
 
 4. For every house is builded {estab- 
 lished, founded) by some man {one) ; but 
 he that built (established) all things is 
 God. Tlie.-^e statements remind the reader 
 that both the New Testament and the Old 
 Testament houses must have had an imme- 
 diate, subordinate, apparent founder, as, re- 
 spectively, Moses and Jesus ; and one ultimate 
 and Supremo Founder, to whom both were 
 responsible, and toward whom fidelity could 
 be predicated of thein ; namely, God. There 
 is, then, in regard to both of the houses, a double 
 founding — one instrumental and subordinate, 
 the other absolute and sujireme. So Moses 
 established, instrumentally, the theocracy, the 
 house of God, in the wilderness ; but God 
 established it supremely. So .lesus organized 
 the New Testament theocracy, the more spir- 
 itual house of God, the church of believers ; 
 but this, again, is not his house — it is the house 
 of God. God's prerogative of being the Uni- 
 versal Founder, is no more intermitted in the 
 case of Jesus than of Moses. Almost uni- 
 formly in the New Testament, we read of the 
 church, the house, the people, the sons — not 
 of Christ, but of God. And to both the fidelity 
 and the glory we have striking testimony, 
 "I have finished the work tvhich thoii gavest 
 me to do ; and now, O Father, glorify thou 
 me with the glory which I had with thee 
 before the world was." (John 17 : 4.5.) And 
 while it is thus shown how there could be in 
 each case a twofold founder; how Moses and 
 Jesus could be both at the head of their respect- 
 ive houses, and yet both be subordinate and 
 both faithful ; it also opens the waj^ for affirm- 
 ing the above alleged inequaliti', in that one 
 can be finally identified with God, the Abso- 
 lute Founder, and the other reinains a merely 
 instrumental founder, and sinks, really, into 
 the organization of which he is apparently the 
 head. With this preparation, the author pro- 
 ceeds to draw out sharply the difference hinted 
 at in vcr. 3, and shown to be possible in ver. 4. 
 
 5, 6. And Moses verily (rather, indeed) 
 was faithful in all his house as a servant, 
 for a testimony of those things which 
 
 were to be spoken after; but Christ as a 
 Son over his own {his) house. Each had 
 founded a house subordinately, of which the 
 Absolute Founder, iind, therefore, the Supreme 
 Possessor, wasGod. What, then, wasthediffei- 
 ence? It was one lying in the intrinsic nature 
 of the two personages. The subordination of 
 Moses to the Supreme Founder had been abso- 
 lute, as well as apparent. Christ iiad founded 
 his house in real subordination, but also in 
 essentiiil equality; Moses had organized the 
 Old Testament theocracy both apparently and 
 really' as a servant. Christ had instituted the 
 New Testament church apparently as a ser- 
 vant, but really as a Son. Moses, therefore, 
 elevated as he was, chosen leader and head of 
 ancient Israel, into whose allegiance they had 
 undergone the profound baptism of the Ked 
 Sea, was, after all, but in the house of God, 
 and a part of it. Christ, although sunk to 
 the depths of humiliation, was, after all, over 
 the house of God, and its real Head. Moses, 
 apparent founder and head of the house, 
 was but a part of the household ; Christ, ap- 
 parently a Servant of the servants, rises, as 
 the Son of God into equality with the Founder, 
 and becomes, in the last analysis, supreme, as 
 well as subordinate, heavenly, as well as 
 earthly, divine, as well as human. Builder of 
 the New Testament house. He has as much 
 higher honor than Moses as the Founder of 
 the house has more honor than the house. 
 The seeming paradox is e.xplained by the 
 double nature of the Wondrous Per.sonage; 
 be is at once Moses' equal and Closes' head, 
 as he was David's Son and Dtivid's Lord. 
 We have yet another point of contrast. Moses 
 was in a carnal, typical house ; Christ was over 
 a living and spiritual one. Mo.ses was faithful 
 as 'a testimony of those things which should 
 be spoken,' not (as, superficially. Block, De 
 Wette, Liinemann) of the things to be spoken 
 to him, the commands to be given him regard- 
 ing the regulations of the Theocracy, but of 
 the things which were to be spoken in a 
 future time — the New Testament revelation 
 by Christ. Thus Moses' position was merely 
 
48 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Oh. III. 
 
 house are we, if we hold fast the coiifideuce and the 
 rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. 
 
 fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope firm 
 
 tj'pical and preparatory — he had the shadow 
 of which Christ brought the substance; he, like 
 John, merely bore testimony to the great 
 truths afterward to be uttered. The r(;al 
 house of God, adds the writer, are we, if, 
 etc., Christian believers, the sons of God by 
 a new and spiritual birth — these are the true 
 house of God, living stones built on the foun- 
 dation of the apostles and prophets, with 
 Christ as the chief corner stone, the whole a 
 spiritual house, growing up into a holy temple 
 in the Lord. So (with Ebrard and Delitzsch) 
 I understand the two last clauses as setting 
 over against each other the typical institutions 
 of Moses and the spiritual church of Christ. 
 Tlie points of contrast, then, between Moses 
 and Christ, are these: (1) Moses founded the 
 house of God subordinately as a servant; 
 Christ founded it supremely as a Son. (2) 
 Moses was in it and a part of it; Christ was 
 ove?" it as its Lord. (3) Moses founded a typ- 
 ical house, and held a merely preparatory 
 relation ; Christ founded the true spiritual 
 house of regenerate believers. He might have 
 added a fourth — that Moses was imperfect in 
 his obedience and fidelity; while Jesus, as 
 a mere human messenger working out his 
 Father's will, was absolute in perfection. 
 But this the writer cared not to press. He 
 was dealing not with the accidental, but the 
 inherent and necessary differences between 
 Christ and Moses; not those which depended 
 on different degrees of fidelity, but those 
 which no amount of fidelity in Moses could 
 have obliterated. Moreover, while exhibiting 
 the inferiority of Moses, he yet shows no dis- 
 position to disparage him. He deals with him 
 tenderly and lovingly. He calls him not a slave 
 (SovKoi), or, a liouschokl servant (oiice'Trjs), hered- 
 itary or purchased, but a voluntary, willing 
 attendant on another {Ofpinuv). The elliptical 
 clause, ' But Christ as a Son over his house,' 
 is variously filled up. By some (Bleek, De 
 "Wette\ ' But Christ (is faithful) as a Son over 
 his house ' (is faithful): but, as most clearly, 
 'his' refers to God — over God's house — this 
 construction is inadmissible. Others con- 
 struct: But Christ (is faithful) as a Son over 
 
 his house ; or, But Christ, as a Son (is faithful), 
 over his house. Others (as Delitzsch, Moll), 
 But Christ, as a Son, is over his house — the 
 idea of fidelity at first suggested by his lowly 
 position as an earthly Founder now giving 
 place to that oi autJiority as a Son in view of 
 his higher nature. I see no ground of decid- 
 ing positively between them. Either answers 
 all the purposes of the argument. 
 
 Our explanation assumes that the house of 
 God is not here spoken of as continuous, but as 
 twofold. The New Testament people of God 
 are certainly the people of God in historical 
 continuity with the Old. The church of Mount 
 Zion (12:22) is, in a limited sense, identical 
 with the congregation at the foot of Mount 
 Sinai ; and the undeveloped institution of Ju- 
 daism may be conceived as having blossomed 
 forth into the full flower of Christianity ; yet, 
 in a truer and deeper sense, these households 
 and people are widely' different, and the differ- 
 ence was manifest when Judaism persecuted 
 Christianity, and had to be broken up and 
 swept out of the way before Christianity 
 could triumph. Here it suits the author's 
 purpose to bring out the difference ; as before 
 he contrasted the revelations made respect- 
 ively through the Son and through angels, so 
 now, the two households organized respect- 
 ively by the Son and by Moses. Whose 
 house are we, etc.— rather. We are, if we 
 maintain the boldness and the glorying^ of our 
 hope, fir "tn unto the end. 'Whose house' — 
 that is, God's house, not Christ's. 'We' stands 
 representatively here for all believers, yet in- 
 tended to point his readers to their own special 
 prerogative above their ancestors. They, he 
 tells them, are that house — of course, part of 
 that huuse — which this greater than Moses, 
 this Son of God, founded and presides over — 
 the true spiritual house in antithesis to the 
 tj'pical one founded by Moses, disciples of 
 him of whom Moses was but a witness. But 
 the writer adds a condition. New Testament 
 believers are this spiritual house — 'we,' as 
 such, are part of it, on condition that we 
 prove ourselves believers; that we establish 
 our claim by maintaining our fidelity to the 
 
 ' Tlapprftria, boldness, assurance, assured confidence ; Kavxniia, glorying, exultation — not »cov'x»)<ris, the act, but 
 rather its result or object. 
 
Ch. III.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 49 
 
 7 Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saitb, To day if ye I 7 unto the end. Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit 
 will hear his voice, suilh, 
 
 I To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
 
 end. The wavering condition of his readers 
 prompts this sudden turn, while the language 
 is suggested by tlie context. Ancient Israel 
 showed itself not to be the true house of 
 God ; those who escaped from Egypt through 
 Moses did not remain steadfast. The boldness 
 and exultant hope with which they commenced 
 their pilgrimage gave way ; they became faint- 
 hearted and cowardly, feared the giants in the 
 land, and murmured against God until his 
 patience was exhausted; and he svvare, in his 
 wrath, that they should not enter Canaan. 
 See Numbers, ch. 14; Deuteronomy, ch. 1. 
 It was precisely in connection witii these faint- 
 hearted terrors that God excluded his ancient 
 people from their inheritance, and to this may 
 be the present reference. The terms, of course, 
 are raised to their higher spiritual meaning. 
 
 (2) Solemn warning to the readers against 
 repeating the rebellion of their fathers and 
 excluding themselves from God' s Sabbatic rest^ 
 as the rebels tinder Moses forfeited the rest of 
 Canaan. (7-19.) 
 
 7. This brief but decisive statement of the 
 superiority of Christ to Muses is followed by 
 a practical warning similar to that deduced 
 from Ills superiority to the angels. Tlie law 
 revealed through them was held valid, and 
 all disobedience and neglect sorely punished. 
 How much more, neglect of the salvation re- 
 vealed through Christ! So the people who 
 had been baptized into allegiance to Moses, 
 and organized by him into a household of 
 God, a theocratic community, had. from their 
 refusal to hearken to him, failed of the prom- 
 ised rest, and perished in the wilderness. How 
 much more dangerous, disobedience to our 
 greater Head, who is conducting us to the true 
 rest of God! Such the substance; but the 
 form of the exhortation is determined by a 
 long and apposite quotation from the Psalms, 
 which introduces some mostpertinentthoughts, 
 and is allowed to control the drift of the entire 
 passage. Wherefore. With this we may 
 suppose the writer was going on — as ch. 2: 1 
 seq. — to admonish his readers of the terrible 
 consequences of refusing to obey this greater 
 than Moses; but the language of the Psalm 
 occurs to him, and his warning conforms itself 
 to it, including, however, all the substance of 
 
 that thought. As the Holy Ghost saith, 
 
 etc. — according as saith the Holy Spirit, to- 
 day, if ye shall hear his voice, harden not 
 your hearts. The long citation (ver. 7-i3) is from 
 Ps. 95 : 7-11, in which the Psalmist of the time 
 of David warns the Israelites against repeating 
 the transgressions of their fathers in the wil- 
 derness. Of course, it is equally apposite to 
 the purpose of our author, as applicable now 
 as then. The first question is as to the mode 
 of completing the construction. There have 
 been suggested: (1) 'Wherefore, as saith the 
 Holy Spirit, to-day . . . Take heed' — See to 
 it (^MTtiTf, ver. 12), the answering clause to 
 'wherefore,' according as (ii6, icafluis) being 
 found in 'See to it' (/SAtirtTe). (2) 'Where- 
 fore (as saith. the Holy Spirit) to-day, if ye 
 hear,' etc., 'harden not,' etc., the author thus 
 adopting the Holy Spirit's, or the Psalmist's, 
 exhortation as his own. (3) 'Wherefore (act, 
 or be admonished), according as saitii the 
 Holy Spirit,' the sentence being completed by 
 assuming and supplying an ellipsis at the 
 outset. To neither of these constructions can 
 I see any insuperable objection. The objection 
 to the first, from the long interval between the 
 'according as' ()ca9ois) and the answering clause, 
 'See to it' (^^tirtTe), has weight, doubtless, but 
 is by no means decisive. A stronger objection, 
 perhaps, is the use of 'according as' (Ka.eu><:) 
 when we should expect 'as' (is); and the 
 abruptness of the whole construction makes it, 
 on the whole, improbable. An objection to 
 the second is that, as a large part of the quo- 
 tation is the language of God himself, the 
 author could hardly give it in his own name. 
 To this we might reply that the author guards 
 his language by introducing it with "as the 
 H0I3' Spirit saith ' ; and, secondly, that he 
 merely follows the changes of the Psalmist, 
 who, beginning with an exhortation in hia 
 own name — "if je hear his voice" — imper- 
 ceptibly slides over to the language of Jeho- 
 vah. To the third construction I know no 
 valid objection, as the ellipsis is suflSciently in 
 accordance with the usages of language, and 
 especially of the flexible Greek; and between 
 this and the second I see no decisive ground of 
 choice. I incline to the third, under the belief 
 that the language, 'as the Holy Spirit saith,' 
 
50 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in 
 tlie day of temptation in the wiloerness: 
 
 9 When your lathers teuipleU uie, proved me, and 
 saw my works forty years. 
 
 10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and 
 
 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, 
 Like as in the day ol the trial in the wilderness, 
 1 Where your fathers tried me by proving me, 
 And saw my works forty years. 
 Wherefore I was disjjleased with this generation, 
 
 1 Or, Wherewith. 
 
 indicates that what follows is a simple quota- 
 tion, and, therefore, that the author's adoption 
 of it must be previously understood. [The 
 first constructioti'is adopted by Calvin, Bleek, 
 Liznemann ; the second by Ebrard, Delitzsch ; 
 the third by Tholuck, De Wette.] 'To-day ' 
 is, with the Pialmist, probably put for the 
 whole period which has followed upon the 
 Mosaic Era, contemplated as another possible 
 period of national salvation, but which our 
 author refers specially to the time of New 
 Testament deliverance. Indeed, the Psalm 
 itself, under the inspiring Spirit, may have 
 had a prophetic character; and, in its original 
 import, as well as in its present application, 
 have referred to the time of waiting and trial 
 between the appearing of Christ for salvation, 
 and his coming in vengeance to break up the 
 Jewish polity, and destroy the nation. At all 
 events, that ' to-day' now existed. The Jew- 
 ish people, previously incorrigible, had now 
 another chance to avert their threatened doom. 
 'If ye shall hear his voice' (literally, shall 
 have heard; not, 'If ye will hear,' which 
 totally changes the meaning, as in the Com- 
 mon. Version). If his voice reaches your 
 ears, and by clear implication brings you 
 another promise, or proffer of rest and of 
 salvation. This is evident from the following, 
 'harden not your hearts,' and is made still 
 clearer by the subsequent deduction. The 
 author finds in this (ver. is; 4: ?) a proof of a 
 still remaining promise to enter into God's 
 rest. The voice, then, is a voice of glad 
 tidings and proffered salvation. It is a re- 
 newal, under a more spiritual import, of the 
 glad promise made to ancient Israel, and as- 
 sumed by the Psalmist as certain to be made, 
 but which our author can assume to have been 
 actually made. Christ has come and renewed 
 to the people the proffer of the rest of God. 
 (The Hebrew, however, expresses it as a wish, 
 ' Might you hear his voice ! ' The quotation is 
 from the Scptuagint.) 
 
 8. Harden not your hearts, as in the 
 provocation, in the day of temptation in 
 the wilderness. In the original, we have, 
 "As in Meribah (Num. 20:13), as in the day of 
 
 Massah (Exod. n:7) in the wilderness."' Our 
 author follows the Septuagirt, taking the 
 proper names in their etymological signifi- 
 cation — 'Meribah,' embitterment, angering, 
 provocation; 'Massah,' temptation — and treats 
 the words, ' in the day of temptation,' as fixing 
 the time of the embitterment or provocation. 
 He deviates in this from the Septuagint, as 
 well as the original; but the deviation is un- 
 essential. 'Temptation' is here taken, act- 
 ively, of tempting God. 
 
 9. When (properly. Where— \x\ the wilder- 
 ness) your fathers tempted me, proved me 
 (or, vnth proving), and saw my works — my 
 miraculouft works, oisplays of power on their 
 behalf, whether in bestowing mercies or in 
 punishing their sins — (during) forty years. 
 The author has transferred this clause from 
 the following verb ("during forty years was 
 I angry") to this connection, and placed after 
 it the particle, wherefore (Sid), making the 
 divine anger come rather at the close of the 
 forty 3'ears, than continue through it. He 
 also reads 'this' (ravrji) for 'that' (cic«Vjj) ; 
 thus : 
 
 10. Wherefore I Avas grieved (angry) 
 with that (this) generation. These changes 
 can scarcely be without a purpose. They are 
 probably intended to give the passage a more 
 direct and explicit reference to his own day, 
 and, apparently, to point to the fort^' years' 
 interval between Christ's ascension and the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, a period now, prob- 
 ablj'^, just at its close. The original represents 
 God as, during forty years, displaying his 
 wrath toward the Israelites in the desert. It 
 is more to the purpose of our author to point 
 to thesignal display of God's wrath impending 
 at the close of this forty years' time of waiting. 
 It is thus a solemn reminder to the Jews that 
 their probation, and the time of the with- 
 holding of God's wrath, is nearly over. It 
 is in remarkable confirmation of this view 
 that the Talmud and the Rabbins also had 
 — in connection with Psalm 95, and the forty 
 3'oars' sojourn of the Jews in the desert — 
 assigned a period of forty years to the "daj's 
 of the Messiah." The author has evidently 
 
Ch. III.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 61 
 
 said, They do always err in their heart; and they have 
 not knowQ luy wuys. 
 
 11 So Iswure iu my wrath, They shall not enter into 
 my rest. 
 
 12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of vou 
 an evil heart of unbeliet, iu deparliug from the living 
 God. 
 
 li But exhort one another daily, while it is called To 
 
 And said. They do alway err in their heart: 
 But they did not know my ways; 
 
 11 1 As I sware iu my wrath, 
 
 2 They shall not enter into my rest. 
 
 12 Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in 
 any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, iu falling 
 
 13 away from the living God: but exhort one another 
 day by day, so long as it is called To-day ; lest any 
 
 1 Or, So 2 Or. If they shall enter. 
 
 followed the synagogue in treating the forty 
 years as typical. To sharpen the reference, 
 he changes '^ that generation' into '^ this gen- 
 eration.' This warning could scarcely fall 
 on unaffected minds. And (I) said— a form- 
 ula implying at once the truth and the 
 weight of the utterance— They do always 
 err {are always straying) in their heart. 
 Straying in heart is the fountain and essence 
 of all disobedience. The Israelites began their 
 murmurings against God and Moses early 
 (Exod. 17), but constantly' repeated them ; proved 
 themselves hard and intractable; and, finally, 
 by their unbelief and cowardice, on the very 
 border of the promised land provoked God to 
 turn them back and destroy them. And 
 they, etc. — or, But they did not know my 
 ways. The Vatican text of the Septuagint 
 reads, And they {koX oOtoi), apparently a con- 
 tinuation of what God said; namely, 'And 
 they did not know my ways.' The Alexan- 
 drian reading, ' But they knew not ' (aiToi Si) 
 seems to imply this as a part of God's present 
 utterance in regard to the conduct of ancient 
 Israel. 
 
 11. So (that)^ I sware in my wrath. They 
 shall not enter into my rest. The rest here 
 spoken of is originally the earthly Canaan. It 
 was God's rest ('my rest ' ) in the sense of being 
 bestowed on the people immediately by him. 
 See Deut. 12; 9, 10: "For ye are not as yet 
 come into the rest and the inheritance which 
 the Lord your God giveth you ; and ye shall 
 cross the Jordan and shall dwell in the land 
 which the Lord our God shall give you to in- 
 herit; and he shall give you rest from all your 
 enemies round about, and ye shall dwell in 
 security." (Septuagint.) For the solemn as- 
 severation of God here referred to, see Num. 
 14 : 23, seq. ; Deut 1 : 34, 35 : " And the Lord 
 heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, 
 and sware, saying. Surely there shall not one 
 of these men of this evil generation see that 
 good land," etc. 
 
 13. Take heed (BAtVere, look to it, beware). 
 The verb, standing with no introductory par- 
 ticle, is pecaliarly energetic. It may also inr 
 troduce the answering clause to 'wherefore, 
 as' (ver. 7), but I dccm it doubtful. Brethren, 
 lest {haply) there (shall) be in any one of 
 you. Emphasis on 'you,' as contrasted with 
 the ancient unbelievers. The exhortation 
 which the author has already given indirectly, 
 in the words of the Holy Spirit, be now gives 
 directly in his own. An evil [noimipd, depraved, 
 malignant, intentionally wicked ; stronger than 
 KaKTi, bad) heart of unbelief. An unbeliev- 
 ing heart, a heart whose quality and manifes- 
 tation is unbelief; not unfaithfulness, nor disc-, 
 bedience, but that refusal to trust in God which 
 is the parent of both. This unbelief was the, 
 great sin of the Israelites in the desert, and 
 caused their apostasy from God. The lan- 
 guage is probably suggested by the "always 
 straying in heart'^ of ver. 10. In departing 
 from (or, in falling away, aTroo-r^i'oi, falling, 
 off, apostatizing, not merely isolated acts of 
 disobedience) the living God. God is here 
 not the equivalent of Christ; but the Old Tes- 
 tament forms of conception are transferred to. 
 the New. God, Deity as such, is also in the, 
 New Testament regarded as the ultimate ob- 
 ject of worship and, source of authority. Hc^ 
 sent his Son, he calls, regenerates by the Spirit,, 
 justifies, glorifies. 'The living God,' first per- 
 haps as contrasted with idols, lifeless images, 
 but subsequently evincing that he lives by 
 working within us, by executing his threats, 
 and fulfilling his promises. 
 
 13. But exhort one another daily (day 
 by day). The language implies the danger in 
 which the readers stood of apostasy ; hence, 
 their need of resorting to that i)owerful means 
 of protection, mutual and constantly repeated. 
 exhortation. The power of the social element, 
 and the power o{ repeated enforcement of duty 
 are both clearly implied. While— that is, so 
 long as ("XP'* "^i «P t^ where, up to the extreme 
 
 •■0«, literally as, but here probably, as corresponding to the Hebrew "^'^X equivalent to Sxrrt, so that. 
 
SSi 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceit- 
 fulness of sin. 
 
 14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we bold 
 the beginning of our conlideiice steadfast unto the end ; 
 •15 While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, 
 barden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 
 
 one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin : 
 
 14 for we are become partakers i of Christ, if we hold 
 fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the 
 
 15 end: while it is said, 
 
 To-day if ye shall hear his voice. 
 
 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 
 
 point of time in which) it is called to- 
 day. Either, ' while the to-day of the Psalm 
 is called, is named,' while that period lasts 
 which in the Psalm is called 'to-day'; or, 
 while the word ' to-day ' is called — that is, ut- 
 tered, resounds in our ears. The meaning 
 does not vary materially. The ' to-day ' of the 
 P.salmist is clearly here applied, not to our 
 individual life, but to the present expectant 
 time before the return of the Messiah, when 
 the final doom of all will be sealed. This ' to- 
 day' had urgent force to the Jews just before 
 the impending judgments. Christ's typical 
 Second Coming broke over their nation as a day 
 of doom, crushing and annihilating their The- 
 ocracy; but it survives that crisis and retains 
 undiminished force till the real Second Coming 
 ffliall settle all destinies forever. Lest any 
 »f you be hardened through the deceit- 
 illness of sin — in order that from you there 
 be none. 'You' is emphatic, but not as con- 
 trasted with the 'fathers' (which would re- 
 quire 'also' (xai), but with reference to their 
 highly favored condition, encompassed by the 
 fight and promises of the gospel. (Delitzsch, 
 Moll.) Sin is properly, in its essence, unbelief 
 And apostasy. It is falling away in heart from 
 G-od. So the author in this Epistle generally 
 conceives it, not in its outward form of ' trans- 
 ifression of the law,' but its inward essence of 
 distrust and abandonment of God. So sin in 
 Eden deceived our first parents and seduced 
 them from God. That deceit which produced 
 the first great apostasy is probably here referred 
 tb; But sin always works essentially as it 
 worked first. It deceives and seduces. In the 
 Epistle to the Romans the Apostle is dealing 
 XVith the theoretical question of justification 
 from the penalty of the law ; and sin is a 
 ttansgression of the law. Here the writer is 
 dealing practically with those who are in dan- 
 ger of apostatizing from God, and sin is apos- 
 tasy in heart from God. 
 ' 14, For we are made (or, have become). 
 
 The perfect present tense elegantly and forci- 
 bly assumes the result as an accomplished and 
 existing fact. Partakers of Christ. The 
 stress of the idea lies, as shown by its position in 
 the best MSS., on 'partakers' ; implying that 
 whatever our professions and hopes, we have 
 become 'partakers of Christ,' actual sharers of 
 his salvation and kingdom, ii— provided that, 
 and only provided that (Uvntp, precisely if, an 
 emphatic form of the conditional particle; see 
 6: 3) — we hold fast {maintain) the begin- 
 ning of our confidence ; that is, our origi- 
 nal confidence, the joyful confidence with which 
 we commenced our Christian profession. Such 
 joyful confidence these Christians had origi- 
 nally shown. (6: to; 10:34, 35.) ' The beginning 
 of our confidence,' then, here denotes not im- 
 perfection (as Ebrard), much less the 'princi- 
 ple, or foundation of confidence,' namely, 
 faith, nor the 'first foundation of religion. '' 
 Steadfast {firm) unto the end. This phrase, 
 probably spurious at ver. 6, is genuine here. 
 It makes a rhetorical antithesis to 'beginning' 
 [apxnv). The 'confidence' with which we be- 
 gan must be carried through to the end. The 
 whole verse is elegantly and emphatically 
 terse ; we have become 2>"'''ticipants of Christ, 
 provided that the beginning of our confidence 
 we maintain steadfast until the end. 
 
 15, 16. While it is said, etc., or, hi its 
 being said, To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
 harden not your hearts, as in the provoca- 
 tion. For who, whe7i they heard, did pro- 
 voke ? The connection of ver. 15 has occa- 
 sioned much perplexity, and I think has not 
 been satisfactorily settled. Some, putting ver. 
 14 in parenthesis, have attached it to ver. 13, 
 connecting, however, the words ' In its be- 
 ing said' only with the clause, 'To-day if ye 
 shall hear his voice,' and making the rest a 
 continuance of the writer's exhortation. The 
 utter harshness of this construction renders 
 refutation unnecessary. It could be accepted 
 but as a desperate resort, Avhen all others had 
 
 ' It seems impossible to doubt that vn-dtrToo-w has in Hellenistic Greek the not unnatural meaning of ' confi- 
 dence,' and such is its most natural rendering here. 
 
Ch. III.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 53 
 
 failed. Others construct the verse with that 
 immediately preceding, as epexegetical either 
 of ' unto the end,' or of the conditional clause, 
 'provided that we hold,' etc. This, too, needs 
 but to be examined to be rejected. The best re- 
 cent interpretations (as Liinemann, De Wette, 
 Delitzsch, Moll, Kurtz) construct it, by an 
 elliptical usage, not unfamiliar to the Greek 
 language, with the clause immediately follow- 
 ing. They render nearly thus : ' In its being 
 said, To-day if ye hear his voice, harden not 
 your hearts, as in the provocation, Why, who, 
 when they heard, provoked him ? In its being 
 said thus — who now, who I pray, on hearing, 
 provoked him?' Of the constructions thus 
 far given, this alone can claim a favorable con- 
 sideration. Its abrupt use of the for (y<ip) is a 
 violence which, in many cases, the Greek lan- 
 guage rather loves than shrinks from, and it 
 succeeds in reducing to tolerable order a sen- 
 tence which in either of the preceding con- 
 structions admits neither defense nor explana- 
 tion. But even so constructed, it is harsh and 
 unnatural. It is hard to see why the author 
 should have re-introduced the long quotation 
 for the purpose of commenting on the word 
 'provocation,' and if he did, why he should 
 introduce the commenting clause in so abrupt 
 and harsh a way, which transcends the ordi- 
 nary limits of Greek prose and stretches the 
 license of the language beyond anything else- 
 where exhibited in this Epistle. The ques- 
 tion, "For who, on hearing, provoked him?" 
 looks very much like an after thought, as if it 
 sprang up in the mind of the writer, suggested 
 by the previous word ' provocation ' ; and it is 
 not difficult to suppose that such is really its 
 origin, and that it led him away for the mo- 
 ment from the thought with which he had 
 commenced. Such is, on the whole, my own 
 decided conviction. I follow the Greek inter- 
 preters, Chrysostom, Theophylact, (Ecumen- 
 ius, in regarding it as an unfinished construc- 
 tion, in which the thought, temporarily sus- 
 pended, is subsequently resumed, though in a 
 somewhat different form. Taking it as a bro- 
 ken construction, there are two ways in which 
 we may fill out the ellipsis. We may suppose 
 that the writer, having finished one form of 
 his exhortation, was going to make & deduction 
 from the words, 'To-day if ye shall hear his 
 voice,' etc. ; namely, that in its being so said, 
 we discover that the promise of the rest of God 
 
 was not exhausted upon the ancient Israelites, 
 but that the later promise, and in a still more 
 spiritual form, remains open to us— a thought 
 which lies, of course, in the words, and which 
 he proceeds in the next chapter to develop; 
 employing there, our passage as his decisive 
 and crowning proof: or we may take Chrys- 
 ostom's explanation that it is a hi/perbaton, or 
 reversal of the natural order; that the imme- 
 diate form of the conception was hortatory, 
 and that the thought is virtually renewed in 
 the 'Let us fear, therefore,' of chapter 4: l! 
 In this case the thought is a continuation of 
 the preceding exhortation, though the author 
 no doubt intended to introduce the additional 
 topic of the promised rest remaining open tA 
 us; and the conception in his mind might be'i 
 ' In its being oaid, To-day if ye shall hear hiA 
 voice, harden not your hearts as in the provo^ 
 cation, let us fear, lest, there remaining il 
 promise of entering into his rest,' etc. This 
 would be a most natural inference from the 
 quotation, and a natural continuation of th« 
 preceding passage. And with this thought ilfl 
 his mind, nothing could be more natural than 
 to pause abruptly at the word provocation, and 
 enforce the 'Let us fear' which was in his 
 mind by calling to mind who they were whrt 
 failed of the ancient rest, and why they failed 
 of it. This, in fact, makes the interposed 
 verses 16-19 most strikingly and cogently api- 
 propriate, while at the same time the lon|f 
 break in the sentence naturally leads the 
 writer to return to the suspended thought with 
 therefore (ovv), and thus leave our verse strictly 
 unfinished. Let the reader look carefully at 
 the entire passage. Suppose the author wei% 
 about to say, ' In its being said. To day, if yb 
 shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts «J8 
 in the provocation, let us recognize the prom- 
 ise which is left to us also of entering into hiii 
 rest, and the danger of our failing of it,' hoW 
 natural that when he reached the word which 
 reminded him of the provocation given by an- 
 cient Israel, and of the unbelief and rebellioh 
 by which they forfeited the promised rest, hfe 
 shouid pause to dwell upon it in enforcement 
 of his exhortation (especially as it was the 
 natural train of thought which would come ih 
 after the parallel drawn between Moses and 
 Christ, and which had not before been ex- 
 plicity referred to), and then resume precisely 
 as he does at chapter 4:1: "Let us fear, there- 
 
54 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. III. 
 
 16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: 
 liovvbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. 
 
 17 Bui with whom was he grieved forty years? was il 
 pot with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in 
 the wilderness? 
 
 • 16 And to whom sware he that they should not enter 
 iuto his rest, but to them that believed not? 
 
 16 For wtio, when they heard, did provoke? nay, did 
 
 17 not all they who came outof Egypt by Moses? And 
 with whom was he displeased forty years? was it not 
 with them that sinned, whose ' carcases fell in the 
 
 18 wilderness? And to whom sware he that they 
 should not enter into his rest, but to them that were 
 
 fore, lest, there still remaining a promise," etc. 
 That Clirysostom is in the main right, tlierefore, 
 in his explanation, I cannot doubt; although I 
 deem it questionable whether the form of ex- 
 pression, ' Let us fear, therefore,' was not sug- 
 gested by the terrible examples just previously 
 given, and whether the thought to be supplied 
 was not of a more general character. 'In its 
 being said,' etc., let us recognize the fact of a 
 promise still remaining to us, and the danger 
 of our forfeiting it, as did the ancient Israel- 
 ites. Nor is the break in the construction un- 
 usually harsh or violent. It seems to me 
 extremely natural, and the fact that Chrysos- 
 tom and his fellow Grecians assume it without 
 hesitation or difficulty, though not decisive, is 
 strongly in its favor. 
 
 16. For some (or, For who), when they 
 had heard, did provoke (him). The ' heard ' 
 nnd 'did provoke' are both suggested by 
 the words of the quotation. The question 
 is put to call to the minds of the readers the 
 number and character of those who anciently 
 forfeited the restof Canaan and perished under 
 the wrath of God.' Howbeit not all, etc. 
 (rather, Nay, did not all those who came out 
 of Egypt through Moses ?) Each part of this 
 sentence enhances the emphasis of the whole. 
 Was it not those who 'came out from Egypt,' 
 whom God had zo highly favored by inter- 
 posing in their behalf, and rescuing them from 
 bondage? Was it not those who came out 
 ^thj'ough Moses,' the great leader, lawgiver, 
 prophet, and earthly head of the Jewish the- 
 ocracy, whom this distinguished servant of 
 God had led forth ? And was it not the whole 
 of them? Did not the entire body commit the 
 sin and reap the punishment ? From the fate 
 of a whole community, who had thus heard 
 the delivering and promising voice of God, 
 and been redeemed by his most eminent ser- 
 vant, his readers might well take warning. 
 The two or three individual exceptions (as 
 
 Caleb and Joshua) to the general crime and 
 fate of the people, do not afl'ect the substantial 
 accuracy of the statement. 
 
 17. But with whom (or. And with whom) 
 was he grieved (angry) forty years? The 
 author here returns to the Septuagint construc- 
 tion of the 'forty years,' connecting them 
 with the verb 'to be angry.' This shows that 
 the change made above, though not strictly 
 accidental, nor, probably, without a definite 
 purpose, was yet not at all vital to his object 
 in making the quotation. Having before drawn 
 attention to the character of the persons who 
 formerly incurred the divine displeasure and 
 forfeited the promise, he now, with equal per- 
 tinence, points to the means by which they did 
 it. Was it not with them that had sinned ? 
 Not, 'with them that are from time to time 
 sinning,' or violating God's law. I'heir sin is 
 liere conceived as one collective sin (aorist par- 
 ticiple, a)itopT^<ro<7ii') ; namely, falling away from 
 God, precisely that which his readers are now 
 in imminent danger of committing. Whose 
 carcasses fell in the wilderness. This 
 clause many editors include in the previous 
 interrogations ; but they certainly are in error. 
 It is no proper reply to the question, With 
 whom was he angry? He was angry with 
 them that sinned. And this is a natural and 
 forcible addition to remind them of the con- 
 sequences of that sin and that wrath. Tlie 
 'whose' may be rendered by 'and their': 
 'and their carcasses- fell in the wilderness'; 
 according to the threat in Num. 14 : 32. 
 ' Fell,' by a usage equally common — of the 
 Greek word (jmrTio), and the English, fall — 
 were overthrown, prostrated, destroyed. 
 
 18. And to whom sware he that they 
 should not enter into his rest, but to 
 them that beliered not? 'Believed not' — 
 more exactly, disobeyed ; but as we thus lose 
 the correspondence of words — tlie Greek 
 'disobedience' and 'unbelief (iwiitfeiar and 
 
 1 We need write no words in defending the rive: and tiViv, who and to whom of the critical editions, instead of 
 rwe<i and Ti<riV, some&nA to some,of theTextus Receptus. 
 * KwAa, members, limbs, carcasses. 
 
Ch. IV.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 55 
 
 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of | 19 disobedient? And we see that they were not able 
 unbelief. | to enter in because of unbelief, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LET us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of I 
 enteriug into his rest, any of you should seeui to 
 come short of it. 
 
 1 Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being 
 left of entering into his rest, any one of yi,u sliould 
 
 2 seeiu to have come short of it. For indeed we have 
 
 airtdTcoi') having a near etymological and pho- 
 netic relation — we, perhaps, lose more in the 
 antithesis of ver. 18 and 19, by retaining 'dis- 
 obeying,' than we gain in exactness of meaning. 
 In the author's conception, as also in fact, 'dis- 
 obedience' is but just tlie natural expression 
 of unbelief. Had the sentence corresponded 
 in form to the preceding as it does in thought, 
 it would have run thus: And to whom sware 
 he that they should not enter into his rest? 
 Was it not to them that (disobeyed) believed 
 not? This question advances on the preceding 
 both in definiteness and pungency. The former 
 declared God's wrath for sin in its most gen- 
 eral stiitement; this declares the effect of that 
 wrath in exclusion from his rest, and the sin 
 in its principle, a 'heart of unbelief.' The 
 author is bringing round the thought in his 
 characteristic manner to the topic in his mind 
 (as, I believe) at ver. 15, and to be formally 
 taken up in chapter 4. 
 
 19. So we see (better, And we behold) that 
 they could not enter in because of unbe- 
 lief. There is here no Q. E. D. from a pre- 
 ceding argument, as held by Ebrard, with 
 many interpreters, and implied by the er- 
 roneous 'so' of the Common Version. It 
 simply (Delitzsch) has reference to the imme- 
 diately preceding quotation and its answer, 
 and is an emphatic statement, by a reference 
 to what we behold, what is presented to our 
 view on the page of history, of the conse- 
 quences of that unbelief, in the oath of ex- 
 clusion to which it led. The 'and we be- 
 hold' is not logical, as concluding a train of 
 reasoning, but simply refers us to the Old 
 Testament record as shotoing that tlie awful 
 oath of exclusion was carried into effect. It 
 thus stands related to ver. 18 just as the last 
 clause of ver. 17 stands related to the preceding 
 clause. They stand in substantial parallelism 
 thus: 
 
 And with whom was he angry during forty years? 
 
 Was it not with them that sinned? 
 
 And their carcasses fell in the wilderness ! 
 
 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into 
 
 his rest ? 
 Was it not to them that believed not? 
 And we see that they were unable to enter in because 
 
 of unbelief! 
 
 The idea that this last verse is, in some inde- 
 finable way, the winding up of a chain of 
 reasoning, has confused many interpreters. 
 As above analyzed (Delitzsch and Moll), it 
 becomes perfectly clear. This passage, which 
 has thus tersely set forth the prerogatives, the 
 sin, and the fate of the ancient people of God, 
 leads also, naturally, to the warning, " Let us, 
 therefore, fear," with which the next chapter 
 opens, and the discussion of the topic of the 
 promised rest, forfeited by ancient Israel, 
 being still open to the people of God, as 
 implied in the language of the Psalmist. 
 
 Ch. 4. (3) The rest of God forfeited by 
 ancient Israel still open under its higher 
 form, as God's Sabbatic rest, to the spiritual 
 Israel. (1-10.) 
 
 1. With the fact of the awful stumbling 
 and fall of ancient Israel still fresh in his 
 mind, the author commences the present 
 chapter with an exhortation which, while it 
 introduces a new topic, links itself closely 
 with the preceding. The new thought is : 
 "There is still remaining (while there still 
 remaineth) a promise of entering into his 
 rest" ; the exhortation is: Let us therefore 
 fear (in view of this terrible fall of Israel 
 under Moses) lest any of you should seem 
 to come short of it (or, may seem to have 
 come short of it). We must bear in mind 
 that the fact of the remaining of this promise 
 of rest to us is here momentarily assumed. It 
 does not follow from anything which has been 
 previously said, except by an implication, 
 which the author subsequently develops. It 
 is in no way a direct inference from the unbe- 
 lief and overthrow of Israel in the dissert. 
 To reason from the failure of ancient Israel 
 
56 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 •to obtain the promised rest to the continuance 
 or transfer of that promise to a later age, is, 
 as Delitzsch justly observes, a piece of incon- 
 sequence which we are not to charge upon our 
 author. He does not so reason in the slightest 
 degree. He argues it simply and exclusively 
 from the Psalm, which he has already cited, 
 and in which citation he finds this continued 
 or repeated promise clearly implied. And an 
 analysis of the passage shows how just is his 
 conclusion, and how singularly pertinent, 
 therefore, was the Psalm to the purpose for 
 which he quoted it. * To-day if ye shall hear 
 his voice' points to a probability, or, rather, a 
 certainty, that the Israelites of this later period 
 would hear (or, did hear) the voice of God 
 coming to them with the renewal of the an- 
 cient promise of rest, the like joyful message 
 with that which came to their fathers. The 
 warning to them against hardening their 
 hearts after the example of their fathers, and 
 the reminding them of the terrible penalty 
 which their father's unbelief incurred — 
 namely, a forfeiture of the rest of God — have 
 no pertinence, except on the assumption that 
 a like joyful message and promise of rest has 
 come, or is to come, to them, and which they 
 are in danger of forfeiting by a like unbelief. 
 On this passage, and, for the present discus- 
 sion, on nothing else, the author founds his 
 assertion that a promise of rest still awaits the 
 people of God. The 'to-day' of the Psalmist 
 he conceives, of course, as extending indefi- 
 nitely down to the next great catastrophe in 
 Jewish history, if not as being, what it very 
 possibly was, a direct prophecy of the proffer 
 of spiritual rest to be made to the people by 
 the Messiah. In this interpretation he is fully 
 warranted. The passage cannot mean any- 
 thing less, nor anything else. It requires no 
 rabbinical subtilizing, and noingenious or ver- 
 bal sophistry. There stands out, as clearly 
 involved in it as if it were stated in the fullest 
 and most express terms, that the once forfeited 
 promise or entering into God's rest stands over, 
 or is repeated to a later age. But another thing 
 the author assumes, and can but assume: In 
 view of the fact that the people to whom this 
 promise of rest first came disobeyed and per- 
 ished, the whole of them, that they were not 
 the true people of God ; and in view of the 
 fact that this promise is now repeated centuries 
 after the Jews entered Canaan, that the real 
 
 rest of the promise was a higher rest, of which 
 the rest of Canaan was but typical. He is justi- 
 fied, therefore,in looking farther,and inquiring 
 what is the true rest which was indicated by 
 that pregnant and mighty phrase, the rest of 
 God. Yet all this is but inferential from the 
 one central, decisive passage. He plants him- 
 self on his interpreta,tion of the Spirit's lan- 
 guage of the Old Testament. Finding it 
 afiirmed that a promise of entering into the 
 rest of God is renewed to later Israel, he 
 thence simply looks back and inquires what 
 light this sheds upon tlie nature of the rest of 
 Canaan, and looks around to see what must 
 be the rest which, at this late stage, is offered 
 to the people of God. He finds but one ex- 
 planation. He links it with the Sabbath rest 
 of God at the close of the Creation, and into 
 which the institution of the Sabbath for man 
 shows that it was God's purpose that man 
 should enter. The following verses now pro- 
 ceed straight forward, very elliptically and 
 tersely, but with undeniable justice and force, 
 to develop this line of thought. He is not, 
 however, in ver. 1-7, going through the several 
 steps of an argumentation io prove the point 
 that there remains a rest. Planting himself 
 on his interpretatio7i of the Scriptures, he is 
 simply developing the inferences from that 
 statement, and especially the grand inference 
 as to the spiritual and Sabbatic nature of this 
 promised rest. ' Let us therefore fear.' This 
 certainly is not, strictly and inform., the an- 
 swering and continuing clause of the seem- 
 ingly (and, I believe, really) unfinished 3 : 15, 
 'In its being said,' etc., all between being 
 strictly parenthetical. But that the author 
 does really proceed to develop the thought 
 which he then had in mind, and from which 
 he abruptly turned aside — namely, what was 
 really implied, both of fact and of warning, 
 in that language— I see no good reason for 
 doubting. He approaches it, however, in a 
 different manner, with the emphatic 'Let us 
 therefore fear' caught from the awful exam- 
 ples of unbelief which he has just cited. The 
 then, therefore (oSi-) reasons from those ex- 
 amples to our need of fear; not from their 
 having forfeited a promise to its transfer to 
 us. Lest a promise being left us (or, there 
 still remaining a promise^ of entering into 
 his rest. Emphasis on the ' remaining,' as 
 shown by its position, as well as the connee- 
 
Ch. IV.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 57 
 
 2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as 
 unto them: but the word preached did not protil them, 
 not being mixed with fuith in them that heard it, 
 
 3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as 
 
 had I good tidings preached unto us, even as also 
 they: but the word of hearing did not profit theiu, 
 because - it was not united by laith with them that 
 3 beard. ^Vot we who have believed do enter into 
 tbat rest; even as he hath said, 
 
 1 Or, a gotpel 'i Many ancieDt uuihorities read they were 3 Some authorities read We therefore. 
 
 tion.' The burden of the thought now to be 
 illustrated— namely, that the promise of en- 
 tering into God's rest was not exhausted upon 
 ancient Israel, but renewed, and remains, in 
 a heightened form, to the Christian Israel — is 
 contained in this clause. 'Any one of you may 
 seem to have come short of it.' 'Of you' 
 {ii ii^itv, from you) is clearly emphatic. We 
 may observe, too, the significant change of 
 person, from the first person plural of the 
 hortatory, 'Let us fear.' There the author 
 puts himself into the category of his hearers 
 to win their favorable hearing. But his solic- 
 itude is, after all, not for himself, but for them. 
 Not he, but they, are in danger of apostasy; 
 and the close of the sentence forgets, in its 
 earnestness, , the rhetorical modesty of the 
 opening, and converges the wholeforce of the 
 appeal upon those for whom it was properly 
 intended. ' 'May seem' (fio«^), a word which 
 ■may be taken as giving emphasis to the mean- 
 ing, ' lest any of you maj' — not only not have 
 come short, but may seem, to have come short.' 
 (Delitzsch.) This, however, would almost 
 require an accompanying even (kcU), ' may 
 even seem,' ; and I prefer to regard it rather 
 as softening the force of the expression. As 
 if the writer could not bear to conceive of 
 their having come actually short, he connects 
 with it an uneinphatic 'may seem' (Sok^), 
 may be accounted, to have come short — a 
 use of the verb not unfamiliar to classical 
 Greek, which often puts the words "to seem," 
 instead of "to be," the seeming, or being 
 accounted, for the being. 'To have come 
 short,' with reference, probably', to the Jews 
 under Moses having fallen short of entering 
 the promised land. Ebrard's construction of 
 the passage (following Wahl, Bretschneider), 
 "may think that he has arrived too late," 
 though grammatically possible, has no other 
 
 recommendation. It is inconsistent with the 
 emphatic 'Let us fear,' wliich should rather 
 have run, ' Let not any of us fear that we have 
 arrived too late, that there is not still a promise 
 for us,' which would have made a not inappro- 
 priate sense, though not the one required here. 
 
 2. This verse states categorically what ver. 
 1 had stated informally and indirectly. For 
 unto us was the gospel preached, etc. It 
 may be rendered, For we have had the 
 glad m,essage, the promise of a rest, just as 
 did also they. The emphasis lies not on the 
 'us' (or we), but on the verb have had, as 
 against a possible denial of the fact. But the 
 word preached (the word of their hearing) 
 did not profit them — 'them' with emphasis, 
 the clause being added half incidentally, but 
 iinportant as recalling the fact stated abov 
 and renewing to the readers the warning 
 drawn from the failure of ancient Israel 
 to profit by the promise, and finding in that 
 failure a ground for the promise's renewal. 
 Had it fulfilled itself in them, there could 
 have been no room for its repetition. Not 
 being mixed with faith in them {not hav- 
 ing m.ixed itself by faith with them) that 
 heard it.^ It was merely a word of hearing 
 (referring to the "to-day, if ye hear" above) ; 
 it did not penetrate their hearts; receiving it 
 with the ear, they were rebellious and for- 
 feited it. (De Wette explains: "For the 
 good of them them that heard it"; others, 
 "in respect to.") 
 
 3. For we which have believed do enter 
 into rest— that is, we enter, or are entering, 
 into rest, as those who have believed. ' Re- 
 ceiving the glad tidings' is now 'entering into 
 rest,' on which lies the primary emphasis, re- 
 affirming our having received renewedly the 
 promise, while a secondary emphasis lies on 
 the beVeving, as contrasted with the unbelief 
 
 * KaTaA«iir«ii', To leave down, to leave still remaining, 
 and, as it were, firm. Not, 'the promise being relin- 
 quished, abandoned' (as many), which, besides being 
 less in accordance with the context, would much 
 more naturally take the active, instead of the pnssive 
 participle, and the article with iTtay^iKiav ((caraAeii^as, 
 or, KaTaXfC\liavTt% Tt\v iirayyfKi.a.v). 
 
 2 A better <°3;/*m/7//.i/ attested reading, which makes the 
 participle agree with " them 'H<'^>'Y''««P*<'''^*''°''«)t '""•'^'S 
 no tolerable sense; "not having united themselves hy 
 faith with them (that is, Caleb and .Toshua) that 
 hoard'"; that is, obeyed, taking a<cou»t>' here as equivalent 
 to uiroutouciK. But the change is violent and iuiprobableii 
 
58 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall 
 enter iulo luy rest: although the works were finished 
 from the fouadatiou of the world. 
 
 1 As I sware in my wrath, 
 2 They sball not enter into my rest: 
 although the works were finished from the founda- 
 
 1 Or, So 2 Gr. 1/ they shall enter. 
 
 which excluded the ancient recipients of the 
 })roinise. Many interpreters rest the main 
 emphasis on tlie believing, but I think that 
 still the author's main scope is the fact of the 
 promise being renewed to the later Israel. 
 The 'we who have believed' marks also not 
 individual faith, or the actuality of its posses- 
 sion; but faith, as the condition of our enter- 
 ing into rest, as against the faithlessness which 
 excluded the original receivers of the promise. 
 The present verb ' we enter' (eio-epx^M^^a) may be 
 taken in its generality, as the successive heirs of 
 the New Testament promise, or as denoting the 
 now incompleted act; like the Israelites in the 
 wilderness, we are moving on toward our spir- 
 itual Canaan. (According) as he (hath) said. 
 As I have sworn (so that I sware) in my 
 wrath, if they shall (they shall not) enter 
 into my rest. Quoted from the above warn- 
 ing to the later Israel not to repeat the disas- 
 trous unbelief of their fixthers; but quoted 
 specially for the verbal correspondence of its 
 phrase 'enter into my rest' with the 'entering 
 into rest' just aflfirmed of Ne'w Testament be- 
 lievers, and to lead the way to a statement of 
 the nature of this rest, called significantly 
 'my' — that is, God's — 'rest.' In the original 
 declaration the ' my ' is objective, the rest which 
 God bestoivs (Canaan) ; here it is subjective, 
 the rest which God enjoys, and into which he 
 admits his people. This is shown by the im- 
 mediately following explanation. Althou§:h 
 the (his) works were (had been) finished 
 from the foundation of the world, and 
 thus the rest established into which God could 
 admit his creatures. The author's procedure 
 is justified by the Psalm from which he quotes. 
 Tills proffers an entrance into the rest of God to 
 the later Israel centuries after the elder Israel 
 had entered Canaan. What, then, could be 
 this rest of God again proffered them, and 
 which they are so solemnly warned against 
 forfeiting? The problem is a legitimate one. 
 He is not asserting that the ancient Canaan 
 was not the true rest, and then looking round 
 for another meaning to the expression. He 
 simply infers from this rest of God being 
 offered to the Jews centuries after the Jews 
 entered Canaan, that Canaan could not have 
 
 been the true rest, and inquires what was so; 
 what that typical rest prefigured. He turns 
 back to the rest into which God entered at the 
 creation, and this, as is shown by his instituting 
 the Sabbath, and blessing and hallowing the 
 day, not for himself, but for humanity. The 
 Sabbath was made for man, and it might well 
 be believed that when the work of redemption 
 should be accomplished, the rest of God, of 
 which it was now a blessed reminder, should 
 fulfill its original purpose, and be a spiritual 
 Sabbath for a regenerated world. With the 
 Fall, along with the curse of death, came the 
 curse of toil — the sweat of the brow and the 
 unrest of the soul; and through the lips of the 
 parents of Noah humanity uttered its longing 
 for deliverance, "this same shall comfort us 
 concerning (Septuagint, SiaTrauo-et, shall bring 
 us to rest fro-m) our work and the toil of our 
 hands, because of the ground which the Lord 
 hath cursed." Meantime God had entered 
 into his rest, not for himself (for in truth as 
 for God there can be properly no work, so for 
 him there can be no rest; as he can never 
 more than exercise his omnipotence, so he can 
 never less than exercise it), but for man. Ke 
 had given to man the Sabbath, as a token of 
 his beneficent purpose, and impressed the be- 
 lief that ultimately, when the curse of death 
 (of wliich the Messiah was to be the destruc- 
 tion) should be removed, the penalty of toil 
 and spiritual unrest would be removed also. 
 Of that bondage of the race, the bondage of 
 Israel in Egypt was a tj'pe ; of its deliverance, 
 that deliverance; of Jesus, its Deliverer, Moses 
 and Joshua, the one inaugurating, the other 
 completing, the deliverances, were types; of 
 that rest Canaan itself, with its milk and 
 honey (both obtained largely without labor) 
 was a type. Yet but a type, earthly, physical, 
 temporary, for a single people. What is 
 needed is a rest for the spirit, for mankind, 
 forever; the rest of God, the Sabbatism of the 
 race. It was no violence to find this Sabbatic 
 rest under the type of Canaan; to transform 
 the partial, earthly, transient, troubled rest of 
 Canaan into the universal, spiritual, everlast- 
 ing, perfect rest of the Messiah's kingdom, 
 into which the great Antitype of both Moses 
 
Ch, IV] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 59 
 
 4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day 
 ou this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from 
 all his works. 
 
 5 And iu this place again, If they shall enter into my 
 rest. 
 
 4 tion of the world. For he hath said somewhere of 
 the seventh dity on this wise, And (jod rested on the 
 
 5 seventh day from all his works; and in this place 
 again, 
 
 1 Tbey shall not enter into my rest. 
 
 1 Or. ^ they thall enter. 
 
 and Joshua shall ultimately lead his people. 
 And in this view most signiticant is the change 
 of the Sabbath from the day of the finished 
 work of creation to the day of the finished 
 work of redemption. It implies that the true 
 Sabbatism of the race would be realized in 
 Jesus. The author is justified, therefore,— tak- 
 ing for granted that the rest described is not 
 the rest of Canaan,— in referring it back in his 
 pregnantly elliptical language to the Sabbatic 
 rest of God. I say elliptical, because it is 
 equivalent to his works being finished at, and 
 then his rest continuing //-om, the foundation 
 of the world. The precise dependence of the 
 participle in the original (yevrieivToiv), translated 
 'were finished,' is doubtful; whether (with 
 Kuinoel) on "hath said" (elprj^ef) : thus, "he 
 hath said," etc., "although his works had 
 been finished " ; and thus he could speak of a 
 rest; or on "they shall not enter into" (eio-eAeu- 
 o-ovTai), implying that there was a rest from 
 which he could speak of excluding them. But 
 it is more in accordance with the context, I 
 think, to regard it as epexegetical of the im- 
 mediately preceding phrase, and added to 
 intimate what kind of a rest it implies;* that 
 it points back really to the Sabbath rest of 
 God. The author here commences to define 
 in the light of the subsequent repetition of the 
 promise, the true import of that promise, 
 which to ancient Israel was veiled under its 
 more carnal and earthly guise, but which, with 
 advancing time, reveals its spiritual character. 
 That which remains, he decides, must be the 
 promise of entering into the Sabbath rest of 
 God. To make this more clear he adds : 
 
 4, 5. For (in confirmation of my statement 
 that God's rest was established in the comple- 
 tion of his works at the foundation of the 
 world) he spake in a certain place, etc., 
 or, hath said somewhere. 'Somewhere' does 
 not imply ignorance of the locality of the pas- 
 sage, but is simply rhetorical. Of {concern- 
 ing) the seventh day (the Sabbath, the day 
 of Sabbatic rest) on this wise. And God 
 
 did rest the seventh day from all his 
 works. While the passage is quoted for its 
 general sentiment, its special emphasis is on 
 rested («caTeirauo-£v), bringing it into verbal, as 
 well as real connection, with his doctrine of 
 the Sabbatic rest. And in this place again. 
 If they shall enter (they shall not enter) 
 into my rest. The previous verse has shown 
 when and how God established his rest; the 
 present renewed quotation reminds us that the 
 rest exists, and by declaring the exclusion of 
 some, clearly implies that it was originally de- 
 signed to be entered by his creatures; the 
 negative declaration, 'they shall not enter,' 
 having no force unless on the assumption of its 
 being under the proper conditions accessible to 
 mortals. 
 
 6. The author now proceeds to his conclu- 
 sions. Let us review the elements with which 
 he has to deal : (1) From history he knows 
 that ancient Israel had a promise of entering 
 into the land of Canaan— the rest of God, as 
 bestowed by God. (2) By disobedience they 
 forfeited the promise, and came short of it 
 — God, in his wrath, excluding them from it. 
 (3) The quoted Psalm shows that the promise 
 is renewed at a later date, aV>out four hundred 
 years after, in the time of David — "To-day, 
 if ye shall hear his voice "—clearly implying 
 that they will, or have heard it — the voice of 
 the renewed proffer of God's rest. (4) But 
 this renewed proflTer goes over the head of 
 the fact that though Israel under Moses did 
 not enter the promised land, their descend- 
 ants rfirf; the promise was, to them, literally 
 fulfilled. And yet, notwithstanding this, the 
 voice of the promise sounded on all the same, 
 showing that as the people under Moses had 
 shown themselves not to be God's true people, 
 so the rest of Canaan had been shown not to be 
 the true rest. The congregation in the wil- 
 derness, with its elaborate organization, had 
 proved itself to be but a typical church — the 
 rest of Canaan had been proved to be but a 
 typical rest. (5) By a deduction which the 
 
 ' The somewhat vague particle Kairoi, with which 
 the passage opens, is commonly nearly equivalent 
 to although; and to this meaning here there is no 
 
 objection. I think, however, it may mean, "and you 
 see," " and in sooth," not being so much adversative as 
 continuative. 
 
60 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter 
 therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered 
 nut in because of unbelief: 
 
 6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter 
 thereinto, and they to wliom i the good tidings were 
 belore preached failed to enter in because of diso- 
 
 1 Or, the gospel woe* 
 
 wlu)le Sabbath history justifies (and which I 
 believe to be the Spirit of God's comment on 
 his own word), the promised rest of God thus 
 disengages itself from' the land of Canaan, 
 and links itself with the Sabbath rest into 
 which God entered, and which lie instituted 
 for his creatures, from the foundation of the 
 world. Seeing (or, since) therefore it re- 
 maineth. The Greek word here is not equiv- 
 alent in sense to the same word in ver. 1, 
 translated 'remaineth,' is left behind, not 
 taken away. Here it means, is left open, 
 stands in reserve, as a thing attainable. That 
 some must (, rather, should, or, may) enter 
 therein. All that is needful to establish is 
 that the rest exists and is accessible ; there is 
 no need to prove that it must be entered. And 
 they to Avhom, etc. — or. They who form.erly 
 received the glad m,essage, did not enter in 
 because of disobedience. These are the con- 
 ditions under which the proffer and promise 
 could be renewed. But we may inquire. How 
 was the overthrow of Israel in the desert a 
 condition of its renewal ? If the entrance of 
 the next generation into the promised land 
 did not stand in the way of its renewal, how 
 could the disobedience and fall of the fathers 
 be in an3^ way a condition of that renewal? 
 To this I answer, first, that we are not, unduly, 
 to press the condition. The author has not in 
 mind any intrinsic and absolute connection 
 between the tv;o facts, but one existing in the 
 actual ordering of Providence. Although 
 there was no absolute necessity, God made 
 the final falling away of the Jews, and their 
 breaking up as a people, the condition of the 
 reception of the Gentiles, so that their over- 
 throw was the riches of the Gentiles, and 
 their stumbling the riches of the world. So, 
 in his sovereign pleasure, God permitted the 
 overthrow of the congregation in the wilder- 
 nes!^, and conditioned, in some sort, upon 
 their rejection of the promise, its renewal in 
 a later age. But bow "in some sort"? I 
 answer, secondly, that the .Tews who came 
 out of Egypt stood in much the same relation 
 to the .Jewish people, that the Jewish nation, 
 as a whole, did to the Gentile.«. They were, 
 in a peculiar and pre-eminent sense, the rep- 
 
 resentative people of God ; they left Egypt, 
 the house of their bondage, under Moses, the 
 great type of the Great Spiritual Deliverer; 
 they knew, in a pre-eminent degree, what it 
 was to bear the yoke of oppression ; and to 
 them came, with special emphasis, the promise 
 of rest from toil. A few months' direct jour- 
 neying across the desert would have brought 
 them from the "house of bondage" to the 
 home of freedom and of jo3\ Again, the 
 Jews who came out of Egypt were the first 
 organized people of God. For them was 
 raised up Moses — the great deliverer, law- 
 giver, prophet, intercessor — who stood face to 
 face with God, and offered himself as a sacri- 
 fice for the nation. To them was given the 
 law from Mount Sinai; to them came the 
 ordinances of the Theocracy. When, there- 
 fore, that whole body perished in the wilder- 
 ness, together with their leader, Moses ; when 
 not a man of those who came out of Egypt 
 under Moses, save Caleb and Joshua (and 
 this is the significance of the "all," 3 : 16), 
 survived to enter Canaan, the fact was of 
 weightiest import. It proved that the conr 
 gregation in the wilderness was not the gen.^ 
 nine people of God, and the coming short, 
 even of Moses, showed him to be not the true 
 spiritual leader. And we cannot fail to re- 
 mark that in allowing both the people who 
 came out of Egypt, and their great leader, 
 all alike to come short of the promised land^ 
 God intended to mark, signally, their merely 
 t3'pical character, and thus justified the use 
 made of it by our author, a|)art, even, from 
 the express warrant which he finds for it in 
 the Psalm. Once more. We find a warrant 
 for regarding the failure of ancient Israel to 
 enter into the rest of God, as opening the way 
 for a later renewal of the promise, in the 
 general development of God's plans and pur- 
 poses through successive stages and ages of 
 the world's history. The promised rest of the 
 people of God is not in the writer's concfp- 
 tion, or that of the New Testament generally, 
 heaven, as an existing place of rest for each 
 soul as it leaves its fleshly tenement. It is a 
 period, an age, farther down the track of the 
 ages; a state into which humanity, or the 
 
Ch. IV.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 61 
 
 7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, 
 To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye 
 will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 
 
 8 For if Jesus liad given them rest, then would he not 
 afterward have spoken of another day. 
 
 7 bedience, he again defineth a certain day, To-day, 
 saying in David, so long a time afterward (even as 
 hath lieen said before). 
 
 To-day if ye shall hear his voice. 
 Harden not your hearts. 
 
 8 For if ' Joshua had given them rest, he would not 
 
 destined people of God, are yet to enter. On 
 the relation of each departing individual soul 
 to this coining state, the sacred writers be- 
 stowed comparatively little attention. The 
 grand object of their view is not the unseen 
 heavenly world in distinction from the 
 earthly, but the corning age, with its glory, 
 in distinction from the present. To the Jew, 
 that coming age was the age of the Messiah. 
 To the Christian, for whom the Messiah had 
 come, and was to come again, the coming age 
 (already present, from the Old Testament 
 point of view) linked itself with that second 
 appearing, when was to be realized to the 
 church the Sabbath rest of God. Regarded as 
 fln epoch, a stage in which humanity reached 
 its final goal, the promises must not have been 
 earlier fulfilled and exhausted. Slow but sure 
 is God's march down the ages. 
 
 7. Again, he limiteth {He again fixeth) 
 a certain day, saying in David — that is, 
 not in the Book of Psalms regarded as col- 
 lectivelj' by David (nor, analagously, to "in 
 Elijah" (Rom. 11:2), designating a part of the 
 Scripture treating of Elijah), but in, for by, 
 David personally; and this the more prob- 
 ably, as the Septuagint attributes this Psalm 
 to David — after so long a time — that is, so 
 long a time after the early promise and its 
 forfeiture (it belongs to 'saying'). To day 
 as it is {hath been) said, To day, if ye Avill 
 (shall) hear his voice, harden not your 
 hearts. The first 'to day' may be taken 
 separately as defining the 'certain day' (he 
 fixeth a certain day; namely, 'to day'), or 
 (with Delitzsch, Kurtz, etc.) as placed em- 
 phatically' before 'saying,' and then repeated 
 with the rest of the quotation. This con- 
 struction seems, on the whole, more natural 
 in the Greek.* As to the meaning, there is 
 no diflSculty. The parenthesis, 'as hath been 
 said before,' is thrown in by way of half 
 apology for the renewed repetition of the 
 quotation from th.e Psalm. But in the quo- 
 tation lies the kernel of the argument. The 
 
 'to day, if ye shall hear his voice,' etc., im- 
 plies that they do, or will again hear, the 
 same voice of promise, whence the inference 
 that the rest of Palestine did not exhaust or 
 fulfill it. The 'to day' is taken as substan- 
 tially a prophecy— a prediction that the gra- 
 cious voice of God would again sound in their 
 ears, and an entreaty that they would not, 
 under the gracious proffer, renew the diso- 
 bedience of their fathers. The 'to day' is 
 really the day of the Messianic epoch. To 
 the Jews as a people, it is the time that shall 
 elapse between Christ's summons to repent- 
 ance and the sealing of their destinies in his 
 typical return at the overthrow of Jerusalem. 
 To the New Testament people of God, the 
 spiritual Israel, it is the time intervening 
 between his first coming to bring the gospel 
 message of salvation, and the final coming, 
 that shall fix all destinies. 
 
 8. For if Jesus (Joshua) had given them 
 rest, etc. — had brought thein to rest — he(Gf)d, 
 or the prophet on his behalf) would not after 
 this be speaJdng — (eAoAei, the writer throws 
 the speaking into his own time) — of another 
 day. An irrefragable inference on which we 
 need not dwell. The destruction of the fol- 
 lowers of Moses proved that the congregation 
 in the wilderness was not the true church of 
 God, and left room for the true spiritual 
 church. So the promise, renewed long sub- 
 sequently to Israel's entrance into Palestine, 
 proves that the rest of Canaan was not the 
 true rest of God. Thus the author, by impli- 
 cation, disposes of the claims, both of Moses 
 and Joshua, in comparison with Christ. Moses 
 broughtthe people out of Eg3'pt, but could not 
 bring them into the promised land. Joshua 
 brought the nation into Canaan; but it was 
 not the true rest of the people of God. We 
 have but to follow the st^ry of its fortunes to 
 see how far was the ancient Israel from rest. 
 Its enemies within and around, its civil strifes 
 and foreign wars, its apostasies, its captivities, 
 its enslavements — are anything but the record 
 
 * 'El' Aavct^ Arywc with (be atjutpov seems more natural. Without the <r»)M«p<»' we should expect Kiyutv iv AavtiS. 
 
62 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 9 There reuiaineth therefore a rest to ihe people of 
 God. 
 
 10 For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath 
 -ceased from liis own works, as God did from liis. 
 
 11 Let. us labour tlierefore to enter into that rest, lest 
 any luuu fall alter the same example of unbelief. 
 
 9 have spoken afterward of another day. There re- 
 mainelb therefore a sabbath rest for the people of 
 
 10 God. For he who is entered into his rest bath him- 
 self also rested from bis works, as God did from his. 
 
 11 Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that 
 rest, that no man fall i after the same example of 
 
 I Or, into. Or. in. 
 
 of ii nation arrived at peace. Had Israel been 
 faithful indeed, God must iiave fulfilled his 
 utmost promises. But the rebellions of Pales- 
 tine repeated the rebellions of the desert, until 
 at last the star of Judah was quenched in 
 darkness and blood. The way is prepared 
 fur the autiior's final conclusion. 
 
 9, There remaineth therefore — the wri- 
 ter triumphantly concludes — a rest (a Sab- 
 bath rest, a Sabbatisrn^) to {for) the people 
 of God. Sabbatism, for wliicli the previous 
 word "rest" (KaTdnavm) is here exchanp^ed, is 
 a Hebrew-Greek word, found but once in 
 classic Greek (" Plutarch deSuperstitione," 3), 
 but appositely used in the summing up of the 
 argument by which the typical rest of Canaan 
 is carried over into and identified with the 
 Sabbath rest of God, instituted at creation ; a 
 rest as much superior to the latter as the God 
 in whom lies the one is superior to the Canaan 
 that vainly proffered the other; a real rest, 
 with its heavenly Jerusalem — a city with 
 foundations — from which they shall go no 
 more out; a real Paradise, where they shall 
 "rest from their labors," with no more curse 
 of sin and toil. One step further by way of 
 explaining what is implied in this Sabbatism. 
 
 10. For he that is entered, etc. ; or, he 
 wlto hath entered into his (Grorf's) rest, he also 
 hath himself r''sted [cea.'ied) from his work, as 
 God did from his own. God's rest was a real 
 rest; to the apprehension of his creatures, and 
 in every applicable sense, he entered into rest. 
 So with his creatures who enjoy this holy Sab- 
 batism. They rest from the toil and woe 
 entailed by sin. Emplo.yinent, activity, no 
 matter how protracted and intense, but no 
 toil ! Some make Jesus ' he who entered into 
 rest,' ns the Forerunner of his people. The 
 thought is not inapposite, yet less closely con- 
 
 nected with the context, and a reference to 
 Jesus would have been probably made more 
 unequivocal. 2 
 
 (4) Reneioed exhortation in vieio of the re- 
 neioed promise of a higher rest, and based on 
 the spiritual and searching qualities of the 
 word; and transition, through their need of a 
 sympathizing highjiriest, to the next and chief 
 topic of the Epistle. (11-16.) 
 
 II. Let us labour {be zealous) therefore 
 to enter into that rest ; that is, this New Tes- 
 tament rest of God, which, designed for all, 
 may be forfeited by any. The author is not a 
 fatalist. Christ suffered death for every man, 
 but individual fidelity must appropriate its 
 benefits. The holy Sabbath rest awaits the 
 collective people of God; but each must make 
 good his claim by persevering to the end. 
 " He that endureth to the end shall be saved." 
 (Matt. 10:22.) Lcst any man (that no man) 
 fall after the same example of unbelief 
 {disobedience) — literally, in the same exain- 
 ple, a pregnant expression, I think equivalent 
 to after the example of the same disobedi- 
 ence. Luther, Alford, Liineinann, and Kurtz, 
 understand it, of falling into (and then re- 
 msiining in) the same disobedience as the 
 Fathers, and like them becoming a warning 
 example to others. Many others (as Chrys- 
 ostom, Bengel, Bleek, De Wette, Moll) inter- 
 pret 'fair as equivalent to ])erish (n-eaj/, 3 : 17) 
 in, or by way of giving the same example to 
 others. I do not think the unemphatic posi- 
 tion of 'fall' (n-e'o-j)) ill tlie Greek decides 
 against this; nor yet do I think that the author 
 is thinking of them as an example to others, 
 but rather as following the example of their 
 ancestors. I think, therefore, the rendering 
 of the Common and Revised Versions sub- 
 stantially right.* 
 
 1 The Com. Ver., by substituting the word previously 
 used, 'rest' (as if It were (coTairauo-is), has thus unfor- 
 tunately taken the point out of the entire argument. 
 
 *The aorist, 'he who entered,' may, with the Greek 
 partiality for the aorist, easily stand for the perfect, 
 " he who hath entered." 
 
 3 The word inrdSciy/uia {erample) is something shoiim in 
 subordination to (««■<>), either to imitate as a copy, or to 
 
 be imitated as a pattern. Here it is generally taken as 
 example, pattern, in whichever sense 'fall' (jre'o-jj) be 
 taken. It might, perhaps, here be taken as copy; by 
 way of copying the same disobedience. There is no 
 reference to the gospel in contra.st with the dead letter 
 of the law (Ebrard), nor strictly to its enduring charac- 
 ter, though this follows from its inherent vitality. It 
 has a vital force as coming from the Living God. 
 
Ch. IV ] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 63 
 
 12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and 
 sharper than any IwoedKed sword, pierciiiK even to the 
 dividing asunder of soul and fpirit, and of the joints 
 and luarrow, and w a discerner of the thoughts and 
 intents of the heart. 
 
 13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest 
 
 12 disohedience. For the word of God is living, and 
 active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, aeid 
 piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of 
 both joints and marrow, and quick to di.icern the 
 
 13 tiioughts and intents of the lieart. And there it nu 
 
 12. Enforcement of this exhortation from 
 the nature of the divine word. For the 
 word of God is quick (living). There is 
 probably no ground for finding?, with many 
 ancient interpreters and some more recent, a 
 reference here to the hypostatic Logos, nor 
 probably for the indirect and half latent ref- 
 erence to him assumed by Delitzsch. The 
 context suggests the meaning. God's words 
 of promise and threatening and command to 
 his ancient people are ringing in our ears, as 
 not to be trifled with. It is the intrinsic char- 
 acter of God's utterances (conceived here per- 
 haps primarily as commanding and threaten- 
 ing) that are described first as living, having 
 in them no quality of deadness, but partaking 
 the life of the Being from whom they proceed, 
 and hence never falling idle or vain. And 
 powerful [energetic, full of energy, effective), 
 sharper {more cutting) than any twoedged 
 sword. A sharp sword issues (Rev. i9 : is) out of 
 the mouth of the " Word of God." A double- 
 edged sword is not necessarily sharper than a 
 single-edged one, but it is more cutting, as 
 being comparatively all edge. Philo says of 
 the power of the divine word that it is "a 
 cutter of all things" (rdjio? cvniravTiav) , "divid- 
 ing the rational soul from the irrational" — a 
 thought akin to, but less spiritual than, that of 
 our Epistle. Piercing (penetrating) even to 
 the dividing (nepttrMos, taken actively, the di- 
 viding, so as to divide) of soul and spirit, 
 and of (both) the joints and marrow. The 
 general import of this is clear. It denotes the 
 judicially penetrating power of God's word 
 into the utmost depths of our nature. But the 
 special construction is difficult. Hofmann 
 constructs 'joints and marrow of soul and 
 spirit," a construction too harsh to need dis- 
 cussion. But whether the severing is of soul 
 from spirit, and of joints from marrow (thus 
 denoting its dividing power iirst in the spir- 
 itual, then in the bodily nature), or of soul 
 and spirit from joints and marrow (thus divid- 
 ing, as it were, between the spiritual and the 
 bodily nature); or whether it is a dividing of 
 the soul and a dividing of the spirit, and, if so, 
 whether again joints and marrow are also 
 
 separately divided, or whether these are added 
 in apposition to soul and spirit (namely, soul 
 and spirit — that is, the joints and narrow) are 
 points not very easy to decide. Delitzsch in- 
 clines to the dividing of sotil and spirit as one 
 pair, expressing man's inmost spiritual na- 
 ture; from 'joints and marrow,' another pair, 
 expressing his inmost material nature. Oth- 
 ers (as Bengel, Bleek, Do Wette, Liinemann) 
 take 'joints and marrow' as a sort of emphatic 
 apposition of 'soul and spirit,' to wit: soul 
 and spirit, even the very joints and marrow, 
 the terms thus figuratively descriptive of soul 
 and spirit, and added perhaps to accommodate 
 the representation to the figure of a penetrat- 
 ing sword. As it is difficult to conceive a 
 sword piercing through soul and spirit, the 
 author gives concrefeness and materiality to 
 the idea by adding 'joints and marrow' ; the 
 'joints' expressing the bonds of connection, 
 the 'marrow' the most hidden and inaccessi- 
 ble part, and thus the whole expressing the 
 piercing of ' the word ' to the deepest recesses of 
 the soul, and laying them open to the day. I 
 think the 'joints and marrow ' are appositional 
 to 'soul and spirit,' and that in any case the 
 dividing is not betnyeen different substances, 
 but the cutting through each, as of successive 
 layers. And is a discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart (kpitikos, qualified 
 to discern, discriminate, and judge). The 
 word of God rules with discriminating and 
 judicial power within the province of man's 
 inner nature. Penetrating our interior being, 
 it sits in judgment on thought, purpose, and 
 emotion. The sin of the Israelites consisted 
 in that disobedience which originates in unbe- 
 lief. The heart the author recognizes as the 
 parent of sin, and this is reached and held 
 under judicial cognizance and searching sway 
 by the word of God. 
 
 13. This makes a natural transition from the 
 word of God to him who utters it. Neither 
 is there, etc. — or, And there is no creature 
 that is not manifest in his sight — the 'his' 
 (avToO) referring to 'God,' not to the 'word.' 
 None can escape his searching, all-ponotrating 
 eye, and his judicial and retributive action. 
 
64 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto 
 the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 
 
 14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that 
 is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us 
 hold fast our profession. 
 
 creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all 
 tilings are naked and laid open before the eyes of 
 him with whom we have to do. 
 14 Having then a great high priest, who halh passed 
 through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us 
 
 But all things are naked and opened— 
 
 laid open,^ with neck bent back, like Roman 
 criminals, exposed publicly with bared and 
 bent necks (Perizonius and Aelian, "Variae 
 Historiae," 12 : 58) ; or, which I deem more 
 probable, with head bent back, as animals 
 slaughtered in sacrifice; or, perhaps, with no 
 special archaeological allusion, simply seized 
 by the neck, barenecked, unveiled unto the 
 eyes of him with whom we have to do — 
 with whom is our account or reckoning (»rpb? 
 Of tjnif 6 Adyos), the word, account (Adyo«) not 
 having in this clause any reference to its use 
 above. The whole passage is powerfully de- 
 scriptive of the impression produced by a 
 contemplation of the dealing of God with the 
 ancient Israelites, and the danger of com- 
 mitting those sins of the heart in which consists 
 the essence of apostasy. 
 
 14-16. Transition, by means of this exhor- 
 tation, from Christ as Leader to Christ as 
 High Priest. 
 
 14. The above discussion has enforced the 
 need of religious fidelity and the danger of 
 provoking the divine anger, and recalled our 
 need of a High Priest who can aid our infirm- 
 ities and interpose with his prevalent interces- 
 sion between us and this God, whose word is 
 so searching and whose judgments are so ter- 
 rible. This furnishes an easy transition from 
 Christ as Messenger of salvation (superior to 
 the angels), and from Christ as Leader of 
 salvation (superior to Moses), to Christ as 
 High Priest of salvation (superior to Aaron). 
 Seeing then that Ave have, etc.— better, as 
 in the Revised Version, Having, then, a great 
 high prieat who hath passed throtcgh (not 
 into) the heave?is — Jesus, the Son of God — let 
 us hold fast our confession. The connection 
 of the 'then,' or ' therefore^ {ovv) is not to the 
 remote reference to the High Priest (2 : n), but 
 to what immediately precedes; and infers 
 from that tiie need of holding on to their 
 confession, while he calls up at once the only 
 condition of this holding on ; namely, their 
 having an all-sufficient High Priest to inter- 
 cede and to succor. The writer does not infer. 
 
 from anything said before, the existence of the 
 High Priest; but, exhorting his readers to re- 
 tain their Christian fidelity, he assumes the 
 high priesthood as an indispensable aid to its 
 accomplishment. Still, while I do not think 
 (with Liinemann) that the ' then ' [ovv] refers, 
 primarily, to the 'having' (exo""?), neither 
 would I (with Delitzsch) regard it as exhaust- 
 ing its force on the verb, 'let us hold fast' 
 ((cpaToJuef). It is partlj"^ (I think primarily) to 
 be referred to the verb which exhorts them to 
 their duty, but partly to the participle 'hav- 
 ing' {i\ovTe<:) as indicating their high prerog- 
 ative in possessing this mighty spiritual ally. 
 I may add, as a reason for the abruptness with 
 which the writer introduces this participial 
 clause, that in view of the terrible picture 
 which he has just drawn, and which might 
 well intimidate the most courageous heart, he 
 hastens to present the brighter aspects of the 
 case. He precedes the exhortation to fidelity 
 by reminding them of the encouragement, as 
 well as incentive, which they have to this. 
 They have a High Priest who has atoned and 
 can intercede for sinners — a great High Priest, 
 mighty before and with God, who hath passed 
 through the heavens (not into, but through 
 them), beyond the limitations of the created 
 universe, into heaven itself (9:24) — the abso- 
 lute, the highest heavens ; the absolute, ubiq- 
 uitous presence of God ; to the very right 
 hand of God, whore he sits as an equal, and 
 thus completely competent to mediate between 
 God and man. 'Jesus, the Son of God,' em- 
 braces both his natures — the one epithet mark- 
 ing his humanity, the other his divinity; the 
 one the essential condition of his being a High 
 Priest (5:1), the other of his High Priesthood 
 being availing. As Jesus, he became lower 
 than the angels, that he might taste of death. 
 As Son of God, he was exalted infinitely above 
 them, that his power might accomplish what 
 his compassion undertook. Alike his com- 
 passion and his power, therefore, his humanity 
 and his divinity, encourage us to 'hold fast 
 our confession,' as against that terrible side of 
 our relation to God presented by the fate of 
 
 ' T€Tf»ax»)Ai(7/ii«Va, from Tpaxn^^oi;, a neck. 
 
Ch. IV.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 6& 
 
 15 For we have not a high priest which cannot be 15 hold fast our confession. For we have not a hinh 
 touched with (lie feeling of our iutirmities; but was iu . priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our 
 all points tempted like as «'« ar.', (/«< without sin. j intirmities; but one who bath been iu all puinta 
 
 16 Let us therefore couie boldly unto the throne of 16 tempted like as ice (ice, ye/ without sin. Let us there- 
 grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to fore draw near with boldness unto the throne of 
 help in time of need. grace, that we may receive mercy, and may iind 
 
 I grace to help un in time of need. 
 
 the ancient Israel in the wilderness, a side 
 wliich, while urging to obedience, would 
 drive us to despair. The 'confession "stands 
 as representative of our entire Christian char- 
 acter. 
 
 15. This verse illustrates the gracious aspect 
 of this character on the side of its humanity. 
 For we have not a high priest — who can- 
 not be touched, v)ho is not able to sympathize 
 with— our iiifirinities. The negative mode 
 of statement is mure forcible, because more 
 full and formal, than the simple affirmative 
 (we have a higli priest who is able, etc.). It 
 contrasts our position with the assumed dark 
 alternative. The ability to sympathizers a 
 tnoral ability, derived from community of 
 experience, especially in suffering. But has 
 been in ail points tempted (tried) like as 
 we are — that is, proved, tempted in all things, 
 similarly to us. The ' in all things ' (Kara 
 wdvTa) declares the universality of his trials, 
 not the completeness of the resemblance.^ 
 Yet without sin — equivalent to, apart frotn 
 silt. This belongs not to 'tempted,' — equiv- 
 alent to tempted without sin, either as cause 
 or consequence; nor to 'in all things,' — 
 equivalent to in all things except as to sin,— 
 but to ' like as we are' {kclO' AnoidrjjTa), declaring 
 that his temptation was after the likeness of 
 humanity, except as to sin. From this ele- 
 ment his temptations were exempt. " The 
 participation of Jesus in every form of human 
 suffering, the actual stirring of his impulses, 
 liis complete sympathy with our weaknesses, 
 all the stern reality of his temptations, have 
 yet found no slumbering principle of evil to 
 which thej' could attach themselves." (De- 
 litzsch.) 
 
 16. Close of this transition-passage, with an 
 exhortation to avail ourselves for our needs of 
 the aid of this great High Priest. Let us 
 
 therefore come boldly, etc. — approachwith 
 boldness, with joyful confidence— unto the 
 throne of grace— not the throne of Christ, 
 but the throne of God, which, since Christ 
 took his seat by his side, has become not only 
 i the "throne of Majesty," but the "throne oJ 
 [Grace" — a throne where grace is exerci.sed, 
 and whence it descends to us. The allusion 
 is not to the earthly mercy seat, but to God"s 
 gracious throne in heaven. To this we may 
 come in confidence, relying on the compa.s- 
 sionate sympathy of our interceding High 
 Priest. That we may obtain mercy and 
 find grace — (in the original, a graceful chi- 
 asm). Mercy and grace express essentially 
 the same quality under different aspects. 
 'Mercy' regards us as wretched, sinful, vic- 
 tims of disease, sorrow, and death; 'grace,' 
 favor, as helpless and without claim, objects 
 of gratuitous and unmerited bounty. To 
 help in time of need — that is, /or season- 
 able succor. Some (as Bleek, De Wette, 
 Liinemann) refer this to succor during the 
 present time of grace, the 'to day' of the 
 renewed promise. Better (with Tholuck, 
 Delitzsch, Moll) refer it to our weakness 
 and need of help in times of temptation, as 
 in 2 : 18. Seasonable succor is the succor 
 which our S3'mpathizing High Priest, who 
 has been himself tempted, brings to our sea- 
 sons of temptations. The author has now 
 launched fairly, in this transition, on that 
 topic of the high priesthood of Christ which 
 was his main destined theme. Each of the 
 former topics has terminated in the high 
 priesthood of Christ, and these have been 
 almost hurried over to reach the main argu- 
 ment of the Epistle. In this Epistle, the sac- 
 rificial and intercessory priesthood of Christ 
 appears as the central and vital fact of the 
 gospel. 
 
 1 ivnna<Txtiv, to suffer with ; avixtraSflv, lo sympathize 
 with, have community of jroOot, affection, condition, 
 tttffering. 
 
 "Kafl" 6/uioion7To, after the likeness, hy way of similarity, 
 an expression weightier than o/ixoiw;. 
 
66 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. V. 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 T?OR every high priest taken from among men is 
 A. ordained fur men in things perlaininij to God, that 
 he may ofler both gifts and sacritices for sins: 
 
 2 Who can liave compassion on the ignorant, and on 
 them that are out of tlie way ; for that he himself also 
 is" compassed with infirmity. 
 
 ■ 3 And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, 
 so also for himself, to otJ'er for sins. 
 
 1 For every high priest, being taken from amoog 
 men, is appointed for men in things pertaining to 
 God, that he may otter both gifts and sacrifices for 
 
 2 sins: who can bear gently with the ignorant and 
 erring, for that he himself also is compassed with 
 
 3 infirmity, and by reason thereof is bound, as for 
 the people, so also for himself, to o£fer for sins. 
 
 3. CHRIST SUPERIOR TO AARON. 
 
 Christ, tlie High Priest of tlie New Dispen- 
 sation, superior to Aaron, the high priest of 
 the Old. 
 
 Ch. 5. (1) Necessary qualities of the high 
 priest. (1-10.) 
 
 (a) He is tai<on from among men, that he, 
 as man, may deal tenderly with men. (1-3.) 
 
 (b) He assumes the office, not self-appointed, 
 but called of God. (4.) 
 
 (c) Christ received his priestly office from 
 God. (5, 6.) 
 
 (d) In his fleshly nature as man, Christ 
 wrestled with the fear of death, and, learning 
 obedience from suffering, was perfected for 
 his saving and priestly work. (7-10.) 
 
 (a) He is taken from among men, that he, 
 as man, may deal tenderly with man. (1-3.) 
 . 1. For, introducing the ground of the pre- 
 ceding exhortation, and comrficncing the great 
 priestly discussion of the Epistle by stating 
 the necessary qualities of the high priest. 
 Every high priest — all high priests without 
 exception — [being) taken from among men. 
 The participle here is not attributive (" who 
 is taken," as if there might be priests that were 
 not) ; but predicative, 'as being taken,' since 
 he is taken. The necessity springs from the 
 circumstances. Angels need no high priest, 
 devils can have none, man alone needs him ; 
 and he is ordained [constituted, appointed) 
 for [on behalf of ) men in things pertaining 
 to God. (The construction of the original 
 is elegant and emphatic, "'from men being 
 taken on behalf of men is ordained") The 
 author is not now contrasting our Lord's 
 priesthood and Aaron's; both must be men 
 — the Lord's incarnation is a pre-requisite to 
 his priesthood. His office is in 'things per- 
 taining to God.' He is middle man, mediator 
 between man and God. That he may offer 
 both gifts and sacrifices for sins. 'On 
 
 behalf of men' is specialized into "on behalf 
 of sins" — for their forgiveness and doing 
 away. It is as sinners that men need a high 
 priest, and this mainly for expiatory sacrifices. 
 True, he offers for them, not merely bloody 
 and expiatory victims, but thank offerings 
 and gifts in general. This, too, is on account 
 of the sinfulness of man, who, unfit to draw 
 near to God, needs one who has at least a 
 ceremonial holiness, and a special consecration 
 to this duty. Still, no ceremonial holiness 
 could ever be for a moment admitted, except 
 as representing a real holiness lying in the 
 background. 'Gifts' (iipa), offerings without 
 slaughter, as drink- and thank-offerings. 'Sac- 
 rifices' (Bvaiai), slaughtered victims, involving 
 blood and life. The offering of these appears 
 as the substance of the high priest's media- 
 torial function. 
 
 2. Connected with and springing from the 
 high priest's hmnan character is his priestly 
 qualification. Who can have compassion, 
 etc., or, deal gently^ with the ignorant and 
 erring. A characteristic description of hu- 
 manity in its twofold aspect of a darkened 
 reason and moral depravity, and one in 
 which the writer assumes half unconsciously 
 the point of view of the human high priest, 
 and gives an example of the leniency which 
 he is describing. For that {since) he him- 
 self also is compassed with infirmity 
 (ntpiKenai, wcars it OS a garment, is clothed 
 with it). As knowing experimentally the in- 
 firmities of humanity, he is able to deal gently 
 and sympathizingly with human frailty and 
 error. 
 
 3. And — in fact, so far reaching is this 
 infirmity — by reason hereof he ought {is 
 bound, is obliged), as for the people, so 
 also for himself, to offer {make offering) 
 for sins. This verse, without being strictly a 
 parenthesis, is yet parenthetical. It is added 
 as an incidental expansion of the thought, 'is 
 
 * titTpKoitaSeiv, to moderate one's passions; hence, 
 "treat with moderation or indulgence," a word in 
 commoti use with the later Stoics. It is not happily 
 
 rendered by the Common Version, " have compassion 
 upon." 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 67 
 
 4 Aud no man taketh this honour unto himself, but 
 he that is called ot Uod, as was Aaron. 
 
 5 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a 
 high priest; but he that said uuto him, Thou art my 
 Sou, to day have 1 hegotteu thee. 
 
 4 And uo man taketh the honour unto himself, but 
 
 5 when he is called of tiod, even as was Aaron. So 
 Christ also glorified not himself to be made a high 
 priest, but he who spake unto him, 
 
 Thou art my Son, 
 
 This day have I begotten thee : 
 
 compassed with infirmity,' and is perhaps to 
 be constructed with this under the influence 
 of 'for that,' since («t«0 ; "since he is com- 
 passed and is hound," etc., not as co-ordinated 
 with 'ordained' ((ca9i<rTaTai). The expression 
 is thrown in to show how real and far-reach- 
 kig was this human element in the priest- 
 hood. It went so far that the Levitical high 
 priest had to offer sacrifice for his own sins as 
 well as for the sins of the people. This semi- 
 parenthetical character of the verse it is im- 
 portant to recognize. Make it prominent, 
 and it presents the Levitical priesthood in 
 contrast with that of Christ, while we look 
 in vain for its antithesis in the delineation of 
 Christ's priesthood. Regarded as incidental, 
 and a merely heightening touch in the por- 
 traiture of the Levitical priesthood, whose 
 essential humanity our Lord shared, and it 
 needs no farther notice. It is just a moment- 
 ary descent from the level on which he is here 
 placing the Old and the New Testament 
 priesthood; a momentary diversion from the 
 straight line of parallel between them. No 
 doubt, indeed, that a prerogative of Christ's 
 priesthood is here suggested, inasmuch as he 
 has been above declared to have been tempted 
 in all points similarly to man apart from sin. 
 Tims though, like the Aaronic priest, encom- 
 passed with infirmity, he had not, like him, to 
 make expiation for his own sins.* Ought 
 (©(freiAei, is bound) ; both morally and legally, 
 here perhaps there is no intended distinction. 
 
 (6) Christ is not self-appointed, but called 
 of God. (4.) 
 
 4. And no man taketh, etc. ; And not to 
 himself does any one take the honor, but [he 
 takes it] being called by God, just as did Aa- 
 ron, Compare the Revised Version. If ' take ' 
 (Aaji/Jiftt) has in the first clause the sense of 
 'arrogate,' or 'assume voluntarily,' it must 
 be understood for the following clause in a 
 modified sense as equivalent to receive (5tx<- 
 T<u). I think it has this modification. 'Aa- 
 ron' is not put here for the priestly line 
 sprung from him, but simply as its represen- 
 
 tative, as a personal, historical illustration of 
 the statement. What was true of him was of 
 course true of all ; but it was specially proper 
 to mention him, as in him the priestly line 
 began, and in him the divine call stood out in 
 special prominence. (ex.28:i.) This, too, like 
 the preceding, is no arbitrary qualification. 
 Obviously those who are to minister before 
 the Lord on behalf of sinners must be chosen 
 neither by themselves, nor by the guilty race 
 that needs their intercession, but by him who 
 is to be placated. A self-constituted, or a 
 man-constituted, ministry before God must be 
 without validity and without efficacy. The 
 Being to be appeased can 'alone select the 
 means and agents of the service. 
 
 (c) Christ received his priestly office from 
 God. (5, 6.) 
 
 5. Having enumerated the essential qualifi- 
 cations of the high-priesthood, the author 
 shows in reverse order that the\' are realized 
 in Christ, and in their utmost completeness. 
 The latter of the two is taken first. So 
 also Christ glorified not himself to be 
 made a high priest. It is questioned here 
 whether "glorified" (efidfao-ei-) is equivalent to 
 "taking the honor" of ver. 4, and is restricted 
 to taking the priesthood, or points to that 
 kingly exaltation which was the condition 
 and accompaniment of his priestly dignitj'. 
 So think many from the terms 'glor^',' 'glori- 
 fied,' whicli elsewhere describe his kingly 
 exaltation (2:9), and from the following quo- 
 tation, "Thou art my Son," etc., which points 
 doubtless to his elevation as king, and not as 
 priest. Yet it is hardly natural to deny 
 Christ's assumption to himself of the priest- 
 hood by den^'ing his assumption of the king- 
 ship, and as the term 'glorified ' seems intrin- 
 sically as applicable to Christ's priestly as to 
 his kingly dignity, the author might easily', in 
 passing from the earthly priesthood of Aaron 
 to the heavenly priesthood of Christ, use a 
 more exalted term. But he {glorified him) 
 that said unto him. Thou art my Son, 
 to day have I begotten thee. This citation 
 
 1 Ilfpi eauroO, concerning himself, and wepi aixa.fni.uiv, I irtav and virip aiiapTiiiv, on behalf of, in relation to, al- 
 WRcerniit^ «ms, are substantially the same as virip at>9pi^- I though the prepositions are not precisely equivalent. 
 
68 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. V. 
 
 6 As he saith also in another place. Thou arl a priest 
 for ever after the order of Melchisedec. 
 
 7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered 
 
 6 as he saith also in another p/ace. 
 
 Thou art a priest for ever 
 After the order of Melchizedek. 
 
 7 Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up 
 
 does not, of course, prove the bestowal on Christ 
 of the priesthood, but it most appropriately 
 prepares the way for it. It shows that the king- 
 ship which was a condition of his priesthood 
 was also bestowed, and thus leads to the natural 
 inference that he received also his priesthood. 
 By naming the bestower of the priesthood 
 periphrastically as the one who exalted him 
 to the heavenly Sonship, he strengthens his 
 proof, and enhances the dignity of the per- 
 sonage who is the object of this double 
 honor. 
 
 6. As he saith also in another place 
 (Pi. 110:4), Thou art a priest for ever after 
 the order of Melchisedec. This establishes 
 the point. The priesthood of Christ was di- 
 vinely bestowed. He did not deem the eter- 
 nal priesthood, any more than the eternal 
 filial equality with God, a thing to be rapa- 
 ciously snatched or caught at {apiraynov, Phil. 
 2 : 6), but came to them both in the path of hu- 
 miliation and suffering, and he received them 
 both as the reward of his lowly and faithful 
 obedience. God called him to the priesthood 
 as he called Aaron, but to a priesthood as 
 much higher than was Aaron's as his person 
 and work were nobler. Where his high- 
 priestly work commenced, also, is not neces- 
 sarily here intimated; it began, doubtless, on 
 earth, though his formal and full high-priestly 
 character appeared only after his exaltation. 
 The words 'after the order' are not here to be 
 pressed; they are explained in 7 : 15 by "after 
 the likeness" (kotoi riji' ofioioTJjTa). In somedis- 
 tinguishing points his priesthood resembled 
 that of Melchisedec rather than that of Aa- 
 ron ; in fact, combining antitypically all the 
 essential features of both. 
 
 (d) In his fleshly nature as 7nan, Christ 
 wrestled with the fear of death, and, learning 
 obedience from suffering, was perfected for his 
 saving and priestly work. (7-10.) 
 
 This priest, thus constituted by divine call, 
 appears now invested with the second attribute 
 of a true priesthood, a human experience 
 which qualified him to sympathize with all 
 the weaknesses and struggles of humanity. 
 •Instead of uniting this attribute with the pre- 
 ceding by and {•tai), the author elegantly 
 
 brings it into closer connection by the relative 
 'who.' 
 7. Who in the days of his flesh— when 
 
 he had descended from his home in the bosom 
 of his Father, when he had veiled his Deity 
 in the garb of a true humanity. The 'days 
 of his flesh ' is an emotional and tender state- 
 ment of the fact of the Kedeemer's manhood. 
 It reminds us of all the frailty, the tempta- 
 tion, the suffering, the death to which 'the 
 flesh' is liable. With reference to our Lord 
 the language has another peculiarity. With 
 an ordinary man, 'the days of his flesh' would 
 have a purely prospective reference ; they 
 would be relative to his subsequent spiritual 
 condition. With our Lord they are both jtros- 
 pective and retrospective. They denote that 
 dip, so to speak, from the level of his eternal 
 Godhead, by which he temporarily descended 
 from his infinite and purely spiritual height, 
 in order to re-ascend to it with his glorified 
 humanity. 'The days of his flesh,' then, have 
 in the case of Christ a peculiar significance. 
 They mark a period bounded on both sides by 
 a high and glorious existence. With other 
 men, being in the flesh is matter of necessity; 
 it is the condition of their existence. With the 
 Son of man it was purely voluntary; he became 
 (not, 'was made') flesh. The author, again, 
 does not say, ^during the days (irapa ras »)>iepas) 
 of his flesh.' He is not going to portray the 
 course of our Lord's earthly life, but only one 
 single striking and representative scene in it. 
 He selects as specially appropriate to his pur- 
 pose the scene in Gethsemane, as illustrating 
 with pre-eminent force both the conflict and 
 the triumph by which our Lord acquired his 
 moral perfection as high ])riest. When he 
 had offered up, etc. — better, offering vp 
 prayers (entreaties) and supplications with 
 strong crying and tears unto him that was 
 able to save him from death, and being heark- 
 ened to. The terms ' entreaties ' and ' supplica- 
 tions ' have no essential diflPerence of meaning; 
 they are simply doubled for emphasis. The 
 participles, 'oflTering up' and 'being heark- 
 ened to' (i!po<r(viyKa<: eiaaKovaSfis), denote single, 
 not habitual acts, and clearly point to a 
 single scene. That scene is the agony of the 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 69 
 
 up prayers and supplications with strong crying and 
 tears unto him that was able to save him from death, I 
 and was heard in that he reared ; | 
 
 prayers and supplications with strong crying and 
 tears unto him that was al>le to save liini ' from 
 death, and having been heard lor his godly lear, 
 
 Garden. There our Saviour prayed with 
 strong crying to 'him who was able to save 
 him from death,' and of course, as clearly 
 indicated by this language, praj^ed that he 
 might be saved from death. The description 
 of God, as one able to save from death, derives 
 its pertinency from the character of the prayer. 
 With drops of bloody sweat falling from him 
 he thrice prayed: "O my Father, if it be 
 possible, let this cup pass from me." That 
 this was the approaching death of the cross, 
 which, under the urgent temptation of Satan 
 and the burden of human guilt rolled myste- 
 riously upon him, now presented itself clothed 
 in triple horrors, cannot, I think, be reason- 
 ably doubted. That the Evangelist does not 
 mention 'tears' in his record of this midnight 
 struggle constitutes no objection to our view. 
 Such suffering could not have been without 
 tears, and in that picture of agony and bloody 
 sweat the mention of -tears' would rather 
 have weakened than heightened its effect. In 
 the present brief reference, 'tears' form a 
 natural element of the scene. Some, as De 
 Wette, extend the reference to the Saviour's 
 agonizing on the cross. But as there was then 
 no prayer to be rescued from death, and as 
 the words "being hearkened to" evidently 
 point to some recorded and specific fact, it is 
 better to limit it to the prayer in the Garden, 
 in which Christ did actually pray for deliver- 
 ance from death, and was answered with to- 
 kens of the divine approval. Besides, this scene 
 of encounter with temptation, of wrestling 
 with spiritual adversaries, is more pertinent to 
 the writer's purpose than the mysterious suf- 
 ferings of the dying hour. And was heard, 
 etc. Being heard from his godly fear, or, heark- 
 ened to from his pious reverence. Such seems 
 the natural force of the words, and sustained 
 by the connection. Our Saviour prayed in 
 perfect submission to his Father's will ; his 
 language and spirit were, "Not my will but 
 thine be done,'' and therefore he was gra- 
 ciously listened to, and, so far as possible, his 
 prayer was answered. Some, supposing that 
 because he was hearkened to he could not 
 have prayed to be delivered from dying, refer 
 
 it to his being delivered from the consequences 
 of death (« eai/arow, out of death), from re- 
 maining and going to corruption in the sepul- 
 chre, from which he was delivered. But we 
 have no evidence that such was the nature of 
 the Saviour's prayer, and the language here 
 used does not require us to assume it. A 
 prayer need not be literally answered to be 
 proved acceptable to God; all that this in- 
 volves is perfect submission to his will. Such 
 was our Saviour's prayer, and though, from 
 the nature of the case, it could not be granted, 
 yet God testified his perfect approval of the 
 filial and holy reverence manifested by his 
 Son. He sent his Angel to strengthen him 
 for the ordeal from which he could not release 
 him; he accepted the atoning sacrifice which 
 he made for sin, as he could not have done 
 had it been mingled with any taint of imper- 
 fection ; and crowned the demonstration by 
 raising him from the dead and exalting him 
 to his right hand as King and Priest forever. 
 Here, however, the more immediate reference 
 seems to be to the angelic aid which was 
 vouchsafed to his filial piet3', which, while 
 fainting and almost overwhelmed by terror 
 and temptation, yet exclaimed in absolute 
 resignation : " Not my will but thine be done." 
 The Father thus immediately' demonstrated 
 that the prayer was heard approvingly, and, 
 though he did not grant the agonizing request, 
 did all that he could do toward granting it by 
 strengthening his Son for the conflict! The 
 word used {ilaaKovaeeii, hearkened to), is singu- 
 larly appropriate'to the account in Luke; and 
 this is one of the passages which in this Ep!s- 
 tle remind us of that evangelist. (The use 
 of aird, from, equivalent to because of, needs 
 no defense.) If there seems inconsistency 
 in Christ's praying to be saved from the death 
 which ha came to suffer, in his wavering in 
 regard to the act which was to consummate 
 his redemptive work, we remember that he 
 was a man ; a man with all human weak- 
 nesses, except sin ; a man open to temptations, 
 and here pressed with such temptations as 
 none has before or since encountered. That 
 he could be driven thus to pray proves the 
 
70 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. V. 
 
 8 Tlioush he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by 
 tbp things which he sutfered ; 
 
 9 And being made peifect, he became the author of 
 eternal salvation unto all them thai obey him ; 
 
 8 though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the 
 
 U things which he sutlered ; and having been made 
 
 perfect, he became uuto all them that obey him the 
 
 terrible force of the temptation; and that, 
 driven into offering it, he still retained Unfal- 
 tering submission to his Father's will, en- 
 liances to the utmost our admiration of his 
 integrity. The billows of hell that went over 
 him could not shake his perfect trust in God. 
 On the t)ther hand, to reduce his prayer to a 
 request for what could and would be granted is 
 to disembowel it of its characteristic merit. It 
 was precisely in praying under almost resist- 
 less temptation for what could not be granted, 
 and yet acquiescing completely in the divine 
 decision, that his obedience displayed its lus- 
 tre, that he earned his Father's approval; and 
 only as thus understood does what the author 
 proceeds to say of him in the next verse gain 
 its full appropriateness and force. 
 
 8. Though he were a Son, etc. Al- 
 though being a Son, learned from that which 
 he suffered obedience. He prayed agonizingly 
 to be delivered from the cup, yet aequi- 
 escingly drank it. The language implies a 
 yielding to something from which his na- 
 ture recoiled, and against which he had 
 prayed — to the death, I think, which lay be- 
 fore him. The scene of the cross cannot be 
 included in the "offering entreaties," etc., 
 because it was in submitting to this that he 
 learned obedience, and this lesson had been 
 already' learned. The battle had been already 
 fought — the assaults of the devil been repelled, 
 and the sins of men borne obediently to the 
 cross.' If the Saviour prayed for deliverance 
 from the consequences of death, for resurrec- 
 tion from the tomb, this could be granted 
 him, and furnished no te.st of obedience. It 
 was in acquiescence to the divine thivarting of 
 
 his will that this had been learned. Rightly 
 interpreted, then, the entire passage falls into 
 harmony with itself and with the facts. With 
 strong crying and tears (Mark 14 : 33, ixeafi- 
 fi€icr8ai Koi aSrj)jLovelv ; Lukc 22 : 43, 44), he prayed 
 to be delivered from the impending death 
 with its horrors, and his filial fear and piety 
 secured his Father's approval. Yet his prayer 
 not being granted, he bowed to the divine 
 will, learned obedience in his sufferings, and 
 went cheerfully to the cross. The language, 
 of course, is not to be taken with servile liter- 
 al ness. Christ was always obedient, and never 
 had in him any taint of disobedience. Yet, 
 like his people, he had to be tried insuflVring; 
 to submit to what revolted his nature, and to 
 develop in suffering that spirit of obedience 
 which in all other men would have in a sterner 
 sense to be learned- In all respects, except sin 
 and in the transcendent magnitude of his suf- 
 ferings, he shared, and in sharing learned to 
 sympathize with, the trials of his people. His 
 immeasurably greater included their immeas- 
 urably less. 
 
 9. This verse closes this sketch of the neces- 
 sary qualities of the high priest. Thus, being 
 made perfect — or, perfected : internally, in 
 all the attributes of a perfect high priest; ex- 
 ternally, by going through temptation and 
 death up to that glory to which he was to 
 conduct his people (2:10) — he became the 
 author of (an) eternal salvation unto all 
 them that obey him. Ministering effect- 
 ually in divine things, he did for men really 
 what the Levitical priests did S3'mbolically. 
 There is a twofold allusion to the preceding 
 verse. He prayed in vain to be saved from 
 
 1 1 do not believe that the scene of the erucifixion 
 was a scene of any such convulsive outward agony as 
 marked the struggle of Gethsemane. 'I greatly doubt 
 if the 'strong crying and tears' of our author could be 
 applicable to it. I believe that the great, terrible, deci- 
 sive internal conflict was fought out in darkness and 
 solitude. Our Lord's general subsequent manner seems 
 to have been that of calmness and self-possession. On 
 his way to the cross he pointed away from his trials to 
 their own, the weeping daughters of Jerusalem. He ut- 
 tered indeed one agonizing cry on the cross, " My God, 
 my God," etc., but this in borrowed language, and, as I 
 think, one single, simple, self-contained utterance of 
 inward agony. Otherwise the utterances are different. 1 
 
 He prayed for his murderers. He extended pardon to 
 the penitent malefactor, promising him Paradise with 
 himself. He says calmly: "I thirst." Crying with a 
 loud voice, he committed his Spirit to his Father. The 
 rendering of the Common Versioa, sanctioned, I am 
 sorry to say, by the margin of the Revised Version, is 
 utterly without probability — " When be had cried with 
 a loud voice," etc., making the crying and the com- 
 mending two separate acts. And this, 1 believe, is all 
 the loud crying that the gospels attribute to Jesus on 
 the cross. I cannot but believe his deportment there 
 hiid a calmness and a majesty, even, that warranted the 
 centurion's exclamation, " This was the Son of Godl** 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 71 
 
 10 Called of God a high priest after the order of j 10 > author of eternal salvation; named of God a high 
 Mc'lcbisfdec. priest after the order of Melchizedek. 
 
 11 Of whom we liave many things to say, and bard 11 Of -whom we have many things to say, and hard 
 to he uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. | of interpretation, seeing ye are become dull of bear- 
 
 1 Gr. cause 2 Or, loAtcJk. 
 
 death, and yielded obedience to the denial. 
 On the other liand, on all wlio obey him he be- 
 stows eternal life. As disobedience on his part 
 would have ruined his atoning work, so dis- 
 obedience on tlieirs will exclude them from 
 its benefits. Again, he bestows eternal salva- 
 tion who iiimself could not receive a tem- 
 poral salvation. The infinitely lesser boon 
 was obliged to be denied to him, the perfectly 
 obedient; the infinitely greater boon he se- 
 cures to their imperfect obedience. ("An 
 eternal salvation" ((runipia) is contrasted with 
 the temporal salvation {amieiv) which he vainly 
 prayed f<»r.) 
 
 10. The necessary qualities of the high 
 priest being shown, and their existence in 
 Christ fully illustrated, the author, with char- 
 acteristic gracefulness, glides round on the 
 pivot of the present verse to what is to be the 
 next great topic of the Epistle — the Lord's 
 Melchisedec priesthood. This he first design- 
 edly introduces, and then pauses, with that in 
 mind, to administer his next solemn lesson of 
 rebuke, exhortation, warning, and encourage- 
 ment to his all too-unfit hearers, before for- 
 mally resuming and completing the great 
 theme. Called of God — or. Being saluted 
 by God; that is, as God received him on his 
 ascension into the heavenly sanctuary, meet- 
 ing him on its threshold, and, we may suppose, 
 first declaring his Sonship, "Thou art my 
 Son," etc., and then pronouncing him a 
 Ligh priest after the order of Melchis- 
 edec. 'After the order (or, likeness) of 
 Melchisedec,' Christ was strictly a Priest, a 
 royal Priest; he was High Priest in another 
 element of his priestly character. As one 
 who had offered an expiatory sacrifice, and 
 with its blood now entered the heavenly holy 
 of holies, he was the high-priestly antitype of 
 Aaron. The author, by calling him "high 
 priest after the order of Melchisedec," unites 
 thequalitiesof both the priesthoods — the regal, 
 untransferable, abiding priesthood represented 
 by Melchisedec, and the expiatorj', interced- 
 ing priesthood sj'mbolized by Aaron. "With 
 the one, he treads the heavenly courts in 
 kingly majesty ; with the other, he brings an 
 
 eflScient ofll'ering. But, about to enter on this 
 lofty theme, the author is deterred by the 
 reflection that it lies in that higher sphere of 
 religious truth in which the spiritual slug- 
 gishness of his readers disqualifies them for 
 following him. It belongs to that "wisdom" 
 which the Apostle Paul reserves for "ma- 
 ture " (full-grown, Te'Acioi) believers. His 
 readers are not neophytes— they are back- 
 sliders; instead of advancing on the path of 
 Christian faith and knowledge, and thus being 
 prepared to enter on the deeper mysteries of 
 the gospel, they have fallen back, and need to 
 be confirmed in its elementary doctrines. 
 
 (2) Long hortatory 2)assage, suggested by 
 the incapacity of the readers to enter on the 
 profound discussion before them; namely, the 
 2iriesthood of Christ. (5 : 11-6 : 20.) 
 
 (a) Failure of the readers in that spiritual 
 maturity which they should, by this time, 
 have attained. (11-14.) 
 
 11. Of (concerning) whom — that is, Christ 
 as Aaronico-Melchisedec priest; or, better, 
 concerning which (taking the pronoun o5 as 
 neuter) ; namely, this priesthood — we have 
 many things (or, much) to say, etc.— or. 
 our discourse is extended (n-oXu?), and difficult 
 of explanation. The "who" (or, "which") 
 can scarcely refer to Melchisedec (as by 
 many), of whom, in fact, he has very little 
 to say, a single sentence comprising all that 
 he has to say of his history, and three or four 
 sentences, of his entire personality; while the 
 many mysteries which the fertile brain of 
 expositors has spun out of the brief state- 
 ment regarding Melchisedec are evidently 
 not in our author. He simply takes the 
 Old Testament record regarding Melchisedec 
 to illustrate the import of the passage in the 
 Psalm, and we cannot conceive it possible 
 that he should have paused on the eve of his 
 most solemn and profound discussion, to chide 
 his readers for ignorance respecting some 
 curious and recondite subtleties regarding 
 Melchisedec. It is the double priesthood of 
 our Lord in which our author finds the core 
 and centre of the gospel, and which he feels 
 demands more than the sluggish ears and 
 
72 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. V. 
 
 12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye 
 have need that one teach you again which be the first 
 principles of the oracles of God ; and are become such 
 as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 
 
 Vi For every one that uselb milk is unskilful in the 
 word of righteousness : for he is a babe. 
 
 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of 
 
 12 ing. For when by reason of the time ye ought to 
 be teachers, ye have need again • that some one teach 
 you the rudiments of the ^fnst principles of the 
 oracles of God ; and are become such as have need 
 
 13 of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that 
 partaketb of milk is without experience of the word 
 
 14 of righteousness ; for he is a babe. But solid lood 
 is for 3 full grown men, even those who by reason of 
 
 I Or, that one teach you which arc the rudimentB i Gr. beginning i Or, perfect. 
 
 feeble intellects of spiritual infancy. The 
 high priesthood, in which each of the two 
 previous sections has ended, has thus made all 
 that preceded but 
 
 " A swelling prelude to the imperial theme," 
 
 to which he was hastening to conduct his 
 readers. Seeing ye are dull, etc. — Since 
 ye have become sluggish in hearing. The 
 words refer to the last preceding epithet, 
 hard of explanation, not to the muck, ample 
 (ttoAvs), as if it were the dullness of his hearers 
 that required expansion of the topic. In itself, 
 it would be fertile in matter, and, of cour.se, 
 difficult of comprehension, except to advanced 
 believers. His readers were dull of spiritual 
 comprehension, expressed, figuratively and 
 Hebraistically, by hearing. Sharpness or dull- 
 ness of vision naturally allies itself with more 
 or less of spiritual perspicacity' — that of hear- 
 ing with docility or intractableness of temper. 
 And the readers not only were so, but, what 
 is worse, had become so. They had been not 
 merely stationary ; they had retrograded. 
 Once flourishing in their Christian life(6:i0; 
 10:. 12), they had encountered trials which, fail- 
 ing to withstand, they had sunk below their 
 earlier level, and were in imminent danger of 
 spiritual shipwreck. 
 
 12. For when for the time ( for while on 
 account of the tiine of your prof essed Christia^i 
 life) ye ought to be teachers. The law of 
 the Christian life is progress— growth in grace 
 and spiritual knowledge. The pupil of to-day 
 should be the teacher of to-morrow. Ve have 
 need {again, just as at the first) that we teach 
 you tohnt are (nVa «<rTii') — or, that one (nvei), 
 teach you the first jirinciples of the oracles of 
 God. Lachmann — [tivo.) some one; Tischen- 
 dorf — (tiva) what are. The sense is indiflTerent, 
 and in grammar they are equally allowable. 
 What (tiVo) xn&y, as often, be taken as equal 
 to "of what sort" (-noia), and, of course, it is 
 to be so taken here. These Christians need 
 anew to have the nature of those elements 
 unfolded to them. For "elements" (<rToix«io), 
 
 see Gal. 4:9; Col. 2 : 8, 20. There, however, 
 the term denotes the Old Testament begin- 
 nings of God's culture of humanity, as con- 
 trasted with the riper truths of the gospel ; 
 here the more elementary, as contrasted with 
 the more advanced truths, of the gospel itself. 
 "Oracles" (Adyta, words, utterances) are in 
 Acts 7:38; Rom. 3 : 2, the Old Testament 
 revelations, whether directly regarding Chri.st 
 or not; here they are God's entire disclosures 
 regarding his Son. And are become such 
 as have need of milk, and not of strong 
 meat (or, solid food). A similar figure is found 
 in 1 Cor. 3 : 2, with a difference in the Greek 
 word for 'food.' The words 'babes' (f^irtoi), 
 and 'full grown,' 'mature,' 'perfect' (reAeioi), 
 are common in the New Testament. The 
 author enumerates, a little below, some of the 
 more rudimentary doctrines (the milk of the 
 word), while the doctrines of Christ's high 
 priesthood belong to the truths wliich need 
 the mature to grapple with them. They are 
 too strong for the spiritual feebleness into 
 which these Hebrews have fallen. Of course, 
 their incapacity is relative, not absolute; 
 otherwise the author would not proceed with 
 them to the discussion. 
 
 13. For every one that useth (pnrtak- 
 eth of) milk — whose proper nourishment is 
 milk, and who, by consequence, is unable to 
 bear other kinds of food — such is the char- 
 acteristic of infants (yij^iot) — is without exper- 
 ience of the word (or, in a doct7nne) of right- 
 eousness— th&t is, a doctrine (Adyos) which 
 treats of righteousness — which is the grand 
 scope of the New Testament: or, a Avord or 
 discourse of righteousness — (referring to the 
 capacity for its utterance) like "a word of wis- 
 dom " (Adyos <ro*ios), a " word of knowledge." 
 So Delitzsch, who finds in this a covert anti- 
 thesis to the babe (infant, not speaking, v^wtos) 
 of the following clause, for he is a babe- 
 unable to receive and digest the higher truths 
 of the gospel. 
 
 14. Butstrongmeat, s&^irf/oorf(//(^//i<;//<?r, 
 more difficult doctrines of the gospel), is for full 
 
Ch. VI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 73 
 
 fill! age, even those who bv reason of use have their 
 senses exercised to discern both good and evil. 
 
 use have their senses exercised to discern good aud 
 evil. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THEREFORE leaving the principles of the doctrine | 
 of Christ, let us go on unto perfeclion ; not Uiying 
 again the foundation of repentance from dead works, 
 and of faith toward God, 
 
 1 Wherefore leaving ' the doctrine of the first prin- 
 ciples of Christ, let us press on unto ''perfection ; not 
 laying again a foundation of repentance from dead 
 
 1 Gr. the word of the beginning of Christ 2 Or, full growth. 
 
 ^rown men (TeAettoi/, perfect, mature ; who, 
 because of habit — moral state or condition 
 acquired by use and training — tflos, custom; 
 €f«, habitus, habit, abiding state, resulting 
 from custom) have their senses (organs of 
 sense, aiaflijrijpio, perceptive faculties, here, of 
 spiritual perception) exercised [disciplined, 
 trained gymnastically) to discern both 
 good and evil — for tlie discrimination of the 
 sound and unsound in religious teaching. 
 The figure seems here wholly dropped. 
 
 Ch. 6. Exhortation, warning, and encour- 
 agement to the readers. 
 
 (6) To this condition of spiritual maturity 
 just described the writer exhorts his readers to 
 hasten forward, and not linger among the 
 elements of the religious life. He alarms 
 them with the possibility that their backslid- 
 ing may become irretrievable, but assures 
 them of his better and brighter hope for them. 
 (1-8.) 
 
 1-3. Exhortation to quit the first principles 
 of the gospel and advance to maturity. 
 
 1. Therefore (in view of the unsatisfac- 
 toriness of this state of spiritual infancy) 
 leaving the (first) principles of the doc- 
 trine of Christ (the initial doctrine ofj 
 Christ), let us go on (bear ourselves on, 
 hasten, speed onuiard: such is the force of 
 <t>fpu>iJLe9a) to maturity. It is questioned 
 whether the advancement here urged is that 
 of the author, quitting in discussion, along 
 with his readers, the elementary doctrines 
 of the gospel, and proceeding to the higher; 
 or of his readers, leaving practically their 
 state of spiritual infancy for the maturity 
 so befitting their profession. Does he as an 
 author exhort them to follow him to the 
 higher points of Christian doctrine, or as a 
 spiritual teacher urge them to higher spiritual 
 attainments, using the plural " we" from mod- 
 esty and conciliation? Partially, I believe 
 
 with Delitzsch that both are implied. The 
 words "leaving" {a^evrt<:, letting go, quitting), 
 and "laying down" (KarajSaAAdfiei'ot) as foun- 
 dations, seem more especially appropriate to 
 the course of a discussion in which writer and 
 readers advance together from point to point, 
 and lay down, or refrain from laying down, 
 fresh foundations. But while the passage, as 
 to form, opens -in this way, its general char- 
 acter and connection clearly make it a practi- 
 cal exhortation. To this refer the words 
 "therefore," "let us hasten," 'and "matu- 
 rity" (TeAetoTTis, which, used of a discussion, 
 should be ra. riktia, the things xvhich are ma- 
 ture); the weighty "provided that God per- 
 mit" — words too significantly solemn to apply 
 to a mere discussion ; and, above all, to the fol- 
 lowing verses, which show that if the writer 
 began with some slight coloring of the au- 
 thor s exhortation to more advanced discus- 
 sion, it is immediately merged in the teacher's 
 and preacher s urgent summoning to higher 
 practical attainments; to hasten indeed from 
 a condition which is not only unsatisfactory, 
 but alarming. The urgent ' let us speed on to 
 maturity' marks danger that their present 
 condition may become permanent, and indeed 
 an apprehension that it may be already hope- 
 less, and they like reprobate land given over 
 to the burning. The appeal comes to them, 
 like the angel's summons to Lot: " Up, get ye 
 out of this place" ; and I incline to tliink that 
 ver. 8 has in mind the doom of Sodom. Not 
 laying again the foundation of repent- 
 ance from dead works, and of faith 
 toward God. The 'again' might apply to 
 renewing the foundations in discussion, or re- 
 newing the foundations in practical life. The 
 two ideas seem blended, as if he would say : 
 " Leave these foundations of mere elementary 
 truth ; they belong to your primitive spiritual 
 state. If they have been laid once, tliey need 
 not be laid again ; if they have been laid and 
 abandoned, they cannot be laid again. He 
 
74 
 
 HEBKEWS. 
 
 [Ch. VL 
 
 2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of I 
 bands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal 
 judgment. | 
 
 2 works, and of faith toward God, ' of the teaching of 
 2 baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resur- 
 
 3 rection of the dead, and of eternal Judgment. And 
 
 1 Some ancieot aulhuritiea read, even the teaching of 2 Or, washings. 
 
 therefore will not stop to relay them in dis- 
 cussion, nor must they in life and practice. 
 Not indeed are they to ignore and abandon 
 them, but to assume them and speed forward. 
 'Foundation' denotes in 1 Cor. 3 : 11, Jesus, 
 the ultimate foundation ; here, the proximate 
 foundation, the relatively fundamental truths 
 of the gospel. 
 
 What this foundation, this elementary doc- 
 trine of Christ, is, the author now informs 
 us. It is sixfold, distributed into three pairs, 
 arranged in logical succession. The first pair 
 is fundamental to the Christian life, 'Repent- 
 ance from dead works' ; not the works of the 
 law, as dead works (Gai. 3:21 ; 4:9), but works 
 which have in them no vitality; spiritually 
 dead, and of course also deadly. Such, too, 
 would be works of law when purely legal, 
 merely formal, hollow observances. With re- 
 pentance is connected "faith toward God," as 
 its accompaniment and cause; the two, indeed, 
 chronologically simultaneous; born together 
 under tlie same quickening act of the Spirit. 
 
 2. The second pair of elementary principles 
 pertains to rites of the church. Of the doc- 
 trine of baptisms, and of laying on of 
 hands. There is here a somewhat difficult 
 question of construction. A few (as Winer, 
 Kurtz) construct "teaching" or "doctrine" 
 after 'baptisms'; 'baptisms of teaching,' or 
 teaching-baptisms — that is, baptisms followed 
 by teaching (as Matt. 28 : 19, 20, baptizing, 
 teaching). Others make 'baptisms' depend- 
 ent on 'doctrine' — 'the doctrine of baptisms' ; 
 while the majority, as Bleek, Delitzsch, Moll, 
 etc., connect it equally with all the following 
 nouns ; as doctrine of baptis7ns, of laying on 
 of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of 
 eternal judgment. I think it difficult to de- 
 cide, and there may have arisen questions in 
 the primitive church regarding baptism, as its 
 relation to Jewish lustrations ("divers bap- 
 tisms," 9 : 10), and to John's baptism, which 
 did not arise in regard to the other points men- 
 tioned. On the other hand, all these great 
 subjects, especially the resurrection and the 
 judgment, may, and in fact must, often have 
 demanded careful instruction. The plural 
 "baptisms" refers, perhaps, to those various 
 
 questions which would arise, especially with 
 converts from Judaism or from John's bap- 
 tism, as was the case with Apollos at Ephesus, 
 where Apollos, "mighty in the Scriptures," 
 but knowing only the baptisin of John, was 
 taught the way of God more perfectly. The 
 imposition of hands, though not probably fol- 
 lowing regularly on baptism, had an import- 
 ant connection with the bestowal of spiritual 
 gifts. The third class or pair of truths, 
 'Resurrection of the dead and eternal judg- 
 ment,' though differing frotii the first in charac- 
 ter (but more vital than the second), is equally 
 fundamental. They evidently went deep, in- 
 deed, into the apostles' teachings and the life 
 of the early church, as we see in the Epi.-tles 
 to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, and in 
 Paul's discourse before the Athenian Areopa- 
 gus. The resurrection of the dead was guar- 
 anteed by the resurrection of Christ, and stood 
 in vital connection with it. (1 Cor. 15 : 15, 16.) The 
 'eternal judgment' is the final judgment, 
 whose issues, unlike those of preceding judi- 
 cial dispensations — the Flood, the overthrow 
 of Sodom, the destruction of Jerusalem — are 
 final and eternal. But how reconcile the de- 
 claration that these Hebrew Christians need 
 to be taught anew the first principles of the 
 gospel with the exhortation to leave them and 
 hasten on to perfection. We reply that the 
 language is in such cases relative and not absv'- 
 lute. They are not, on the one hand, con- 
 ceived to be totally incapable of apprehending 
 higher truths, nor on the other counseled to 
 forsake the elementary. There is force in the 
 present participle ((caTa^aAXoneroi), endeavoring 
 to lay, busying themselves in laying founda- 
 tions. Regarded as foundations, they are to 
 be laid once for all, and built upon as lying at 
 the base of the Christian edifice. They are 
 not disparaged, but exalted. Among these 
 the 'laying on of hands' may with the ceas- 
 ing of miracles have become of less moment. 
 The rest retain their full primitive significance. 
 Repentance, faith, baptism, the resurrection, 
 and the judgment are grand pivots around 
 which the whole Christian sj'stem revolves, in 
 all ages, cardinal elements of Christian doc- 
 trine and life. 
 
Ch. VI.] 
 
 HEBKEWS. 
 
 75 
 
 3 And this will we do, if God permit. 
 
 4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlight- 
 ened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were 
 iiiadc partakers of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the 
 powers of the world to couie. 
 
 4 this will we do, if God permit. For as touching 
 those who were once enliglitened i and tasted of the 
 heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy 
 
 5 Spirit, and « tasted the good word of tiod, and the 
 
 1 Or, haoing both tasted of . . . and being made . . . and having tatted, etc 'i Or, tasted the word o/ God that it is good. 
 
 3. And this will we do. (So Tischendorf, 
 with Sinaitic, Lachmann. Bleek, Lunomann, 
 Delitzsch, Moll — "Let us do," witii no material 
 ditference in sense.) If (more emphatic, idvnfp, 
 provided that) God permit. That this is 
 none of the commonplaces of deference to the 
 divine will is shown both by the emphatically 
 expressed condition, intimating that some 
 obstacle may lie in the way, and by the nature 
 of the duty to which it is affixed. A duty like 
 that of spiritual advancement is usually urged, 
 not provided that God allows it, but because 
 God requires it. A condition, therefore, so 
 emphatically expressed, appended to such an 
 exhortati(m, implies sometliing peculiar and 
 extraordinary in the cimdition of the persons 
 addressed. The writer has exhorted his read- 
 ers to speed their way to the higher grounds of 
 Christian maturity, and he sharpens his ex- 
 hortation by reminding them that their effort 
 may become soon, and has possibly become 
 already, too late. The success, nay, the very 
 
 spiritual vision. See 10:32, "And call to 
 mind the former days in which, after ye were 
 illuminated," etc., the latter passage cer- 
 tainly implying regeneration. Aud tasted 
 the heavenly gift. 'Tasted,' not in contrast 
 with a deep and full experience, but an elegant 
 and enhanced expression of the idea of exper- 
 iencing, enjoying, as at 2: 9, "tasted death for 
 every man." By transferring the idea to that 
 bodily sense which ministers to our most vivid 
 animal delights, the thought gains in force and 
 vividness. ' The heavenly gift' is the boon of 
 salvation, the saving grace of the gospel. And 
 were made partakers of the Holy Ghost. 
 Not merely of his miraculous, but of his en- 
 lightening and quickening influences (Eph. i : i3). 
 "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were 
 sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." Al- 
 lusion, however, is probably made to the special 
 and partly miraculous influences which in the 
 early church so often followed upon conver- 
 i sion. ( Ver. 4 may be constructed thus, "those 
 
 existence, of their religious striving, depends j once for all enlightened both by tasting and 
 
 on the divine approval and co-operation; if 
 that be withheld, it will be unavailing. The 
 doubt is not whether persons having aposta- 
 tized from their former high religious condi- 
 tion could be recovered, but whether they 
 have actually apostatized. If they are only 
 in imminent danger of it, God will bless their 
 and his eftbrts to restore them; if otherwise, 
 their recovery is hopeless. 
 
 4-8. These verses assign the reason of the 
 above ominous condition, 'provided that God 
 permit' ; for it is doubtful if God will permit, 
 and depends on the degree to which your de- 
 fection has advanced. 
 
 4. For — as to whether God will permit this 
 advancement — it is impossible — not exceed- 
 ingly difficult, a quasi impossibility, but from 
 the inherent necessities of the case, or the laws 
 of God' s gracious economy, or both, absolutely 
 impossible (so 10: 26-38) — for those who 
 were once {once for all) enlightened — at 
 once brought into the light and endowed with 
 
 being made partakers," etc., the participial 
 clauses defining instrumentally the elements 
 of the illumination. The idea is but slightly 
 different.) 
 
 5. And tasted the good word {an excel- 
 lent word or utterance) of God. Not 'the 
 good word of God,' as containing truth or 
 doctrine (Aoyo?), but an excellent word, as 
 something spoken (pw<»), utterance, ordinance, 
 decree, promise, very probably, here, some 
 comforting promise of the future perfection 
 of the kingdom of God.i And the powers 
 of the world to come (of the coming, 
 or future age, see 2:4; Gal. 3 : 5). Mir- 
 aculous gifts and endowments mainly, which 
 were a common characteristic of the early 
 church, and which, in Old Testament times, 
 were looked, forward to as destined to mark 
 the coming age {aiiiv nfk\<av), the age of the 
 Messiah. (Acts?: n, aeq.) From the Old Testa- 
 ment point of view this coming age was al- 
 ready present. It had been ushered in with 
 
 'The genitive Smptat, of a gift participated in; the accusative p^Mt^i of a word or utterance, of whatever 
 nature received in its totality. 
 
76 HEBREWS. [Ch. YI. 
 
 (i If they sliall fall away, to renew tbein again unto 
 repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Sou 
 of Uod afresh, and put lUm to an opeu shame. 
 
 6 powers of the age to coiue, and then fell away, it is 
 impossible to reuew theui again unto repentance ; 
 1 seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of t^od 
 
 1 Or, the while. 
 
 the Mes.siali, and those extraordinary spiritual 
 effusions which followed his ascension. With 
 his departure, the "coining age" divided 
 itself, and its fullest powers were reserved for 
 the second coming, and the kingdom then to 
 be consummated. Of these more wondrous 
 manifestations, the miraculous powers now 
 exhibited were but types and presages. Both 
 of the glorious present, however, and as fore- 
 shado wings of the still more glorious future, 
 these Hebrew Christians had largely partaken. 
 The above characteristics would seem to indi- 
 cate Christians; and as the representation de- 
 rives all its force from its applicability to the 
 persons addressed, and as the author of the 
 Epistle uniformly regards these as having been 
 believers, we seem bound to suppose that such 
 is the ciiaracter here described. Whether 
 such persons- actually can or do fall away, is 
 another question. 
 
 6, If they shall fail away— (anrf have 
 fallen away., with emphasis on and), aposta- 
 tized, "departed from the living God" — to 
 renew them again unto repentance. Their 
 recovery is hopeless; they have exhausted the 
 resources of divine mercy. Since they cru- 
 cify (temporal and causal participle, ai'a<rTavp- 
 ovmat, while and because of crucifying) to (or, 
 for) themselves the Son of Ciod afresh — 
 the Christ who has been crucified by others, 
 tiiey, after having accepted and believed in, 
 vecrucify for themselves. The present parti- 
 ciple {iiViunavpoivTai) following the previous 
 aorist participle, iinplies that their act of 
 falling away, conceived as one and single, is 
 
 connected with an abiding recrucifixion of 
 the Lord. This contiimousncss of their act 
 enhances its wickedness. The verb translated 
 "tocrucify again" (avaaravpoiv), would, in tlie 
 classics, simply mean ' to fasten up to a cross,' 
 but the prejjosition (kva) is exceedingly flexible 
 and various in signification, denoting, in the 
 same word, sometimes uji, sometimes back or 
 over ago.iti, and sometimes coiribining both. 
 Here interpreters, from the Greek expositors 
 down, have given to it the force of oi;er' again. 
 By again turning their backs on Christ, these 
 apostates sanction, and, as it were, renew his 
 crucifixion ; thej' lend their voices to swell the 
 shout of "crucify him." They crucify him 
 for themselves in that they make the national 
 act their own, and declare their individual 
 purpose to have nothing to do with him, and, 
 at the same time, hold him up to the scoffing 
 and derision of others ; expose him to public 
 shame and reproach (n-apo«civ/iaTi^€tf ; to make 
 a 2'>ublic example of).^ This language would 
 be especially forcible addressed to Jews whose 
 countrymen had crucified the Messiah, and 
 while yet the echo of that great shout of 
 national rejection was still lingering on the 
 ear, in which, in fact, some of those addressed 
 may not improbably have participated. On 
 these persons, therefore, the gospel has tried 
 its utmost strength and failed. The only 
 Being whose blood could redeem and sanctify 
 thein, they have discarded. There remains 
 for them no more sacrifice for sin ; and as 
 matter both of natural necessity and judicial 
 retribution, their recovery is impossible.^ In 
 
 1 See Matt. 1 : 19, Joseph . . . not willing to make a 
 public example (n-apaSeiY/iaTtVai, or, omitting irapa, 
 Bfiyii-ariaai) of Mary. 
 
 2 The sin here described as sealing the ruin of its 
 agents, is by many identified with the sin against the 
 Holy Ghost described in the gosi)el. To me they seem, 
 though equally fatal, widely different. Thai is the sin 
 of open spurncrs of Christianity ; of men who vent 
 their hate and malice in words and acts of libel and 
 outrage against the workings of the Holy Spirit ; who, 
 though they have had great external enlightenment, 
 have made no pretence of discipleship. Thix is the sin 
 of professed (and real) friends, who have been inwardly, 
 as well as outwardly, enlightened, but slowly, and half 
 unconsciously, under the deceitfuliiess of sin, have 
 lapsed gradually into final, and utter apostasy. The 
 
 former sin is committed more directly against the 
 Spirit; the latter against the Son. The former is un- 
 pardonable, as being a wanton and spiteful rejection of 
 him who applies the cleansing blood of Christ; tlie 
 latter as exhausting and proving inefhcient the re- 
 sources of that blood itself. The one provokes and 
 drives away the Spirit, and i)revents him from ajjplying 
 his regenerating power to the soul ; the other quenches 
 his regenerating influences in the soul itself. In my 
 opinion, there is another wide difference between them. 
 The one can bo, and is, committed ; the other is, theo- 
 retically, but not j)ractically, possible. The present 
 ])assage describes, I think, a condition subjectively pos- 
 sible, and, therefore, needing to be held up in earnest 
 warning to the believer, while objectively, and in the 
 absolute purpose of God, it never actually occurs. 
 
Ch. VI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 77 
 
 relation to this sin, I would remark: (1) That 
 this, and several like passages in the Epistle, 
 are substantially but expansions (couched in 
 the peculiar style of our author) of similar 
 exhortations and warnings occurring elsewhere 
 in the epistles, emphasized, in this case, by the 
 extremely perilous condition of the persons 
 addressed. The Epistle to the Galatians fur- 
 nishes, perhaps, the nearest parallel to their 
 condition, though the accessories and handling 
 are widely different. But the injunctions, 
 "Quench not the Spirit," "Grieve not the 
 Holy Spirit of God," etc., and especially the 
 Saviour's language in John 15 : 7, seq., "Abide 
 in me," etc., "If a man abide not in me, he 
 is cast forth," etc., seem substantially of the 
 same nature. Whatever inferences we draw 
 from the one set of passages can be extended 
 to the other. (2) I think it is not affirmed in 
 any of these passages, that persons of the class 
 here described have actually fallen away. The 
 readers are bidden to beware of an evil heart 
 of unbelief in departing from the living God, 
 warned of the helpless condition of apostates, 
 and reminded of the intrinsically necessary 
 consequences of such apostasy — granting it to 
 occur; but I am not aware that the case is 
 put otherwise than hypothetically. Why, 
 then, put hypothetically a case which is never 
 to be realized? I answer: (3) The Scriptures 
 everywhere treat men as free, moral agents, 
 who hold their destinies in their own keeping. 
 The sinner is commanded to repent, as if 
 repentance lay within his independent voli- 
 tion ; the Christian is urged to fidelity, perse- 
 verance, and growth in holiness, as if all were 
 not ultimately the product of divine grace 
 working within him. They are dealt with, not 
 accordiag to the objective facts, but their sub- 
 jective, conscious obligations; and this mode 
 of dealing with them is doubtless one of the 
 divine means of accomplishing its sovereign 
 purposes. As free, moral agents, they may, 
 and ought to, repent; but through these ex- 
 hortations God brings them to repentance. 
 As conscious, free agents, Christians may 
 either stand or fall ; and if in his gracious 
 economy he has ordained that they shall 7wt 
 fall, these warnings may be among his means 
 of accomplishing his ordination. This with 
 all the more propriety, as they know not as 
 yet with absolute certainty to which category 
 thej' belong. To the Eye that sees the future 
 
 as the present, and the hidden as the revealed, 
 their character and destiny are already de- 
 cided; but to them in whom dwell conflicting 
 elements of character, who are begirt by 
 temptations, and to whom the sole decisive 
 test is perseverance to the end, these exhorta- 
 tions are always timely. (4) The writer may 
 thus include under the same general descrip- 
 tion, two widely different classes — those who 
 are actually regenerated, and those who, not 
 really so, have gone through an apparent 
 Christian experience. The two will be subject 
 to substantially the same treatment, and only 
 in the sequel will exhibit their real intrinsic 
 diversity. The stony ground plants spring 
 up more speedily and luxuriantly than the 
 offspring of the good soil; but the rising of 
 the sun, which warms and fosters the one,* 
 scorches and withers the other. Thus the 
 professed disciples may be described partly as 
 they are, partly as they appear. Those who 
 fall away were, in fact, never genuine disci- 
 ples; those who were genuine disciples will 
 never fall away. (5) The question of the 
 possible aposta.sy of believers it is not my 
 province to discuss. I can only just say that 
 it seems to me to lie within the nature of the 
 case that those whom the Son of God has ran- 
 somed with his blood and regenerated with 
 his Spirit, cannot be allowed afterward com- 
 pletely to apostatize. It seems to me to be 
 allowing such a triumph to Satan as is insup- 
 posable, and directly to antagonize the words 
 of Christ, "My sheep hear my voice; and I 
 give unto them eternal life, and they shall 
 never perish, neither shall any man pluck them 
 out of my hand." So the triumphant lan- 
 guage of Paul in the eighth chapter of Ro- 
 mans; and such seems to me to be the pre- 
 vailing tone of the New Testament. (6) But 
 finally, it is clear that if the Christian's apos- 
 tasy is possible, he can apostatize but once. 
 When the record which God has written on 
 his heart is effaced, it cannot be inscribed 
 there again. He will have no second oppor- 
 tunity to offer that outrage to an atoning 
 Redeemer and a regenerating Spirit. This, 
 and other like passages, put an extinguisher on 
 the hopes of him who has succeeded in wrest- 
 ing himself out of the arms of infinite love, 
 and surrenders himself again to the mastery 
 of sin, is henceforth its slave and victim to 
 the end. 
 
78 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VI. 
 
 7 For tlie earth wliich drinketh in the rain that | 7 afresh, and put hiiu to an open shanje. For the 
 
 coiuelli oft, upon it, and l)riiigeth fortli herbs meet for 
 theui by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from 
 G. d: 
 
 8 But that wliicli beareth thorns and briers is re- 
 jected, and (6- nigli unto cursing; whose end u to be 
 burned. 
 
 land wliicli hatli drunk the rain that cometh oft 
 ujmn it, and bringetli fortli herbs meet for them for 
 whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth Ijlessing from 
 8 God: but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is 
 rejected and nigh unto a curse; wliose end is to be 
 burned. 
 
 7, 8. Simile illu.«Li-:iting and enforcing the 
 above warning, and pointing the condition, 
 "provided God permit.'' 
 
 7. For tlie earth, etc. — For land that hath 
 drunk the rain that cometh oftentimes u2'>on it. 
 This is the subject to which both the following 
 predicates, bring forth and bear (tiktovcto and 
 tK<<.€>oi;<ra), equally refer. It describes alike 
 that which in its further culture rec.eives the 
 blessing of God, and that which has his curse. 
 It is the condition of the dealing with both 
 these classes of land that they should have 
 drunk the rains, and had the culture of the 
 husbandman, and shared equally the original 
 means of productiveness. The term 'drink- 
 eth,' therefore, is not to be pressed as if it de- 
 notes a cordial, voluntary drinking, a glad 
 reception of the rain in the one case as against 
 a more. passive reception of it in the other. 
 The terms 'drinketh,' 'bringeth forth,' 're- 
 ceiveth blessing,' 'is rejected,' all transfer to 
 lifeless nature the life and accountability 
 which belong to the subjects that the figure 
 illustrates. The image is pregnant with vi- 
 tality. And bringeth forth, etc — giving 
 birth to, engendering herbage suitable for them 
 for whose sake (not, by whom,) it is tilled. 
 Receiveth {partaketh of] blessing from 
 God. Those for whose sake the field is culti- 
 vated are not necessarily the workmen, but 
 the owners (perhaps both) ; as in the case of 
 Christians, the spiritual soil is tilled indeed by 
 men, hut for the Supreme Owner, God. The 
 land which, having thus drunk the fertilizing 
 rains, repays them with apj)roj)riate vegeta- 
 tion, receives the divine blessing. God smiles 
 upon it, and permits and prospers its further 
 culture. He brings the springing corn to ma- 
 turity, and rewards the liberal vegetation of 
 one j'ear by a still richer harvest in another. 
 The field is endowed with life, and receives in 
 augmented beauty and verdure the reward of 
 its fidelity. So the writer keeps steadily in 
 view his emphatic ' provided God permit.' 
 Its blessing is from God. 
 
 8. But that which beareth, etc. — But 
 when producing thorns and thistles, it is rep- 
 robate and is near to a curse, whose conszan- 
 
 mation is to be burned. ' Bearing' ('EK<frepouo-o), 
 bringing forth, produci)ig, though not a word 
 of disparagement, is a term of less dignity (and 
 intentionally chosen as such) than 'bringeth 
 forth' (T«Tovo-a, giving birth to) of the preced- 
 ing clause. 'Thorns and thistles' are already 
 the product of a curse (Gen. 3:t8), but here ap- 
 pear as its occasion. The writer keeps out of 
 sight any previous inherent difference in the 
 quality of the land to make his. figure more 
 perfect. Let it receive the beneficent rains 
 and yield a suitable return, and it is blessed; 
 let it produce thorns and thistles, and it is 
 cursed. It is reprobate (a^dxtMos), n^iproved, 
 not bearing trial ; hence, vjoi'thless, discarded, 
 a term again transferred from rational to 
 inanimate nature, and chosen as specifically 
 appropriate. As the nations (Rom. i-.is) disap- 
 2)roved (aireSoxiVao-ov) to hold God in recogni- 
 tion, God gave them over to an ujiproved, 
 worthless, reprobate (aSoKiixov) mind. Esau 
 having discarded his birthright (12:17), when 
 he would recover it was rep7-ohated, and no 
 divine blessing smiled on his endeavor. So 
 the land that has made so ungracious and per- 
 verse a return for the heavenly boon is dis- 
 carded, reprobrated as worthless. The ap- 
 pended condition, " if God permit," rings in 
 the author's ears. ' Near tc a curse ' is an ex- 
 pression chosen in tenderness, that the author 
 may not extinguish hope in the readers. He 
 would alarm, but not drive them to despair. 
 He would show their case to be critical, but 
 not hopeless. Even while producing thorns 
 and thistles, the field is not utterly aban- 
 doned; the curse delays; the consuming fire 
 does not yet descend, and the doubt implied 
 in the 'if God permit' may have a happj' so- 
 lution. If tlie word translated 'end' in the 
 Common Version (tcAos) be rendered consum- 
 mation, the 'whose' (17s), of which, refers to 
 'curse' ; if 'end,' it may equally well refer to 
 land (yijs). In the words, "whose end is for 
 burning," Delitzsch suggests a possible pro- 
 phetic anticipation of the approaching doom 
 of Jerusalem. The Jewish vineyard was cer- 
 tainly now near to its burning. The spiritual 
 eye must have discovered lurid clouds hang- 
 
Ch. VI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 79 
 
 ■ 9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of 
 you, aud thiugs that accoiupaiiy salvatiou, though we 
 thus si)euk. 
 
 10 Kor God is not unrighteous to forget your work 
 aud labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his 
 iianie, iu that ye have uiiuistered to the saints, and do 
 minister. 
 
 11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the 
 same diligence to the lull assurance ol hope unto the 
 end: 
 
 9 But, lieloved, we are persuaded better things uf 
 you, and things that ' accompany salvation, llmtigh 
 
 10 we thus speak : for (lod is not unrighteous to iorget 
 your work aud the love which ye shewed toward 
 his name, in that ye ministered unto the saints, and 
 
 11 still do minister. And we desire that each one of 
 you may shew the same diligence uuio the ^^ fulness 
 
 I Or, belong to -i. Or, full 
 
 ing heavy on the horizon. The general ref- 
 erence of the figure is probably to a storm of 
 fire and brimstone from iieaven, like that 
 which descended on the cities of the plain and 
 doomed them to perpetual sterility. 
 
 (c) The brighter aspects of the case. The 
 author would encourage as well as alarm. 
 He declares to his readers his confidence that 
 under God's covenant faithfulness better 
 things await them ; cites his oath to Abraham 
 as a sure grfiund of confidence, and, remind- 
 ing them of their hope which enters the hea- 
 venly sanctuary, and rests on the heavenly 
 High Priest, thus brings his subject gracefully- 
 round to the starting point in the heavenly 
 high priesthood of Jesus, from which he'had 
 digressed. (9-20. ) 
 
 9. But, beloved, we are persuaded — not 
 necessarily implying doubt or reluctant be- 
 lief, but a belief which springs from evidence. 
 
 (Rom. 8:38; 2 Tim. I : 5.) Of {C0nce7'ning) yOU. 
 
 'Beloved' is a term of endearment, applied 
 by our author only here, and here, doubtless, 
 in view of the fearful rebuke just adminis- 
 tered. Better things of you — better to the 
 extent of being connected with salvation; bet- 
 ter intrinsically; better in their final issue. 
 Though we thus speak— doubtingly and 
 alarmingly. He has spoken with fidelity and 
 plainness; he has inflicted "the wounds of a 
 friend," putting the worst aspects of their case 
 in the hope of preventing his foreboding from 
 being realized. 
 
 10. For God is not unrighteous to for> 
 get your work. As to their work, see 10 : 32; 
 their endurance of aflfliction and persecution, 
 and active and close sympathy with the perse- 
 cuted. The author finds grounds for the as- 
 surance that God will not permit their final 
 apostasy in the fact that his very justice is en- 
 listed in their behalf, and in some sort pledged 
 to reward their former fidelity and devotion. 
 The Christian's best works, of course, give 
 him no claim to salvation. But God suflfers no 
 
 intrinsically good act to go unrewarded; and 
 although it was at his pleasure originally to 
 institute or not his gracious economy, yet it 
 being once instituted, his veracity and justice 
 guarantee the fulfillment of his promises both 
 to the Redeemer and his people. He encour- 
 ages, therefore, his Hebrew brethren by a ref- 
 erence to their former, and indeed still contin- 
 ued, acts of Christian service (for external 
 may not have kept pace with internal spiritual 
 decline), and finds in God's grdcious justice a 
 guarantee of their ultimate salvation. And 
 the love which ye have shewed toward 
 his name — that is, toward himself; the 
 ' name,' as outward symbol of the person, often 
 stands forcibly for the person. The ' work ' 
 stands collectively for works; it takes their 
 Christian activity as a whole. It is completed 
 by ' love,' ( ' labor,' Koitov, is wanting in the best 
 MSS.), without which all works, even acts 
 of charity, as giving one's goods to feed the 
 poor and one's body to be burned, are really 
 worthless. The work and the love had here 
 gone together. In that ye have ministered 
 to the saints, and do minister (are tninis- 
 tering). They have attested, and are still at- 
 testing, their allegiance to Christ by minister- 
 ing to his people; primarily, perhaps, though 
 by no means exclusively, in charitable contri- 
 butions. No inference can probabl v be drawn 
 from this passage as to the residence of these 
 Christians, whether in or out of Palestine. 
 Whether their contributions were to their 
 needy fellow-Christians in any part of Pales- 
 tine (as Jerusalem), or among themselves or 
 elsewhere, the reference is quite too vague to 
 warrant any conclusion. Jewish Christians 
 in Rome might very well have been objects of 
 charity. 
 
 11. Renewed exhortation. And we de- 
 sire that every one of you do show (feel) 
 the same diligence, zeal; not the .•^^ame 
 with one another, but the same which ye have 
 shown in deeds of love and charity. To 
 
80 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VI. 
 
 12 That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who 
 through faith and patience iuherit the promises. 
 
 13 For when God made promise to Abraham, because 
 he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. 
 
 14 .Saying, Surely blessing [ will bless thee, and mul- 
 tiplying I will multiply thee. 
 
 12 of hope even to the end: that ye be not sluggish, 
 but imitators of them who through faith and pa- 
 tience inherit the promises. 
 
 13 For when God made promise to Abraham, since 
 he could swear by none greater, he sware by him- 
 
 14 self, sayiug, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and 
 
 (in respect to) the full assurance of hope 
 
 {nKripo<j>opiav), completion, perfection (Bleek, De 
 Wette), oT,fuLL and assured confidence {T)ki\- 
 il;csch and others), more in accordance with 
 the usual New Testament sense of the word. 
 
 (10:22; 1 Thes3. 1 :5; Col. 2:2.) UutO the CUd — 
 
 whether 'shew unto the end' or hope 'unto 
 the end' seems doubtful, and the difference in 
 meaning is not important. In either case 'the 
 beginning of their confidence,' their original 
 hope and fervor, are to be maintained to the 
 final issue. This is conceived not so much as 
 the close of life as of the waiting period before 
 the coming of the Messiah, which was ex- 
 pected to break upon them soon, and did so 
 typically in the overthrow of their city and 
 nation. Perhaps the 'end' is here conceived 
 as simply the close of the probationary period, 
 in whatever way terminated. 
 
 13. That ye be not {may not become, 
 prove) slothful — sluggish (vuiepoC), dull, inert 
 of spiritual understanding and sensibility. 
 They have been already said (o: n) to have be- 
 come sluggish; but such epithets are of course 
 always relative, and besides the Greek verb 
 (ycvjifffl*) may signify not only to become what 
 they are not, but to prove themselves what 
 they are (iyivovro avSpeloi, they proved themselves 
 brave). But followers {imitators) of them 
 who through faith and patience (tiaKpo- 
 6viJ.ia, long suffering) — the very qualities which 
 these Hebrew Cliristians are called on specially 
 to display; the faith which takes cognizance 
 of the future (":'), fi'id the long suffering 
 which, nerved by faith, withstands trials and 
 temptations. Inherit the promises — not the 
 word of the promise, but its substance, its reali- 
 zation. The present participle (KkT)pofoii.ovvruiv) 
 shows that not merely the patriarchs and the 
 ancient worthies are meant, but the whole line 
 of the faithful down to their own day. Not 
 until the next verse is the general thought 
 specialized to Abraham. At 11 : 13 we are 
 told that these ancient worthies died without 
 receiving the promises — that is, their fulfill- 
 ment. How, then, can they be here declared 
 to have inherited them? We reply: The 
 former declaration is confined within the limits 
 of their earthly life; the latter takes jn the 
 
 whole compass ot their existence. Looking 
 simply at his earthly career, Abraham ob- 
 tained the promise indeed, but not its fulfill- 
 ment ; looking at his whole career, he obtained 
 both. With God, who cannot lie, making the 
 promise is equivalent to fulfilling it, and its 
 full import will be realized in its own due 
 time. We may further add that the coming 
 of Christ brings at once the believers of all 
 times, dead and living, into a richer exjjerience 
 of the promised good. Whatever their previ- 
 ous condition, they now inherit the promises, 
 and that through the faith and patience of 
 their earthly life. Between 'promise' and 
 'promises' (singular and plural) there is no 
 marked distinction. 
 
 13. Exainple of Abraham. For introduces 
 an illustration, on the one hand, of the prom- 
 ise and of the guarantee in God's faithfulness 
 for its fulfillment, and, on the other, of the 
 faith and long suffering which secured its real- 
 ization. When God made promise to 
 Abraham — 'Abraham' (in the Greek) em- 
 phatic in position (for to Abraham, in making 
 proTnise, God, etc.). Some (as De Wette, 
 Liinemann) renderthe participle "after prom- 
 ising," thus making the promise antecedent to 
 the oath, and referring the promise to Gen. 
 17 : 4, seq., and the oath to 22 : 16, 17; but the 
 coupling of the oath with the promise is spe- 
 cially important to the writer, and it is much 
 better to refer the whole to Gen. 22 : 16, 17, 
 where both appear in connection. The aorist 
 participle will admit equally well of either 
 rendering, vjhen he promised (on promising), 
 or, after promising. I adopt unhesitatingly 
 (with Delitzsch) the former construction, 
 which makes the promise and oath come to- 
 gether, the promise preceding simply in h)gi- 
 cal conception. Because [since) he could 
 swear by no greater, he sware by him> 
 self. On the part of God, Abraham's ground 
 of faith was of the most decisive conceivable 
 character. He left nothing undone that could 
 assure to Abraham the sincerity and absolute 
 reliableness of his promise, and added to it 
 the inviolable sanctity of the oath. 
 
 14. Saying, Surely (^ M'i»'), a formula fa- 
 miliar to classic Greek, as accompanying and 
 
Ch. VI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 81 
 
 15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained 15 multiplying I will multiply thee. And thus, having 
 
 the promise. 
 
 16 For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath 
 for confirmation ix to them an end of all strife. 
 
 17 Wherfiii (iod, willing more abundantly to shew 
 unto the heirs of promise tfie immutability of his coun- 
 sel, confirmed it by an oath : 
 
 16 patiently endured, be obtained the promise. For 
 men swear by the greater: and in every disjiute of 
 
 17 theirs the oath is final for confirmation. Wherein 
 God, being minded to shew more abundantly unto 
 the lieirs of the promise the immutability of his 
 
 often taking the place of an adjuration, and 
 always having the power of an oath; so the 
 Septuagint.* The rest of the passage has the 
 Hebrew emphasis blessing I will bJess thee 
 —equivalent to, I will surely bless thee, and 
 multiplying I will multiply thee— equiva- 
 lent to, I will surel}' multii)ly thee. The 
 citation varies from the Septuagint 22 : 17, in 
 substituting thee (<ri) for thy seed (to wipiia. aov) 
 in the second clause. 
 
 15. And so, thus — that is, not "in this 
 way," but (by a familiar use of the Greek 
 ouTut) 'under these conditions' of God's prom- 
 ise given and confirmed: the particle 'thus' 
 belonging exclusively neither to the parti- 
 ciple "patiently enduring" ((uia(cpo9vjoi^aas) nor 
 to the verb "obtained" (inirvxfv), but to both 
 as constituting one complex idea. After he 
 had patiently endured {patiently enduring, 
 Rom. 4: 18-29; or, by patiently enduring) he 
 obtained the promise — that is, its fulfill- 
 ment. Not, indeed, in his earthly life time, 
 but as fast and as soDn as the promise in its 
 various elements, the multiplication of his 
 seed, and the Messianic salvation through his 
 seed, could be accomplished. 
 
 16. For men, indeed (/uieV, indeed, to be sure, 
 as contrasted with God ; never as the Common 
 Version, verily. But the particle is wanting 
 in the Sinaitic and some other MSS. If the 
 particle is genuine it implies the latent thought 
 that than God there is no greater.) Swear 
 by the greater (toO /iei^oi/o?) — either neuter, 
 that which is greater, or better, masculine, 
 "the greater Being," him by whom all men 
 swear; namely, God. The force of the oath 
 consists not in its appealing to any object 
 greater than ourselves, but to the one Being 
 who can take cognizance of our treatment of 
 the oath Ti:e la^t clause may be rendered: 
 And of gninsnying the oath to them is a finality 
 (a limit) for confirmation. 'Gainsaying' (here 
 the object in the writer's mind being tlie 
 divine promise) seems a better rendering of 
 
 the Greek (ii'TiAoi'ia), than strife, dispute, 
 which the word will equally well bear, and 
 as in the Revised Version. 'Oath' is em- 
 phatic in position. ' For confirmation ' belongs 
 to 'end,' 'limit,' and not to 'oath.' 
 
 17. Wherein {in which) ; namely, matter, 
 or state of the case as to the force of the oath. 
 God willing {v>ishing) more abundantly 
 — in a higher degree than by his single 
 word, or, as is possible, very abundantly — 
 to shew unto the heirs of promise, not 
 merely the Old Testament saints (Tholuck), 
 nor simply Christians as such (Liinemann), 
 but the spiritual descendants of Abraham, 
 the spiritual Israel who inherit all the spiritual 
 blessings couched under the earthly promise. 
 In the promise to Abrahatii were potentially 
 contained all the blessings of the New Cove- 
 nant, whence believers become 'the heirs of 
 promise.' An emphasis, however, rests on 
 'heirs,' as if the author would not only sig- 
 nalize God's desire to assure the blessing to 
 Abraham, the original receiver of the promise, 
 but to his children its inheritors, by a like 
 oath. The author's circle of vision hsis ex- 
 panded. He embraces in thought the present 
 time, and the more strictly spiritual import of 
 the oath to Abraham. The immutability 
 of his counsel, etc., interposed 7vith an oath; 
 'interposed,' mediated (/neo-iTeOw), came as 
 mediator between himself and the objects of 
 the promise. It may be doubted whether 
 Delitzsch (with some others) is not right in 
 supposing that in this renewed reference to 
 the oath at ver. IT, the author has not in 
 mind another oath in which the New Testa- 
 ment heirs of the promise are still more deeply 
 interested, that, namely, which confirms to 
 Christ yet more solemnly the ro3'al and per- 
 petual priesthood of Melchisedec. The very 
 formal r2sumption of the subject: the words 
 " wishing more abundantly to confirm " (n-epKr- 
 a&Tfpov) which in this case would refer to the 
 second oath — more abundantly than by the 
 
 1 [The reading <i ^^v is preferred by the leading edi- I B D *E P. The meaning, however, is not affected by 
 tors, l.,acbmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and this change. See Thayer's Lex. of the New Testament 
 Hort, and is supported by the important MSS. X A S. V.— A. H.] 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VI. 
 
 18 That by two Immutable things, in which it ivas | 18 counsel 'interposed with an oath: that by two iui- 
 
 irapossible for God to lie, we might have a strong con- 
 solation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upuu the 
 hope set before us: 
 
 19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both 
 sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within 
 the vail ; 
 
 mutable things, in which it is impossible for God to 
 lie, we may have a strong encouragement, who hare 
 fled for reluge to lay hold of the hope set before us; 
 19 which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both 
 sure and stedfast and entering into that wnich is 
 
 1 Gr. mediated. 
 
 former: 'the immutability of his counsel,' 
 which might be suggested by " the Lord swore 
 and will not repent" ; and finally, the close 
 connection in which all this stands with the 
 heavenly sanctuary, in which the believer's 
 hope is to enter and fasten on the high priest- 
 hood of Christ, toward which the author is 
 now rapidly hastening forward, and which 
 already he has full in view — all might favor 
 the idea that he has now rather in mind the 
 oath to Christ than the oath to Abraham. 
 That special topic and example he seems 
 really to have left behind him. His own 
 times and his Htbrew brethren are under his 
 eye. To them the oath that God would bless 
 Abraham and multiply his seed, though 
 always of interest, is now of less immediate 
 concern than that promise and oath of God to 
 Christ, which form the very core and centre 
 of the New Covenant. And although there 
 is here no express mention of this oath, yet it 
 might be a part of the writer's art to leave it 
 to suggest itself, as it so naturally would to 
 his readers, and reserve its express mention to 
 a little later on. (7:20-22.) As, however, the 
 author has not here made express reference to 
 this oath, I do not feel at libert3' to give this 
 as a confident interpretation, but suggest the 
 probability that such is here the purpose of 
 the writer. 
 
 18. That by two immutable things— in 
 the promise and the oath ; both equally' and 
 absolutely sure: for, strictly speaking, God's 
 promise is his oath. His promise pledges his 
 divine veracity, and all the attributes of his 
 nature ; and his oath can do no more. He 
 condescends, however, to human weakness, 
 and subjects his utterances to the law of our 
 finite limitations. The added formula of an 
 oath seems to be pledging the divine veracity 
 more completely to the fulfillment of its 
 promises. We may add, however, that even 
 with men the distinction between the word 
 and the oath is only seeming. To the faith 
 that utters ever3'thing under the eye of Omni- 
 science, every word has the sanctity of an oath 
 
 — in which it was (is) impossible for God 
 
 to lie (utter falsehood). Both the promise 
 and the oath equally pledge the divine verac- 
 ity : it is only our finite weakness that super- 
 adds to the sanctity of the promise the sanctity 
 of the oath. We may have a strong encour- 
 agement (not as in Common Version, conso- 
 lation) who have fled for refuge to lay 
 hold upon the hope set (lying') before 
 us. So, I think, better than "that we who 
 have fled for refuge, may have strong encour- 
 agement to lay hold of," etc. Though it is 
 doubtful if the elliptical construction should 
 not be thus filled up: "may have strong 
 encouragement to hold on (KpaTelv), who have 
 fled for refuge to lay hold of" ((cpar^crat, aorist). 
 Lay hold of (icpoT^CTai) suits much better to the 
 'who have fled for refuge' (ol KaTa<i>vy6vT(i) . 
 Both the clauses stand harshly alone. The 
 ' hope ' that lies before us is here taken objec- 
 tively, as the thing hoped for, not the grace 
 of hope, as just below; as Rom. 8, "a hope 
 that is seen is not hope," plays between the 
 subjective and objective uses of the word. 
 
 19. Which [hope] we have as an anchor 
 of the soul. The anchor of hope is a natural 
 and familiar figure, perhaps suggested here by 
 the 'fled for refuge' (naroii.vytii'), like a tossed 
 ship fleeing for refuge to its harbor — both 
 sure and steadfast, and Avhich entereth 
 into that within the vail. These predicates 
 (on account of the connections re, Kai, koi) 
 must all be construed together. They are 
 generally taken with 'anchor,' to which 'sure 
 and steadfast' are especially appropriate; 
 'entering,' etc., less so. This applies beauti- 
 fully to the believer's hope, less naturally to 
 the 'anchor.' The figure, indeed, is not with- 
 out force and beauty which represents the 
 anchor of hope thrown not downward into 
 life's stormy sea, but upward into the tranquil 
 deeps ofthe heavenly sanctuary, where (unlike 
 the earthly anchor) \tlies, holding the spiritual 
 bark through all its stormy course. Granting 
 freely the picturesque beauty of this figure, 
 I yet see nothing in the position of the words 
 
Ch. VII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 83 
 
 20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, eweft I 20 within the veil ; whither as a forerunner Jesus en- 
 Jesus, made a high priest for ever after the order of tered for us, havinc become a high priest for ever 
 Melchisedec I after the order of Melchi^edek. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FOR this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the 
 most hiuh God, who met Abraham returning from 
 the slaughter of the kings, and blessetl him ; 
 
 1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God 
 Most High, who met Abraham returning from the 
 
 to prevent their being connected natuniUy 
 with 'which [hope],' a figui-e that more 
 easily suits to the 'entering witiiin the veil.' 
 In either case it forms an admirable turning 
 point or pivot on which the autlior gracefully 
 swings round to his main theme, from which 
 he had diverged at 5 : 10, with a reference to 
 Christ's Melchisedec priesthood, and to which 
 through the intervening stages, by carrying 
 the believer's hope into the heavenly sanc- 
 tuary, the home of that royal High Priest, 
 he now returns.* The writer adds most natu- 
 rally, and returning to the topic dropped at 
 5: 10— 
 
 aO. Whither, etc. ; where (Sirou, where, used 
 pregnantly for on-oi, whither ; equivalent to 
 whither he entered and where he remained) — 
 as a forerunner on our behalf entered Jestis. 
 It is the presence of Jesus within the vail that 
 emboldens our hope to penetrate that mys- 
 terious and awful place in which we " draw 
 near to God"; and looking back from this 
 point we feel more inclined to regard the oath, 
 which at ver. 17 gives such strong assurance 
 to the heirs of promise, as at least intended to 
 call up to the mind of the reader the great 
 Melchisedec oath and promise which, though 
 he might reserve it for a fuller mention else- 
 where, he could scarcely leave entirely un- 
 noticed here. I think he lets it lie faintly out- 
 lined on the horizon of his thought. For 
 us, on our behalf. In this Jesus resembled 
 the earthly high priest, who, after slaughter- 
 ing the victim in the outer court, entered with 
 its blood on behalf of the people into the 
 Holiest of All, the symbolical presence of God. 
 But there the parallel ends. The earthly priest 
 entered alone but once a year, and with none 
 to follow. Jesus entered to stay, and as Fore- 
 runner o( his people: that where he is they 
 might be. After the order of Melchisedec be- 
 coming a high priest forever. This formally 
 launcliesthe author on his great theme. ^ After 
 the order of Melchisedec,' in reversed order, is 
 
 placed emphatically first as the topic which is 
 to be immediately treated. After the likeness 
 of Melchisedec he thus appears as royal, solo, 
 perpetual Priest; after the likeness of Aaron, 
 he becomes a High Priest; the author here 
 again, as at 5 : 10, including the Levitical 
 element, which gives to his priesthood com- 
 pleteness. As antitype of Melchisedec -he 
 would have a royal, untransferable, unending 
 priesthood, but a 'barren scepter' and a barren 
 priesthood, with no atoning sacrifice. Asiinti- 
 type of Aaron, he has a real efficacit)us sacri- 
 fice in the true tabernacle : and absorbing 
 into his person the significance of both these 
 priesthoods, he holds them both forever. 
 
 Ch. 7: (3) The royal Melchisedec priest- 
 hood of Christ. (1-28.) 
 
 (a) Summary of the Old Testament descrip- 
 tion of Melchisedec in those historical feat- 
 ures which determine the character of his 
 priesthood. (1-3.) 
 
 1. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, 
 priest of the most high God. There has 
 been much speculation regarding this myste- 
 rious personage, who in the narrative of Gen- 
 esis flashes a moment on our view, as one pe- 
 culiarly exalted, and then utterly disappears, 
 except, in one brief sentence of the Psalms, as 
 priestly type of the Son of God. There has 
 been expended on him much idle conjecture. 
 He has been supposed to be Shem ; to be a 
 man created for the express occasion ; to be 
 an angel — nay, as if to convict the Scripture 
 of the folly of likening our Lord to himself, 
 and making him a priest after his own order, 
 to be the Son of God himself. Every such 
 hypothesis may bo summarily dismissed. 
 There is nothing, either, in the text of Gene- 
 sis, or the commentary in Hebrews, which, 
 properly considered, countenances such as- 
 sumptions. On his origin and histoiy the 
 vail was evidently not intended to be lifted. 
 Raised up for a special purpose, his origin and 
 
 » The passage furnishes oneof the instances of grace- 1 and which, like numberless other rhetorical touches, 
 ful and designed transition, so familiar to our author, I mark unmistakably a hand other than that of PiuL 
 
84 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Cii. VII. 
 
 end shrouded in intentional obscurity, he was 
 brought into personal contact with the father 
 of the Jewish race, that when a change should 
 be necessary in the Jewish priestly order their 
 own annals might foreshadtrw and justify the 
 ])roceeding in the exhibition of one before 
 whom Abraham himself, and in him his 
 priestly descendants, had bowed in homage. 
 So at least God has used Melchisedec, and so 
 we may presume he intended to use him, and 
 that to this use the Old Testament narrative 
 was adjusted. Whatever the sacred historian 
 may have known, or not known, regarding 
 Melchisedec' s ancestry and historical relations, 
 the Spirit of God that presided over the nar- 
 rative caused just so much to be recorded as 
 answered the purpose of his introduction. He 
 was to be used simply as a type. It mattered 
 not so much what he was as what he appeared. 
 The mode of exhibiting him met all the pur- 
 poses which he was to subserve in sacred his- 
 tory. His role, however, in the historic drama, 
 though brief, was one of pre-eminent dignity. 
 He was an earthly king, probably, in that city 
 which was subsequently to be the royal city 
 of David, and of David's royal line. He 
 was a priest, the first priest mentioned in the 
 sacred annals, and a priest of the Most High 
 God. Thus he was one of the few who still 
 preserved uncorrupted the traditionary mono- 
 theism of the ante-Noachian period. Prob- 
 ably, he was one of that race of Shem that, as 
 descendants of Lud, occupied Canaan before 
 its conquest by the Canaanites, and thus be- 
 longed to the family which had received the 
 peculiar blessing of Noah. Inferior to Abra- 
 ham in his personal (though not in his official) 
 future, he was superior to him in the actual 
 present. Abraham's hopes and prospects were 
 in the bud ; Melchisedec's greatness was in its 
 full maturity. Abraham was a king in em- 
 bryo, the father of kings, the father of priests, 
 the ancestor of him with whom a typical con- 
 nection should alone rescue the name of Mel- 
 chisedec from oblivion. But as yet all this was 
 not, and Melchisedec now stood before Abra- 
 ham in the combined dignities of actual king- 
 ship and priesthood — two persons uncon- 
 sciously confronting each other, the one the 
 real ancestor, tlie other the typical representa- 
 tive, of that Greater One in whom each was to 
 find all his significance and all his greatness ! 
 The long, swelling period which opens the 
 
 chapter divides itself into two parts. The 
 first consists of clauses describing tlie subject, 
 Melchisedec, and is a mere resu^ne of the facts 
 stated in Genesis. The second (commencing 
 with, being first, etc., ver. 2) consists of 
 clauses referring to the predicate (abideth a 
 priest, etc., ver. 3), and declares under what 
 character and conditions he so abides. The 
 first identifies the man; the second portrays 
 the priest, and is the author's statement of 
 those points (as deduced from the narrative), 
 which made Melchisedec's priesthood a type 
 of our Lord's. Tor this Melchisedec' — the 
 'for' connects the passage directly with the 
 preceding, and as it terminates emphatically 
 with "abideth a priest continually," has prob- 
 ably in mind the "forever" which closes the 
 preceding chapter. 'King of Salem.' On 
 the locality of this 'Salem' opinions differ. 
 Many claim that the city of David did not at 
 this time bear this appellation, but that of 
 Jebus, and that some other place, probably the 
 Salim near Enon, mentioned in John 3 : 23, 
 is referred to; and here, according to Jerome, 
 were pointed out extensive remains of Mel- 
 chisedec's palace. This, however, may safely 
 be attributed to the local ambition, whicli 
 took advantage of the coincidence of a name, 
 while tradition, Josephus ("Antiquities," 
 I : 10, 2), the Targumists, and most of the 
 Fathers, identified it with Jerusalem. The 
 name Salim for Jerusalem, occurring in one 
 of the late Psalms (76 : 2), may, as well re- 
 marked by Delitzsch, be such an archaism as 
 poetry loves, and may be the then nearly ob- 
 solete and therefore poetic ancient name of the 
 town. To Bleek's objection that, if our author 
 had referred to Jerusalem, he would have 
 urged the sacred associations of the place, we 
 may reply that such expansion would have 
 been inconsistent with the studied brevity ot 
 the passage, while the hint of the significance 
 of the name might well be deemed sufficient. 
 On the other hand, the intrinsic probabilities 
 are all in favor of assigning the typical King 
 of Kighteousness and Peace to the locality 
 whose name was to be associated with the 
 typical and then with the spiritual capital 
 
 (12 ; 22; Gal. 4: 26; Rev. 21 : 2) of that kingdom for- 
 
 ever. That the author takes the word in any 
 other sense than as the name of a place is im- 
 probable. 'Priest of the most high God.' 
 The union of kingly and priestly offices be- 
 
Ch. VII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 85 
 
 2 To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all ; 
 first being by interpretaiiou King of righteousness, 
 and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of 
 peace ; 
 
 3 Without father, without mother, without descent, 
 having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but 
 
 2 slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom 
 also Abraham divided a tenth part of all (being tirsi, 
 by interpretation. King <if righteousness, anu Ihcii 
 
 3 also King of t^alem, which is. King of i)eace; with- 
 out father, without mother, without genealogy, hav- 
 ing ueither beginning of days nor end of life, but 
 
 longed to the simplicity of early times, and 
 was common among the heathen. The Ho- 
 meric king officiates likewise as priest. The 
 knowledge of the Supreme God had not, it 
 seems, entirely disappeared, and his worship 
 existed sporadically, even down to a much 
 later time, although, as in the case of Balaam, 
 often incongruously blended with idolatrous 
 rites and errors. Melcliisedec was clearly rec- 
 ognized by Abraham as worshiping tne same 
 God with himself. Who met Abraham re- 
 turning from the slaughter of the kings, 
 and blessed him. The fact here mentioned 
 is more than a mere incident recorded to com- 
 plete or give definitness to the picture. It has 
 a purpose here, as doubtless this specific con- 
 junction of events had in the original transac- 
 tion. God not only brought Melchisedec into 
 contact with Abraham, the head of the Jew- 
 ish race, rather than with any other Old Tes- 
 tament worthy, but with Abraham at the pre- 
 cise period of his history, when, having 
 avenged five kings and conquered four, he was 
 returning in the flush of victory, and laden 
 with the spoils of triumph. With his feet just 
 taken from the necks of vanquished mon- 
 archs, his recognition of Melchisedec's superi- 
 ority would be doubly significant. 
 
 2. To whom also Abraham gave a tenth 
 part of all ; namely, the spoils. Abraham 
 did this voluntarily, and probably with an in- 
 stant perception of a certain majesty attending 
 the royal priest. The homage, however, was 
 y)aid to the priest, not to the king. It was a 
 religious offering, not a political tribute. It 
 shows also how early and natural was the ren- 
 dering of the tenth. Thus far we have a sum- 
 mary of the fads of the narrative. 
 
 The author now proceeds to comment on 
 them in their bearing on Melchisedec's priest- 
 hood, as illustrating that of Christ. The in- 
 ferences are partly positive, partly negative; 
 partly drawn from the statements, partly from 
 the silence of Scripture. They show under 
 what conditions Melchisedec may be said to 
 have had a perpetual priesthood. They are 
 simply the author's deductions from the brief 
 account in Genesis, and imply no knowledge 
 
 of him outside of that account. He has looked 
 to the Psalm, "Thou art a priest," etc., and 
 then turned back to Genesis to see the features 
 of that priestliood which had so wonderful an 
 exaltation; what in Melchisedec's person, 
 position, and office, would shed light on this 
 remarkable declaration. He passes in rapid 
 review the points. His name, the name of hij 
 city, his kingly and priestly office conjoined, 
 his solitary personality and priesthood, both 
 exhibiting no antecedent and no succession ; 
 thus what is told and what is suppressed alike 
 constitute grounds of his relation to the great 
 High Priest of the New Covenant. The au- 
 thor is simply interpreting Scripture, and his 
 interpretation is a striking example of what 
 spiritual insight can legitimately deduce from 
 the language and the silence of a text. It has 
 no analogy to the fanciful deductions of the 
 Eabbins. First being by interpretation 
 King of righteousness — that is, his name 
 being by its interpretation, etc. Josephus ex- 
 plains it " righteous king" ; our author prob- 
 ably conceives it, in its application to Christ, 
 as ' king in the realm of righteousness.' And 
 then also King of Salem, which is King 
 of peace. Another typical feature in Jiis 
 portraiture, derived from the city in which he 
 reigned. As applied to Melchisedec, it would 
 denote simply 'peaceful king'; to the Mes- 
 siah, 'king in the realm of peace,' which 
 he first creates between man and God (Bom. 
 5:1); then inwardly in the soul (John 14:27); 
 then outwardly among men, and finsilly uni- 
 versally in the world. 
 
 3. The deductions e silentio. The preced- 
 ing points are rather incidental, and would 
 not be pressed; the next are vital, giving the 
 distinctive character of Christ's priesthood. 
 Without father, without mother, Avithout 
 {record o/] descent, having neither be- 
 ginning of days, nor end of life. These 
 epithets apply to Melchisedec, not as a priest, 
 but as a man, and are the traits in his personal 
 history on which re«ts the peculiar character 
 of his priesthood. Because he pemnnally ap- 
 pears before us with no records of origin or of 
 death, therefore he can appear as having an 
 
86 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 made like unto the Son of God ; abideth a priest con- 
 tinually. 
 
 made like unto the Son of God), abideth a priest 
 continually. 
 
 unborrowed and hence untransmitted, unsu- 
 perseded priesthood. As to the import of 
 tliese affirmations, they stand or fail togetlier. 
 If one demands an interpretation such as 
 throws a real mystery about Melchisedec, all 
 do. If one may be taken to express the im- 
 pression made by the silence of the historian, 
 all may. That this latter is the correct view, 
 is now generally admitted, and I conceive to 
 be beyond a doubt. The writer has no inter- 
 est in involving in mystery the person of Mel- 
 chisedec. He puts strongly certain points /or 
 the use wldck he wishes to make of them as 
 illustrating certain features in the person, and 
 hence the priesthood, of his antitype. Wliat 
 Christ is really, Melchisedec must be appar- 
 ently; and this is all that is required. In a 
 historical narration, which makes in general 
 great account of parentage; in which genea- 
 logical tables are constantly given and at great 
 length, and scarcely a sacred name is men- 
 tioned without a scrupulous record of ancestry 
 and of end, — he, the greatest of them all, has 
 no such mention. No father, Jio mother, no 
 ancestry, no birth, no death, is recorded of 
 him. He stands, a solitary instance of a per- 
 sonage whose function transcends that of every 
 other Scripture character, type of the eternal 
 kingship and eternal priesthood of the Son of 
 God, yet— or rather, therefore — with not one 
 word to shed light on his family or his nation, 
 his reign, or his destiny. The remarkablencss 
 of the phenomenon warrants the inference 
 that the silence is intentional and significant. 
 Had the epithets appeared in the original nar- 
 rative, the case would have been very differ- 
 ent : but a commentary on the reticence of 
 Moses is quite another matter; the question is 
 not of a historical fact, but of an expressive 
 symbol. Nothing turns on the question 
 whether Melchisedec was really the miracu- 
 lous person which these epithets, if pressed, 
 would make him. The seeming is, for the 
 typical use, as good as the reality ; the non- 
 ai>pearance is equivalent to the non-existence, 
 and here emphatically, "c?e?^o/^ apparentibus 
 et de non ea^istentlhus, eadetn est ratio." The 
 import of the severM predicates is obvious. 
 He is one of whom no father or mother is 
 recorded (a similar idiom is familiar to the 
 classics — nullo patre), with no genealogical 
 
 record (which is in fact the meaning of the 
 word), and having in history no beginning or 
 end of life. The words are selected: no "end 
 of life" ; therefore, he liveth. But made 
 like (assim,ilated) unto the Son of God* 
 This refers to the preceding clauses, especially 
 the last, in which he appears as having neither 
 beginning of days nor end of life. It is the 
 summation of these statements. As one who 
 appears exempt from the limitatit)ns of mortal 
 life, from its beginning and its end, Melchise- 
 dec has been conformed, assimilated to the Son 
 of God. This refers not to our Lord in his 
 human nature, for as such he was not without 
 parentage, genealogy, recorded beginning of 
 days, and even end of life — at least, death; 
 nor to him as high priest after his exaltation 
 (for as such Christ was assimilated to him, not 
 he to Christ); but tt) the Son of God in his 
 eternal, pre-existent nature as the Only Be- 
 gotten. The comparison, then, is not between 
 Melchisedec as priest, and Christ as priest, but 
 between those features in the recorded person- 
 ality of Melchisedec, which enable him to ap- 
 pear as perpetual priest, and those attributes 
 of the Son of God which enable him to be an 
 eternal priest. A basis for Melchisedec's un- 
 borrowed and untransmitted priesthood is 
 found in his appearance in the sacred page 
 with a life which has no defined limit at either 
 extreme, and is bound to the human race by 
 no recorded genealogy ; just as the eternal ex- 
 istence of the divine Logos was the bjisis on 
 which could rest his absolutely untransmitted 
 and eternal priesthood. The latent argument 
 is: Melchisedec appears in his personality as- 
 similated to the eternal Son of God; hence, 
 he could have a priesthood which should 
 tj'pify the exalted and everlasting priesthood 
 of the Son of God. Looking at the brief pas- 
 sage in the Psalm, and then at the brief pas- 
 sage in Genesis, the author has spelled out 
 from the latter, with the divining sagacity of 
 inspiration, those characteristics of Melchise- 
 dec which raised him to so exalted an office 
 as that in which the Psalm exhibits him. 
 Under these conditions, and by virtue of 
 these qualities, Melchisedec abideth a priest 
 continually {perj>etunlly). He has, so far 
 as appears, no successor. He had, probably, 
 none in fact, being in no priestly line, and his 
 
Ch. VIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 87 
 
 4 Now consider how great this man teas, unto whom 
 evc-n the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the 
 sj>oils. 
 
 And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, wlio 
 
 4 Now consider how great this man was, unto wlioni 
 Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth oulof the chief 
 
 5 spoils. And they indeed of the sons of l^evi that re- 
 
 priesthood tcnninatiiig with himself. Hence, 
 as he does not appear as dying, his priesthood 
 does not appear as terniinatiiig. That it must 
 ill reality have terminated is clear, else we 
 liave the monstrosity of two eternal parallel 
 priesthoods, the typical and the antit\-pical. 
 To suppose with some that he 'abides a priest 
 perpetually' by his priesthood being absorbed 
 ijito that of Clirist is to make a vicious circle 
 <tf argument; for Christ is Priest after the 
 likeness of Melchisedec, because Melchisedec 
 has a perpetual i)riesthood; and Melchisedec 
 has a perpetual priesthood only as it is per- 
 petuated in that of Christ. Melchisedec, 
 then, is perpetual priest as one who has no 
 successor, and does not apj)ear as dj'ing. The 
 author, too, chooses his terms with care. He 
 does not say of Melchisedec that he abides ^ 
 pnest foi-ever; this absolute expression he re- 
 serves for Christ. The phrase 'perpetually' 
 («i9 TO Sirji-eKcs) may mean 'forever' when its 
 subject would naturally take such a predicate. 
 The Greek, like its English equivalent, takes its 
 extent from the subject to which it is applied 
 
 (/)) Personal greatness of Melchisedec illus- 
 trated bj' his receiving tithes from Abraham, 
 and that under extraordinary conditions. 
 (4-10.) 
 
 Christ as priest after the order of Melchise- 
 dec has superseded the Levitical priesthood. 
 It becomes pertinent to inquire, especially for 
 Jewish readers, how great a person this type 
 was, not only ti'picallj', but personally. This 
 section is often misconceived, as I tiiink, by 
 being regarded as commencing the enumera- 
 tion of Christ's priestlj' prerogatives, as Mel- 
 chisedec Priest. This point is not yet touched; 
 we have simply the pers<mal and official great- 
 ness of Melchisedec himself. I have already 
 remarked on the obvious purpose of God in 
 bringing Melchisedec into contact with Abra- 
 ham in the hour of Abraham's military' tri- 
 umph; it is still more obvious in bringing him 
 into contact with Abraham himself, rather 
 than with any of his descendants, and secur- 
 ing for him, in his homage, that of all his de- 
 scendants, including of course Moses. 
 
 4. Now consider how great this man 
 was, unto whom (not 'even,' as in the Com- 
 mon Version, but to whom, in addition to all 
 his ot/ier marks of dignity, also^) the patri^ 
 arch Abraham gave the tenth of the 
 (choicest) spoils. The author selects for com- 
 ment that particiflar feature in the recorded 
 transaction which was pertinent to his object. 
 Abraham paid tithes to Melchisedec, evidently 
 self-moved and in acknowledgment of his 
 priestly character. His respect was shown by 
 the natureof the gift : he gave a tenth not mere- 
 ly of all, but (oLKftoeivia, the top of the heap) of the 
 choicest spoils, and apparently not merely a 
 tenth of the choicest, but a tenth of all, and 
 that consisting of the choicest. Placed em- 
 phatically at the close is his designation as 
 ' patriarch ' (jrarpidp^n*), used in the Septua- 
 gint to denote the head of a family, but later 
 the head of a race. It is applied, in 4 Mac. 7 : 
 19, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; Acts 2 : 
 29, to David ; Acts 7 : 8, 9, to the sons of Jacob ; 
 here, with special emphasis designating the 
 great Founder of the race. Of course, the 
 greater was Abraham, the greater he to whom 
 Abraham was inferior. The general state- 
 ment is now illustrated by comparison of the 
 conditions under which Melchisedec and the 
 Levitical priests respectively received tithes. 
 The points of difference are four : The Levit- 
 ical priests titheby law ; he withoutlaw, by vol- 
 untary bestowment ; they tithe their br^hren, 
 whom only law could enable them to tithe, 
 he a stranger, to whom he must be, therefore, 
 superior; they tithe the descendants of Abra- 
 ham, he Abraham himself; they tithe as 
 djnng men, he as one of whom it is testified 
 that he liveth. 
 
 5. And verily, etc. — tliey indeed (or, while 
 they) of the sons of Levi that receive thepriest' s 
 office : or (with Delit/.sch and Kurtz, taking («) 
 of 07'igin nx^d not partitively) " while they. who 
 receive from the sons of Levi the priesthood." 
 The latter is argued by Kurtz on the ground 
 that in the passage below (i( avrCv, 'dcM-iving 
 his lineage from them') the ])reposition (it) 
 marks origin, and must therefore here. But 
 
 1 Thougli the teu, also, is of doubtful genuineness. 
 
88 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 receive the office of the priesthood, have a cominand- 
 lueut to take tithes of the people according to the law, 
 that is, of their Itrethreu, though they cuiue out of the 
 loins of Abraham : 
 
 6 But he whose descent is not counted from theiu re- 
 ceived tithes ot Abraham, and blessed him that had the 
 promises. 
 
 7 And without all contradiction the less is blessed of 
 better. 
 
 ceive the priest's office have commandment to take 
 tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of 
 their brethren, though these have come out of the 
 
 6 loins of Abraham : but he whose genealogy is not 
 counted from them hath taken tithes of Abraham, 
 
 7 and hath blessed him that hath the promises. But 
 without any dispute the less is blessed of the better. 
 
 nothing hinders our talcing it as partitive in 
 the one case and not in the other. And I see 
 no special difficulty in either rendering. The 
 iauthor is not comparing the priests of the tribe 
 of Levi with the other Levites, but the Levit- 
 ical priests with Melchisedec; and the fact 
 that the tithing was made indirectly by the 
 priests through the Levites need in this brief 
 statement create no difficulty. Virtually and 
 really the priests tithed the i)oople. Have a 
 commandment, etc. Have a cotnmand, 
 according to the law, to tithe the people, that 
 is, their bretJtren. The people were the breth- 
 ren, and so the equals of the Levitieal priests, 
 and could be tithed bj' them therefore only by 
 express ordinance. Melchisedec was of another 
 race, and his receiving tithes, voluntarily be- 
 stowed, must be on the ground of his intrinsic 
 and recognized superiority. The subject is a 
 delicate one to a Jew, and but briefly touched. 
 Though, etc. {although they have issued from 
 the loins of Abraham'). The 'although' 
 here is somewhat difficult. I think it is in- 
 tended to intimate that those brethren as 
 having sprung from Abraham might expect 
 to be exempted from the tithing (which 
 marked subordination); and thus in eleva- 
 ting (he Levitieal tithing as embracing even 
 the descendants of Abraham, more highly to 
 exalt Melchisedec, who, as superior to them, 
 rose proportionably higher. If the law al- 
 lowed them to tithe the descendants of Abra- 
 ham, how great must he be who, without 
 legal enactment, tithed Abraham himself! 
 The general thought is, while the priests 
 of Israel tithed only by special enactment 
 those who, as their brethren, descendants in 
 common with tiiem from Abraham, were 
 naturally equal, Melchisedec, a stranger, sus- 
 
 taining no natural affinity to Abraham, tithed 
 him with no law that authorized the one to 
 take and required the other to give, and stands 
 therefore in a relation of intrinsic superiority 
 to the Father of the race, while they but sus- 
 tain a conventional and merely legal superior- 
 ity to his descendants. 
 
 6. But he whose descent is not counted 
 from them — or, but lie, while not reckoning 
 his descent from them^ — a stranger of a differ- 
 ent race, without legal enactment— received 
 tithes of, etc. ; or. hath tithed Abraliam, the 
 head of the race, father both of tithers and 
 tithed. And (hath) blessed him that had 
 (hath) the promises. Abraham is before 
 presented as rendering homage to Melchisedec 
 in the very flush of victorj'. He is now repre- 
 sented as receiving the priestly blessing of 
 Melchisedec, while the bearer in himself of 
 all the splendid potentialities, and the head of 
 that vast system of glorious realities wrapped 
 up in the future of his race. He stands in his 
 noblest character at the fountain head of the 
 world's spiritual history, in order still further 
 to magnify Melchisedec. The blessing is 
 solemn, formal, priestly, and prophetic. It is 
 like the blessing which our Lord pronounced 
 upon his disciples, when at his ascension from 
 Olivet, "he lifted up his hands and blessed 
 them." It fullj' warrants the deduction of 
 the next verse. The historical present, "hath 
 tithed" (ie&<.Ka-ruiK(v), makes proper also the 
 jyresent rendering of the participle " him who 
 hath," or to give the emphasis of its position, 
 'him who possesseth.'* 
 
 7. And without all contradiction the 
 less is blessed of the better {by the 
 greater). The reference is of course to formal 
 and official blessing.* 
 
 1 The o ie may be taken as subject, but he, with tiri I " Abraham " being taken out of its naturally emphatic 
 y(Vfa.Koyovii(vo<: as predicate: or as above, o •ytfcaA, as j position, for the rhythmical balance and augmented 
 subject: in neither case is o li united as 65e, this person. \ strength of the whole. 
 
 * The original is finely chiastic : "hath tithed Abra- * The neuter (tAoTToi') expresses the thought in its 
 ham, and him who hath the promises hath blessed ; " utmost generality ; as perhaps also iiiiC,avo<; at C : 16. 
 
Ch. VIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 80 
 
 8 And here men that die receive (ithes; but there I 8 And here men who die receive tithes; but there one, 
 he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he ' 9 of whom il is witnessed tliat lie liveth. And, so to' 
 liveth. I say, through Abraham even Levi, who rect'ivelli 
 
 9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receivetli | 10 tithes, hatli paitl tithes; for he was yet iu the loins 
 tithes, paid tithes in Abiuliam. I of his father, when Melchizedek met him. 
 
 10 For he was yet iu the loins of his father, when 
 Melchisedec met him. 
 
 8. And here {here, indeed, ifie /ncf)' in the 
 case of the Levitical priesthood, in the case 
 nearest in time and most familier to the writer 
 and his readers: the reference is not here to 
 the order in which the two classes have been 
 spoken of. Men that die {dying tnen) re- 
 ceive tithes. 'Men that die,' either equiva- 
 lent to mortal man ; or, better, men dying one 
 after another, pen)Ctually dying. The pri- 
 mary emphasis is on ' dying ' ; but a secondary 
 emphasis is on 'men' ; otherwise we should 
 have had simply 'those that die' (oi ano6vri<i- 
 Koi>T€<:). The author thus throws a slight vail 
 of mystery' over Melchisedec; he puts pur- 
 posely out of view his human personality, to 
 emphasize that feature of his similarity to the 
 Son of God, feliat he liveth. But there, in the 
 case of Melchisedec, remoter in time and to 
 the readers' thought.^ He [received thetn] of 
 whom it is witnessed that he liveth. How 
 and where testified? Not, of course, by the 
 author, but in the Old Testament narrative; 
 and there, as above remarked, by the deep 
 vail of silence thrown over his origin and 
 death, a silence so exceptional to its general 
 manner. Above, this absence of parentage and 
 death marks Melchisedec's fitness for symbol- 
 izing the eternity of Christ's priesthood : here 
 its more immediate purpose is to enhance the 
 dignity of Melchisedec himself 
 
 9. And — as one might say, through Abra- 
 ham even Levi who receiveth tithes hath 
 paid tithes. This is commonly (as by Alford) 
 placed co-ordinately with ver. 5-8, as a third 
 (or fourth) proof of the inferiority of the 
 Levitical priesthood to that of Melchisedec. 
 It may, indeed, be taken as another proof of 
 the superiority of Melchisedec to the Levitical 
 priests — the comparison of their 7J?vVsif/(oorf 
 comes in later — but it is, perhaps, better to 
 carry it back to ver. 4, and regard it as an 
 advance on the statement there made in illus- 
 tration of Melchisedec's greatness ; all between 
 ver. 5-8, being a parenthetical statement of 
 
 i the different conditions under which Melchise- 
 I dec and the Levitical priests received tithes; 
 and the author now returning to complete the 
 picture of ver. 4, by representing Levi as ptiy- 
 1 ing tithes in Abraham his ancestor. Still 
 I nothing is lost, perhaps, by regarding ver. 9, 
 I 10, as an after thought; especially as this may 
 be indicated by the ' as one might say,' which 
 implies that the thought is not with the author 
 one of primary importance, and the meaning 
 of which phrase there is no reason to question. 
 10. For he was yet (still) in the loins of 
 his father, when Melchisedec met him. 
 Levi, here put generically for his tribe, was 
 potentially in Abraham. He therefore in 
 Abraham rendered, 'as one might say,' homage 
 to Melchisedec. ' Still (tn) in the loins' stands 
 contrasted with the ' having issued from the 
 loins' in ver. 5. The sentiment here expressed 
 half hesitatingly by the author, involves, 
 doubtless, a great truth. The stream is con- 
 tained in the fountain; the branches in the 
 stock ; the stock itself in the root and seed. 
 In Adam lay the whole body of his descend- 
 ants, and in his fall fell his posterity in a far 
 deeper sense than that of any dogmatic impu- 
 tation. The slender thread of a constructive 
 transgression is a figment compared with that 
 element of uneradicable depravity which 
 entered the race that lay folded up in Adtwu 
 when the devil met him. This princii>le has 
 alsoeminentapplicability to Abraham, because 
 he was specially constituted the head of a 
 peculiar race. He had the promises, and in 
 him lay enfolded the destinies of the world. 
 Nor would it in this case, I think, as it would 
 in the case of Adam, have made a difference 
 had Isaac already been born. The ancestor of 
 the race stood for his posterity'. As to the 
 application of this principle to our Lord, 
 we mus^ remember tluit his entnince into 
 the Jewish race, as well as his whole per- 
 sonality, was extraordinary and miraculous. 
 Before Abraham he was; and as Alford justly 
 
 ' The balancing of clauses so familiar to classic Greek, ii-^v and 5e, is more constant with our author than with 
 any other New Testament writer. 
 
 * iAt and €«€» partly temporal, partly logical. 
 
90 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 11 If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priest- 
 liood, (for iiiuler it tlie people received the law,) what 
 further need icas there that anotlier priest should rise 
 after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after 
 the order of Aaron ? 
 
 12 For the priesthood being changed, there is made 
 of necessity a change also of tlie law. 
 
 13 For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth 
 
 11 Now if there was perfection through the Levitical 
 priesthood (for under it hath the people received the 
 law), what lurther need was Ikere that another priest 
 should arise after the order of Melchizedek, and not 
 
 12 be reckoned alter the order of Aaron? For the 
 priesthood being changetl, there is made of neces- 
 
 13 sity a change also 'of the law. For he of whom 
 these things are sai<l ^belongeth to another tribe, 
 
 Or, of laio - Gr. hath partaken of. See cli. ii. 11. 
 
 says, " was never in the loins of an earthly 
 father." On his mother's side he was the Son 
 of man ; on his father's side he was, like Adam, 
 
 the Son of God. (Lute S : 38.) 
 
 (c) Application of tliese facts in regard to 
 Melchisedec to the subject. The introduction 
 of a new priesthood ini plies the failure of the 
 Levitical, and the abrogation of the law for 
 which it stood responsible. (11, 12.) 
 
 Thus far the author has dealt with the per- 
 sonal and priestly character of Melchisedec; 
 not a word as yet respecting the priesthood 
 and the law and covenant with which it stands 
 connected. Tiiat point is disposed of in the 
 next verse and needs afterward to be but inci- 
 dentally touched by way of contrast in some 
 of those things in which it is inferior to the 
 Melchisedec priesthood of the Lord. Ver. 11 
 may be regarded as a common introduction to 
 the entire following passage to ver. 25, though 
 its more special relation is to the first of the 
 four points which it includes. 
 
 11. If therefore perfection, etc. — If in- 
 deed cotnplet'iony accomplishment, tons through 
 the Levitical 2^ r lest hood (for vpon its basis the 
 people have received the law), what further 
 need was there that a different jyriest should 
 arise, after the order of Melchisedec, and not 
 be reckoned after the order of Aaron ? Here, 
 first, it is evident that tlie question, ' what fur- 
 ther need,' is equivalent to a denial of any fur- 
 ther need. The question is an emphatic nega- 
 tive affirmation. Secondly, it is immaterial 
 whether the construction be ' if perfection was, 
 what need was there?' or (with suppressed av 
 in the apodosis, xi? olv xpeia), "what need would 
 there bej? " Either mode of denial is equally 
 decisive, though in a slightly ditferent way : 
 " If it w;rts so, then there was no need;" "if 
 it were, or had been so, there would have been 
 no need." Thirdly, we have the decisive ar- 
 gument for the inadequacy of the Levitical 
 priesthood ; namely, the divine act appointing 
 another priest of a different order. When the 
 Ascended Son enters the heavenly sanctuary, 
 and is greeted with the words, "Thou art a 
 
 priest after tlie order of Melchisedec,'' there 
 is an unceremonious setting aside of the priest- 
 hood of Aaron, as stamped with the seal of 
 incompetency. There is no occasion to reason 
 further; tiio 'what need' of the passage is 
 decisive. And, fourthly, along with the Le- 
 vitical priesthood, goes the Levitical law. 
 
 12. For the priesthood being changed, 
 there is made {takes place) of necessity a 
 change also of the law — the whole ritual 
 system of Judaism ; the covenant, of which 
 that priesthood was the minister and guaran- 
 tee. On the basis of tiiis priesthood, the peo- 
 ple had received the law, and this had boon 
 made answerable to God for its efficiency. 
 Had it fulfilled this end; had there been 
 tlirough it accoynp lishment {rektiuai.^'), it would 
 have stood. Being found impotent for this, it 
 must be set aside, and with it the whole sys- 
 tem which rested upon it, and for which it was 
 answerable. "We see, then, how significant, 
 how revolutionary in the whole sj'stem of Ju- 
 daism, this removal of the priesthood. Fi- 
 nally, the ' if indeed, now ' (ei /mec ovv) of ver. 
 11 implies that tiie author had in mind an 
 alternative to his supposition. This, if ex- 
 pressed, would have been, "but if there was 
 not acco^nplishment (rfAeioxni), then there was 
 need," etc.; but, this apodosis of his sentence 
 is suppressed as unnecessary, and ver. 12 pro- 
 ceeds, as we have seen, to sttite the result of 
 the change of tlie priesthood in an abrogation 
 of the law. This verse (not a mere parenthet- 
 ical statement, as De Wette) is now illustrated 
 in the following verses, showing the nature 
 and wide-reaching extent of this change. It 
 is first a tribal change, which, removing the 
 priesthood from the tribe of Levi, would of 
 course do away with all peculiarly Levitical 
 arrangements (ver. is, u); and next, what is in- 
 comparably more important, it is a cliange in 
 internal character and vital efficacy, (isis.) 
 
 (rf) This change in the law shown histori- 
 cally in the change of the priestly tribe. 
 (13, 14.) 
 
 13. For he of whom these things are 
 
Ch. VIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 91 
 
 to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at 
 the altar. 
 
 14 For it Li evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda ; 
 of which tribe Moses si)ake uothiug concerning priest- 
 hood. 
 
 15 And it is yet far more evident: for that after 
 the similitude of Melcbisedec there ariseth another 
 priest, 
 
 16 Who is made, not after the law of a carnal com- 
 luanduient, but after the power of an endless life. 
 
 from which no man hath given attendance at tha 
 
 14 altar. For it is evident that our Lord hath sprung 
 out of Judah; as to which tribe Moses spake notliiii^' 
 
 15 concerning priests. And tcha' wf xay is yet more 
 abundantly evident, if alter the likeness of Mel- 
 
 16 chizedek there ariseth another priest, who h;itli 
 been made, not after the law of a carnal com. 
 uiandment, but after the power of an > endless life: 
 
 1 Gr. indissoluble. 
 
 spoken (said) — he who is the subject of this 
 extraordinary hingiiage, "Thou art a priest," 
 etc. ; the author proceeds to illustrate the 
 prophecy by an appeal to historical fact. Per- 
 taineth (belongeth) to another tribe from 
 which no man gave {hath (jiven) attend- 
 ance at the altar. Of course, making no 
 account of possible irregularities, and infrac- 
 tions of the law. 
 
 14. For it is evident {open to the day; 
 irpoSijAof, conspicuously manifest) that our 
 liord sprang {hath sprung) out of Juda.' 
 Of which, etc., or, as to lohich tribe Moses 
 spake nothing concerning priests — a softened 
 expression to denote the fact that every tribe 
 but that of Levi was rigorously excluded from 
 the priesthood. These historical statements 
 establish, of course, the actual transfer of the 
 priesthood, which of itself would nullify the 
 main features of the ritual law, and break up 
 the outward economy of Judaism, But the 
 change is much more radical; it goes, as the 
 author proceeds to show, to the inner and 
 essential character of the priesthood. 
 
 (e) The change is shown more clearly in the 
 intrinsic character of the new priesthood, 
 which is constituted not after a carnal ritual, 
 but after the power of an endless life. (15-19.) 
 
 15. And it is yet far more evident — not 
 with Delitzsch, that the Levitical priesthood is 
 imperfect; this is understood, and is not now 
 in question ; nor as Ebrard, absurdly, that our 
 Lord sprang from Judah; the original word 
 here (Kara&iiKov) is no correlative of that in ver. 
 14 (jrpdSijAof) ; the verbal coincidence is merely 
 accidental: but (as substantially Bleek, Liine- 
 mann, Alford, though scarcely in the full 
 sense of the author) that there has become a 
 change in the law; that the old Levitical 
 ritual, for which the Levitical priests stood 
 sponsors, has been swept away by the new 
 
 Melchisedec priesthood of Christ, and a law 
 of totally different character and infinitely 
 higher efficiency has come in its stead. Here, 
 in fact, is the vital, the turning point, of the 
 whole matter. For that, strictly, i/, equiva- 
 lent to in that (the 'if expressing simply con- 
 dition, not doubt) after the likejiess of Mel- 
 chisedec ariseth a different priest. It was a 
 small thing that the priesthood passed from one 
 tribe to another. For weightier is thecharacter 
 of the new priest, indicated by the words 'after 
 the likeness of Melchisedec,' on which word 
 rests the emphasis, the word 'likeness' being 
 now substituted for 'order,' to bring out the 
 resemblance of Christ's priesthood to that of 
 him who, on the sacred page in the Old Testa- 
 ment by an extraordinary reticence, in the 
 New by profound and careful interpretation, 
 is exhibited as living. Here, also, as in ver. 
 11, we have the original word (crtpos), mean- 
 ing qualitatively different, rather than that 
 word, signifying numerically ««o^Ae;' (oAAos), 
 as marking a change in the kind, as well as 
 the personnel, of the i)riestl3' office. 
 
 16. Who is (hath been) made, not after 
 the law of a carnal commandment, but 
 after the power of an endless [indissol- 
 uble, inipeivshable) life. The two clauses are 
 carefully balanced against each other, 'law' 
 answering to 'power' and 'carnal command- 
 ment' to 'imperishable, indissoluble, indestruc- 
 tible life.' This favors our taking " law" (with 
 Chrysostom) for statute law, the law of Moses, 
 and thus explaining "a law wliich consists in a 
 fieshly ordinance." Otherwise, it seems more 
 natural to interpret "law," as in Rom. 7 : 21, 
 as rule, nortn, regulative principle, and stand- 
 ing with'^ut emphasis. (So Bleek, Liinemann, 
 Alford, Moll.) The substantial sense of the 
 clause remains unaflTected. The contrast lies 
 essentially in this: the Levitical priesthood is 
 
 '\uareTa\K(v, either has arisen, as the sun (ivarokai; 
 the sunrisinffx, Ihe east, Mark 16 : 2), or has arisen, 
 
 by Num. 24 : 17 ; Mai. 4:2: Lsa. 60 ; the latter hy Isa- 
 44 : 4 ; Ezek. 17 : 6. The word has both meanings iu the 
 
 sprung up, as a plant. The former might be indicated { classics. 
 
92 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 17 For he te.-lifieth. Thou art a priest for ever after 
 the order of Melchisedec. 
 
 l.S For there is verily a disannulling of the couiniand- 
 luent going before for the weakness and unprofitable- 
 uess thereof. 
 
 I'J For the law made nothing perfect, but the bring- 
 ing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh 
 unto God. 
 
 17 for it is witnessed o/ him. 
 
 Thou art a priesl for ever 
 After the order of Melchizedek. 
 
 18 For there is a disannulling of a foregoing conimand- 
 ment because of its weakness and uni)rotitableuess 
 
 19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a bringing 
 in thereupon of a better hope, tlirough which we 
 
 constituted by special, formal, as it were, 
 arbitrary enactment, committed to fleshly, 
 dying men, and bound to all the conditions of 
 human imperfection and mortality ((ripjcti/os, 
 fieshen^ made of flesh). Christ's priesthood, on 
 the other hand, modeled after that of one who 
 lives, is by virtue of an inherent vital energy 
 in him who bears it, and who, not as a mem- 
 ber of a tribe, but in the unity of his own per- 
 son, bears it forever. The 'indestructible 
 life' may (with Alford, Delitzsch) be re- 
 garded as commencing strictly after his resur- 
 rection, when "death had no more dominion 
 over him" ; but the 'power' of that imperish- 
 able life was with him from the dawn of his 
 humanity, empowering him to lay down his 
 life and to take ii again, and triumphing in 
 his resurrection. In illustrative confirmation 
 of this, the author again cites passingly and 
 parenthetically the oft-quoted passage from 
 the Psalm. 
 
 17. For he testifieth (or, it is testified), 
 Thou art a priest for ever after the order 
 of Melchisedec, with special emphasis on 
 the 'forever.' 
 
 18, 19. These verses state now, in plainest 
 and most decisive terms, the full consequences 
 of this change of priesthood; we have in it 
 the critical and hinging point of the whole 
 chapter. Priesthood and law, impotent and 
 inoperative, are swept away together, and 
 replaced by a better hope, that brings the 
 spiritual alien near to God. For there is 
 {becometh) a disannulling (abrogation, ide- 
 n)<rit, stronger than the gentle /u-cTafleo-is, change, 
 of ver. \2) of a foregoing commandment (the 
 participle, »rp<7ayov<TTn, takes the place of the 
 article) — not merely the law of the priesthood, 
 but the whole Mosaic ritual, that was based 
 upon it — because of its weakness and unprofit- 
 ableness (the adjective, according to Delitzsch, 
 being a milder form than the noun, which 
 would have charged weakness and inefl^ciency 
 rather on its essential nature than its ad- 
 juncts.) Forthe law made nothing perfect 
 (hroiight notldng to perfection, accotnplish- 
 ment). This is thrown in parenthetically, 
 
 as justifying the abrogation of the old sys- 
 tem. 'Law' is now used as covering the 
 whole Mosaic economj', not only the rit- 
 ual, but the moral law, between which the 
 Jew made no sharp distinction. If we can 
 distinguish them — the moral law required 
 perfection, but had no power to produce it; 
 the ceremonial law symbolized perfection, but 
 had no power to turn its shadows into sub- 
 stance. The moral law was impotent on account 
 of the carnal natures that received its com- 
 mands; the ceremonial law was impotent on 
 account of the carnal elements of which it 
 consisted. The apostle, in Rom. 8:3, in his 
 "impossible for the law in that it was weak 
 through the flesh," refers to the former of 
 these grounds of impotence, the perverseness 
 of the nature with which it dealt. But, 
 etc. ; and a bringing in thereupon (eni, there- 
 upon, and, if the case requires it, in its place) 
 of a better hope. ''A hope,^ put in the concrete 
 as the substitute for those impotent elements 
 that produced no hope. The contrast is not 
 that of a better or mightier hope with a feebler 
 one, but of that better and mightier thing, ' a 
 hope'' (the construction is elliptical) with the 
 utter hopelessness that environed the Old 
 Economy. The Old Economy did indeed, 
 in its significant symbols, in its prophetic fore- 
 .shadowings, involve a hope for the anointed 
 eye that could discern it. But this is not now 
 in the author's mind, but what these were or 
 were not in themselves. The New Testament 
 believer's salvation is indeed as yet but in 
 hope, but it is a real and living one, and one 
 by which we draw nigh unto God — the 
 very crown and climax of the whole priestly 
 work of Christ. It was symbolized in the 
 Jewish high priest's entering the Holy of 
 Holies. The most significant and remarkable 
 event attending the crucifi.xion was tlie rend- 
 ing of the vail of the temple, which was a 
 standing symbol of se^iarntion frotn God. 
 Christ's ascent to heaven, after his resurrec- 
 tion, was into the presence of God as Fore- 
 runner of his people. 
 
 (/) A further proof of the superiority of 
 
Ch. VIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 93 
 
 20 And inasmuch hs not without an oath he was made 
 priest : 
 
 21 (For those priests were made without an oath ; but 
 this with an oath by him tliat said unto him, The Lord 
 sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever 
 after the order of Melchisedec :) 
 
 22 By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better 
 testament. 
 
 2:5 And they truly were many priests, because they 
 were not suffered to continue by reason of death: 
 
 24 But this man, because he coutinueih ever, hath 
 an unchangeable priesthood. 
 
 20 draw nigh unto God. And inasmuch as it is not 
 
 21 without the taking of an oath (for they indeed have 
 been made ]>rie.sts without an uath; but he with an 
 oatli > by him that saith -of him. 
 
 The Lord sware and will not repent himself, 
 Thou an a priest for ever); 
 
 22 by so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a 
 
 23 better covenant. And they indeed have been made 
 j)riests many in number, because that by death they 
 
 24 are hindered from contiiuiing: but he, because he 
 abideih for ever, »hath his priesthood ^unchange- 
 
 1 Or, tkrougli i Or, unto :< Or, hath a priesthood tliat doth not pass to another 4 Or, inviolable. 
 
 the Melchisedec priesthood, is that it is insti- 
 tuted with the sanction of an oath. (20-22.) 
 
 20. And inasmuch as not without {the 
 
 taking of) an oath (opKco/ioffia, a word of more 
 fullness and dignity than opKos) [does this take 
 2^lace — that is, the appointing of the Melchise- 
 dec priest; not, the bringing in* of a better 
 hope]. 
 
 21. For those priests — For they, indeed, 
 have beeyt made xoitliout the swearing of an 
 oath, but he with an oath by him that saith of 
 him — (periphrastic description of God, as 2 : 
 10). The Lord sware and will not repent, 
 Thou art a priest for ever.' 
 
 22. By so much also was Jesus made 
 (hath Jesus become (the surety of a better 
 testament {covenant). The solemnity of 
 the oath with which this priesthood was in- 
 augurated is the measure of its superiority or 
 excellence. Of course, on the part of God, 
 nothing can enhance tlie weight of his prom- 
 ise; the oath is added in accommodation to 
 our human weakness and human usages. In 
 the original, 'Jesus' is emphatically placed 
 la.st, as if to gather up in that final word the 
 substance of the previous less individualized 
 statements regarding the New Testament 
 l)riesthood. Here, first in this Epistle, occurs 
 the word covenant (Stafln'") — primarily, dispo- 
 sition, arrangement)."^ The Old Testament 
 Dispensation is properly a covenant, a mutual 
 agreement between God and the people. The 
 New Testament use of the word is probably 
 an echo from the Old, a rhetorical transfer, 
 without special appropriateness, of a word 
 which had become familiar to the Old Econ- 
 omy. The New Covenant is all on one side — 
 God is a gracious Giver, and his people grateful 
 
 receivers of the ine.stiniable boon. In 9 : 16, 
 the word slides over into testamejit ; here such 
 a rendering seems without reason. A 'surety 
 belongs rather to a covenant than to a will. 
 Of this better covenant, Jesus is surety, not as 
 sealing it with his death and resurrection (as 
 Alford, Liinemann), for these created it, and 
 could scarcely, tiierefore, be its guarantee ; 
 but as High Prie.st in the heavenly sanctuary, 
 perpetual and unfailing, in emboldening his 
 people to draw near to God, assured that the 
 throne of justice has become a throne of 
 grace. He is surety, not to God on behalf of 
 his people, but to them on behalf of God. 
 
 {g) Christ's Melchisedec priesthood, unlike 
 the Levitical succession, is a single, perpetual, 
 everlasting priesthood, which can thus carry 
 through to completeness its work of salvation. 
 (23-25.) 
 
 23. And they truly, etc. — And they, 
 indeed, have been made priests many in 
 mim,ber ; that is, not many contemporan- 
 eously, but in succession, one after another 
 dying and leaving his oflSce to his successor. 
 The Levitical priesthood contained, indeed, 
 a plurality of members; but the higJi, priest, 
 the proper prototype of our Lord, was single. 
 Because they were not suffered, etc., or, on 
 account of their being hindered by death fr.om 
 abiding — that is, in the priesthood; for so the 
 language must be supplemented. Both the 
 compound verb {napay^ivtiv, remain with, or, 
 abide with or beside), demands this ; and to ex- 
 plain it absolutely, of abiding in life, con- 
 verts the sentence into a platitude, 'because 
 they are hindered by death from abiding in 
 life.' 
 
 24. But this man {he) became, etc. — 
 
 ' "After the order of Melchisedec," of the received I covenant, agreeraent ; but so, commonly, in the Seplua- 
 text, is here wanting in Codex Siuaiticus B C 17 80, and i gint and the New Testament [Sta. having probably there 
 probably not genuine. its frequent force in composition of marking mutual 
 
 - The word 6ia9r;ic7) is, in the classics, testamentary (lis- relation, as UakiytaBoi, to convertewith). 
 position, will ; and there rarely equivaleot to «T»ffli)(ti>, I 
 
94 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the utter- ■ 25 able. Wherefore also he is able to save i to the ut- 
 most that coiue unto <jod by hiiu, seeiug he ever liveih I teriiiost theui that draw near unto IJod tlimugb bini, 
 to make intercession for them. I seeing he ever liveih to make intercession for llieni. 
 
 2(i For such a high priest became us, who is holy, | 26 For sucli a high priest became us, holy, guileless, 
 
 1 Gr. completely. 
 
 on account of his remaining forever. ' Re- 
 maining.' not in the jyriesthood, but abideth 
 in life. The verb {y-ivnv^ by no means equiva- 
 lent to napanevei.i' in ver. 23) naturally indicates 
 tills, and the same law of connection which 
 there demands that tlie verb denote continu- 
 ing in the priesthood here points to continuing 
 in life. Tiiere, there are numerous priests, 
 because they are hindered by death from abid- 
 ing in their priesthood; here, he, because he 
 abides ii\ life forever, hath his priesthood un- 
 changeable. The adjective (an-opa/Saros) is not 
 witliout difficulty. If, with some of the Greek 
 commentators (as Theophylact), we could ren- 
 der it actively., not passing by., not transient, all 
 would be easy; but this seems scarcely admis- 
 sible. It is probably better taken passively, 
 and then to be rendered either ?io^ to be passed 
 by, hence, not to be superseded; or better, as 
 of a law or usage (from irapapaCvat), to go aside 
 from or beyo)id, to transgress, violate, not to 
 be violated, not to be transgressed; hence, in- 
 violable, unalterable. In either way we come 
 substantially to the same meaning. The con- 
 sideration is clearly f)ne of great force, and 
 presents the Mclohisedec priesthood of the 
 Son in forcible contrast to the imperfec- 
 tions of the Jewish Sacerdotal order. The 
 priests of Israel received their priesthood, ex- 
 ercised it, and died; the continuity of their 
 service was perpetually broken; every link 
 was stamped with frailty and mortality, and 
 the whole order partook of the frailty of its 
 individual numbers. Such a priesthood could 
 accomplish no complete salvation ; but mark 
 in contrast the prerogative of his priesthood 
 who liveth. 
 
 25. Wherefore also — from his abiding for- 
 ever with untransmissible priesthood — he is 
 able to save to the uttermost {co7npletely) 
 — thoroughly, 'to the uttermost,' though not 
 exactly in the sense suggested by these words 
 in the Common Version. Them that come 
 (draw near) unto God by (through) him. 
 All worship is essentially a drawing near 
 to God. The priests of the Old Covenant 
 
 sought to bring the worshij)ers near to God, 
 but they were snatched away by death even 
 from their partial work of priestly interces- 
 sion. Seeing (that) he ever liveth (while or 
 because of his always living) to make (for the 
 purpose of making) intercession for them 
 (on their behalf). The ever living is an em- 
 phatic iteration of the abiding forever. The 
 phrase 'to make intercession for them' en- 
 hances the grace of Christ, as if his eternal life 
 were for the benefit of his people. (Rom.8:34.) 
 His salvation, then, is a comi)lete salvation. 
 Through his perpetual life and perpetual priest- 
 hood, he can carry it throiigh to the uttermost. 
 Perfected himself, he can bring to jierfection 
 all his followers, pardoning, sanctifying, justi- 
 fying, glorifying. 
 
 (h) Exultant summing up of the qualities of 
 Christ's Melchisedec priesthood, necessary to 
 be allied with those of the Aaronical high 
 priest, to which topic verses 26-28 form a 
 transition. 
 
 The Melchi.sedec priesthood introduces the 
 elements of royalty and perjyetuity, attributes 
 of the ever living King. The Aaronic priesthood 
 must add the element of e.vpiatory sacrifice for 
 sin. Without this the Melchisedec priesthood 
 were magnificent, but barreti. Tlie word high 
 ]-)riest introduced at ver. 26 shows all these 
 majestic priestly qualities uniting themselves 
 in that priesthood which, as antitype of Aa- 
 ron's, makes effectual offering for sin. The 
 priestly successor of Melchisedec appears now 
 as the high priestly counterpart of Aaron. 
 The saving to the uttermost imjilies guilt and 
 condemnation, from which there can be no 
 saving without expiation. Here, then, slip- 
 ping in, as it were, the word high priest (dp^ie- 
 pfiii), the writer shows how around him cluster 
 the afore-described attributes, before proceed- 
 ing to the express consideration of the Leviti- 
 cal element. It is conceived, as De Wette 
 well remarks, in a strain of exultant joy over 
 those all-sufficient, glorious attributes of the 
 great High Priest. 
 
 2G. For such a high priest (also) ^ be- 
 
 ' The ' also ' («*«') is wanting in the Sioaitic MS., but appears in A B D E, and is forcible. 
 
Ch. VII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 95 
 
 harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made iindefiled. separated from sinners, and made higher 
 higher than the heavens; 27 than the neavens; who neudeth not daily, like InuBe 
 
 27 Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer 
 up sacrifice, tirst lor his own sins, and then for the peo- 
 ple's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. 
 
 high priests, to otter up sacrifices, first for his own 
 sins aud then for the sins of the people; for this he 
 
 came us, holy, harmless (guileless), unde- | immediate and absolute presence of God, and 
 filed, separate {being, having been separated) thus beyond all finite and creature limitations. 
 
 from sinners, and made (become) higher 
 than the heavens. The artistic arrangement 
 of the opening words cannot be reproduced in 
 English. Tiio elliptical 'for' involves the sup- 
 pressed idea that this lay in the nature and 
 demands of the case. 'Such' suggests the 
 priest before described, whose attributes are 
 here little more than gathered up, scarcely 
 added to. ' Became us ' — emphatic in position ; 
 befitted us as sinners. 'Became also' » — was (in 
 addition to its being a fact) also befitting. 
 And finally, 'high priest' comes out unex- 
 pectedly at the end of the clause (though not 
 without atnplest previous preparation in the 
 Epistle), and empahtically merging the priest 
 in the high priest (the iepeus in the apxifpfv^), 
 and enabling the author to unite the attributes 
 of both. 'Holy' — pious, perfect in all his re- 
 lations to God (o<rios), positively and actively 
 pious; not legally sacred, or simply sancti- 
 fied (aytos). 'Thy hol^' one' (iio-ios^, Ps. 
 16 : 10; cited of Ciirist, Acts 3 : 14. ' Void of 
 eviV (dKa<o?), ivihout evil, denoting his charac- 
 ter toward men, as {6trio») pious, toward God. 
 It marks freedom from guile, enmity, suspi- 
 cion. ''Undefiled^ (d/xioi/Tot), unstained. The 
 Levitical high priest must be ceremonially' 
 and outwardly without stain ; the true High 
 Priest must be internally and really so, and 
 free, not only from internal defilement, but 
 possible contamination. Hence, separated 
 from sinners, not merely from sin; withdrawn 
 from their defi'ing and disturbing contact into 
 the heavenly sanctuary, where neither their 
 violence, nor their wickedness, can hinder his 
 priestly work. ''Become higher than the hea- 
 vens' — here an animated and exulting expres- 
 sion of the transcendent exultation of the New 
 Testament High Priest. The Levitical high 
 priest was ceremonially clean, and withdrawn 
 partially from sinners into the earthly sanc- 
 tuary. His great Antitype and Successor is 
 absolutely and inwardly pure, completely 
 withdrawn from the disturbing contact of sin- 
 ners, exalted above the very heavens, through 
 which he has passed (< : h; Eph. 4: lo) into the 
 
 27. This verse converges the attention more 
 on the Levitical side of the Lord's priesthood; 
 namely, his high priesthood. Who needeth 
 not, etc. — hath no necessity day by day, just 
 as the high priests, to offer up sacrifices pre- 
 viously for his own sins, and afterward for 
 those of the j^eople. The point of contrast is 
 here really, though not in form, twofold, 
 Christ has not need, like the Levitical priests, 
 to offer sacrifices for his own sins at all; for he 
 has none; nor like them to offer sacrifices for 
 the people day by day, or repeatedly ; for his 
 one offering is forever sufficient. But in the 
 second point we meet a difficulty. The expia- 
 tory offerings of the Levitical high priests are 
 manifestly referred to; but these were offered 
 not daily, but yearly. The solutions are vari- 
 ous. Some have taken the original phrase 
 (icafl' r)n«pav) not as equivalent to daily, but 'on 
 an appointed day in the year' (Schlichting, 
 Michaelis); others as equivalent to SianavTOi, 
 indicating annual repetition, perpetually re- 
 curring (Grotius, Bohme, De Wette, Ebrard) ; 
 others as qualifying not the actual ministra- 
 tions of the priests, but the supposed ministra- 
 tions of Christ; not that which they do, but 
 that which he would have to do, provided his 
 sacrifice required repetition at all. since the 
 same principle that would demand its re{)eti- 
 tion once a year would demand it every day 
 and constantly (so Hofmann and formerly 
 Dclitzsch) ; others (as Kurtz, connecting the 
 KaB' ritxipoLV with ex" iv6.yK-i]v), " hath daily neces- 
 sity," confine its reference to the need, which 
 the human and imperfect Levitical priest is 
 under, on account of his daily sinning, t'» 
 make daily offering for himself Others (as 
 Bleek, Tholuck, Liinemann, Moll) " suppose 
 that the author, with his mind specially on the 
 singleness and finality of the sacrifice of Christ, 
 has in Ivyose and inexact expression blended 
 the priestly sacrifices in general with the grand 
 high priestly sacrifice on the annually recur- 
 ring Day of Atonement." This becomes the 
 more probable, since the high priest was em- 
 powered to take part, as often as he chose, in the 
 
 ' Kai, also, is found in A B D E, and is undoubtedly genuine. 
 
96 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VII. 
 
 28 For the law maketh men high priests wliich have 
 infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since 
 the law, makel/i the Son, who is consecrated for ever- 
 more. 
 
 28 did once for all, when he offered up himself. For 
 the law a])poiiiteth men high priests, having in- 
 tiriuiiy; but the word of the oath, which was alter 
 the law, appoinlelh a Son, perfected for evermore. 
 
 daily burnt offering, and not unfrequently ex- 
 ercised this privilege, particularly on Sabbath.s, 
 new moons, and festal occasions (Josepbus, 
 "Jewish War," V. 5, 6), and also in the daily 
 incen.se offerings to whicb was ascribed an 
 atoning significance. (Lev. n: u, 12; Num. 33: 10, 
 Lxx.) But the priest's successive offerings for 
 liimself and the people have probably special 
 reference to the great Day of Atonement. Of 
 the above explanations the last seems far the 
 more probable ; mostof them. I think, may be 
 at once set aside. For this he did once (for 
 all)\vhen he offered {hiofferi7ig)up himself. 
 His single sacrifice in pouring out his life on the 
 cross was the substance of all the repeated S3'm- 
 bolical sacrifices of the ancient priesthood.^ It 
 will be observed that the author only glances 
 here and there (as 1:3; 5:7, and here) at 
 Christ as a sacrifice on the cross. This he takes 
 for granted, but loves to contemplate rather his 
 priestly life in heaven. Not Christ the victim, 
 but Christ the priest, is the subject of discus- 
 sion. 
 
 28. For the law — the Mosaic ordinances — 
 maketh {constituteth) men — emphasis on 
 men : Christ, though on earth a man, was 
 even then something more than man; now 
 his humanity is gloriously overdrawn by his 
 divinity, the Son of man almost swallowed 
 up in the Son of God— high priests which 
 have {having) infirmity. Christ on earth, 
 indeed, was encompassed with infirmity; he 
 knew the weakness of humanity that he might 
 sympathize with bis brethren. But 'infirm- 
 ity,' in its fullest sense, be never knew; and 
 now, in his glorified, high-priestly state, the 
 infirmities of his earthly condition, his liaT)ility 
 to temptation and suffering and death, are all 
 removed. But the word of the oath, which 
 was since {after) the law (which succeeded 
 to it and set it aside) constituteth the Son — 
 having been perfected for evermore. Here 
 once more we have the contrast between the 
 priesthood of the law and the priesthood of 
 the oath. The one constitutes men, the other 
 constitutes the Son (the article omitted for the 
 same reason as in 1 : 1 to emphasize not the 
 
 person but the character). The one appointed 
 men having infirmity, actually possessing and 
 wearing it as a garment; the other the Son, 
 now ascended to the right hand of God, freed 
 from all temporary infirmity, and perfected 
 forever, thus taking up into his glorious Mel- 
 chisedec priesthood all the functions of the 
 Levitical, and qualified to accomplish what 
 that could only symbolize. 
 
 Ch. 8. (4) The efficient Aaronicnl high 
 priesthood of Christ in the heavenly sanc- 
 tuary. (8: l-]0: 18.) 
 
 The author now passes formally from Christ's 
 Melchisedec to his Aaronic priesthood, to that 
 element of it which adapts it to sinners. The dis- 
 cussion extends to 10 : 18, and revolves mainly 
 around one central idea, that of Christ offering 
 in the heavenly tabernacle his own efficacious 
 blood as a counterpart to the earthly' high priest 
 offering in the earthly tabernacle the blood of 
 goats and heifers, which cannot take away sin. 
 Every other topic, I think, will be found sub- 
 ordinate to this, and will derive its light from 
 this central idea. It divides itself into two 
 parts. From 8:1 to 9 : 11 the main thought 
 is that Christ has entered as High Priest into 
 the heavenly sanctuary with his own expiatory 
 blood. From 9 : 11 to 10 ; 18 the main thought 
 is that the offering of the blood of Christ, un- 
 like the symbolical and oft-repeated offerings 
 of the earthly priests, is efficacious, final, and 
 forever. Let us analyze from 8 : 1 to 9 : 11. 
 
 (a) As a royal Melchisedec Priest, Christ 
 has taken his seat at the right hand of God, 
 and as Levitical High Priest he has gone into 
 the heavenly tabernacle. (1, 2.) 
 
 (b) As suth a High Priest, Christ must of 
 necessity have s «mething to offer. (3.) 
 
 (c) So vitally connected are these two, the 
 priesthood and the offering, that oti earth 
 there would be no place for his priesthood, as 
 there exist already there those who make the 
 offerings of the law, and whose prerogatives 
 are inviolate. (4.) 
 
 ((/) But, in fact, he is a Higb Priest, and 
 can, therefore, make offerings, because he has 
 
 iava4>tpei.v is used of offering up himself on the cross; npo<T<l>ipeiv, of bringing his blood as an offering 
 into the sanctuary. 
 
Ch. VIIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "VrOW of the things which we have spoken this f.i 
 i.1 the sum : We have such a high priest, who is set 
 on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in tlie 
 heavens ; • 
 
 1 1 Now -in the things which we are saying the 
 chief point is this: We liave such a high prie.st, 
 who sat down on the right hand of the throne of 
 
 1 Or, Now to <ufn up what we are taying: We Aave, etc 2 Gr. upon. 
 
 the true tabernacle and the true priesthood, of 
 which theirs were but a shadow, and a priest- 
 hood as much better than theirs as is the cove- 
 nant, of which he is the Mediator, better than 
 theirs. (5, 6.) 
 
 (e) For that it is better than the first (this 
 subordinately and in passing) is clear from its 
 having superseded it. For God, having found 
 the first inefficacious, replaces it by a new, and 
 the former one becomes antiquated and expires. 
 (7-13.) 
 
 (/) But that First Covenant (for to see how 
 the New is organized, we must look back to. 
 that, its copy; and to see what the new High 
 Priest must oifer, we mu.st look back and see 
 what the old one oflered) had its ordinances of 
 service, and its sanctuary consisting of two 
 tabernacles, an outer or more common, and an 
 inner and holier one. (9 : 1-6.) 
 
 ig) Now in the outer sanctuary the priests 
 performed constant ministrations, but into this 
 inner sanctuarj^ the high priest went alone once 
 a year, not without blood — he carried in there 
 the blood of slaughtered victims, symbolically, 
 though not really, expiatory of sin. (6-10.) 
 
 (h) We see, then, what is demanded of our 
 High Priest. It is blood. And as his is the 
 true, and not the symbolical priesthood, as he 
 is in the genuine, and not the copied sanctuary, 
 he must offer blood that is reall^', and not 
 symbolically, cleansing. He brings his ow7i. 
 (11-14.) 
 
 Thus the author has advanced, by an almost 
 straight line and with a steady step, to his 
 object. If he has apparently deviated, it was 
 but apparently. Verses 7-13 of chapter 8 are 
 merely an incidental (incidental to the present 
 aj'gument, though vital as a part of the en tire dis- 
 cussion) carrying out of the reason why Christ 
 can be a High Priest; namel^^ that he has the 
 true priesthood of the New Covenant by which 
 the former has been superseded on account of 
 its inadequacy. So 9 : 1-10 is a provisional 
 examination of such features of that Old Cove-. 
 
 nant as bear directly on the high priest's func- 
 tion, in order to deduce thenre the functions 
 of the High Priest of the New Covenant in the 
 true tabernacle, and especially to asiertain 
 what it is that he must offer. Then 9 : 11-14, 
 15-28, declaring the cleansing efficacy of his 
 blood, closes the second topic propounded in 
 the author's brief triple thesis (6:20), 'After the 
 order of Melchisedec,' ' high priest,' 'forever.' 
 The third, embraced in the emphatic term 
 'foreve?;' though certainly all along implied 
 in every feature of Christ's work, may perhaps 
 (with Delitzsch) be regarded as forming the 
 special keynote to 10 : 1-18, where the formal 
 discussion closes. 
 
 (ff) As a royal Melchisedec Priest, Chri.st 
 has taken his seat at the right hand of God, 
 and as Levitical High Priest, he has gone into 
 the heavenly tabernacle. (1-3.) 
 
 1. Now of the things, etc.— And as a 
 capital point hi regard to what we are say- 
 ing (literally, in regard to what is being 
 said; equivalent to, the topic under discussion). 
 ' Chief, leading, capital point' (Kf<i>dKcuov) is here 
 far better than the other meaning, 'sum,' or 
 'summing up,' as in the Common Version. 
 This latter meaning, indeed, would not be 
 wholly inappropriate, inasmuch as verses 1, 2 
 look both backward and forward, and may be 
 regarded as exhibiting sub.stantially the whole 
 doctrine of Christ's priesthood— ver. 1 in its 
 Melchisedec, ver. 2 in its Levitical aspect. 
 This, however, is equally embraced in the 
 rendering, 'chief or capital point,' which is 
 apparently what the author would express. 
 We have such a high priest — thati.s, 'such' 
 as I am about to describe ; ' such ' (toioOto?) here 
 looking forward, as at 7 : 26 it looks back — 
 who is set {took his seat) on the right 
 hand of *he throne of the Majesty in the 
 heavens. Identical in meaning with 1 : 3, 
 but intentionally more full and formal in ex- 
 pression. There it is stated incidentally as a 
 fact; here it is laid down formally as a signifi- 
 
 ' A summary of ' the things which we //nresaid,' would j can it be rendered, as hy some, ' In addition to what has 
 require inl toU tiprmtvoit, not rolt Aeyoftcfot;. Still less, Ibeen said ' (irpos roij tipriiitvoit) . 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VIII. 
 
 2 A minister of the sanctuary, and of tlie true taber- 
 nacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. 
 
 a For every high priest is ordained to oti'er gifts and 
 sacrifices: wheretore it is of necessity that this man 
 have somewhat also to offer. 
 
 2 the Majesty in the heavens, a minister of ' the sanc- 
 tuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord 
 
 3 pitched, not man. For every high priest is ap- 
 pointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, wherefore 
 it is necessary that tliis h^g^ priest also have some- 
 
 1 Or, holy thing: 
 
 cant and vital fact connected with the priest- 
 hood of our Lord. It is the more literal 
 statement of that which is put more figur- 
 atively, and with reference to Christ's anti- 
 Levitical priesthood, in the following vi-rse. 
 
 2. A minister — (Aeuoupyos), public sei-vant, 
 or, functionary ; in the classics, the bearer of 
 a public office ; in the Septuagint, sometimes, 
 "one vcnAevrng priestly service," ' a priest to 
 render offerings,' Neh. 10: 39, so Rom. 15: 16; 
 and here the term is so applied to Clirist — of 
 the sanctuary and of the true {genuine) 
 tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and 
 not (f/) man. 'The sanctuary' here clearlj' 
 denotes the 'holy of holies,' 'the part within 
 the vail,' in which, in the earthly tabernacle, 
 was the special symbol of God's presence, and 
 which, therefore, in the archet^'pal, the heav- 
 enly tabernacle, denotes that immediate pres- 
 ence itself. As King, Christ sits at the right 
 hand of the throne of God ; as Priest, he 
 ministers in the heavenly holy of holies, in 
 the perpetual presence of God. Both expres- 
 sions are mere figures drawn from earthly 
 objects. His sharing God's throne denotes, 
 symbolically, his sharing God's -sovereign 
 power; his being in the heavenly sanctuary 
 denotes his being in the immediate and abso- 
 lute, not the symbolical, presence of God. He 
 ministers there, not as occasionally entering, 
 but perpetually abiding. ' The genuine inber- 
 nacle,' the real, original, archetypal tabernacle 
 (not aATjS^s, true, not false ; but aATjeii-o?, made 
 of truth, real, genuine, not counterfeit, and 
 not a copy). God is the ' tr\ie God' {k\t\6\.v6<;), 
 in contrast with spurious gods, idols; God is 
 true (iATjS^s) as a Being who will not utter 
 falsehood. The upper sanctuary was the ar- 
 chetypal sanctuarj', of which the earthlj' one 
 was but a copy, as Chri.st was the true Priest 
 whom the earthly priest but typified. The 
 words 'true, genuine tabernacle' are here 
 exegetical of 'sanctuary.' The Mosaic taber- 
 nacle was divided into two parts — the outer 
 tabernacle, and the inner sanctuary ; but the 
 whole went under the general name of taber- 
 nacle; and as it would be contrary to all 
 propriety to represent our Lord as ministering 
 
 in the outer tabernacle, the word can be taken 
 here only in its general sense, and all specula- 
 tions as to what in the heavenly tabernacle 
 corresponded to the first, or outer one of the 
 earthly, are here, at least, entirely out of 
 place. Only an artificial exegesis can find 
 here any allusion to that first tabernacle, and, 
 therefore, to any of the numerous objects 
 which it has been distorted into symbolizing. 
 Christ appears ministering in the true taber- 
 nacle, not the copy; in the heavenly sanctuary, 
 not the earthly; dwelling perpetually in the 
 real presence of God, instead of entering at 
 distant intervals into his s^-mboHcal presence. 
 The tabernacle which a man pitched is the 
 material, visible tabernacle of Moses. That 
 which the Lord pitched is the invisible, hea- 
 venly tabernacle. Like all the elements of 
 the New Dispensation (see 12 : 1&-27), it is 
 purely spiritual. 
 
 (h) As such a High Priest, Christ must of 
 necessity have something to offer. (3.) 
 
 3. For every high priest is ordained 
 (appointed) to offer [both'] gifts and sacri- 
 fices: wherefore it is of necessity that also 
 this (high priest, or, this one) have some- 
 what also to offer (literally, something 
 which he m.ny offer). The ' For' is proleptic: 
 the thought outruns the expression. The 
 writer's mind is filled with the idea that 
 Christ is in the heavenly sanctuary to make 
 a high priestly offering. The 'for' responds 
 to and generalizes this latent thought, 'For 
 every high priest is constituted to offer gifts,' 
 etc. ; and then, having generalized the idea 
 from the special case in question, the writer 
 naturally turns round and deduces the special 
 case from the general ftict. In more strictly 
 logical form, it would run, "And, as every 
 high priest is constituted to offer gifts' and 
 sacrifices, therefore it is neces.sary," etc. But 
 the thought is clear, and is but a repeti- 
 tion of the statement of 5:1, which gives 
 the essential function of the high priest, 
 and to which Stuart regards it as now return- 
 ing. It is in some sense a return to it, but in 
 the writer's direct course of argument. He 
 has unfolded the Melchisedec elements of 
 
Ch. VIII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 99 
 
 4 For if he were on earth, he sliouUl not he a priest, 4 what to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not 
 
 seeing that tliere are priesis tliat offer gifts according 
 to tlic law : 
 5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of 
 
 be a priest at all, seeing there »re those who offer the 
 5 gifts according to the law; who serve tluil xvhick is 
 
 Christ's Saoerdotal office, he proceeds now to 
 develop its Leviticul element. But a more 
 importiint matter is the logical connection of 
 tlie verse witii the context None of the in- 
 terpreters, as it seems to me, iiave fully 
 apprehended it. De Wette unhesitatingly 
 charges it with breaking in upon and disturb- 
 ing the course of the thought. Liinemann 
 regards it as an incidental remark to justify 
 the term Aiirovpyo^. Bengel, with others, would 
 enclose it in a parenthesis. Tholuck regards 
 it as introduced but to be crowded out by 
 other ideas. Even Delitzsch fails to make 
 the connection clear. If our analysis, pre- 
 viously given, is correct, it is precisely in its 
 place. It is no disturbing, no incidental idea, 
 nothing to be shut up m parentheses, but 
 is really, precisely the cnpitfil thought of the 
 writer, that to which the statement of the 
 previous verse was but subsidiary, and that of 
 which all clear on to 9: 14, and, in fact, to 10: 18, 
 is only illustrative. Why is Christ minister 
 in the heavenly sanctuary ? It is that he may 
 have something to offer. What makes the 
 utility of his ministry there? It is that he 
 has something to offer. What it is the author 
 proceeds by gradually prepared steps to un- 
 fold. He is there to offer his oivn expiatory 
 blood, in the conception of the Epistle, the 
 whole pith of his priesthood, and of his work 
 of salvation. Of course, this takes for granted 
 the previous sacrifice as its necessary condi- 
 tion. We are not, then (with De Wette), to 
 render 'It was necessary,' instead of the logi- 
 cal copula, ' It is necessary ' ; nor (with Liine- 
 mann) to render, "should have offered," 
 making it refer to Christ's earthly sacrifice, 
 instead of his heavenly priesthood. This is a 
 {•oniplete perversion of the author's idea. The 
 high priest in the sanctuary, and there under 
 the necessary conditions of bringing an ex- 
 piatory oflTering, is here his theme. 
 
 (c) So vitally connected are these two, the 
 priesthood and the ofiering, that on earth 
 
 there would be no place for his priesthood, as 
 there exist already there those who make the 
 offerings of the law, and whose prerogatives 
 are inviolate. (4.) 
 
 4, For if {indeed) — so imperative is this ne- 
 cessity of his having, as High Priest, something 
 to offer — he weie on earth, he should 
 (would) not [even] be a priest. There is no 
 stress to be laid on the use of 'priest' for ' high 
 
 j priest' (as if the meaning were, 'so far from 
 being a High Priest, he would not even be a 
 priest'). The use of 'priest' here is purely 
 incidental, the generic idea being put for the 
 specific; the emphasis is on 'would not even 
 be.'' The mention of the vital necessity that 
 he, as high priest, bring offerings, suggests the 
 inquirj', how he can be a priest at all, which 
 of course finds its explanation in the fact that 
 lie is not on earth in the copied, but in heaven 
 in the archetypal, taberinicle. The ' for,' then, 
 looks back to the preceding clause, 'necessary 
 that he have something to offer' ; the particle 
 (^e.') looks forward (as always), and finds its 
 correlative at ver. 6, but infact^ {wvX Se), See- 
 ing that there are (since there exist) those 
 who offer gifts according to the law. Being 
 (ovTuiv = since there are), emphatic in position. 
 The 'gifts' here are equivalent to 'gifts and 
 sacrifices' of the verse preceding, which stand 
 forthe whole body of oflTerings required by the 
 law. The Levitical order would not be super- 
 seded without a reason, and no reason could 
 exist until he came who should fulfill all that 
 it prefigured. 
 
 id) But, in fact, he is a High Priest, and 
 can, therefore, make offerings, because he has 
 the true tabernacle and the true priesthood, of 
 which theirs were but a shadow, and a priest- 
 hood as much better than theirs as is the cove- 
 nant, of which he is the Mediator, better than 
 theirs. (5, 6.) 
 
 5. Who, etc. —the Levitical priests— notonly 
 designaf^es bufcharacterizes them, such persons 
 as (oiTii/es) minister to a copy and shadow 
 
 1 The clause «i fi-iv yap- oW ok ^k, for if to be sure — 
 neither would he be, implies that there is a supposition 
 under which his thesis would not hold, which would 
 even exclude the consideration of it. This supposition 
 must first he disposed of. That is the supiKJsilioii of his 
 being on earth. There there is full provision made for 
 
 offering the gifts of the law ; there is a priesthood or- 
 dained, whose functions must not be encroached ui>on. 
 The very form of construction, however, implies Ihiil 
 the ca.se thus supposed does not exist. Christ is not on 
 earth, and therefore he can be a priest, and offer sacri- 
 fices without violating established institutions. 
 
100 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VIIL 
 
 heavenly things, as JJoses was admonished of God 
 when he was about to make the taljernacle: for, See, 
 saiili he, that thou malce all things according to the 
 pattern shewed to thee in the mount. 
 
 a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as 
 Moses is warned of Gud when he is about to i make 
 the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all 
 things according to the pattern thai was shewed thee 
 
 1 Or, complete. 
 
 of the heavenly \_sanctuary'\ {ayitav understood 
 with inovpaviav). They are such as minister to 
 a tabernacle which is a mere representative 
 copy (uTToSeiyna) ' of the true. Their ministry is 
 merely prefigurative, and ready to yield when 
 the thing signified comes in place of the sign. 
 The author accomplishes a double purpose. 
 IJe shows why Christ could not be a priest on 
 earth, and why he can be one in heaven. The 
 earthly ranks are filled up. The earthly 
 sphere of service is pre-occupied ; but that 
 sphere is itself merely shadowy and transi- 
 tory, and there is yet room for him who real- 
 izes the significance of that priesthood, and 
 for him alone. As Moses Avas admon- 
 ished) etc. — that is, hath been instructed of 
 God when about to complete the tabernacle. 
 This is added in illustration of the character 
 which he has just assigned to the earthly tab- 
 ernacle, as being but a copy and adumbration 
 or shadowy image of the heavenly. (Ex. 25 : 40.) 
 For, See, saith he, that thou make all 
 things according to (after) the pattern 
 shewed to thee in the mount. The Mosaic 
 tabernacle was made after a model. How this 
 pattern was shown to Moses it is idle curiously 
 tp inquire; nor would there have arisen any 
 question about it but for the rhetorical use to 
 which the author puts it, making it very natu- 
 rally, as it came from God on Mount Sinai, 
 stand, not for the literal pattern of the taber- 
 nacle to be made, but as representative of the 
 divine ideas which that tabernacle was to sym- 
 bolize. There can really be no doubt that 
 there was shown to Moses in vision, or with 
 the bodily eye, an exact model of the structure 
 which he was to rear, and which model he was 
 precisely to imitate. This is all that seems to 
 be meant by the passage in Exodus, and all 
 which I supi)ose our autlior believed it to 
 mean. He has indeed made a figurative apjjli- 
 cation of the language, as if the tabernacle 
 which Moses saw in the Mount was the real. 
 
 original heavenly tabernacle, in which the 
 Lord now ministers. I cannot, however, sup- 
 pose either that any such thing was implied in 
 Exodus, or that he considered it to be, or suj)- 
 posed himself to be doing anything more 
 than merely accommodating a passage to 
 which he never would have dreamed of 
 giving the force of an argument. God made 
 that tabernacle on Mount Sinai of which 
 the tabernacle of Moses was an earthly and 
 material copy. How natural, in the way of 
 rhetorical illustration, to transfer in idea this 
 divine original to the spiritual tabernacle, in 
 which our Lord ministers, and which both the 
 one and the other merely typified ! How nat- 
 ural, I say, without supposing for a moment 
 that the writer was doing more than merely 
 employing an illustration, and addressing an 
 argument to the imagination rather than to 
 the reason ! How natural to express the sub- 
 ordinate and copied character of the Levitical 
 tabernacle by a reference to the direction, 
 ' See thou make all after the pattern shewed 
 thee in the mount' ! And nothing more strik- 
 ingly illustrates the routine character of much 
 of our exegesis than the numerous endeavors 
 of interpreters, taking this as a literal and pro- 
 saic proof, to find how this heavenly, arche- 
 typal tabernacle was revealed to Moses, and 
 what heavenly elements corresponded to the 
 several parts of the earthly structure. The 
 figurative language of the author is a])propri- 
 ate and beautiful, so long as we hold to the 
 figure, and do not undertake to convert rhet- 
 oric into logic. When we come to the actual 
 facts of the case we cannot for a moment sup- 
 pose that there is or was any actual outer and 
 inner sanctuary in heaven, corresponding to 
 the separate compartments of the tabernacle. 
 This was expressive, not of topographical, but 
 of moral and spiritual fiicts and relations. It 
 was a figure for the time then existing. The 
 vail hanging between the outer and inner 
 
 ''Yn-oS«iy|ua is somewhat difficult to define exuctlj. ] placed under (he eyes, a strpi, fokeji ; or something shown 
 'YTroJeiKi'u/oii, to place under the eyes, or to show /« i?(6- I subserviently to another, its pattern or its copy; or 
 ordination to something, as its pattern, for example, or something shown faintly (i"r<>), as an outline, sketch, faint 
 copy ; or to show faintly. The preposition may give either 1 rej)re.senlation. Either copy or faint representation, would 
 of these modihcations. Hence, iiito&eiyixa, something \ answer here. 
 
Ch. VIIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 101 
 
 6 But now halh he obtained a more excellent minis- I 6 in the mount. But now hatli he obtained a niiuislry 
 try, by how much also he is the mediator of a better the more excellent, by how much also he is the uiudi- 
 
 coveaant, which was estaolished upon better promises. | ator of a better covenant, which huih been enacted 
 
 sanctuary, and excluding all but the high 
 priest, and him at all but widely separated 
 times, from the inner, indicated, as the author 
 himself assures us, that the way into the Holi- 
 est of All had not yet been opened to nmn. 
 It indicated simply that for man as a sinner, 
 without atonement and pardon, there was no 
 true access to God. It embodied an idea. It 
 represented a state of tilings existing on earth, 
 not in heaven, and a state of things which 
 was done away in the death of Christ. The 
 thoroughly symbolical character of the whole 
 is shown by the description of the vail, which 
 was, says the writer, the flesh of Christ. The 
 meaning of this is evident. The death of 
 Christ was necessary in order to break down 
 ' the wall which separates man from God. At 
 his crucifixion the vail of the temple was rent 
 in twain from the top to the bottom, and the 
 separating barrier which his offering in the 
 flesh was necessary to remove might be easily 
 said to consist in his flesh; for the as yet un- 
 broken body of Christ, like the as yet unrent 
 vail of the tabernacle and temple, was between 
 man and God. The inner tabernacle, then, as 
 well as the outer one, can have no other than 
 a moral significance. And with the dying 
 and rising of Christ, the grand idea expressed 
 by the outer one belongs to the past. All 
 efforts to find it in Christ's human body, in 
 his life on earth (Ebrard), in the lower hea- 
 vens (De Wette, Liinemann, etc.), in Christ's 
 glorified body (Hofmann), in the heaven of 
 glorified saints (Delitzsch), in Christ's mysti- 
 cal body (an attempted union of the two last 
 ideas by Alford), are a waste of ingenuity. 
 That Christ's earthly body, or his life on 
 earth, is the outer tabernacle, needs to be re- 
 futed by no arguiiient. That his glorified 
 body is the outer tabernacle is worse than idle 
 fancy; it is simply monstrous. For it is pre- 
 cisely in his glorified body that he dwells in 
 the inner sanctuary, and his glorified body 
 never existed until after the outer sanctuary 
 had been annihilated by his vail-rending 
 death. To convert the loioer heavens into the 
 outer tabernacle is to transform an important 
 spiritual symbol into a lesson in topograph^'. 
 The explanation which might make nearest 
 approach to plausibility is that of Delitzsch, 
 
 j which makes the outer tabernacle represent 
 the heaven of the saints (including, perhaps, 
 the people of God on earth), who, like the 
 Levitical priesthood, were kept from the more 
 immediate presence of God, and served liim at 
 an awful distance, until Christ broke down 
 the separating barrier, and brings them into 
 actual nearness to God. Just so soon, how- 
 ever, as we localize this idea, and make the 
 outer tabernacle a part of the heavenly ar- 
 rangements, we confuse and destroy the figure. 
 The priest passed through the outer into the 
 inner tabernacle; but Christ could not pass 
 through the outc into the inner tabernacle on 
 high, for that outer tabernacle had ceased to 
 exist. It, or the great fact which it symbol- 
 ized, was done away at his death. The sepa- 
 rating vail, with its solemn and dread signifi- 
 cance, had hung from the time of Moses to 
 the scene of Calvary, and then it was rent in 
 twain ; and if the Jews replaced it, they per- 
 formed an act of gratuitous wickedness. 
 
 0. But now — {vvv'i Se), as the case actually 
 stands; {wvi, logical), instead of being on the 
 earth, and ministering to a copy and shadow 
 of the true tabernacle, or being where he 
 could only so minister — hath he obtained a 
 more excellent ministry — higher priestly 
 service — by how much also he is the me- 
 diator of a better covenant which Avas 
 established (hath been instituted) upon 
 better promises. The problem, then, sug- 
 gested above how Christ could be a priest and 
 have something to offer without violating estab- 
 lished institutions, is resolved. He could be 
 so, because he comes in with a New Covenant, 
 which supersedes the Old, and he is Priest in 
 the heavenly archetypal sanctuary, which has 
 replaced its earthly semblance. And now to 
 find what he has to offer, what is the nature of 
 his service, we must lookback to that covenant 
 which his has superseded, and see what were 
 the typical offerings of its typical priesthood. 
 This would naturally be the author's next topic. 
 He would proceed to deduce from the nature 
 of the offering of the Jewish high i)riest the 
 nature of the offering brought by Christ. But 
 this is postponed to the next chapter. The 
 mention of Christ's better priesthood, with it* 
 better covenant and better promises, leads the 
 
102 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VIII. 
 
 7 ]"or if that first covenmH had been faultless, then I 7 upon better promises. For if that first co!'ena»i< had 
 should no ])laee have been sought for the second. been faultless, then would no place have been sought 
 
 8 lor tinding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the 8 for a second. For ' finding fault with them, he saith, 
 days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, 
 co.'euant with the house of Israel and with tho house That I will 2njake a new covenant with the 
 of Judah: house of Israel and with the house of 
 
 Judah; 
 
 1 Some ancient authorities yqaA finding fault with it he saith unto them 2 Gi*. accomplish. 
 
 authi)r to pause a moment in the imrnediate 
 train of argument to show why that Old Cove- 
 nant has been superseded, and wherein consist 
 the better promises of the New. 
 
 (e) For tliat the New is better than the first 
 (this subordinately and in passing) is clear 
 from its having superseded it. For God, hav- 
 ing found the first ineflRcacious, replaces it by 
 a new, and the former one becomes antiquated 
 and expires. (7-13.) 
 
 Theseverses which illustnite this point might 
 have been omitted without injury to the imme- 
 diate argument; but they are vital to the gen- 
 eral subject, and though strictlj' a digression, 
 are by no means an unwarranted digression. 
 
 7. For if that first covenant, etc.— that 
 first one were frndtless, there would not be 
 sought a place for a second. Here, as at 7 : 11, 
 the author reasons to the imperfection of the 
 first from the fact of its supersedure. Bleek 
 somewhat fancifully finds this 'place' for the 
 Second Covenant in the 'heart' as distin- 
 guished from the tablets of stone on which the 
 older was engraved. But there is no necessity 
 for such refining. The simple and obvious 
 import of the language is that, apart from the 
 imperfection of the First, there would have 
 been no demand for the Second; no room 
 would have been sought for it by the abroga- 
 tion of the First. The one cannot come without 
 displacing the other. 
 
 8-12. An extended citation of a celebrated 
 passage from Jer. 31 : 31-34, which, connected 
 immediately in its origin with the return from 
 the Babylonian captivity, yet has unquestioned 
 ultimate reference to the times of the Messiah. 
 Li ice most of the Messianic prophecies, it stands 
 originally connected with a subordinate local 
 event, and, like them, passes beyond that 
 event to the great theine and scope of all 
 prophecy, the Messianic epoch and salvation. 
 Although the passage is here subordinate to 
 the author's immediate purpose (Christ's heav- 
 
 enly priesthood in connection with the better 
 Covenant) it is too weighty in its testimony to 
 the superiority of the New Covenant to the 
 Old, to allow of its being passed over. The 
 quotation is from the Sei)tuagint, with slight 
 verbal variations. 
 
 8. For^finding fault [with it] he saith 
 to them. Or, ''^ For finding fault with t/iem, 
 he saith." Either construction has authority, 
 and perhaps nearly equally balanced. If we 
 read the accussitive (ai-Tous),! the second con- 
 struction, 'finding fault with tliem, he saith' 
 is the only possible one. If the dative (avToi«),2 
 we may render still ' finding fault with them ' 
 (constructing /iieM<{ioMat with the dative), or more 
 easily ' finding fault [with it] he saith to them.' 
 This latter has slightly against it the posi- 
 tion of the dative (avTois), which unless 
 emphatic would naturally follow the 'he 
 saith' (Aeyei). But, ou the other hand, the 
 correspondence between the words 'foultless' 
 and 'finding fault with' (aMeMTTos and neii4>6- 
 M«vos), already makes it natural to apply the 
 'finding fault' rather to the covenant than to 
 the persons, and creates a strong presumption 
 in favor of tiie former construction. Besides, 
 as Stuart justly observes (after Theophylact, 
 Grotius, etc.), the passage, in its Old Testament 
 connection, is the one in which God is talking 
 tenderly and graciously, rather than reproach- 
 fully, to his people, and throwing the blame 
 of their conduct rather on the inadequacy of 
 the covenant than on their perverseness. "With 
 some hesitation, therefore (against Delitzsch 
 and others), I prefer the former construction. 
 We may, indeed, render 'finding fault, he 
 saith totl.em,' and leave it undecided whether 
 the object of the censure is people or covenant. 
 Behold the days come, saith the JLord, 
 when I will make (accomplish — literally, 
 ' there come days and I will accomplish,' 
 by a familiar Hebraism) a new covenant 
 with (ypon) the house of Israel and the 
 
 > With X * A D * K P, etc., followed by Lachmauu, Tischeudorf (Ed. 8), Westcott and Hort 
 2 With X« D* * * E L, etc., Chrysost«m. 
 
Ch. VIII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 103 
 
 9 Not according to the covenant that I wade with 
 their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand 
 to lead them out of llie land of Egypt; because they 
 continued not in luy covenant, and I regarded them 
 not, saith the Lord. 
 
 10 For this i.v the covenant that I will make with the 
 house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; 1 will 
 put my laws into their mind, and write them in their 
 hearts: and I will be to them a (.iod, and they shall be 
 to me a people : 
 
 Not according to the covenant that I made 
 
 with their lathers 
 In the day that I took them by the hand to 
 
 lead them forth out of the land of Egypt; 
 For they continued not in my covenant, 
 And I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 
 For this is the covenant that ' I will make with 
 
 the house of Israel 
 After those d:iys, saith the Lord ; 
 I will put my laws into their mind, 
 And on their heart also will I write them: 
 And I will be to them a God, 
 And they shall be to me a people : 
 
 1 Gr. I unit covenant. 
 
 house of Judah. The author has substi- 
 tuted for the Septuagint, ' I will institute with 
 the house' (5ia97((ro(ioi raj oiicai), another expres- 
 sion, 'I will accomplish upon the house' 
 (^<TvvTfKe<Ta> eirl Tof oIkov). He has, however, 
 merely substituted a different rendering, given 
 elsewhere by the Septuagint for the same 
 original expression. He has probably made 
 the variation designedly (De Wette) in order 
 to bring out the idea of accomplishtnent in 
 connection with the New Covenant. 
 
 9. Negative characteristic of the New Cove- 
 nant. Not according to the covenant that 
 I made (en-oijio-a; Septuagint, 5i«de^)j»') with 
 their fathers in the day when I took 
 them by the hand (eirtAa/ScVSot, took hold of 
 for the purpose of succoring and rescuing; 
 see similar idea 2 : 16) to lead them (forth) 
 out of the land of Egypt. This indicates 
 clearly tiie Mosaic Covenant formed in the 
 wilderness. The reference to the circumstances 
 of its formation — when God rescued them 
 from their Egyptian bondage — was designed, 
 by reminding the people how much grace 
 attended the formation of that covenant, to 
 enhance their conception of the grace included 
 in a covenant which shall set that aside as 
 inadequate to answer God's gracious purposes. 
 That was a covenant made in the day when 
 lie lifted them from their Egyptian bondage. 
 How gracious, then, shall be the Dispensation 
 whicli shall annul and supersede that as inop- 
 erative and worthless ! Because they con- 
 tinued not (did not abide) in my covenant, 
 and I regarded them not (disregarded them), 
 saith the Lord. The emphasis of the origi- 
 nal, with its emphatic pronouns, does not quite 
 re-appear in the version : ' They did not abide,' 
 etc., and / in turn neglected them. This is 
 added as showing the inadequacy of the cove- 
 nant. It could not hold either of the parties, 
 though — in each case, respectivel3' — for differ- 
 
 ent reasons. It could not enforce its obliga- 
 tions on the people, and, as it were, compelled 
 God to withdraw his favor from a covenants 
 breaking people. Nay, with inexpressible 
 tenderness, as if the heart of God were melting 
 within him, he, as it were, takes part of the 
 blame to himself, and finds fault with a cove- 
 nant which left it possible for the people to 
 disobey him, and, on the other hand, for him 
 to neglect and disregard the people. 
 
 10. For {because) this is the covenant 
 which I will make with the house of 
 Israel after those days, saith the Lord. 
 'This' is here equivalent to s?<cA, of such a 
 nature ; namely, As I am about to describe. 
 ' Because,' then, is here used in its strictly 
 appropriate sense. God is going to justify his 
 use of the term 'new' in its ajiplication to the 
 covenant which he will hereafter form with 
 the people of Israel, and to show why it really 
 is a New Covenant. The remainder of the 
 verse may be thus given : Giving my laws into 
 their understanding [will I make ii], and upon 
 their hearts will I inscribe them. The above 
 is, perhaps, the simplest mode of completing 
 the participial construction, although it may 
 be constructed as follows: 'Giving my laws,' 
 etc., ^ also upon their hearts will I inscribe 
 thetn.' This, however, makes a difference in 
 the emphasis of the two clauses which seems 
 foreign to the purpose of the author. The 
 construction may be a simple anacoloiithon. 
 Here is one of the 'better promises' of the 
 New Covenant — the promise of an inward 
 spiritupl influence, which shall secure obedi- 
 ence, and make the Covenant effective. A 
 consequence of this immediately follows : 
 And I will be to them a God, and they 
 shall be to me a people. (Kxod. fi:7, scor. 6:i6.) 
 Here is promised the establishing of intimate 
 and confidential relations between God and 
 his people, which cannot be broken up, being 
 
104 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. VIII. 
 
 11 And they shall not teach every man his neigh- 
 bour, and every man his brother, saying Know ihe 
 Lord: lor all shall know uie, from the least to the 
 greatest. 
 
 12 For I will lie merciful to their unrighteousness, 
 and their sins and their iniquities will 1 remember no 
 more. 
 
 13 In thpt he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the 
 first old. Now that which decayelh and waxeth old is 
 ready to vanish away. 
 
 11 And they shall not teach every man his fellow- 
 
 citizen. 
 And every man his brother, saying, Know the 
 
 Lord : 
 For all shall know me. 
 From the least to the greatest of them. 
 
 12 For I will be merciliil to their iniquities, 
 And their sins will 1 remember uo more. 
 
 13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hatli made the 
 first old. But that which is becoming old and wax- 
 eth aged is nigh uuto vanishing away. 
 
 guaranteed by the living spiritual power at- 
 tendant on the Covenant. The Old Covenant 
 established this relation between God and his 
 people outwardly. But it could not make it 
 inward, and, therefore, could not make it 
 pernianerit. 
 
 11. And they shall not teach every man 
 his neighbour {fellow citizen), and every 
 man his brother, saying. Know the Lord : 
 for {because) all shall [will) know me, from 
 the least to the greatest of them (literally, 
 from the small unto the great one of them). 
 This is the second of the better promises of the 
 New Covenant. Its import is that they shall 
 not need to teach one another, because " they 
 shall all be taught of God." God will write 
 his law upon the heart, and instill it into the 
 mind, and thus not leave them to the doubtful 
 and unsatisfactory processes of human instruc- 
 tion. The Divine Spirit will impart to all his 
 direct illuminations. This of course marks the 
 intrinsic and essential character of the New 
 Covenant, as promising and securing to its 
 subjects large and immediate spiritual influ- 
 ence — its ideal character and tendency, which 
 will be realized just in proportion as it accom- 
 plishes its work, and fully so when the " people 
 shall be all righteous." 
 
 12. The third better promise of the New 
 Covenant. Because (not yop for, giving the 
 logical reason of the preceding statement: 
 but oTi because, assigning the efficient cause of 
 the preceding /flc< .• as if he said, " And this 
 shall be. because,'' etc.). I will be merciful, 
 etc. — that is, propitious, gracious toward their 
 acts of unrighteousness, and their sins will I 
 remember no m.ore. This completes the cata- 
 logue of the blessed prerogatives of the New 
 Covenant; those better promises which give 
 it its superiority over the Old. The inward 
 constraining power of God's love ; a universal 
 opening of the heart to those teachings of God 
 which will supersede the laborious teachings 
 of men, and make divine knowledge univer- 
 sal ; and finally a full and free remission of 
 
 sins, — are the elements which make up the 
 better promises of the better Covenant. 
 
 13. The logical inference from the designa- 
 tion New Covenant. lu that he saith (in 
 saying a new [covena7it] ), he hath made 
 the first old (antiquated) — he has put it into 
 the category of antiquated things. The logi- 
 cal connection is put for the efficient connec- 
 tion. God's using the term new is equivalent 
 to making that old which the new displaces. 
 Now, etc. ; and that which is becom.ing anti- 
 quated and growing old is near to disappear- 
 ing, is on the verge of extinction, is ready to 
 vanish away. This verse puts the seal on the 
 language which declares the imperfection of 
 the First Covenant, and its abrogation to give 
 place to a better, and to a better mediating 
 priesthood. The author has disposed of the 
 question how and under what conditions this 
 new and glorious Melchisedec Priest could be 
 inaugurated and perform his priestly functions. 
 He could not be so on earth, because there is 
 already a regularly constituted priesthood to 
 offer the gifts and sacrifices of the law. He 
 could be so only by taking the heavenly and 
 antitypical instead of the merely typical priest- 
 hood, and with this the heavenly throne, in- 
 stead of the earthly and shadowy sanctuary. 
 And this he could do, because he comes in 
 with a better Covenant which supersedes the 
 Old, by prerogatives admirably illustrated in 
 the citation from Jeremiah. The Old Cove- 
 nant, then, has passed away, and with it the old 
 priesthood, and the way is now prepared for 
 returning to the thesis of ver. 3 ; namely, that 
 the High Priest of the New Covenant in the 
 heavenly sanctuary must have sotnething to 
 offer. Of this he has not in his temporary 
 digression lost sight, and he now returns to it 
 by inquiring into the arrangements of that 
 priestl-yservice under the Old Covenant, which, 
 though imperfect and transitory, was yet 
 typical of the higher service, and will indicate 
 its nature. He sets forth first some general 
 features of that antiquated Covenant with a 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THEN verily the first covenant had also ordinances of 
 divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. 
 2 Kor there was a tabernacle made ; the first, wherein 
 was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread ; 
 which is called the sanctuary. 
 
 1 Now even the first covenant had ordinances of di- 
 vine service, and its sanctuary, a .sanctuary of this 
 
 2 world. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the 
 first, wherein ' were the candlestick, and the table, 
 and 2 the shew-bread ; which is called the Holy place. 
 
 1 Or, are i Gr. (Ae letting forth of the loave: 
 
 view to showing its dignity and glory, and 
 thus embracing the excellency of the Cove- 
 nant which has superseded it. All, however, 
 is preliminary and subordinate to the grand 
 point brought out at 9:7; namely, that the 
 high priest entered at stated seasons the inner 
 sanctuary not without blood, whence also 
 comes out (ver. ii, 12) what is the nature of the 
 high priest's offering on high. 
 
 Ch. 9 : (/) But that First Covenant (for to 
 see how the New is organized, we must look 
 back to that, its copy ; and to see what the new 
 High Priest must offer, we must look back and 
 see what the old one offered) had its ordi- 
 nances of service, and its sanctuary consisting 
 of two tabernacles, an outer or more common, 
 and an inner and holier one. (9 : 1-5.) 
 
 1-5. Preliminary description of the taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 1. Then verily {now even) the first [cove- 
 nant] had. We might, perhaps, bring out 
 better the emphasis of the original by rendering 
 a little freely, "There belonged, indeed now, 
 also to the first [covenant]." The logical par- 
 ticle (oJf) connects with the preceding, and 
 implies that to the First Covenant, though 
 now antiquated and abrogated, we are still to 
 look for instruction regarding the nature of 
 the Second. Though but a copy, it resembled 
 the original : though but a shadow, it repre- 
 sented the substance. The relation of the 
 particle (/xfV, which, as always, looks forward, 
 tlxe iJiiv, possessed, indeed) is a little difficult. 
 It is not quite easy to decide whether it has its 
 correlation in the particle in ver. 6 (fie, prop- 
 erly "but" or "and," not "now") orof ver. 11. 
 The general thought seems to demand the 
 latter, and when the author commenced the 
 chapter the contrast in his mind was appar- 
 ently not between the more worldly aiifl non- 
 essential, and the more spiritual, elements in 
 this Covenant, but between its arrangements 
 and those of the New. But as he advances, this 
 
 contrast between the more and less material 
 features of the old tabernacle come more dis- 
 tinctly into view, making a sort of double 
 antithesis, partly between the structure and 
 the priestly services of the old tabernacle, and 
 partly and still more between these latter and 
 those of the New. Thus, with Delitzsch, I 
 incline to regard the former particle (/acV) as 
 having a double correlation both with ver. 6 
 and 11, rather than with either separately. 
 That originally in the author's mind, however, 
 I think was with ver. 11. Had (elxe^) not in 
 contrast to the present actual non-existence of 
 the Old Covenant tabernacle and services 
 (because although the ancient tabernacle did 
 not exist, the temple worship which succeeded 
 to it, did), but to the fact that the Old Cove- 
 nant itself has become really antiquated and 
 superseded, and has but a tolerated, not a 
 legitimate existence. Ordinances of divine 
 (j>riestly) service and its sanctuary of {be- 
 longing to) this world. The Common Version, 
 'a worldly sanctuary,' gives the general idea 
 of the latter clause, but not the more precise 
 shade of the original, in which ' worldly ' ap- 
 pears either as an after-thought, 'and had its 
 sanctuary, namely, or although, a worldly 
 one;'' or simply as predicate; 'and had its sanc- 
 tuary belonging to the world ; namely, the 
 sanctuary which it had belonged to the world.' 
 It contrasts the sanctuary of the Old Cove- 
 nant, the material Mosaic tabernacle, with its 
 heavenly counterpart in which Christ minis- 
 ters. The sanctuary is described immediately 
 after, and the ordinances of priestly service 
 in a very general way, so far as is necessary 
 for the writer's purpose, in verses 6, 7. 
 
 2. For there was a tabernacle made 
 {prepared) — constructed, fitted out, arranged. 
 'Tabernacle' is here used to denote the 
 whole structure embracing two subordinate 
 taberriacles. The *name, when used abso- 
 lutely however, denotes the whole, without 
 regard to its divisions. The first — 'the 
 first,' locally, to one entering, in distinc- 
 
106 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 3 And after the second vail, the tabernacle which is 
 called the holiest of all; 
 
 4 Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the 
 covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was 
 the golden pot that bad manna, and Aaron's rod that 
 budded, and the tables of the covenant ; 
 
 3 And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is 
 
 4 called the Holy of holies ; having a golden i altar of 
 incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round 
 aboui with gi-ld, wherein '^wus a golden pot holding 
 the manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the 
 
 tion from the Holy of Holies. They were 
 strictly two parts of the tabernacle — where- 
 in was (^aiike, re) the candlestick (the 
 candelabrum, bearing with its six arms, in- 
 cluding the shaft, seven candelabra, Exod. 
 25 : 31-39; 37 : 17-24)— and the table (of 
 acacia wood, overlaid with pure gold, Exod. 
 25 : 23-30) and the shewbread {setting forth 
 of the Loaves) — doubtless not the mere usage of 
 exhibiting the bread, but the bread actually 
 exhibited, as the author is speaking of concrete 
 objects. (Alford, Delitzsch.) Which [first 
 tiihemacle] is called the sanctuary — that is, 
 Holy [things.] i 
 
 3. And after {behind) the second vail (one 
 vail hungin frontof the door of the tabernacle, 
 Exod. 26 : 36, 87), the tabernacle which is 
 called the holiest of all, the Holy of Holies 
 — a Hebraistic periphrasis for a superlative, 
 equivalent to the all holy, the holiest. Our 
 author, however, generally for brevity desig- 
 nates this inner sanctury simply as 'the holy,' 
 'the sanctuary ' (ayta). 
 
 4. Which had) etc. {having a golden altar 
 of incense), or, golden censer — for both these 
 meanings are given to the word (Su/aiaTijpioi'), 
 and it is difficult to decide between them.^ 
 There is no golden censer mentioned in the 
 Law. only a shallow, brazen basin (called in 
 theSeptuagintn-upeioc, notdv/jnarqpiov), employed 
 by the high priest on the day of atonement, fbr 
 taking incense from the altar. Later, how- 
 ever, we learn from the Mischna that a golden 
 censer was employed on this day, and much 
 importance is attached to it. Still it could 
 hardly have been kept in the Holy of Holies, 
 (as certainly the wvpelov was not), and, therefore, 
 it could be but in a loose sense said to belong 
 to it. But on the other hand, neither was the 
 altar of incense in the Holy of Holies, but was 
 one of the prominent objects of the first taber- 
 nacle, and this, therefore, it at first would 
 
 hardly seem could be intended, unless we at- 
 tribute (with many) to the author an ignorance 
 of the arrangements of the sanctuary wholly 
 incredible under the circumstances. Neither, 
 then, of the two could the inner sanctuary be 
 said to 'have,' in the sense of actually con- 
 taining it. But either of them it might be said 
 to have, in that both sustained an important 
 relation to it. The censer was actually used 
 to carry incense into it : the altar was to stand 
 in front of the ark of the covenant (which 
 was behind the vail), between the candlestick 
 and the table, was sprinkled with blood on 
 the day of atonement, as well as the mercy 
 seat, and thus stands in a peculiar relation to 
 the inner sanctuary. So also it is assigned 
 (i Kings 6: 22) to the Holy of Holies {''The 
 altar that was by the oracle"), a passage 
 which Keil and Delitzsch regard as explain- 
 ing our passage and explained by it. Add to 
 this that an article of so much importance 
 would hardly be omitted in the enumeration 
 of the leading objects in the sanctuary, while 
 in the general rhetorical statement of the 
 author the local relation is of much less im- 
 portance than the moral, and we can hardly 
 doubt that the 'altar of incense' and not the 
 'censer' is the object here spoken of. (For a 
 fuller discussion the reader is referred to 
 Bleek, Delitzsch, Alford, Moll, Farrar.) And 
 the ark of the covenant (Exod. 25 : 10, seq.; 
 37: 1, seq.) overlaid round about, covered 
 round on all sides, (within and without) 
 with gold. A chest of acacia wood, con- 
 tained not only in the inner sanctuary of the 
 tabernacle, but also of the temple of Solomon, 
 from which it disappeared when the temple 
 was sacked by the Chaldeans. In 2 Mace. 2: 
 1-8, the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar 
 of incense are classed together. Wherein 
 (that is, in the ark) was the (a) golden 
 pot having the manna. (Exod. i6: 32-36.) The 
 
 1 The adjective is not ayia feminine agreeing with 
 a-Krivrj, but otyia neuter plural, holy things, something 
 holy. 
 
 2 The form dva-iaarripioi', with or without additions, 
 is indeed used in the Septuagiut for the incense altar, 
 
 but on the' other hand, flvjitiaT^pioi' became common in 
 later Hellenistic writers, and is found in Philo, Jo- 
 sephus, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, etc., and might, 
 therefore, well be so used by our author. 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 107 
 
 5 And over it the cherubim of glory shadowing the 
 mercy scat ; of which wc cannot now speak particularly. 
 
 6 Mow when these thiugs were tlius oidaiued, the 
 priests went always into the lirst tabernacle, accomplish- 
 ing the service oj God. 
 
 5 tables of the covenant ; and above it cherubim of 
 glory overshadowing 'the luercy-seat; of wliicb 
 
 6 things we cannot now speak severally. Now these 
 things having been thus prepared, tlie priests go iu 
 continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing 
 
 1 Gr. the propitiatory. 
 
 'golden' is not in the Hebrew, but is added 
 by the Septuagint. It is also not expressly 
 stated in Exodus that it was to be placed 
 in the ark, but laid up 'before the Lord' 
 from which the other was inferred, and was so 
 understood by the Kabbins. The statement 
 
 (l King38:9; 2Chrou.6: 10) that nothing WaS fouud 
 
 in the ark in the temple but the tables of the 
 covenant, proves nothing in regard to the 
 original contents of the ark under Moses, un- 
 less indeed, that something else \i&?, expected io 
 be found there, and in so far it is confirmatory 
 of our passage. And Aaron's rod that 
 XniAAeA {blossomed). (Num. u: i-n.) This was 
 to be laid up "before the testimony," that is, 
 before the tables of the covenant (E.vod. 3i: is), 
 whence the natural inference that it was in 
 the ark. And the tables of the covenant 
 — the tables of stone which contained the Ten 
 Commandments (Exod.25:i6) were to be placed 
 in the ark, which, from its containing them, 
 was called the ark of the covenant. 
 
 5. And over (above) it — on the massive 
 golden cover of the ark — the cherubim of 
 glory, the symbolical fourfold animal forms, 
 at its two extremities, facing each other, and 
 looking down upon the cover which they 
 overshadowed with their outspread wings. 
 They were called "cherubim of glory," not 
 so much probably on account of their own 
 glorious and shining forms, wrought of fine 
 gold, as because they ministered to the glo- 
 rious Being who was "enthroned between 
 
 tlie cherubim." (l Sam. 4: 4; Ps. 99: l; Isa. 66: l.) 
 
 Shadowing the mercy seat. Shadowing 
 with their wings the massive covering of the 
 ark, which covering, interposed, as it were, 
 between the glory of God above and the 
 tables of the covenant below, when sprinkled 
 over with the blood of the propitiatory sacri- 
 fice, was transformed from a cover for that 
 law which worketh the wrath of God into a 
 symbol of propitiation, a mercy seat, and 
 thus, as the divine footstool, became the place 
 where the God of the covenant could and did 
 hold converse with the people of the cove- 
 nant. (Kxod. '25: 22; Lev. 16:2.) Of (concerning) 
 which things (not the cherubim merely, but 
 
 all the objects connected with the sanctuary) 
 we cannot now speak particularly [sever- 
 ally). This general notice of tljeni answered 
 the writer's purpose. But why has he spoken 
 of these details, which have no essential rela- 
 tion to the argument? We may answer that 
 in describing the interior of the tabernacle it 
 was natural to mention briefly its ciiief objects 
 of interest; but the especial purpose of tlie 
 mention probably was — by showing with what 
 objects of sacred interest the earthly taber- 
 nacle was furnished, and thus with what dig- 
 nity invested — to enhance the glory which 
 must invest the upper and true, the 'greater 
 and more perfect' tabernacle. 
 
 {g^ Now in the outer sanctuary the priests 
 performed constant ministrations, but into this 
 innersanctuary the high priest wentalone once 
 a year, 7iot without blood— he carried in there 
 the blood of slaughtered victims, symbolically, 
 though not really expiatory "of sin. (6-10.) 
 
 6. Now when these, etc., and these things 
 having been thus arranged, into the first tab- 
 ernacle, indeed, the priests continually enter 
 acconijylishing the services. Of what time is 
 the author speaking? Of the time now actu- 
 ally present to himself and his readers, and of 
 the temple worship now actually existing; or 
 does he refer to the origin of the Levitical in- 
 stitutions, and to the state of things connected 
 with the tabernacle itself? It seems to me 
 most clearly the latter. I do not see how we 
 can escape from the obvious, and indeed 
 express, import of the language of this passage, 
 '"These things having been thus arranged, 
 into the first tabernacle, indeed, the priests 
 continually enter." It represents the one as 
 immediately and naturally following upon the 
 other, and the reference of the whole to the 
 tabernacle worship is unmistakably clear. 
 Nor can anything be more natural than that 
 the author in describing the arrangements of 
 the Old Covenant worship should go back to 
 the primitive forms of the institution, and 
 exhibit them as they originally came fresh 
 from the prescription of .lehovah. Nor is tliis 
 throwing back of himself into the pa.«t in the 
 slightest degree uncommon or unnatural. It 
 
108 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 7 But into the second went the high priest alone once | 7 the services ; 
 
 but into the second the high priest 
 
 is one of the most frequent of figures, and is 
 nowhere more appropriate than precisely in 
 the present case. I do not, then, I confess, see 
 how able commentators (as Liinemann, 
 Delitzsch, Alford) can suppose that the author 
 is here speaking chronologically of the temple 
 service as actually existing in his own time: 
 how he can be supposed to have passed with so 
 abrupt a bound, from his elaborate description 
 of the Mosaic tabernacle, and that too with 
 such a phrase as, "And these things having 
 been thus arranged," to the temple worship of 
 his own day. And this the more from the 
 fact that the temple worship of his day, if ex- 
 isting at all (as we suppose it was), existed 
 illegitimately. The True Priest had come and 
 displaced the old. The true sacrifice had 
 been offered, and nullified the oflSce of the old 
 sacrifices. Christ had already entered into the 
 true tabernacle, had rent at his death the vail 
 which separates the outer from the inner 
 sanctuary, and had abolished forever that 
 state of things which that vail and that taber- 
 nacle typified. •To suppose then that the 
 author has reference chronologically to the 
 time now existing to himself and his readers, 
 is to throw the whole passage into inextricable 
 confusion. For nothing can be clearer than 
 that he is describing the normal state of things 
 under the Old Covenant, and the old priest- 
 hood. He is showing its significance and its 
 imperfections. He is showing that it symbol- 
 ized a state of things which was to be done 
 away by the sacrifice and Priest of the New 
 Covenant. But that sacrifice has now been 
 t)ffered : that Priest has now taken his place in 
 the heavenly sanctuary ; the rites of Judaism 
 have but a waning, doubtful, and illegitimate 
 existence. According to the interpretation 
 which I am opposing, the Holy Spirit has not 
 (ver. 8) even yet in the time of the author, 
 shown the way into the Holiest of All, which, 
 however, most assuredly was made manifest 
 with the death and resurrection of Jesus. 
 Verses 9, 10, also clearly point to a normal, 
 established condition of things before the com- 
 ing of Christ, and one which was to be done 
 away by his coming. The whole passage, there- 
 fore, from ver. 1 to ver. 10 must, it seems to 
 me, be interpreted of the tabernacle worship as 
 originally ordained by God, and instituted by 
 
 Moses; simply because the author chooses to 
 take Judaism in its original and purest form ; 
 and to him the subsequent transfer of the ser- 
 vice of the tabernacle to the temple is a thing 
 of no moment. He is not dealing with the 
 successive, chronological stages of Judaism ; 
 he simply takes it in its primitive, normal, 
 character. To charge him with ignorance of 
 the transfer of the tabernacle to the temple 
 service, as Bleek and others have done ; or 
 with ignorance of the actual state of things, as 
 not knowing that the original contents of the 
 ark did not exist in the later temple, is simply 
 to misconceive utterly his point of view, and 
 then make the ignorance of the interpreter the 
 ground for an imputation of ignorance on the 
 author. For this oft-repeated charge against 
 the author of ignorance regarding the arrange- 
 ments of the temple at Jerusalem, there is not 
 in this passage, carefully examined, the 
 shadow of a ground. He has made no ap- 
 proach to an intimation that the actual taber- 
 nacle service existed in his own day, and far 
 less, that the original contents of the tabernacle 
 were still existing either in tabernacle or 
 temple. By a natural and beautiful figure he 
 transports himself back into the past, sketches 
 in a few strong lines the ancient tabernacle in 
 its material splendor, then in its priestly ser- 
 vices, then (9, 10) in its symbolical significance ; 
 and not one word, not a liint, regarding the 
 temple of Jerusalem, as of course every Jew 
 would know precisely what outward but non- 
 essential modifications that original tabernacle 
 service had undergone. I would add, finally, 
 that in treating the present liere as simply the 
 historicrr I present, I concur with Chrj'sostom, 
 Theophylact, Stein, Bengel, and others. 
 
 7. But into the second [tabernacle], once 
 in the year, alone, enters the high priest. The 
 lovers of fault-finding have here again 
 charged error upon the author, because in 
 fact, on the great day of atonement, the high 
 priest entered the inner sanctuary at least 
 twice, according to Lev. 16 : 12-16, and accord- 
 ing to Philo; and four times, according to the 
 Talmud and the Rabbins. It would seem an 
 obvious suggestion that the mind of the writer 
 is on the fact that but on a single day nnd 
 single occasion in the year did any one, and 
 then only the high priest, enter this interior 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 109 
 
 every year, not without blood, which he offered for him- 
 self, and /or the errors of ihe people: 
 
 8 The Holy (ilio.st this signifying, that the way into 
 the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as 
 the first tabernacle was yet standing: 
 
 alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he 
 
 offereth for himstll', and for the • errors of the peo- 
 
 8 pie: the Jloly .spirit this signifying, that the way 
 
 into the holy place hath not ytt been made manifest, 
 
 1 Or. ignorancf. 
 
 tabernacle, and whether at this single time he 
 might have occasion to go in and out once, 
 twice, or four times was wholly immaterial to 
 the purpose, and substantial accuracy, of the 
 statement. Its spirit is fulfilled in the fact 
 that his entrance into it was confined to that 
 single daj'. The outer tabernacle was fre- 
 quented by all the priests in their daily min- 
 istrations : the inner was entered only on one 
 day of the year, and then by the high priest 
 alone. Not without blood which he offered 
 for (on behalf of) himself and for the 
 errors {offences) of the people. The author 
 hero nearly reaches the point toward which, 
 from 8 : 3, he has been steadily tending. He 
 there undertook to show what our great High 
 Priest in the true tabernacle which the Lord 
 pitched and not man, must offer. For this pur- 
 pose he has looked back to the function of his 
 earthly type, and finds that the high priest 
 entered the symbolical presence of God in the 
 Mosiiic tabernacle 'not ivithout blood'; the 
 offering of the heavenly High Priest, he pro- 
 ceeds presently to state, must be blood also. He 
 is speaking not of the previous sacrifice, but of 
 the bringing of the blood of the sacrifice into 
 the Most Holy Place before God. The blood 
 of the slaughtered victims was brought in, 
 and sprinkled once upward, and seven times 
 downward toward the mercy seat, and over 
 the altar of incense, and was poured out on 
 tlie altar of burnt offering. The importance 
 attached to the entering with blood, is shown 
 by the emphatic form of the statement, 'not 
 without blood,' instead of the direct affirma- 
 tion, with blood. Before proceeding to his 
 deduction regarding the nature of Christ's 
 offering, the author yet pauses to dwell a 
 moment on the symbolical significance of this 
 exclusion of all but the high priest, and of 
 liim at all ordinary times from the inner 
 sanctuary. 
 
 8. The Holy Ghost, etc., the Holy Spirit 
 showing this — by this rare and solitary en- 
 trance — that the way into the sanctuary ; not 
 (as Alford) the way into the heavenly sanctu- 
 ary, which would make a confusion of the 
 figure; but the way into the presence of God 
 
 which this earthly sanctuary substantially 
 denotes. It is clear that so long as only the 
 high priest, and he only at distant intervals, 
 can enter the sanctuary, so long the way into 
 the sanctuary has not as yet been strictly laid 
 open; it remains substantially hidden and 
 closed — hath not yet been made manifest, 
 while the first tabernacle is yet existing. 
 Bengel, Stuart, and some others, regard 'the 
 first tabernacle' here as the earlier, or Jewish 
 tabernacle, in contradistinction from the later 
 or true tabernacle into which Christ has 
 entered ; but without doubt, erroneously. In 
 the first place, the author would not without 
 a good reason depart from his previous use 
 of 'the first' verses 2, 6, in both of which it 
 denotes the first in locality, that which was 
 first entered, the outer tabernacle. Secondly, 
 according to his conception of the relation of 
 the Mosaic and the heavenly tabernacle, he 
 would not have called the former the first, it 
 being, in his figurative language, but a copy 
 of the archetypal, original heavenly taber- 
 nacle, and therefore not the first, but the 
 second. Thirdly, the idea is equally well 
 brought out by giving to ' the first tabernacle' 
 its previous signification. It is indeed true, 
 that the way into the real presence of God, 
 the heavenly sanctuary, was not made mani- 
 fest, and was not to be made manifest while 
 the Jewish tabernacle and its successor, the 
 temple, yet had continuance. For so long as 
 they existed, they existed as a part and a 
 centre of that Judaistic sj'stem which was but 
 the shadow of the good things to come. But, 
 on the other hand, the idea is equally well, and 
 even more forcibly expressed by referring the 
 "first tabernacle" to the first part of the 
 Jewish tabernacle, in distinction from the 
 second. For what made that ./Jr-s^ tabernacle? 
 What made the distinction of first and second 
 tabernacles at all? It was the vail hanging 
 between them, and shutting out the first from 
 the symbolical presence of God. So long as 
 that vail hung there that first tabernacle re- 
 mained. When the vail was rent at the death 
 of Christ (the vail of the temple answering to 
 the vail of the tabernacle), the distinction was 
 
110 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Cn. IX. 
 
 9 Which was a, figure for the time then present, in | 9 while as the first tabernacle is yet standing; which. 
 
 done uway, the outer tabernacle was no more ; 
 the presence of God was equally unvailed to 
 all worshipers. Finally, the ascribing of 
 these arrangements, or rather of the revela- 
 tion made by them, to the Holy Spi7nt, is in 
 accordance with the fact that he is the recog- 
 nized Author and Source of all proper spiritual 
 teachings. Not that the Holy Spirit in dis- 
 tinction from the other persons in tlie Trinity 
 was the Author of the Mosaic institutions, but 
 that the disclosure of truth made in them, as 
 in all other revelations of Scripture, is properly 
 to be attributed to the Holy Spirit. Grod 
 creates and governs, and God prescribed the 
 arrangements of the Mosaic tabernacle ; Christ 
 atones, mediates, and when on earth, like the 
 prophets, outwardly taught; but to unvail 
 truth to the understanding, and write it on the 
 heart, is tlie province of the Holy Spirit, and 
 as he alone gave efficacy to the instructions of 
 Jesus, so he was the proper Interpreter of the 
 significance of the Mosaic institutions. 
 
 9. Which — the first or outer tabernacle : for 
 to this, or the leading previous idea, is the 
 more natural reference — is a figure (or para- 
 ble, jrapa/SoAr}, a laying along side of, a com- 
 parison, a resemblance; here a symbolical 
 representation) for the time now present (or 
 the now existing period) — that is, the period 
 during which the outer tabernacle remains 
 with its imperfect ritual, indicating that the 
 way into the Holy of Holies has not yet been 
 disclosed. The time called the 'existing' or 
 ' present' time, is the same as in the remainder 
 of the passage, and is not the time now present 
 to the writer, but the time into which he has 
 in thought transfiorted himself; namely, the 
 time of the Old Covenant, and of the tab- 
 ernacle and temple worship. To take any 
 other view of it is hopelessly to confuse the 
 passage. To refer it to the actual existing 
 time of the writer is wholly inconsistent with 
 the facts of the case ; for now the time of that 
 symbolical service has passed away; the 
 'time of rectification' has actually come, and 
 
 the tabernacle and temple service has lost its 
 validity and its significance. Assuredly the 
 author would not use such language as he 
 employs here in verses 8, 9, 10, regarding the 
 mere dying remains of the temple service, 
 which dragged out a tolerated and illegiti- 
 mate existence until broken up by the final 
 overthrow of the Jewish city and temple. 
 He clearly has reference to Judaism as a 
 normal, divinely instituted, divinely per- 
 petuated system : to Judaism in all its original 
 and proper force and significance : to Judaism 
 in contrast with that sj'stem which came in 
 with the death and resurrection of Christ, 
 that fulfilled and set aside its shadowy sym- 
 bolical predecessor. The author lived in the 
 'time of rectification,' and we cannot con- 
 found this with the 'existing time' in which 
 this merely symbolical and carnal system 
 had sway, without violating every law of 
 interpretation. It may indeed well be that 
 the long existence through centuries of that 
 old Mosaic ritual; that its actual existence, 
 though in a dying state, in the time of the 
 author himself — may have rendered more easy 
 and natural the figure by which he repre- 
 sents the past as if it were present ; but if 
 so, he certainly has no special and primary 
 reference to the present time, but is distinctly 
 contrasting a system which belongs properly 
 to the past, which had been already virtually 
 and substantially displaced, with another 
 system, which since the coming of Christ, or 
 at least since his ascension to the throne and 
 presence of God, has been fully inaugurated, 
 and is now in full activity. The "now exist- 
 ing period," then, is not the actual, but the 
 ideal now, the period into which the author 
 has ideally transported himself, in which 
 the Old Covenant wjth its symbolical sacri- 
 fices and priesthood has yet unbroken sway, 
 and the outer tabernacle with its unremoved 
 vail yet symbolizes the separation of man 
 from God, which can be removed only in 
 Christ.* One remark further. The signifi- 
 
 ilt will be seen that with this interpretation, I can 
 attach little or no value to this passage as indicating 
 the time of the composition of the Epistle, whether 
 before or after the destruction of Jerusalem. I grant, 
 indeed, that the passage may more probably have 
 been written while the old Levitical worship had 
 
 yet a nominal continuance, though I concede even as 
 much as that with hesitation, for I certainly see no 
 reason of weight why the whole passage may not have 
 been written after the entire temple service had passed 
 away, and this all the more as the special form of the 
 Old Covenant service upon which the author dwells, 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 which were offoreil both gifts and sacrifices, that could 
 not make hiiu that did the service perfect, as pertain- 
 ing to the conscience; 
 
 10 Which slooil only in meats and drinks, and divers 
 washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on Cheni until 
 the time of reformation. 
 
 i.i a figure for the time present; according to which 
 are ottered both gifts and sacrifices tliai cannot, ad 
 touciiiug the conscience, make the worshipper per- 
 10 feet, beiny only (with meats and drinks and divers 
 washings) carnal ordinances, imimsed until a lime 
 of reformation. 
 
 calce assigned liere to the outer tabernacle, 
 seems etitirely warranted by the fact. There 
 was no more expressive fetiture of the Old 
 Covenant arrangements than tliat awful vail, 
 which perpetually symbolized an oflended, 
 unappeased, and distant God; none more cal- 
 culated to keep up in the bosoms of the wor- 
 shipers the sense of their need of a more 
 efficacious sacrifice than they could bring, 
 and of a higher priesthood than that which 
 was itself almost utterly excluded from the 
 presence of God, and which could not bring the 
 people near at all. The rending of that vail, 
 the virtual demolition of the outer sanctuary, 
 is also the one grand accompaniment of the 
 crucifixion. The darkness, the earthquake, 
 the material phenomena, which attended that 
 event are lost in that opening of graves which 
 pointed to the resurrection, and still more in 
 that rending of the vail, which showed that a 
 way was now opened by which men could 
 droio near to God. In which, etc. According 
 to which [similihide] (Kae'riu), or at which time 
 (Ka0' ov) • for eitlier reading mtikes good sense, 
 although with Liinemann, Delitzsch, etc., I 
 prefer the former. Were (are) offered both 
 gifts and sacrifices, that cannot, as touch- 
 ing the conscience, make him who performs 
 the service perfect. By 'him who performs 
 the service' is here meant, not the priest, but 
 him who from the people renders service 
 through the priests. This clause explains 
 how it is that the outer tabernacle is a symbol 
 for its period — (7i symboL not of its period, 
 though this would be true enough, and not, 
 perhaps, an impossible interprettition, but a 
 symbol for the existing time) — of the state 
 of things as between God and the worshipers 
 — a symbol of that exclusion frotn God which 
 must necessarily exist when there were no 
 sacrifices that could truly atone for sin ; none 
 that were able to perfect in the conscience 
 
 him who served, and thus enable or embolden 
 him to dniw near to God. Under that state 
 of things man dared not approach to God; 
 j would not do so until the throne of justice 
 had really been sprinkled over witii appeasing 
 blood. Of the inefficiency of these sacrifices 
 this outer ttibernitcle was a standing symbol. 
 10. Which stood, etc., [couditioned^] mere- 
 ly on meats, and driiiks, and various bathings, 
 fleshly ordinances imjiosed I'.ntil the season of 
 rectification. With this construction ' meats, 
 drinks,' etc., express the conditions under 
 which those ' gifts and sacrifices' are offered, 
 denoting the whole round of ceremonial puri- 
 fications and ritual prescription;,, partly such 
 as are enjoined by the law, and partly (espe- 
 cially in the case of drinks, as well as many of 
 the ceremonies of bathing and cleansing. See 
 Matt. 23 : 24 ; Kom. 14 : 21 ; Acts 15 : 10, 28) 
 such as had sprung up and been established by 
 traditionary usage. There is thus no necessity 
 (with Bleek and De Wette) to suppose a refer- 
 ence to the Pas.sover, or to the feasts after the 
 tliank offerings, which would be quite in- 
 sufficient for the breadth of the writer's illus- 
 tnition. Carnal ovAinnnces— ordinances of 
 flesh, then (literally equivalent to /f^'-sA/y ordi- 
 nances), refer back as an apposition to the 
 'gifts and sacrifices,' which, enveloped in 
 ritualistic observances, and having large ref- 
 erence to outward things as eating, drinks, 
 bathings, etc., might be denominated 'fleshly', 
 and were 'imposed' on the people until the time 
 of revision and rectification. Imposed on (eVi- 
 (cei>ei/a), lying upon, laid upon, and thus pressing 
 heavily on the people, is a word probably pur- 
 posely selected, answering to Acts 15 : 10, the 
 laying upon (en-iSei'i'ot) the necks of the disciples 
 a yoke, etc. These observances were btirden- 
 some in their variety and frequent repetition, 
 and still more in their utter impotence to 
 cleanse r.nd purify the spirit. 'The time of 
 
 that of the tabernacle, had long since passed away, of 
 which fact to assume the writer to be ignorant, would 
 be to stultify ourselves. I admit, indeed, that there 
 are elsewhere in the Epistle indications sufficient to 
 warrant the opinion that city and temple were yet 
 standing, although they are not perhaps very decisive. 
 
 ' I have adopted the reading Sixattunafa instead of 
 StKaiioixaiTi (with De Wette, Liinemann, Delitzsch, A 1- 
 ford, etc.). To ini I give the signification, ' on condition 
 of,' 'conditioned on' (a familiar use of «iri with the 
 dative). 
 
112 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 rectification,' of correction and setting to rights, 
 the Messianic season, the time when the one 
 true sacrifice sweeps away all these numerous 
 sacrifices and the whole burdensome cere- 
 monial in which they are imbedded; — that 
 time begins with the coming, at least with the 
 sacrifice and priesthood, of Christ. Then these 
 observances, these sacrifices, along with the 
 first or outer tabernacle with which they stand 
 connected, and which in its expressive import 
 declares their impotence, are swept away to- 
 gether. The rending of the vail has merged 
 the first tabernacle in the second, and under 
 the conduct of the great High Priest, opened 
 to all the worshipers the way to the presence 
 of God. Of course, I reject wholly the idea of 
 Delitzsch, Alford, etc., that this time of revi- 
 sion and thorough setting to rights is identi- 
 cal with the' existing season' (xaipb^ ivetjTJiKiot) 
 above. I regard the two as placed in direct 
 contrast. The one is the time present to the 
 conception of the writer, the time of the Old 
 Covenant and the material tabernacle, when 
 symbol, and shadow, and fleshly ordinances 
 had sway : the other is the now existing time, 
 the time described in the verses following since 
 Christ has appeared, the efiicient Priest of 
 good things to come, rending the vail, opening 
 the way to God, substituting the heavenly 
 for the earthly tabernacle, and his own blood 
 in priestly sacrifice and oft'ering for that of 
 goats and heifers. Whatever else in the Chris- 
 tian's hope may be future, this is not. It has 
 actually come. As an ideal sj'stem it has 
 ci>me completely in the sacrifice and media- 
 tion of Christ. To confound it, then, with that 
 previous time of sj'mbols and shadows is to 
 overturn the whole doctrine of the Epistle, 
 and all this because we fail to recognize the 
 natural and familiar figure of the historical 
 present for the past in verses 1-10, a figure to 
 which his reference to the tabernacle worship 
 absolutely forces us. I will say once more it 
 seems to me inconceivable, that, if the writer 
 were referring in all this to the actual present 
 time, he would have made no single allusion 
 to the temple; none whatever to the disap- 
 pearance of so many of the objects which, 
 although in the tabernacle, were some of them 
 never in the first, and still fewer of them ever 
 in the second temple. The minuteness with 
 which be describes the Mosaic tabernacle and 
 its arrangements ; the close connection to which 
 his language points between those arrange- 
 
 ments and the consequent priestly service 
 ('these things having been thus arranged, the 
 priests enter,' etc. — show that he is speaking of 
 the Levitical service in its normal character, 
 as legitimated by divine appointment and 
 sanction, not as dragging out a miserable ex- 
 istence after being smitten down and substan- 
 tially done away in Christ. On the common 
 hypothesis it is difficult to see how we can de- 
 fend the author from those charges of careless- 
 ness orof ignorance which (be he who hemight 
 have been, Paul, Apollos, Barnabas, Luke, 
 Clement,) are antecedently, utterly improba- 
 ble, and which when we adopt the right inter- 
 pretation, recoil upon those that made them. 
 
 {h) We see, then, what is demanded of our 
 High Priest. It\s blood. And as his is the true, 
 and not the symbolical priesthood, as he is in 
 the genuine, and not the copied sanctuary, he 
 must oifer blood that is really, and not symboli- 
 cally, cleansing. He brings Ais own. (11-14.) 
 
 The author reaches now the solution of the 
 problem proposed in 8:3; namely, to deter- 
 mine what it is that our heavenly High Priest 
 has to offer. In the outer earthly sanctuary 
 the priests minister daily with various offerings: 
 into the second sanctuary the high priest goes 
 alone once a year, and not without blood; this 
 jealous exclusion showing that the way into 
 the All-holy has not yet been disclosed; but 
 this condition of the rare and solitary entrance 
 showing how, when it is disclosed, access is to 
 be secured ; namely, by blood : by blood which 
 will perform, really and effectually, what the 
 blood of animals performs symbolically. With 
 this comes the crown and consummation of 
 the argument. All, from this point on to 
 10 : 18 (the close of the argumentative part of 
 the Epistle) is in illustration of this one thought, 
 as all from 8 : 1 (where the discussion of the 
 high priesthood commences) is preparatory to 
 it. Thus two grand ideas, Christ a Melchise- 
 dec Priest, holding a royal and perpetual 
 priesthood, and Christ an Aaronic High Priest, 
 bringing his efficacious blood into the heavenly 
 sanctuary ; these are the two grand points on 
 which the doctrinal discussion of the Epistle 
 turns. Without the priesthood which, after 
 the type of Melchisedec, is constituted 'after 
 the power of an indestructible life,' the high 
 priesthood would be unavailing : without the 
 ii'oorftypified in the Levitical sacrifice, the Mel- 
 chisedec priesthood, though majestic, would 
 be barren. The two united give us a High 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 113 
 
 11 But Christ being come a high priest of good things j 11 But Christ having conid a liigh priest of ' the good 
 to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernaile, nut things to cunie, through the gruater and more per- 
 
 made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; feet tabernacle, not made wiih hands, that is to say. 
 
 I 12 not of this creation, nor yet through the blood ol 
 
 1 Some kiicieat autliorLies read the good tHingt that are come. 
 
 Priest answering all our needs, able to com- 
 mence and carry to perfection our spiritual 
 cleansing and salvation— able to bring a guilty 
 soul, ransomed and purified, into the presence 
 of God. 
 
 11. But Christ being come {presenting 
 himself) equivalent to, being raised up, ap- 
 pearing on the theatre of the world, not, prob- 
 ably, ' presenting himself at the heavenly 
 sanctuary,' and certainly not ' becoming 
 High Priest.' ' It is placed, says Delitzsch, 
 emphatically first, as marking, in his coming, 
 the goal of Old Testament prophecy, the turn- 
 ing point of two periods of sacred history 
 standing related to each other as prophecy and 
 fulfillment. Thus again the reference is not 
 strictly to the incnrnntion of Christ, but to 
 his coming forioard at the close of the Old 
 Economy to inaugurate a New One, and com- 
 ing forward in tiie exercise of all the functions 
 of the High Priest It thus marks his whole 
 collective work as Messiah ; his incarnation, 
 sacrificial death, ascension. A high priest of 
 (the) good things to come. Are the 'good 
 things' of which Christ is the High Priest 
 called 'to come' (/lieAAoi'Ta) from the pointof view 
 of the Old Covenant, or from the present point of 
 view of the believer who as yet is saved only in 
 hope : who awaits his full salvation at Christ's 
 second appearing (9:28), who has here no abiding 
 city but seeks one to come (wdAis /xcAAovo-a 13 : 14) ? 
 It would seem at first more natural to regard the 
 author as speaking of Christ's high priesthood 
 as the fulfillment of the good things which 
 did not yet exist, but were only promised and 
 symbolized under Judaism, and this idea may 
 perhaps be secondarily in his mind. Still the 
 second idea is (with Tholuck, De Wette, Liine- 
 mann, Delitzsch, etc.,) doubtless the true one. 
 They are the good things future from the New 
 Testament point of view. The Mosaic tiiber- 
 iiacle had its sanctuary', belongiyig to the world 
 ((coo-MKoc) : the system of which it was the centre 
 consisted of meats, and drinks, and carnal ordi- 
 nances, earthly, temporal, and transient. But 
 the Christian's High Priest is a High Priest of 
 good things to come, of a future, spiritual sal- 
 
 vation, of iieavenly blessings as yet possessed 
 but in hope. A I ford tiierefore errs in alleg- 
 ing that the clause ' high priest of good things 
 to come,' describes a quality common both to 
 the Jewish high priest and to Christ; only 
 that the import of the phrase was much 
 scantier in the one case, and much fuller in 
 the other. In a certain sense, of course, such 
 a statement might be made. The seeds of the 
 New Dispensation were in the Old. But it 
 would reverse all the author's habits of con- 
 ception and language to designate a Jewish 
 high priest along with Christ, "a high priest 
 of good things to come." The very phrase 
 which Alford cites disproves it. The law had 
 but the shadoiv of good things to come, and. 
 therefore the priest of the law was but a priest 
 of shadows; he ministered to that tabernacle 
 \.hich was but a copy and shadow of the 
 heavenly. The author is here speaking con- 
 trastively of Christ's higher priesthood, as 
 ministering and bestowing the spiritual bless- 
 ings which were utterly beyond the reach of 
 the Levitical: this could faintly outline ami 
 symbolize them ; but could by no means bestoxy 
 them. Real pardon, complete redemption, 
 nearness and assimilation to God, promised 
 now potentially, but fully only in the future, 
 are the "coming good things of which Christ 
 is High Priest." 
 
 Through a (^Ae) greater and more perfect 
 tabernacle, not made with hands, that is 
 to say, not of this building, c?er7i'io«. We 
 here (as at 8: 2) meet the question : "What is 
 the tabernacle referred to by the author?" Is 
 it the first or outer tabernacle, as distinguished 
 from the inner or Holy of Holies, and if so (as 
 assumed by nearly all commentators), then 
 what did that outer tabernacle represent? 
 Through what did Christ pass, as the greater 
 and more perfect tabernacle, on his way into 
 the heave- ly Holy of Holies? I have already 
 considered the question at some length at 8 : 2, 
 and might to that refer the reader for the ex- 
 clusive discussion. The importance of the 
 topic, however, and the almost unanimous 
 concurrence of interpreters in what seems to 
 
 1 This would require yevd/u.evos instead of irapaytvontviK. 
 
114 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 me a grave error, may justify some additional 
 observations. 
 
 I do not believe (and in this I have the 
 authority of Moll) that the author, either 
 here, or at 8 : 2, or anywhere in his refer- 
 ence to the heavenly sanctuary, makes refer- 
 ence to the first, or outer tabernacle, at all. 
 I do not believe that he conceives of it as 
 having any existence under the Spiritual Dis- 
 pensation. Certainly there is nothing in the 
 language, either at 8: 2 or here, which would 
 lead us to suppose that he refers rather to a 
 part of the tabernacle than to the whole of it. 
 The "greater and more perfect tabernacle, 
 not made with hands," would seem to be con- 
 trasted as a whole, with tlie smaller, imperfect, 
 and material earthly structure. Apart from 
 the fact that Clirist went tlirough it into the 
 sanctuary, none would dream of applying the 
 description to but -Apart, and that confessedly 
 the far inferior part of that tabernacle. Had 
 the expression been indefinite, 'a greater and 
 more perfect,' etc., instead of '■ the greater,' 
 it could be more easily referred to a part of 
 either tabernacle. Again (with Moll), to 
 what purpose the emphatic words, ' through 
 the greater and more perfect tabernacle,' if it 
 referred to but some mere passage way to the 
 heavenly tabernacle, and not to the heavenly 
 tabernacle itself? The application of the 
 terms, 'greater and more perfect,' as applied 
 to the heavenly tabernacle as a whole, in con- 
 trast with the earthly, we can easily under- 
 stand ; out see no reason for this emphasizing 
 pf that which was but a mere passage way to 
 the interior sanctuary. 
 
 . But the case appears still stronger when 
 we ask, " What is this greater and more per- 
 fect outer tabernacle, through which our 
 High Priest passes to the inner?" And we 
 hear the responses of interpreters — "The 
 lower and visible heavens;" "the heaven of 
 glorified saints; " "the earthly life of Christ; " 
 "the human body of Christ;" "his glorified 
 body;" "his mj-stical body," — these are chief 
 among the numerous answers given to this 
 difficult question. But however true it might 
 be, that in some sort of sense either one of 
 these might be the passage way to the 
 heavenly sanctuary, neither of them has the 
 slightest support in the languageof the author ; 
 neither of them is anything better than pure 
 conjecture : and neither, of them (nor can I ex- 
 
 cept that of Delitzsch, 'the heaven of glorified 
 saints') has any support in the significance 
 of the outer earthly tabernacle, or stands in 
 any sort of relation to it. That outer taber- 
 nacle had one single special purpose and im- 
 port. It did not represent the visible heavens, 
 nor the heaven of the blessed, nor the human 
 body, nor the earthly life, nor the glorified 
 body, nor the mystical body of Christ. Its 
 import is expressly given by the author. It 
 was the symbol and likeness for the time then 
 existing, in which conscious sin and guilt, 
 united with a carnal ritual that had no expi- 
 atory and cleansing power, kept men at a 
 distance from God. It was a symbol of imper- 
 fection. It was the grand central feature, the 
 very core, so to speak, of the shadowy Leviti- 
 cal Dispensation. The Holy Ghost signified 
 by solemn and expressive symbol so long as 
 this 'first' or outer tabernacle 'had position,' 
 that the way into the true sanctuary had 
 not yet been disclosed. Its destiny then was 
 obvious. If the way into the Holiest of All 
 was not made manifest while it remained, a 
 condition of the disclosing of that way must be 
 its annihilation. And such was the fact. The 
 high priestly sacrifice of our Lord destroyed it. 
 His death rent the symbolical vail, and merged 
 the outer and inner tabernacle into one. 
 When Christ therefore ascended and entered 
 into the heavenly Holy of Holies, he did not 
 pass through the outer tabernacle, because he 
 could not. It had ceased to exist. His own 
 death had done it away forever, in doing away 
 with that state of things which it symbolized. 
 To refit it, and to place it in the heavens, is to . 
 ignore the cardinal imperfection of the Old, 
 and the vital fact and prerogative of the New 
 Economy. It is to repair and rehang the rent 
 vail of the temple. 
 
 But are we not going directly counter to that 
 statement of the author, in which he declares 
 that the earthly tabernacle was a copy of the 
 heavenly, citing in confirmation the language : 
 "See that thou make all things after the pattern 
 shown to thee in the mount"? In regard to 
 this, I again reply, that the original import of 
 this language can of course have been nothing 
 more than that Moses should exactly copy 
 the model which God had given to him on 
 Sinai. Our author makes a purely figurative 
 application of that passage, as a quasi proof or 
 illustration of his doctrine, that the true arche- 
 
Ch. IX ] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 115 
 
 12 Neither by (he blood of goats and calves, but by 
 his own blood he entered in unce into the holy place, 
 having obtained eternal redemption /o>' us. 
 
 goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered 
 in once for all into the holy place, having obtained 
 
 typal tabernacle is in heaven and not on earth ; 
 that the true high priest is Christ in the 
 heavenly sanctuary, and nut Atiron in the 
 earthly. But that he meant anything more by 
 it; that he meant that there was anything in 
 the heavenly arrangements actually corre- 
 sponding to the outer or even to the inner 
 Uibernacle,— seems wholly void of probabil- 
 ity. I can scarcely conceive that he meant 
 anything more than that Christ has the true 
 divine high priesthood of which the Levitical 
 high priesthood is but the type and copy, and 
 therefore in figurative language it is natural to 
 say that he ministers in the true heavenly 
 tabernacle of which that is the earthly copy 
 and semblance. Thus, 'the true tabernacle 
 which the Lord pitched, and not man,' and 
 'the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not 
 made with hands, that is, not of this creation,' 
 both mean substantially the same thing, and 
 both refer not to the outer tabernacle dis- 
 tinctively, but simply to Christ's spiritual 
 priestly service in the presence of God; they 
 belong to the heavenly Sion, and the heavenly 
 Jerusalem, in comparison with the earthly 
 Sinai, and the earthly Jerusalem. (12:2.!.) 
 The New Testament tabernacle is among 
 the spiritual existences of the New Cove- 
 nant, and it is inconceivable that the two 
 emphatic characterizations of its spiritual and 
 transcendent dignity in our author should 
 have reference, not to the whole tabernacle, or 
 the tabernacle in its noblest features, but only 
 to that part of it which symbolized the imper- 
 fection and powerlessnessof the economy with 
 which it stood connected. 
 
 How, then, explain the construction 'through 
 the greater and more perfect tabernacle en- 
 tered into the sanctuary'? We may con- 
 struct it in either one of twt) ways. We 
 may connect it (with Moll) with the pre- 
 ceding: 'Christ is an high priest (ipxtepev?), 
 through (that is, by means of) the greater and 
 more perfect sanctuary.' This is explained by 
 8: 4, 5, where we are told that if Christ were 
 on earth he could not be a priest, there being 
 a sacerdotal order already to perform the ser- 
 vices of the law; and therefore he could be a 
 priest only as he could minister in the 
 heavenly and archetypal tabernacle, and thus 
 
 could be a priest only through that tabernacle. 
 Or there is no serious difflculty, I think, in 
 taking the through (5t<i) locally, and connect- 
 ing it with the following verb entered (elo-^Aeei/). 
 Regarding the heavenly tabernacle under the 
 figure of an edifice in which is the Holy of 
 Holies, Christ might be said in a general way 
 to enter through that greater and more per- 
 fect tabernacle, that is, to enter through its 
 door, through its entrance, into the sanctuary, 
 and thus the author not mean to affirm 
 anything in that tabernacle corresponding to 
 the outer tabernacle on earth. Of these two 
 constructions, we may add that the former 
 seems favored by ver. 12, "nor through the 
 blood," etc., which it is also quite as natural 
 and perhaps more so, to construct with ' high 
 priest^ (apx'fp«'^s)- 
 
 12. Neither by (and not through) the blood 
 of goats and calves, but, through his own 
 blood. This clause may, as just observed, be 
 constructed (as by Moll) with the preceding 
 'high priest' — a high priest through the greater 
 and more perfect tabernacle, and a high priest 
 not through the blood, etc. — denoting the 
 necessary conditions of Christ's high priest- 
 hood, or it may be connected with the follow- 
 ing verb 'entered' («;<r^9e>'), and denote that 
 through which, or with which, Christ as High 
 Priest entered the heavenly sanctuary. The 
 Levitical high priest entered the earthly one 
 both by means of and with the blood of goats 
 and heifers: Christ entered the heavenly one 
 through, though not strictly with, his f)wn 
 blood. Probably, therefore, the prcjtosition is 
 carefully chosen as one applicable (as vvv with 
 would not have been) both to the entrance of 
 the typical and the antitypical High Priest. 
 The author shrinks from the harshness of 
 saying that Christ entered the presence of God 
 with his own blood, but says through, or by 
 means of it. 
 
 The German commentators, indeed, dis- 
 cuss at length the question of the way in 
 which Christ can be said to have gone into 
 the All-holy Place with or by liis own blood. 
 They inquire whether the blood which he shed 
 on the cross was wasted on the ground, or 
 gathered up, as too precious to be lost, and 
 restored to his body ; or whether those drops 
 
116 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 WTe suffered to sink into the ground in expia- 
 tion of the curse, and the drops remaining in 
 Ilia body were reanimated along with it (so 
 Delitzsch); and whether he accordingly entered 
 heaven with a glorified body which contains 
 blood (Delitzsch), or without blood (Hofniann). 
 To me, I confess, these speculations seem, if 
 not utterly idle and vain, and an almost pre- 
 sumptuous prying into inscrutable mysteries, 
 to have at least no important bearing on the 
 passage before us. I do not see any necessity 
 for supposing that the writer conceives of 
 Christ as entering the heavenly tabernacle 
 with actual blood. This part of the represen- 
 tation (if indeed it is made at all) must be 
 purely figurative. There must be a slaught- 
 ered victim, and in the symbolical Levitical 
 service the blood of this victim is carried into 
 the sanctuary, and sprinkled toward the mercy 
 seat, and poured out on the altar of burnt 
 offering. This is a vivid reminder of the 
 necessity of blood — that is, of the necessity of 
 death, of a life rendered up in expiation of the 
 sins of men. But is not all its essential signifi- 
 cance realized when Christ pours out his life 
 on the cross, and then ascends to appear in the 
 presence of God for us? Does not the merely 
 formal similitude end here? Was there anj' 
 virtue in this blood carried into the sanctuary', 
 except as it stood connected with the atoning 
 death? And has not Christ performed all 
 that it signified when he has shed his blood on 
 the cross for man ? Must he carry, in any 
 form, actual blood into the presence of God in 
 the discharge of his priestly functions? To 
 demand this is to make the parallel run on all 
 fours; to push it to quite an unwarrantable 
 extreme. "What, then, became of the spilled, 
 or the unspilled, blood of the Redeemer's 
 body — whether it was all, or but a part of it 
 
 shed — whether what was shed sank into the 
 ground inoperative, or with expiatory power, 
 or was gathered up again : and, in short, what 
 was the relation of his precious earthly blood 
 to his present glorified body, — are questions 
 about which I do not believe that we can 
 profitably speculate, and which certainly I 
 would touch with the utmost reverence ; but 
 they surely stand in no proper relation to his 
 high priestly function. He died to atone for 
 our sins, and lives with God to carry forward 
 our salvation to its completion.' 
 
 Entered in, etc., entered once for all 
 into the sanctuary. Having obtained, 
 etc., obtaining (eupdjuei'os), finding, procur- 
 ing an eternal redemption — that is, by liis 
 entrance; not ''having obtained* previously 
 to his entrance ; the clause may be resolved 
 by, 'entered and procured.' There lies, I 
 think, in the middle voice no such em- 
 phasis as Alford supposes. The symbolical 
 atonement of the Levitical service was not 
 complete until the blood of the victim was 
 carried into the sanctuary. The expiatory 
 work of Christ was not complete until he 
 himself had risen from the tomb and entered 
 in glory the heavens, as it were, carrying the 
 blood of his sacrifice into the heavenly pres- 
 ence. As before said, I do not believe that 
 Christ's carrying actual blood into his heav- 
 enly abode, whether in or out of his spiritual 
 body, is in any way in question (except as far 
 as it may be a speculative question whether 
 blood is essential to a spiritual body), (i Cor. 
 15:50.) He bore the fruit, the eflBcacy of his 
 atoning death, into the holy presence. He 
 appeared there as a Lamb that had been sacri- 
 ficed, and taken away the sins of the world. 
 The e<em«^ redemption or ransom corresponds 
 to the single entrance, once for all. The high 
 
 ' It seem.s scarcely possible to avoid the conviction 
 that the ' greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made 
 with hands — that is, not of this creation,' and ' his own 
 blood,' are intended to express the two points of superi- 
 ority of Christ's priestly service over that of the Levitical 
 priesthood. A belter, to wit, spiritual, tabernacle as 
 against the material earthly one, and 'his own blood ' 
 as against that of irrational animals, give to his priestly 
 ministry an incomparable prerogative. If so, then it 
 seems equally certain that the tabernacle thus emphat- 
 ically and nobly designated, is not the ' outer taber- 
 nacle,' whether the 'lower heavens' or whatever 
 else the Ingenuity of interpreters has deviser], but the 
 tnie upper tabernacle, in which our Lord performs his 
 
 priestly service, that which the Lord pitched, and not 
 man. 
 
 2 So here as in many other cases the aorist participle 
 
 should be rendered, not as ])erfcct, to which it is often 
 
 (virtually) equivalent, but as our present, which is 
 
 very often equal to the Greek aorist (oftener, perhaps, 
 
 than to the Greek present). Thus in our Epistle 1 : 4, 
 
 KpeiTTuiv yevofxevoi;, not " having become," but " becora- 
 
 I ing," in the act of taking his seat; so here not "having 
 
 procured," but in the very act of entering, "procuring " 
 
 Examples of both usages are abundant; take as a single 
 
 : case of the aorist usage, Luke 23 : 46, ifxovT^aas, where 
 
 I even the Revised Version has, I think,very unfortunately 
 
 '■ " when he had cried," etc., instead of " crying," etc. 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 117 
 
 13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the 
 a^ilies of a heifer spriukliug the uucleau, sauclitieih to 
 the purifying of the tlesh ; 
 
 14 How luuch more shall the Mood of Christ, who 
 throuL'h the eternal Spirit ottered hiiuiself without spot 
 to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve 
 the living Uod? 
 
 13 eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and 
 bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that 
 have been detiled, sanctify unio the cleanness of ihe 
 
 14 Hesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
 through • the eternal Spirit ottered himself without 
 blemish unto Uod, cleanse -your conscience from 
 
 I Or, kit eternal spirit i Or, Man; ancient authorities read our. 
 
 priest entered repeatedly — that is, in connec- 
 tion witli repeated sacrifices and repeated pres- 
 entation of blood, because the redemption 
 which he procured was but partial and tem- 
 porary. Christ needs enter but once, because 
 it is in connection with a sacrifice which is 
 completely and finally efficacious. The price 
 (AuTpof) of the ransom of his people — for such 
 is the aspect under which their salvation is 
 here presented — is paid not, as held by some 
 Greek commentators, to Satan, but to God. 
 
 13. Confirmation of this latterstatement, that 
 his entrance procures an eternal redemption, 
 by an argument from the less to the greater. 
 This indeed may be regarded as the transition 
 to the remaining part of the discussion of 
 Christ's high priesthood, that; namely, which 
 deals with the necessity and the efficacy of his 
 oflTering. From the tj'pical arrangements of 
 the law the author inferred what must be the 
 offering which Christ as High Priest in the 
 true tabernacle must bring to God. He now 
 shows that this necessity lay in the nature of 
 the case; was foreshadowed in all the puri- 
 fications of the law ('a-'"), and was efficacious 
 and final. (9:23; lo: is.) He begins by setting 
 the spiritual nature of Christ's sacrifice over 
 against the outward and ritualistic nature of the 
 Levitical sacrifices. For if the blood of bulls 
 and of goats (Homer, "Iliad," Lib. 1, the 
 priest of Apollo designates as his customary 
 offerings to the God) and the ashes of a 
 heifer sprinkling the unclean, the^n who 
 have been defiled. See Num. ch. 19 for a de- 
 scription of the rites by which the ashes of a 
 spotted heifer that had not borne the yoke, 
 mingled with running water, are sprinkled 
 upon those who were defiled by contact with 
 a dead body, and cleanses them. ' Sprinkling 
 them that have been defiled' is an abrtipt and 
 elliptical expression (both in Greek and Eng- 
 lish), for 'sprinkled ui)on them,' etc. Sanc- 
 tifieth to the purifying (cleanness) of the 
 flesh — that is, sanctifieth xoith reference to 
 the cleanness of the flesh, or sanctifieth unto., 
 marking the end, that to which the sanctifica- 
 
 tion reaches. The conditional, 'If the blood 
 sanctifieth,' implies, of course, that it docs. 
 The Levitical rites could go to that extent: 
 they could cleanse the flesh really ; the spirit, 
 symbolically. 
 
 14. How much more shall the blood 
 of Christ, who through the {an) eternal 
 Spirit offered himself without spot to 
 God. The argument is from the less to the 
 greater, both quantitatively and qualitatively. 
 The power of the blood of bulls and goats to 
 do a certain work is conceded; but much 
 more is the blood of Christ able to do a thing 
 much greater. Such is the value attached to 
 the blood of Christ, in comparison with tha^ of 
 bulls and goats, that it is fiir more capable of 
 performing this incomparably higher cleans- 
 ing which it undertakes, than that of these to 
 perforni their vastly inferior office. The blood 
 of goats and heifers naturally cleanses out- 
 wardly and ceremonially ; the blood of Christ 
 naturally cleanses inwardly and spiritually. 
 But the blood of Christ is as much more effi- 
 cacious within its higher sphere of working, 
 as that sphere itself is higher than the other. 
 
 In the difficult phrase, 'who through an 
 eternal Spirit off^ered himself to God,' we 
 may remark, first, that 'himself is, in a 
 degree, emphatic, and is evidently intended 
 to contrast the conscious, voluntary, self- 
 determining nature of the sacrifice of Christ 
 with the unconscious, involuntary, compul- 
 sory character of animal sacrifices. The 
 animal goes blindly, unwittingly to the 
 slaughter, at the mere will of another ; Christ, 
 in the depths of his intelligent spiritual na- 
 ture, made himself an oflTering to God. The 
 former, then, is a merely animal net, and as 
 such, has but a merely animal virtue; the 
 latter is a moral, a spiritual act, and as such 
 has a moral and spiritual efficacy. And as 
 the one victim is oftered by virtue of its per- 
 ishing animal life, so the other offers himself 
 by virtue of an eternal spirit which dwells 
 within him, and itnparts to his sacrifice a 
 spiritual and an eternal efficacy. The 'Spirit* 
 
118 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 liore spoken of was not, then, the 'Holy Sjnj'it' 
 wliich was iibundantly shed forth upon our 
 Lord. The term clearly points to a power 
 anil impulse acting more strictly from within, 
 and proceeding properly from himself. It 
 was not his jjiirely human spirit, which he 
 shared in common with other men; it was 
 not, I think, his })urely divine nature, which, 
 before his incarnation, had consented to his 
 sacrilice, and whose j)resence was certainly 
 necessary to the efficacy of his offering. It 
 involves, I conceive, that blending of liis 
 divine nature with his human personality, 
 which forms the mystery of his being, and 
 which gives, even to his divine acts, a certain 
 element of humanity, and to his human acts 
 a certain element of the divine. It is, I 
 think, this mysterious union in which consists 
 that "spirit of holiness," by virtue of which 
 lie was declared "the Son of God with power," 
 on account of his resurrection from the dead. 
 It is by virtue of this that, in contrast with 
 the first Adam, who became a "living soul," 
 he, the second Adam, became a "life-giving 
 Spirit." It was tluis that, though "put to 
 death in the flesh, he was made alive in the 
 spirit." In all these cases he is spoken of not 
 as purely God, not as purely man. In his 
 human spirit, as the seat of his divine nature 
 and sharing its eternity: or in his divine 
 nature, as having linked itself with, and 
 drawn up into its fellowship, his human spirit, 
 — by virtue, thus, of that spiritual nature 
 which partook, at once, of divinity and hu- 
 manity, — he offered himself to God, the sacri- 
 fice having all the eflScacy which this union 
 alone could give it. The language is strongly 
 antithetical. The animal sacj-ifice, in its 
 animal and perishable nature, can secure but 
 a fleshly and a transient cleansing; Christ's 
 sacrifice, through an eternaP spirit, can secure 
 a spiritual and permanent purification. 
 
 I may add that here the 'offering up' is 
 not Christ's priestly oftering in the sanctuary, 
 but his sacrificial offering on the cross. The 
 latter is, in fact, in both the tj'pical and the 
 antitypical offering, the grand and essential 
 thing. In the Levitical rite, it is true, the 
 blood was brought into the sanctuary, and 
 
 'This adjective naturally suggests that the word 
 'Spirit' refers to the hijjher and divine nature of 
 Christ. His truly human nature, on its spiritual side, 
 was indeed eternal as to the future, but so also is the 
 
 sprinkled there, but simply as indicative that 
 blood — that is, death (for in the blood is the 
 life) was demanded as an expiation for sin ; 
 and in regard to the great High Priest, we 
 may well suppose that all, except the fact of 
 his dying for sin, and then passing into the 
 immediate presence of God, is a figurative 
 accommodation to the forms of the earthly 
 rite. In this, as in all else, the visible becomes 
 the imperfect, but necessary, exponent of the 
 si)iritual. Purge (cleanse) your conscience 
 from dead works to serve the living God. 
 ' Your conscience ' — more exactly, 'Your con- 
 sciousness ' (ffoverSjjais). The term is less aostract 
 — it denotes more activity, a more direct and 
 palpable relation to God than is expressed by 
 'conscience.' The philosophical use of the 
 term 'conscience' as a faculty which takes 
 cognizance of right and wrong has somewhat 
 deadened its meaning as expressing an opera- 
 tive, conscious relation to God. As to 'dead 
 works,' all the works of unrogenerate man are 
 sinful, and as such, may be called 'dead,' 
 springing from a nature which possesses in it 
 no true spiritual life. Such, however, is not 
 ])recisely the import of the term 'dead' here. 
 They are probably the dead works of the 
 law, those endeavors to fulfill both the 
 moral and the ceremonial law, and thus work 
 out a legal righteousness, which unrenovated 
 humanity is ever making, but which, spring- 
 ing from no living principle, are devoid of 
 life and power, and can i)rove no acceptable 
 service to the living God. Dead works may 
 answer for dead deities. Outward and hollow 
 forms may satisfy the demands of idol worshij>. 
 But the God who lives himself demands living 
 worshipers and living worship; he who is 
 spiritual, demands a spiritual, not a carnal 
 service, and a carnal service was all that the 
 Levitical rites proffered, and that the Old 
 Covenant could insure. 
 
 (i) This spiritual eflScaey of the blood of 
 Christ warrants and demands a New Cove- 
 nant, inaugurated, like the First, with blood, 
 but tl)e blood of a nobler victim than that of 
 the Old; for Christ has entered into the true 
 antitypical sanctuary, not, like the earthly 
 high priests, for repeated entrances, but once 
 
 spirit of every luan. The unique and .superlative 
 value of Christ's self-sacrifice seems to have been due 
 to the impulse of the divine side of bis nature.— A. U. 
 
Ch. IX.J 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 119 
 
 lo And for this cause be is the luediator of the new 
 lestnuieiit, that by lueans of death, fur the redeiuplion 
 of the trau.sgressions lliut time under the first testauientj, 
 they which are called might receive the promise of 
 eternal iufaeriiance. 
 
 15 dead works to serve the living (Jod? And for this 
 cause he is the luediator of a new ' covenant, that a 
 death having taken place for ihe rcdenipiion of the 
 trangressions that were under the lirst 'covenant, 
 they that have been culled may receive the])iomise 
 
 I Ttie Greek wonl bere u^ed si nified both cocenant aad tatameni. 
 
 for all, never to leave it until he comes with- 
 out sin unto salvation. (15-28.) 
 
 15. And for this cause; namely, because 
 he is able to perform such a spiritual, not 
 merely ceremonial purification, — the clause 
 looks backward, not forward,— he is the me- 
 diator of the (a) new testament [covenant). 
 Emphasis (with Alford) not merely on New, 
 but also partly on Cove)Mnt ; Mediator of 
 a Covenant; namely, a New One. A cove- 
 nant, or testament, requires to be sealed with 
 blood, and, in that respect, his death fits him 
 for the purpose ; and, as the Old Covenant 
 bad but a carnal ritual and carnal promises, 
 bad but the blood of bulls and goats, and was 
 adopted to such a merely outward ritual, his 
 blood, having such spiritual efficacy, may well 
 connect itself with a Now Covenant, or testa- 
 ment, whose demands and promises shall be 
 proportionate to the preciousness and power 
 of the blood which mediates it — in other 
 words, the new and better sacrifice demands a 
 New and better Covenant. The new wine 
 cannot be put into old bottles; this cleansing 
 blood cannot ally itself with the animal sacri- 
 fices of the Old Covenant, and advantage 
 must be taken of it to secure to the heirs of 
 promise blessings such as the Old Covenant 
 was unable to furnish ; namely, that by 
 means, etc. — literally, that a death taking 
 place for the redemjition of the transgressions 
 that were under the First Covenant. 
 
 The Old Covenant had had plenty of deaths, 
 but they had all been of those irrational vic- 
 tims that could sanctify only to the cleanness 
 of the flesh. Tlie transgressions of the wor- 
 shipers they had no power to remove. But 
 here is a victim of a diflTerent order— a Being 
 wlio, through an eternal Spirit, has made of 
 himself a voluntary and spiritual offering to 
 God. It is meet that, with the seal and sanc- 
 tion of such cleansing blood, a New Covenant 
 should be formed; that, the victim dying, bis 
 blood may be efficacious for the redemption 
 and cleansing awaj' of those sins under the 
 First Covenant which that had only sj'mbol- 
 ically, never really, expiated; which had i 
 
 been passed over and winked at rather than 
 really removed. ('Death,' although referring 
 specifically to the death of Christ, is spoken of 
 indefinitely as 'a death,' in order to fix atten- 
 tion on the abstract principle, rather than the 
 jiarticular application of it. ' The redemption 
 of the transgressions' is redemption of men 
 from their transgressions, although liofmann 
 explains it of the redeeming, buying off, as it 
 were, of the transgressions themselves which, 
 having become obnoxious to the judgments of 
 God, involve those who commit them.) They 
 which are (that have been) called — not 
 merely' the called of the New Testament, but 
 of the Old — might (may) receive the prom- 
 ise—that is, the fulfillment, the realization of 
 the i)romise — of the eternal inheritance. 
 
 The author has his e^'c, of ctiurse, on the an- 
 cient people of God, and, as in chapter 3, looks 
 on the history of the Old and New Covenants 
 as constituting one continuous chain. The 
 New Covenant replaces the Old ; the exjiiation 
 of the New Covenant removes the sins which 
 could not be removed by the Old. The 
 'eternal inheritance' of the one succeeds to 
 the temporal inheritance of the other. The 
 land of Canaan, the inheritance and rest of 
 ancient Israel, as it was not the true and Sab- 
 bath rest of the people of God, so was not the 
 true and eternal inheritance. This it was left 
 for the New Covenant under Christ to give. 
 
 But here, briefly, two questions: First, why 
 is the redeeming effect of the blood of Christ 
 restricted b^' the author to the sins committed 
 under the Old Covenant, and thus seemingly 
 confined to the Jewish people? Did not all 
 sins in all nations, from Adam down, need to 
 be f(>rgiven by the blood of Christ? And was 
 there anywhere remission, except through his 
 blood? Certainly not. But, to the mind of 
 the author, the Jewish people here (as 2 : 16) 
 re])resent universal humanity. It was to them 
 immediately, on behalf of the race, that God 
 had revealed himself; to them the j)romise8 
 bad come; with them alone (Jod had directly 
 dealt. The rest of the world seemed, for the 
 time being, to be without his jurisdiction; ita' 
 
120 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 ignorance and its wickedness had, in a manner, 
 l)een overlooked and passed by ; and, as the 
 Jewish people had been exclusively the recip- 
 ients of his law, his promises, his covenant, so 
 they would appear as primarily interested in 
 the New Ct>venant, which replaces the Old. 
 As mankind at large had no direct concern in 
 the Sinaitic Covenant, so, apparently, not in 
 the one which supersedes it. In fact, however, 
 the death of Christ is equally' necessary for the 
 remission of all transgressions among all na- 
 tions. 
 
 But, secondly, was there no real forgive- 
 ness of sins under the Old Covenant? AVas 
 there only that passing by {ndpian, instead of 
 o<fre<ri9, re^nission) , which is spoken of in Horn. 
 3 : 25, so that, in reality, all sins remained 
 unforgiven until the coming of Christ? Again, 
 I supi>()»e not. In the case of all the j)ious of 
 the Old Testament, there was a real forgive- 
 ness of sins, but one based not, in the slightest 
 degree, on the efficacy of the Old Testament 
 ofterings. God, in view of the atonement, 
 always could, and always did, forgive sins, in 
 the case of the exercise of faith, although, so 
 far as concerned the Old Testament ritual and 
 any power which lay in its sjMiibols, the pardon 
 could be only provisional, and was rather a 
 passing over than a remission. The repetition 
 of the sacrifices of the Old Testament was not 
 because the sins of tlie really pious had not, 
 once for all, been remitted, nor because, on 
 the other hand, these sacrifices had the slightest 
 power, really, to cleanse awa3' any sins. But 
 as they were purely typical, it was necessary, 
 by means of them, to keep constantly before 
 the worshiper the need of an exj)iation, and 
 show at once the significance and the impotence 
 of the rites which he was performing. The 
 reason why the rites were so constantly repeated 
 was not because there was any efficacy in theni, 
 but because there was not — because they were 
 strictly and absolutely symbolical. Thej' did 
 not i)rocure a partial pardon, or a temporary 
 pardon, or any pardon whatever; they only 
 ))ointed forward to him whose cleansing blood 
 could take away all sin just because it could 
 take away any. But while holding that the 
 ]>ious of the Old Testament were already act- 
 ually forgiven, I by no means believe that 
 they had that full sense of forgiveness, and 
 with this those richer joys and hopes, which 
 belong to the clearer light and fuller spiritual 
 
 influences of the gospel. Their perceptions 
 were dimmer and their aspirations unsatisfied. 
 They saw through a vail, instead of a glass, 
 and thus doubly darkly. God did not intend 
 to make them perfect in advance of the be- 
 lievers of the New Testament; and thus, 
 probably, their condition, both this side of 
 and beyond the grave, was one of less priv^ 
 ilcge than has been allotted to believers since 
 the coming of Christ. Finall3-, however, it 
 is proper to speak of Christ's death as being 
 for the redemption of transgressions committed 
 under the First Covenant, as if they were not 
 already forgiven, because their forgiveness has 
 been conditioned entirely upon his death. 
 
 16. The idea of an 'inheritance,' so ])romi- 
 nent in the Old Testament, and just mentioned, 
 suggests a transition frt)m a 'covenant' to a 
 'testament.' This transition is made all the 
 more easily, and, indeed, almost impercepti- 
 bly, as it is but a gliding over to the more 
 common meaning of the word before rendered 
 'covenant.' This word (itoe>)KT)) means, pri- 
 marily, ' dis2^osition, arrangement,' and then 
 a testamentary disposition, a testament, and, 
 secondarily, though rarely in the classics, an 
 arrangement with a second part3- (iid in com- 
 position often having this force, as iioAeyoMoi, 
 discourse continuously and discourse with; 
 iiaAoYos, dialogue), an 'agreement,' or ''cove- 
 nant.' As then the blessings bestowed bj' Gtid 
 upon his people are spoken of both as matters 
 of agreement and of inheritance; and, as in 
 both cases, a death was equaU3' essential to the 
 validity of the arrangement, it is not strange 
 that the author should slide in his usage from 
 one to the other. In the one case, it is true, 
 the arrangement was sealed b.y the death of a 
 victim; in the other, b^- that of the testator. 
 But Christ being, in the Uniqueness of his 
 character, both, and alike dj-ing as the rati- 
 fying victim of a covenant and living as its 
 Mediator, and also dying as the condition of 
 his bestowing the giftof the eternal inheritance 
 on his peo))le, he could with equal propriety' 
 be represented under either character. Here 
 the mention of 'inheritance' suggests his 
 death— not as the seal of a covenant, but as 
 tlie condition of the validitj' of a testament. 
 The gifts, indeed, were of God ; but he placed 
 them in the hands of Christ, whose death is 
 essential to their being made available to his 
 people. I may add that the transition, which 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS 
 
 121 
 
 16 For where a testament is, there must also of neces- 
 sity be the death of the testator. 
 
 17 For a testament is of force after men are dead : 
 otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator 
 liveth. 
 
 18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedi- 
 cated witboui blood. 
 
 19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all 
 the people according to the iaw, he took the blood of 
 calves and of goals, wiih water, and scarlet wool, and 
 hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people. 
 
 16 of the eternal inheritance. For where a • testament 
 is, there must of necessity 2be the death of him who 
 
 17 made it. For a ' testament is of force ^ where there 
 hath been death: < fur it doth never avail while be 
 
 18 who made it liveth. Wherefore even the first cove- 
 
 19 naiU bath not been dedicated witboui blood. For 
 when every commandment bad been spoken by 
 Moses unto all tbu people according to the law, he 
 took the blood of Ihu calves and the goats, with wa- 
 ter and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both 
 
 1 Tbe Greek word heie used siguifies botb covenant and teatamtnt i Gr. be brought 3 Or. over the dead 4 Ot. for doth it 
 
 ever . . . liveth f 
 
 seems harsh in our language, which has not a 
 cotiitnoii word, attracts no special notice from 
 the Greek interpreters, who take it as a matter 
 of course. That the transition is actually 
 made I see no sufficient grounds to deny. 
 Without it, verses 16 and 17 are extremely 
 harsh, and almost unmeaning. 
 
 For where a testament is — referring to 
 the previous statement that Christ is the Medi- 
 ator of a New Covenant (£iae.)K7)), in order that, 
 a death occurring, he might, by the spiritual 
 efficacy of his death, bestow on the heirs of 
 promise the blessings which the ritual sacrifices 
 ot the Old Covenant never could bestow. 
 When he spoke of 'death' in the preceding 
 verse, h« probably thoughtof it in the light of a 
 seal of a covenant; he now almost insensibly 
 changes the point of view to that of the con- 
 dition of a testament. There must of ne- 
 cessity be the death of the testator. 
 'Also,' of the Common Version, is to be 
 omitted. Ebrard, denj'ing a change from 
 the previous meaning of 'covenant,' refers 
 'the te.etator' fSiaec/xtvo?) to the man who, as 
 one of the parties to the covenant, must die, 
 either in his own person, or that of a substi- 
 tute ; for on no other condition can man enter 
 into covenant with God. But it seems nearly 
 certain that the author has here no exclusive 
 reference to a covenant between man and 
 God, but is rather making a general, and, as 
 it were, axiomatic statement. Must be 
 (<^ep«o'dat, he borne abroad, alleged, declared) 
 has here no emphasis. 
 
 17. For a testament is of force 'valid) 
 
 after {when) men are dead — literally, over 
 (on condition of) the dead, of persons as dead 
 {vtKpoU), dead men, not dead animals. A tes- 
 tament never goes into force until the testator 
 has died. It is essential to the very idea of a 
 bequest. A will or testament is that which 
 disposes of property after death. Property 
 actually alienated by a person wliile living, 
 no matter what the form, cannot be by testa- 
 ment. 
 
 Otherwise, etc. — inasmuch as it scarcely 
 is in force while the testator liveth.^ 
 
 18. Wherefore, eic— Whence neither has 
 the first covenant been ina^tgurnted. vnthout 
 blood. The author relapses here to the former 
 idea of 'covenant,' turning easily on the pivot 
 of a word common to both significations. 
 'Inaugurated,' introduced in a formal and 
 valid manner. 
 
 19. For when Moses, etc. — For after 
 every command had been spoken by Aloses to 
 nil the people according to the law. 'Accord- 
 ing to the law'— that is, which he had received 
 on Sinai. He took the blood of (the) calves 
 (heifers) and of (the) goats. The account is 
 taken from Exod. 24 : 3-8, with, however, some 
 marked deviations. There is in Exodus no 
 mention of 'goats,' but only of heifers, the 
 sacrifice of goats as a sin offering being not 
 yet established. The author, however, citing 
 from memory, and aiming at no minute exact- 
 ness, unites the two classes of heifers and goats 
 by which he was accustomed to designate the 
 collective sacrifices of the law. With water, 
 and scarlet wool, and hyssop. These are 
 
 1 ' Scarcely is in force,' fi'lfore io-xw'^i, not the same, T I supplied by his hearers. So In I^onginus " De .Sublimi- 
 
 think, as ouirore i<rxv€i, never is in force ; hut having the 
 doubting, delicately sur</estive import so common to tbe 
 turi and nr/noTf, test, whether, perchance. The author thus 
 elegantly puts the case,«z ffratifimodestio', not ap admit- 
 ting that tbe doctrine is really questionable, but prefer- 
 ring to hold back his own affirmation, and leave it to be 
 
 fate," oyKOi •■•" ■■■■ (UJiTOTc n-epuCTTai-Tf? rjnafttv rovyavrtov^ 
 " the false sublime— perchance (look whether not) /-ro- 
 ducinff in us the opposite effect." Probably an elliptical 
 construction, equivalent toopa jiif ortiax'''^ ^"ok ultelher 
 it be in force. 
 
122 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX 
 
 20 Saying, This is- the blood of the testament which 
 God haili enjoined unto yon. 
 
 21 Moreover Le sprinkled likewise with blood both 
 the tabernacle, and all the vessels ot the ministry. 
 
 20 the book itself, and all the people, saying, This is the 
 blood of the 'covenant which (jod commanded to 
 
 21 you-ward. Moreover the tabernacle and all the ves- 
 sels of the ministry he sprinkled iu like manner 
 
 1 Tbe Greek word here used signifies botb covenant und testament. 
 
 not mentioned in the above passage, but are 
 found elsewiiere in the Mosaic purifying lus- 
 trations, as Num. 19:6, 7; Lev. 14:2, seq., 
 49 seq., where they appear as employed in 
 connection with purification from contact with 
 a dead body, or from the leprosy. A mixture 
 of living spring water, partly with the ashes 
 of a red cow, partly with the blood of a slain 
 bird, was in these cases prescribed. For this 
 purpose h^'ssop was employed, wound with 
 purple wool. The use of the water, and of 
 the scarlet wool and hyssop as an instrument 
 for sprinkling, needed perhaps no special 
 voucher in the text; it was understood of 
 itself And sprinkled both the book and 
 all the people. Exodus simply informs us 
 that he sprinkled the people — substantially 
 identical with 'all the people.' Nothing is 
 said of the sprinkling of the book or scroll, 
 which is of course the "book of the cove- 
 nant," the scroll of papyrus or skin contain- 
 ing the record of the covenant. In introduc- 
 ing this, as also in the sprinkling of "the 
 tabernacle and the vessels of the service," 
 the author probably follows Jewish tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 20. Saying, This is the blood of the 
 testament (covenant), which God hath en- 
 joined unto you. The exact language of 
 Exod. 24 : 8 is: " Behold the blood of the cove- 
 nant which the Lord hath made with you 
 concerning all these words." The slight 
 changes are occasioned, partly perhaps by 
 citing from memory, partlj' in half uncon- 
 scious allusion to the corresponding language 
 of the Saviour at the institution of the Sacred 
 Supper: " This is my blood in the New Cove- 
 nant," etc., which would seem to have an 
 unquestionable reference to these words of 
 Moses. The expression 'enjoined,' 'com- 
 manded' (evsTfiXaTo) is also Substituted for 
 'made,' 'instituted' (fitcfltro), in accordance 
 with the frequent usage of the Septuagint. 
 
 21. Moreover he sprinkled, etc. — And the 
 tabernacle too and all the vessels of the service 
 he sprinkled in like manner with the blood. 
 This refers to another and later occasion, as the 
 
 tabernacle was not in existence when Moses 
 thus solemnly inaugurated the covenant. It 
 is brought into this connection for the sake of 
 completeness, and of sliowing how extensively 
 the use of blood marked the inauguration of 
 the several parts of the Levitical worship. Of 
 such a sprinkling, however, of the tabernacle 
 when completed (see Exod. 40), the Mosaic ac- 
 count is silent. It informs us that the taber- 
 nacle was anointed with oil, and thus conse- 
 crated to the Lord, while Lev. 8 : 15, 19, 24, 
 informs us of the sprinkling of the altar with 
 blood, and Josephus ("Antiquities," 3 : 8, 6) 
 informs us expressly that the garments of 
 Aaron, the tabernacle, and its vessels, were 
 all sprinkled with the blood of slaughtered 
 victims. Such, therefore, was probably the 
 Jewish tradition, in accordance with which is 
 the language of our passage. On the literal 
 exactness of every statement nothing specially 
 depends. It would be enough that th« author 
 follows in the several particulars either the 
 Mosaic narrative or accredited Jewish tradi- 
 tions. His language immediately following 
 shows that the use of blood as an expiatory 
 rite through almost all departments of the ser- 
 vice was the point specially in his mind. 
 This extensive use of blood in the Mosaic 
 ritual had a deep significance. It marked not 
 merely cleansing, purification ; for that, ivater 
 would have been the more natural symbol. 
 It marked expiation, atonement. Before Je- 
 hovah could enter into covenant with his 
 people, his displeasure must be either really 
 or symbolically appeased. He could not allow 
 them to come into relation with him as on 
 terms of moral equality. He could not allow 
 them to forget the interval between his holi- 
 ness and their sinfulness; and thus blood must 
 be shed, the life of the animal taken (for the 
 life was in the blood), that by the life of the 
 victim that of the people might be spared. 
 (Kurtz, "History of the Old Covenant," V. 
 3, p. 143.) The connection, then, was direct 
 and close between the blood shed in inaugu- 
 rating the Old, and that shed in inaugurating 
 the New Covenant. The one reminded the 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 123 
 
 22 And almost all things are liy the law purged with I 22 with the blood. And according to the law, I may 
 bluod ; and without shuUding of blood is no remission. almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and 
 
 I apart from shedding ol blood there is no remission. 
 
 people of what was needed that God might be 
 reconciled and enter into covenant relation 
 with his people; the other /jtr?it*/ierf it. And 
 for a similar reason the sanctuary and its 
 utensils — nay, even tlie book of the covenant 
 —must undergo a like sprinkling. Though 
 consecrated to Jehovah, they had been wrought 
 in their material parts by human hands; they 
 had on them tlie contamination of sin. The 
 very Holy of Holies, before God could dwell 
 in it, must be cleansed from that stain of im- 
 purity and guilt which human hands had left 
 upon it. It needed not only consecrating oil, 
 but expiatory blood. 
 
 22. And almost all things, etc. — And one 
 might say, in blood are all things cleansed. 
 The original word, rendered 'almost' in the 
 Common Version {vxe&ov, one might say, about, 
 ])retty nearly), is employed not like our a^mos^ 
 (oKiyov &elv) to intimate that the statement is 
 positively liable to some exception or abate- 
 ment, but simply to qualify its absolute posi- 
 tiveness. It does not (like oXiyov Sdv) commit 
 the autlior to the fact that his statement is not 
 , unqualified, but simply refuses to commit him 
 to the statement that it is. It is added regard- 
 ing an assertion that may or 7nay not be pre- 
 cisely accurate. It differs from "so to say" 
 (<os inoi tiiTflv, with which it in certain cases 
 might be interchanged), in that the latter 
 .softens a statement in itself harsh or exag- 
 gerated; the other simply throws over the 
 expression (in itself not necessarily in any 
 way improbable) a slight shade of uncer- 
 tainty.' 
 
 And without shedding of blood there 
 is no remission. The name {aitiaT€<xv<Ti.a) 
 may denote either the shedding of the blood 
 of the victim in sacrifice (so Bleek, Liine- 
 mann, Delitzsch), or the pouring out of the 
 blood of the victim on the altar, and the 
 
 sprinkling of it (so De Wette, Tholuck, Hof- 
 mann). The latter seems more in harmony 
 with the inmiediate context, in which, not the 
 shedding of the victim's blood, but its subse- 
 quent pouring forth, is spoken of, wliile the 
 analogy of the language of Clirist, who says 
 at the Sacred Supper, "My blood, which is 
 shed for you" (to On-ep u/xiiv eKX'^'o/^fo"), as well 
 as the general analogy of Christ's death, in 
 that his blood was slied, but not afterward 
 poured out, is urged by Delitzsch, on the otlier 
 side. To this, liowever, it might be replied 
 that our author himself speaks of the 'blood 
 of sprinkling' (i'^:"), evidently referring to 
 the blood of Christ under the Old Testament 
 figure, and it may still, therefore, remain ques- 
 tionable which precise idea is intended. The 
 essential meaning is, of course, the same in 
 either. For the pouring out or sprinkling of 
 the blood implies the previous shedding of it 
 in the death of the victim as its necessary con- 
 dition, while conversely under the Old Cove- 
 nant the symbolical expiation was not com- 
 pleted until the subsequent sprinkling. Still 
 the death, the taking the life, is in both cases 
 the essential matter. What was symbolized, 
 was that sin could not be expiated without 
 death. Under the Old Testament formula, a 
 legal remission stood connected with the ritual 
 shedding of blood. Real remission was then, 
 as alwaj's, through the atonement of Christ, 
 which was thus symbolized. 
 
 23-28. Inference, now, from the earthly to 
 the heavenly sanctuary ; in other words, from 
 the ceremonial and carnal to the purely spir- 
 itual Dispensation. As the former demanded 
 the symbol, this demands tlie reality; as that 
 the blood of animal sacrifices, this the blood 
 of Christ; and his entrance once for a/ 1 with 
 a complete and final expiation, as High Priest, 
 into the heavenly sanctuary. 
 
 1 Thus Plato, " Phaedo," 2. SxtSov oSroi iraptytVoi'To. 
 " I should think that about these were present "—there 
 may have been one or two others, and may not. It seems 
 singular that Chrysostoni, whom we nuist admit to have 
 known his own language, refers trxeSoy to the verb, 
 KaBaftii^erai. It is less singular, though not less errone- 
 ous, that Bengel and Bohme refer it to iv ol/aari. Its 
 proper and unquestionable reference is to 'all,' Trai'Ta, 
 
 The modifying shade of <rxfS6v is not thrown on the 
 verb, as if there were any doubt about the cleansing ; not 
 on ' in blood,' «"•' oimoti, as if there were any doubt about 
 its being in blood ; but simply upon 'all,' ndfTa, imply- 
 ing that the writer will not quite commit himself to the 
 unqualified assertion that everylhing was cleansed with 
 blood, '/n 6/ood'— that is, in the sphere of blood, 
 equivalent to by or with blood. 
 
124 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of 
 thiugs in the heavens should be purified with these; 
 but ihe heavenly things tliemselves with better sacri- 
 tices than these. 
 
 24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places 
 made with hands, which are the figures of the true ; but 
 into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of 
 God for us : 
 
 23 It was necessary therefore that the copies of the 
 thiugs in the heavens should be cleansed with these; 
 but the heavenly things themselves with better sao- 
 
 24 rifices than these, lor Christ entered not into a 
 holy place made with hands, like in jiattern to the 
 true ; but into heaven itself, now to appear before 
 
 33. It was (ts)* therefore necessary 
 that the patterns {copies) of (the) things 
 in the heavens should be purified with 
 these; but the heavenly things them- 
 selves [be cleansed] with better sacrifices 
 than these. Resumption of the imagery 
 drawn from the language: "See thou make 
 all things after the pattern shown to thee in 
 the mount."' The earthly tabernacle is repre- 
 sented as a sort of shadowy representation of 
 the greater and more perfect tabernacle, in 
 which Christ, the great High Priest, ministers, 
 and the objects grouped around it as having 
 their archetypes in heaven. Thus, therefore, 
 he continues in figurative language, as the 
 earthly copies are cleansed with rites like these, 
 their heavenly archetypes demand a nobler 
 element of cleansing. But we need not be led 
 astray by a figure, nor suppose for a moment 
 that anything actually in heaven demands the 
 cleansing of Christ's blood. The old taber- 
 nacle expressed relations: the old ritual was 
 symbolical. Unable to accomplish any purifi- 
 cation itself, it pointed forward to a purifica- 
 tion to be accomplished by a Victim of infinite 
 preciousness. While thus the symbolical puri- 
 fications of the law are accomplished with sac- 
 rifices like these, the cleansings which they 
 prefigure demand sacrifices far more costly 
 and efllcacious. A typical expiation may be 
 made with the blood of bulls and goats; but 
 H real expiation must be made with more pre- 
 cious blood ; namely, that of Christ. The 
 'heavenly things' is especially the 'sanctu- 
 ary,' and this perhaps would be better sup- 
 plied. 'Sacrifices" in the plural, simply in 
 analogy with the many Levitical sacrifices; 
 not that here more than one is demanded. 
 
 2 4. For Christ is not entered, etc.,/o?- 
 not into a sanctuary made with hands — and 
 therefore not into one which could admit the 
 
 carnal and outward puri fications of that old ma- 
 terial sanctuary, the earthly Holy of Holies — 
 did Christ enter. The 'for' (vop), not (with 
 Bleek, Liinemann) indicating the proof that 
 Christ has really gone into the heavenly sanc- 
 tuary ; nor exactly (with Delitzsch) establish- 
 ing the position that better sacrifices were 
 demanded for the heavenly world from the 
 fact of that one which has been actually 
 offered, and then gone to God ; but rather re- 
 asserting the reason why better sacrifices are 
 demanded; namely, from the transcendent and 
 spiritual character of the sanctuary into which 
 Christ is gone, and the real, not the symbolical, 
 presence of God into which he has entered. 
 
 Which are the figure, etc. — the counter- 
 part of the genuine one. 'Counterpart' {ami- 
 Tuiro«) is here clearly equivalent to copy, shad- 
 owy representation (iinoBeiyixa, 8 : 5). Bleek, 
 supposing the model (ti/tto?, 8 : 5) shown to 
 Moses in the Mount to be itself a copy of the 
 real, heavenly tabernacle, regards the 'coun- 
 terpart' (oi'TiTUTros) here as a cojyy of a copy. 
 Yet nothing could be more alien from the con- 
 ception of the author. He does not regard 
 that model shown to Moses as a copy, but it is 
 expressly pointed to by him as the original of 
 that constructed by Moses. Only we must 
 rightly understand, and avoid unduly press- 
 ing, the figurative language of the author. 
 Of course, he is merely using the model shown 
 to Moses, issuing from the divine hand, as 
 standing for the great moral and spiritual 
 truths which the earthly tabernacle shadowed 
 forth. That earthly tabernacle indicated rela- 
 tions, facts, spiritual truths; and these facts 
 and truths it is exceedingly natural should, 
 in figurative language, be gathered up and 
 expressed in the pattern which came directly 
 from the divine hand. If we take the mate- 
 rial structure reared by Moses as symbolizing 
 
 'Delitszch, Moll, etc., supply ^i*, there was necessity, 
 making a temporal reference. With Liinemann and 
 Pe Wette, I decidedly prefer iariv, is, making the state- 
 me.nt general and absolute. Had the author in/ended a 
 past tense, he would have been much more likely to 
 have expressed it. The present is easily understood of 
 
 itself. Nor is the past required by the past {(i<Tri\0(v) 
 of the following verse, for there the past tense is purely 
 subordinate, the resolution of the clause being: "For it 
 is into no sanctuary made with hands that Christ cdt 
 tered," etc. 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 125 
 
 2o Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the I 25 the face of God for us: nor yet that he should offer 
 high priest entereth into the holy place every year with himself often ; as the high priest enteretb iuto the 
 blood ol' others; I holy place year by year with blood not his own; 
 
 great truths, it is natural to put the model 
 which God showed to him as answering to the 
 truths themselves. It seems extraordinary 
 that language so manifestly figurative, and 
 really so obvious in its import, should have so 
 puzzled and misled intelligent and acute 
 minds. But into heaven itself. In the use 
 of the word 'heaven,' the conception would 
 naturally and easily vary. Sometimes Christ 
 lias passed through the heavens, and become 
 higher than tlie heavens; at other times he is 
 in the lofty heavens (so probably we are to 
 supply 1 : 4), here 'in heaven itself.' In re- 
 gard to a term so vague as that of ' heaven,' 
 of course the language is nut to be pressed. 
 In reference to the lower, visible heavens, or 
 even heaven as representing the highest part 
 of the created universe, Christ has passed be- 
 yond and above the heavens. In another re- 
 lation the heavens are themselves beyond the 
 created universe, are the immediate dwelling 
 place of God, conceived apart from conditions 
 of space and time, and in such a sense the 
 phrase is employed here. 'Heaven itself is 
 the heaven of heavens, the highest heaven, 
 the seat of God's presence and glory, whether 
 regarded locally or otherwise. 
 
 Now to appear, etc. — be manifested before 
 the face of God in behalf of us. 'Now,' not 
 as equivalent to continually, now and forever- 
 more ; but ' now,' at last, after so long a reign 
 of shadow and copy and symbol. Now he is 
 manifested before the face of God. He now 
 accomplishes that actual drawing near, com- 
 ing into the real presence of God, which the 
 earthly high priest could do only in the most 
 partial and imperfect manner. The earthly 
 high priest entered the sanctuary amid a cloud 
 of incense which half envel()])ed him and the 
 mercy seat itself He was half hidden from 
 even the symbol of God. God appeared to 
 him but in symbol, and even that symbol was 
 but dimly visible. The awe-struck priest 
 must have felt, under this near contact with 
 Jehovah, as the collective Israelites felt at 
 Sinai, and rejoiced perhaps that his entrance 
 into that awful presence was at so wide inter- 
 vals, and then so nearly vailed. But Christ 
 has gone not into the symbolical, but the real 
 and absolute presence of God. He is fully 
 
 manifested before the fully manifested Deity. 
 Father and Son, the Propitiated and the Pro- 
 pitiator, come into full communion, confront- 
 ing, as it were, each other with open face. 
 "Father, glorify thou me with the glory 
 which I had with thee before the world was." 
 25. Nor yet, etc. — And not that he ^nay 
 frequently offer himself, as the high priest 
 entereth into the holy place year by year with 
 tlie blood of others. Our author's use of offer 
 (irpocT^cpeti') might allow its reference either to 
 Christ's sacrificial offering of himself on earth 
 (9: 14,28; 10: 1,2. etc.), or to his high pricstly offer- 
 ing in heaven (8:3). Many interpreters (as 
 Tholuck, De Wette, Ebrard, Liinemann) un- 
 derstand it of the former; others (as Hof- 
 mann, Delitzsch, Moll, Alford) of the latter. 
 In favor of the latter is the immediately fol- 
 lowing comparison with the Jewish high 
 priest, not as repeating his sacrifices, but as 
 repeating his entrances into the sanctuary. 
 The more exact verbal analogy, therefore, 
 would refer the language to Christ's priestly 
 offering on high. But this argument is by no 
 means decisive, for in the author's mind (as in 
 the actual fact) the two stand in inseparable 
 connection. An entrance into the sanctuary 
 supposes a preceding sacrifice; a sacrificial 
 offering supposes the subsequent entrance. 
 The spirit of the comparison, therefore (if not 
 precisely its letter), is equally preserved b3'' 
 referring this "offering of himself" to Christ's 
 previous sacrifice on earth. And as the added 
 'himself seems to suggest rather the earthly 
 than the heavenly offering, we may easily 
 conceive that the author has, in this case, cho- 
 sen the former as the representative act, and 
 set over against the Levitical high priest's re- 
 peated entrances into the sanctuary' (which 
 involved repeated deaths), the hypothesis of 
 Christ's repeated deaths (which involved re- 
 peated entrances into the heavenly sanctuary). 
 And this idea of offering himself in death the 
 language favors. It is natural to speak of 
 'offering himself in death on the cross (ns at 
 ver. 14), and 'being offered,' which is close 
 akin (tct. 28), but less so to speak of his 'offer- 
 ing himself (whatever the precise import of 
 the expression) in heaven. As we have thus 
 warrant for the one and not for the other — for 
 
126 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 2() For then must he often have suffered since the 
 foundation of the world: but now onee in the end of 
 the world hatli he appeared to put away sin by the sac- 
 ritice of himself. 
 
 25 else must he often have suffered since the founda- 
 tion of the world : but now once at the i end of the 
 ages hath he been manifested to put away sin* by 
 
 I Or, consummation. 
 
 .'I Or, by his sacrifice. 
 
 what Christ is to offer as Heavenly Priest (8:3) 
 is not 'himself,' but (9:3) 'his own blood' — I 
 prefer, with most interpreters, this significa- 
 tion here. The ellipsis is easily supplied : 
 "And [he has entered] not that he may fre- 
 quently offer himself [in sacrifice, and thus 
 frequently leave it and return to it], just as the 
 high priest," etc. And in this interprefation 
 we do not, I think, lay tlie author liable to 
 De Welte's taunt of not being quite sure of his 
 own meaning. We add that there is an im- 
 plied argument in the contrast of Christ's 
 offering himself, and the Levitical priests 
 entering the sanctuary with alien blood. 
 
 26. For then, etc. — since [then] he must 
 have frequently suffered since the foundation 
 of the world ; but, as it is, once for all, at the 
 end of the world, he has been tnanifeste.d. 
 
 The clause 'since the foundation of the 
 world,' has by many former editors been en- 
 closed in parentheses; but this is now gener- 
 ally, and rightly, expunged, and the clause 
 taken in connection with the following. They 
 thus present the two opposites of an alterna- 
 tive. In case that Christ had entered heaven, 
 to offer himself repeatedly he must have 
 frequently suffered since the foundation of 
 the world ; but in fact, as the case stands, he 
 has not done so — he has manifested himself 
 once for all in the consummation of the ages. 
 
 The passage is thus an argument against the 
 supposition of this entrance for repeated offer- 
 ings. But what kind of an argument? Is it 
 from the intrinsic proprieties of the case, from 
 the unnaturalness of Christ's having thus, 
 many times in former ages, descended from 
 heaven to suffer, and re-ascended for priestly 
 mediation ? If so, then why does the author 
 dwell upon what must have been done in the 
 past, rather than what this hypothesis would 
 require in the future? Why not rather say 
 that it would not be necessary that he should 
 repeat his suffering many times in the ages to 
 come? The only reply that can be made to 
 this is that the world is conceived as having 
 nearly run its appointed cycle, and there 
 would be, in the future, no space left for such 
 offerings. 
 
 The view above given is the ordinary one; 
 but I cannot conceive it to be the just one, 
 which seems to me mucli more simple and 
 obvious. This is to take '^ it was necessary'' 
 (eSei), simply, of logical necessity (equivalent 
 to " it could not but have been the case that") 
 not of that which would have been required 
 by the fitness of the case, but of that which 
 would have actually happened, but which, as 
 it is, has not happened. Had the priestly 
 intercession of Christ, says the author, been 
 like the services of the Levitical priests, re- 
 quiring perpetual repetition, it would have 
 involved, like theirs, repeated descents and 
 sufferings on earth, and repeated re-ascensions 
 and entrances into the heavenly sanctuary. 
 No such thing has occurred; no such repeti- 
 tion of the victim's sufferings has been made 
 — all has been deferred for one single, final, 
 all-sufficient offering, both on earth and in 
 heaven. This explanation, I think, is all 
 sufficient. It accounts for the placing of this 
 supposed repetition in the past and not in the 
 future. Had Christ's priestly ministry, is the 
 thought, been like the Levitical ministry, it 
 would, like theirs, have demanded constant 
 repetitions, and we should have witnessed the 
 spectacle of a recurrence of his sufferings dur- 
 ing the past ages. It relieves us, too, from 
 another inquiry; namely, from answering 
 the question. Why this repetition of the suf- 
 ferings of Christ should not have actually 
 occurred? Christ has actually descended 
 from heaven and died once. Who is compe- 
 tent to assert that, granting the necessity, he 
 should not have descended and died agtiin? 
 How can we be sure that the same exigency 
 would not have led anew and repeatedly to 
 the same sacrifice? Upon this and other like 
 questions, we are not required to turn our 
 minds. The author simply reminds us, as 
 incontrovertible proof of the finality of this 
 sacrifice, that the hypothesis of its non-effi- 
 ciency and finality would have involved in 
 the past ages its frequent repetition. JVo sttch 
 repetition has occurred. As matter of fact, 
 the whole mighty display of love and power 
 has been reserved for and precipitated, as it 
 
Cf. IX.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 127 
 
 were, upon one decisive moment in the inter- 
 locking of the ages. 
 
 There is, indeed, another view, proposed by 
 Hofmann (and followed by Delitzsch, Moll, 
 and Alford), which may require a brief no- 
 lice. It assumes that Christ's offering himself 
 (rer. M) refers to the priestly offering in heaven, 
 not to his sacrificial offering on earth, and that 
 the repetition of those heavenly self-presenta- 
 tions is denied on the ground that it would 
 involve tlie necessity of his repeatedly suffer- 
 ing death on earth. But the peculiarity of 
 tlie view lies in its denying that the author 
 contemplates, along with these repeated heav- 
 enly oblations, correspondingly repeated de- 
 scents and sufferings on earth. The author 
 plants himself, this view maintains, on the 
 heavenly entrance and priesthood of Christ 
 as a finality. He does not once contemplate 
 the withdrawal of Ciirist from the heavenly 
 Holy of Holies, into which he has onceentered, 
 that he may re-descend and suffer, but only 
 declares that, being there, he has not to make 
 repeated offerings of himself, because this 
 would involve the necessity that before he 
 ascended there he should have gone through 
 a series of sufferings corresponding to the 
 number of his entrances into the heavenly 
 sanctuar3'. This, they say, explains the rea- 
 son of the limitation of his sufferings to past 
 times. If he had now entered heaven to 
 make repeated priestly oblations, then (as in 
 the Levitical service there must be for every 
 entrance into the sanctuary a separate sacri- 
 fice) he must, on earth in previous times, have 
 undergone a corresponding number of deaths, 
 and thus have suffered many times since the 
 foundation of the world. 
 
 Ingenious as is this view, I think it is only 
 the eminent ability of the men who have 
 adopted and defended it that would require 
 for it any serious notice. The explanation 
 which we have adopted above is perfectlj' 
 natural and simple, and makes equally clear 
 the reference to the previous suffering. It is 
 undoubtedly clear that the author plants him- 
 self on the singleness and finality of Christ's 
 priestly entrance into the heavenly sanctuary ; 
 but why? Is it not because he conceives his 
 single entrance into heaven as corresponding 
 to one single, efficacious sacrifice on earth? 
 And if the efficacy of that sacrifice is denied, 
 would not the singleness and sufficiency of 
 
 the heavenly presentation fall along with it? 
 And why is it less easy to suppose Christ re- 
 peatedly dying, and making with each death a 
 new priestly entrance into the Holy of Holies, 
 than to suppose him first undergoing a series 
 of deaths in successive ages, and then finally 
 entering heaven to make a corresponding 
 series of high-priestly oblations? This latter 
 idea could never have suggested itself to a 
 Jewish mind familiar with the Levitical sac- 
 rifices. The Levitical high priest entered, 
 year by year, the Mosaic sanctuary ; and with 
 every successive entrance there was, of course, 
 a fresh sacrifice. The idea of the Levitical 
 priest entering repeatedly the inner tabernacle 
 on the strength of a series of former sacrifices, 
 would, it seems to me, have been simjjly mon- 
 strous. And not less monstrous is the suppo- 
 sition that Christ should, by a series of former 
 deaths, have accumulated the material for a 
 series of oblations after assuming the heavenly 
 priesthood. One efficacious and final sacrifice 
 followed by one final and permanent entrance, 
 or a series of sacrifices followed by a series of 
 entrances, is all that the analogy of the 
 Levitical service could suggest. And surely 
 the writer would not for a moment con- 
 ceive of the absoluteness and finality of 
 Christ's priestly offering, except as depend- 
 ent on the absoluteness and finality of the 
 previous sacrifice. Unfix the one, and you 
 unfix the other; and then, according to the 
 whole analogy of the Levitical priesthood, 
 you make it necessary for him to descend and 
 perform a new sacrifice. And the renewal of 
 these ascents and descents is as supposable as 
 the renewal of the deaths with which they 
 are connected; and that these successive deaths 
 should be supposed to have taken place after 
 the analogy of the Jewish priestly rites, in 
 connection with successive entrances into the 
 sanctuary, is as easy as to suppose them to 
 have taken place somewhere and somehow in 
 former ages, and then their collective effect 
 gathered up and made available in a succession 
 of priestly offerings before God. 
 
 Theonlj' end gained by this hypothesis — 
 namely, that it explains the phrase "Must 
 have suffered many times from the foundation 
 of the world" — is equally well gained by one 
 which argues the sufficiency and finality of 
 Christ's entrance and suffering, from the fact 
 that he has not (as otherwise he would have) 
 
128 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but j 27 the sacrifice of himself. And inasmuch as it is ' ap- 
 
 after this the judgment : pointed unto men once to die, and alter this ci/mtl/i 
 
 ■^8 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of \ 28,judgmeut; so Christ also, having been once offered 
 
 1 Gr. laid up for. 
 
 suffered many times — and, of course, brought 
 many priestly offerings — from the foundation 
 of the world. As to his other argument, that the 
 author ought otherwise to have said, "suffered 
 and entered into the sanctuary," it is sufficient 
 to say that the ellipsis is perfectly easily sup- 
 plied (if requisite), every expiatory death 
 supposing a subsequent entrance into the sanc- 
 tuary with the blood, and every such en- 
 trance im|)lying a previous expiatory sacrifice. 
 Either, therefore, in this fixedness of their 
 connection, may stand for both. 
 
 The 'consummation of the ages' {avvriKna. 
 alMvuiv) is equivalent to, 'the end of these 
 days' — that is, 'the end of the world,' or, 'the 
 ages ' (to. TfKri Tuiv altuviov), 1 Cor. 10 : 11, etc. It 
 marks the point at which the pre-Messianic 
 age terminates, and the coming, or 'future 
 age' {ali}v fieAAoji/) commcnces. 'Manifested' 
 here clearly not ' before God (as some) in the 
 heavenly sanctuary,' but on earth in his in- 
 carnation. So 1 Tim. 3 : 16, "God was mani- 
 fested in the flesh ' ; 1 John 1 : 2, "The life 
 ■was manifested" ; 1 Peter 1 : 20, " was mani- 
 fested in the last times for you." Elsewhere 
 the word is applied to Christ's second coming. 
 
 (l John 2 : 28.) 
 
 To put away sin, etc. — For the doing 
 away of sin by his sacrifice. 'Doing away,' 
 annulling, abrogation (iefTijcrt?), as of a law 
 (7:18), of the sin, as well for past ages as for 
 the generation in which he appeared. The 
 expiation was good for all times, as shown by 
 its being made at the close of the great his- 
 torical eras. 'His sacrifice,' not, 'the sacrifice 
 of himself (auroO), but 'the sacrifice which 
 he offers,' which is indeed, of course, the sac- 
 rifice of himself, and need not be expressed. 
 
 27-28. A sort of argument from analogy 
 for the single, unrepeated death of Christ. 
 His case, says the author, stands in general 
 relation to that of man, with whom he shares 
 humanit}', and to whose destiny his might be 
 expected to bear a resemblance. In man's 
 history there are two grand epochs: first, 
 death; then, at a greater or less interval, a 
 judgment. Each of them is for itself single 
 and final. So there are two corresponding 
 epochs in the history of Christ: first, his death 
 
 to sin ; then his coming to judgment. And as 
 one death, once for all, is man's allotment un- 
 til the final fixing of his destiny in the judg- 
 ment, so otie death for sin is Christ's allotment 
 until his final coming to the judgment thai 
 shall fix the destiny of the world. The two 
 epochs, then, in case of each, stand severally 
 related to each other; their death once for all 
 through sin to his death once for all for sin ; 
 and their appearing, as the next thing, at the 
 tribunal of the final judgment, to his appear- 
 ing as the next thing to rear and ascend tliat 
 tribunal. There is thus, not merely the state- 
 ment of a fact, but a sort of latent argument 
 for the absolute finality, the deci-sive and abid- 
 ing consequences of his atoning death. 
 
 27. And as it is appointed, etc. — And in 
 so far as it is reserved. ' Reserved,' not ex- 
 actly, as in the Common Version, 'appointed.' 
 Also, not merely, as in our version, 'a.s'(is), or 
 'according as' (icoflu?), but 'inasmuch as,' 'in 
 so far as' (<ca9' baov), the words implying not 
 merely a likeness, but a ground or reason. 
 The author argues from the uniqueness of 
 man's death and its relations to the next and 
 great epoch in his destiny to a like uniqueness 
 of Christ's death and a like relation to his 
 Second Coming. Once {for all) to die (to 
 die a death which has no repetition), and 
 after this the (a) judgment — not necessarily 
 immediately after. The reference is to tlie 
 final judgment, and the interval may be 
 greater or less. Nor does the 'judgment' here 
 (as 10 : 2, 'a fearful looking for of judgment') 
 necessarily imply condemnation. It is simply 
 that adjudication which will take place for all 
 men in righteousness (Acta n; si), and of which 
 the results, as stated in Matt. 25, will be eter- 
 nal life or punishment, according to the char- 
 acters of those judged. 
 
 28. So {also) Christ, etc. The latent 
 ground of the inference here is Christ's par- 
 ticipation in humanity. "We may reason from 
 men in general to him, because he also was 
 man {being) offered once for all. Here, 
 clearly, 'offered upon the cross,' in expiatory 
 sacrifice, the passive being used (not the active, 
 'offering himself) simply because the author 
 would express the mere passive act of suffering, 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 129 
 
 many; and unto them that look for him shall heap- 
 pear tlie second time without sin unto salvation. 
 
 to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second tinie, 
 apart from sin, to them that wait for aim, unto sal- 
 vation. 
 
 without regard to the agent. Hence, we need 
 neither, with Chrysostom, supply 'by him- 
 self,' nor ' by man or by God ' ; but may leave 
 the thought in its absolute generality. To 
 bear the sins of many. 'Many' here is 
 used not as opposed to 'all,' and as limiting 
 the extent of the purpose and applicability of 
 the sacrifice. It is rather in contrast to the 
 im^^fe dying; he died but once, but it was to 
 bear the sins of many. A more disputed 
 point is the precise meaning of 'bear' (avivey- 
 Kily). By many (with Chrysostom, Theophy- 
 lact, etc.) it is understood of bringing the sins 
 as a sacrifice to be immolated; by others (as 
 Lutlier, Bleek, Hofmann, Lunemann), of 
 'taking away' (aijiaipelv) sins; by others (as 
 Bengel) of carrying them to the cross; by 
 others (as Bohmo, De Wette, Delitzsch, Moll) 
 of substitioiiary or vicarious bearing, of 
 taking upon himself the sins of many. On 
 the first and third of these meanings we need 
 not dwell. Of the second, it is enough to say 
 that it is more than doubtful whether the verb 
 {iiVfviyKelv) Can be used in the sense of 'remov- 
 ing,' or 'taking away." It is more probable 
 that, with allusion to Isa. 53:12, 'he bore 
 {aviivfyKf) the slus of many,' where, by com- 
 parison with 53 : 4, it clearly denotes substitu- 
 tionary bearing — that is, taking vpon himself 
 (see also Matt. 8:17: he 'took (iKa^ev) our 
 sins and bore {iSaaraaiv) our diseases'), such is 
 also the import of the word here, and that the 
 author describes Christ as being offered in 
 order to bear upon himself the burden of 
 human sin, and thus take it away. The (a) 
 second time (1:6) without (apart from) 
 sin — not, without the contamination of sin, 
 for that he never had; not, without tempta- 
 tion to sin, although this will be true; but 
 here, in ap|)arent contrast to 'bearing the sins 
 of many.' he will come without the burden of 
 sin upon him : that burden which made him a 
 man of .sorrows, which compelled him to en- 
 dure temptation in the wilderness, agonize in 
 the garden, and shed his blood on the cross. 
 Unto them that look for (avmit) him 
 (ineKStxoiievoit, 1 Cor. 1:7; Phil. 3:20, and 
 
 elsewhere in Paul)— to believers who, having 
 trusted him, now while he is gone to God look 
 an.viously and believingly for his reappear- 
 ing. Shall he appear {6<i>e^,TeTai)—wiU he be 
 seen. His coming will be visible, manifest to 
 all. Acts 1 : 11, "will he come as ye behold 
 him go up into heaven." See Matt. 24:27. 
 Unto (fur) salvation. Before, he came to 
 render their salvation possible; now he will 
 come to accomplish it. Before, he came to 
 bear the burden of their sins; now he will 
 come to bestow on thein the blessed conse- 
 quences of e.vpiated and forgiven sin. Before, 
 he appeared in sorrow and death, that they 
 might live; now he will appear triumphant 
 and glorious, that they may appear with him 
 in glory. 
 
 Ch. 10. (5) Summing up of the entire high 
 priestly argumoit. (10: 1-18.) 
 
 Finality of the work of Christ, answering, 
 perhaps, to the third point in the general 
 thesis: First, after the order of Melchisedec; 
 second, Christ becoming a High Priest; third, 
 a High Priest forever. 
 
 Chapter 7 discusses Christ's priesthood after 
 the order of Melchisedec. Chapters 8 and 9, 
 his High Priesthood, as the antitype of Aaron, 
 ministering, through his own blood, in the 
 heavenly sanctuar3-, and by this oflSce intro- 
 ducing a New Covenant. Chapter 10 : 1-18 
 may (with Delitzsch) be regarded as espe- 
 cially emphasizing the idea of 'forever.' It 
 divides itself into three parts: 
 
 (rt) Finality of Christ's voluntary sacrifice, 
 as opposed to the symbolical sacritices of the 
 law. (1-10.) 
 
 {b) Finality of Christ's priestly ministra- 
 tion, as opposed to the oft-repeated ministra- 
 tions of the Levitical priesthood. (11-14.) 
 
 (c) Finality of the New Covenant, and of 
 the sacrifice which seals it as effectimg th& 
 absolute remission of sins. (15-18.) 
 
 {a) Finality of Christ's voltintary sacrifice, 
 as opposed to the symbolical sacrifice of the 
 law. (1-10.) 
 
 'That avaipuv is so used furnishes no sufficient! nientaf meaning of the two- verbs (the one 'to ttiee^ 
 ground for affirming the same of ai'a(f>ipei.v, the fuoda- ' 'take up/ the other ''tO'bear') beiiiigsoidi^rcrent. 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FOR the law having a shadow of good things to come, 
 and not the very image of I he things, can never 
 with those saciitices, which they ottered year by year 
 continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. 
 
 2 I'Or then would they not have ceased to be offered? 
 because that the worshippers once purged should have 
 had no more conscience of sins. 
 
 1 For the law having a shadow of the good thinffs to 
 come, not the very image of the things, i can never 
 with the same saeritices year by year, which they 
 offer continually, make perfect them that diaw nigh. 
 
 2 Else Would they not have ceased to l>e ofiered, be- 
 cause the worshippers, having been once cleansed. 
 
 1 Mau; ancieot autboriiies read they can. 
 
 1. For the law having a shadow of the 
 good things to come, and not the very 
 image of the things. 'The law' is the 
 Mosaic law, with its priestly institutions and 
 rituals; not, of course, properly, the moral 
 law (though that, in the mind of a Jew, was 
 never sharply distinguished from the cere- 
 monial), but more especially the ceremonial. 
 The apostle, in Romans, generally has in view 
 the law under its moral aspects; our author, 
 in Hebrews, the law under its ritual aspects. 
 The one regards it as requiring holiness; the 
 other as symbolizing redemption. The one 
 finds it impotent froin the spirituality of its 
 demands; the other from the carnality of its 
 provisions. The "coming good things" are 
 here, as at 9 : 11, not the blessings of the gospel 
 regarded from the point of view of the law, 
 but the blessings yet future to the believers — 
 complete salvation, remission of sins, conform- 
 ity and nearness to God. Of these blessings, 
 the law had but the shadow ; the gospel has 
 their very image. In the law these great spir- 
 itual blessings are exhibited in mere symbol ; 
 it imparts nothing of their substance. The 
 gospel, although not as yet giving them in 
 their fullness and perfection, yet gives their 
 substantial verity, gives their very image. 
 The term 'image' is chosen designedly, be- 
 cause the contrast is not between the shadow 
 of these things, contained in the law and the 
 heavenly things themselves, but between their 
 shadow as contained in the law, and their 
 image as contained in the gospel. The rela- 
 tion of the Jewish ritual to the unseen and 
 epiritual good things, is that of the shadow to 
 the reality. The relation of the gospel sacri- 
 fice and expiation to them is that of an image 
 which substantially embodies and represents, 
 which gives their essential nature and glory, 
 as 'speech is the image of thought' ; as the 
 Son is 'the image of the invisible God.' The 
 law but represents these things in faint out- 
 lines; the gospel brings them home in a 
 
 fruition which grasps their substantial bless- 
 edness, and in a hope which leaves them still 
 'good things to come.' 
 
 Year by year can never,etc.— Never with 
 the same sacrifices, year by year, which they 
 offer perpetually. 
 
 'Year by year' (kot «Viovt6i'), some (as Liine- 
 mann) connect with 'sacrifices,' the phrase 
 thus equivalent to, 'with the same yearly sac- 
 rifices' ; but with 'year by year' emphatically 
 placed, Delitzsch gives it its most natural 
 grammatical construction (but harsh as to the 
 thought), 'year by year can never' — that is, 
 can never as often as the}' are repeated. 
 Others connect it, by a virtual transposition, 
 with the verb ' offer' — ' which they offer year 
 by year.' It is difficult to decide between 
 them, and the idea is substantially the same 
 in all. ' They,' the subject of ' offer,' refers to 
 the priests. 'Perpetually' (ei« to «i)jre(t«s), not 
 the absolute 'forever' (ei? rbi/ aiuiva), but a 
 qualified forever, in jyey-petuuyn, as 7:3, of 
 Melchisedec's priesthood. 
 
 Make the comers, etc. — Render perfect 
 them that approach to the sacrifices, or to God 
 through them. They that 'approach ' are the 
 worshipers, not the priests. The 'perfecting' 
 is cleansing spiritually' the conscience, giving 
 remission of sin and conscious reconciliation 
 with God. 
 
 2. For then, etc. (for otherwise), would 
 they not have ceased to be offered ? 
 Would not a single sacrifice have answered 
 the purpose, the reality of expiation b(>ing 
 secured ? The interrogative construction is an 
 emphatic form of affirmation. I may remark 
 that, although the present tenses here (vert n; 
 seem to be based on the actual present ex- 
 istence of these sacrifices, j-et the verb here 
 employed — 'would they not hove ceased' — 
 seems to throw doubt on this, if not to render 
 it decidedly improbable. If the writer had 
 distinctly in his mind the actual present time, 
 one sees not why he should not have said, 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 131 
 
 3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance agaiu 
 nuide of sins every year. 
 
 4 For il is not possil)le that the blood of bulls and of 
 goats should take away sins. 
 
 5 Wherefore, when he coraeth into the world, he 
 saith, Sacrifice and ottering thou wouldest not, but a 
 body hast thou prepared me: 
 
 3 would have had no more conscience of sins? But 
 in those sacrijices there is a reuienibrance made ol 
 
 4 sins year by year. For it is impo.ssible that the 
 blood of bulls and gnats should lake away sins. 
 
 5 Wherefore when lie Cometh into the world, he saitli, 
 
 Sacrifice and otfering thou wouldest not, 
 But a body didst thou prepare for me; 
 
 'would they not cease' (ovk av (iravovro). I 
 am inclined to the opinion that the use of the 
 present tense, wherever employed here, has 
 no express reference to the actual existence of 
 the Jewish ritual, but simply follows the prin- 
 ciple by which we conceive that which has 
 existed for many ages as always present, and 
 that the use of the present here neither proves 
 nor disproves the existence of the ritual in the 
 time of the writer. 
 
 Because that the worshippers, etc. — Be- 
 cause that those whx) serve (not the priest, but 
 the private worshiper), would have no longer a 
 co7isciousness of sins, having once for all been 
 cleansed. Forgiveness, although it does not 
 leave the believer without sin, leaves him 
 henceforth in a state of pardon. The forgive- 
 ness of one sin is a guarantee for the forgive- 
 ness of all sins. Pardon is a state, and though 
 the believer must come to the Advocate and 
 Mediator with his fresh sins for the fresh ap- 
 plication of the cleansing blood, yet, having 
 received it once, he is certain of it ever after. 
 The doctrine, therefore, here stated, holds 
 without involving the consequences of instant 
 sanctification. 
 
 3. But in those sacrifices there is a 
 remembrance (a calling to mind) of sins 
 year by year. The Jewish sacrifices can 
 accomplish, in the language of Philo, '"not 
 an oblivion of sins, but a calling them to re- 
 membrance." They quicken the conscience, 
 but cannot lull it to repose. Their office is 
 not to expiate, but to remind the soul of its 
 need of expiation. Thus they really produce 
 precisely the reverse effect to that for which 
 they are resorted to. And this from the nature 
 of the case: 
 
 4. For it is not possible that the blood of 
 bulls and of goats should take away sins. 
 Tiie proposition needs no proof; the more 
 naked the statement, the more palpable its 
 iruth. 'The blood of bulls and of goats,' 
 which here represent any and all animals 
 that may be offered in sacrifice, may suggest 
 the need of an atoning death, but can do 
 nothing more. , 
 
 5-10. Proof from Ps. 40 : 7-9 that not ani- 
 mal sacrifices, but a conscious, voluntary, 
 offering in obedience to the will of God, are 
 acceptable to him. By virtue of this we are 
 sanctified. 
 
 5. Wherefore (considering the utter ineffi- 
 ciency of all these sacrifices) when he cometh 
 into the world, he saith. The author here 
 introduces Christ as adopting the language of 
 David {Ps.40:7,seq.), Uttered by him after his 
 anointing; and when now, after man'y dan- 
 gers and deliverances, he is in near prospect 
 of the throne. On the final rending of the 
 kingdom from Saul, in consequence of his 
 disobedience, and its being given over to 
 another, God says, through Samuel, to the 
 unfaithful king (i Sam. is : w), "Hath the Lord 
 as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices 
 as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, 
 to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken 
 than the fat of rams." In the spirit of this 
 language, the predestined child of royalty 
 utters the words of the Psalm. As one escaped 
 from hate and persecution, and passingthrough 
 dangers and trials on his wa.y to exaltation and 
 triumph, and especially as the great ance.«tral 
 type of Christ on his way to the throne, which 
 was to find in Christ its true Occupant and it* 
 true stability and glory, the language may 
 well be regarded as typical of his great Son 
 and Successor, who, like himself, hunted by 
 persecution, like himself, divinely rescued 
 and guarded, also, like himself, though in an 
 incomparably higher degree, recognized the 
 insufficiency of animal sacrifices, and uncon- 
 ditionally devoted himself as the one accept- 
 able sacrifice. The language, applied primarily 
 to David, is api)licable, typically, to Chri.«t, 
 and, indeed, is put directly into his mouth, as 
 if the Psalmist were but the mere ntouthpiece 
 of the Messiah, as expressing the spirit and 
 significance of his earthly mission, and as 
 indicating the foreshadowing in the Old Testji- 
 nient of the grand, essential feature in the 
 New. The siuthor quotes somewhat freely 
 (and apparently from memory) from the Se|y- 
 tuagint, which again differs strikingly, though, 
 
132 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 G h) burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast 
 liad IK) pleasure. 
 
 7 Then s;ii(i I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book 
 it is written of me) lo do tby will, O God. 
 
 8 Above when be said, Sacritice and oflering and 
 burnt oileriiigs and offering for sin thou woulde.st not, 
 neither hiid.st pleasure therein; which are offered by the 
 law ; 
 
 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin 
 thou hadst no plea.su re: 
 
 Then said I, Lo, 1 am come 
 
 (In the roll of the book it is written of me> 
 
 To do thy will, O Vn)<^. 
 Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole 
 burnt offerings and sncrijices for sin thou wouldest 
 not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are 
 
 after all, not essentially, from the original 
 Hebrew. The Hebrew text runs literally 
 thus : 
 
 Sacrifices and meat offerings thou desirest not, 
 
 Kars hast thou wrought (hollowed out, bored) for me; 
 
 Burnt offerings and sufferings thou demandest not. 
 
 Then said I ; Lo I come 
 
 With the roll of the book which is written regardingme 
 
 (Or, In the roll of the book it is written regarding me), 
 
 I delight to do thy will, O God, 
 
 And thy, law is in my heart. 
 
 The Septuagint, literally rendered, runs 
 th us : 
 
 Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, 
 
 But a body didst thou prepare for me; 
 
 Holocausts and sin offerings thou didst not require: 
 
 Then I said, Lo I come. 
 
 In the volume of the book it is written concerning me ; 
 
 I desired to do thy will, O God, 
 
 And thy law in my inmost heart. 
 
 The deviations of the Septuagint from the 
 original are less important than they at first 
 seem. The most .striking one substitutes 'a 
 body didst thou prepare for me,' for, "ears 
 didst thou hollow out (or open) for me." The 
 meaning of both clauses is substantially the 
 satiie, and probably the Greek translators, to 
 avoid the harshness of a literal rendering, 
 which, in Greek, would have been nearly 
 unintelligible, simply generalized the ex- 
 pression, and instead of the more special 
 symbol of obedience, ' the ears,' as the organs 
 with which we hearken and obey, put the 
 'body' as the general instrument of accom- 
 plishing God's will ; and thus represent God, 
 instead of hollowing out for him ears with 
 which he might hearken, as framing for him 
 a body with which he might execute his will. 
 That the Divine Spirit may have presided 
 over the Septuagint translation, and made the 
 language more expressly adapted to the work 
 of David's Antitype, we cannot, perhaps, 
 affirm, yet certainly not deny. 
 
 The other passage, 'In the volume of the 
 book,' etc., admits of either rendering, and is 
 rendered by Hengstenberg in accordance with 
 the Septuagint. The "scroUof the book" is, 
 
 of course, the book of the law, and especially 
 Deuteronomy, which (Deui. n :i8, i9) was to be 
 the inseparable vade mecum of the kings of 
 Israel. ' With this law in my hands, which is 
 written in regard to me' ; or, 'In which rules 
 are prescribed forme'; or, 'In the scroll of 
 the law rules are prescribed for me,' or, 'It is 
 written concerning me' — either of these may 
 be the rendering of the original, and either 
 would be perfectly suited to the mouth of 
 David at this juncture of his life. Either, 
 also, would be suited to the Messiah, although 
 the former (given in the Septuagint) referring 
 rather to a prophecy than a precept, seems, in 
 his case, more eminently applicable. But it 
 cannot be denied (with Delitzsch) that the 
 whole passage bears a unique and almost mys- 
 terious character, which points it out as having 
 a typical, and even prophetic, significance, 
 especially when brought into comparison with 
 some utterances of our Saviour which seem, 
 in some sort, echoes of it, as John 8:29. 
 'Because I always do the things which are 
 pleasing to him ' ; see 17:4. ' When coming 
 into the world' may be understood, in a gen- 
 eral way, not of any particular period, as his 
 incarnation; still less, either of his entrance 
 on his public ministry, or arriving at the age 
 of manhood, or at the age of mature and clear 
 perception regarding the nature of his mission. 
 Rather, I think, it has reference to his pre- 
 existenc^, and looks to the general spirit and 
 purpose with which he submits to be clothed 
 with flesh, and make his appearance among 
 men. 
 
 I come to do thy will, O God, is an abbre- 
 viation, designed or undesigned, of the Sep- 
 tuagint, 'I come — I desire to do thy will, O 
 God.' The alteration is in no way material, 
 yet in its form, as expressing emphatic pur- 
 pose, it applies with special appropriateness to 
 the Messiah. 
 
 8. Recapitulation and inference. Above 
 when he said {when saying). Sacrifice and 
 offering and burnt otferings and offering 
 for sin thou wouldest not, neither {nor) 
 hadst pleasure in ; which are offered by 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 133 
 
 9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. 
 He taketh away the fii-st, that he may establish the 
 second. 
 
 lU By the which will we are sanctified through the 
 ofToriiig of the body of Jesus Christ once for nil. 
 
 11 .Vud every jjriest staudeth daily ministering and 
 offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never 
 take away si us: 
 
 9 offered according to the law), tlien hath he said, Ix>, 
 I am come to do thy will, lie taketh away ilie lir.si, 
 
 10 that he may establish the second. ' liy which will 
 we have been sanctified through the ottering of lue 
 
 11 body of Jesus Christ once lor all. And every -priesi 
 indeed slandeth uay by day ministering and oiter- 
 ing oltentimes the same sacrifices, the which can 
 
 1 Or, /h i Some aaciciit auitaoriiics ruad kigk priett. 
 
 {according to) the law. The hitter clause is 
 the author's characterization of these various 
 offerings, bringing tiieni into relation to his 
 purpose of showing the inudequacy of the law. 
 'Which' (am«t) rather characterizes than 
 individualizes the objects offered. 
 
 9. Then said he, etc. — Then hath he said, 
 Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh 
 away the first, that he may establish the 
 second. An inference from the whole pas- 
 sage, and a proof of his doctrine of the insuffi- 
 ciency of the Old Covenant sacrifices. Christ's 
 obedience to Gods gracious will is put in place 
 of the sacrifices of the law. From this it fol- 
 lows that Gods 'will' represents the deepest 
 elements of his character. His 'will' stands 
 as the expression of all those moral attributes 
 of which the will is the executive exponent, 
 and thus points to no merely arbitrary purpose 
 or decision. Animal sacrifices are only super- 
 ficial. Blind, involuntary, without moral na- 
 ture, they can in no way touch the deeper 
 springs of the divine character, nor truly pro- 
 pitiate it; there must be something that 
 touches his essential spiritual attributes, that 
 meets substantially the claims of his moral 
 law. This the offering of Christ does. It is a 
 spiritual holocaust, offered through an eternal 
 spirit as against a perishable animal life, as a 
 conscious, intelligent, voluntary sacrifice to 
 the will of God. It consists in a perfect, un- 
 swerving obedience to the will of God, and 
 finally in freely rendering up, in submission 
 to that will, the body which God had pre- 
 pared fi>r him. The Son of God comes on the 
 path of obedience. He learns obedience in 
 the school of suffering, and submits, with a 
 resignation which meets perfect approval, to 
 the death from which, under the stress of sore 
 temptation, he yet prays to be delivered. He 
 becomes obedient unto death, even the death 
 <m the cross. The passage is interesting as 
 intimating (as many others) the Father's 
 agency in the work of redemption. It is not 
 the merciful Son, placating the angry Father. 
 It is God, so loving the world as to give his 
 
 only begotten Son for its redemption, and the 
 Son cheerfully concurring in and fully execut- 
 ing his allotted part. The 'will of God, 'then, 
 is the broader element which takes in the sac- 
 rifice of the Son as the mode of reaching its 
 end. 
 
 10. By {in) the which will — in the sphere 
 of which will ; not that of Christ, but of God ; 
 this the higher and all encompassing element, 
 under whose auspices, within whose ordering 
 scope, the whole transaction takes place. We 
 are (have been) sanctified — here referring 
 not to internal, subjective, progressive sanctifi- 
 cation, which gradually ripens the believer 
 for heaven, but to the outward, formal, legal 
 sanctification ; the once for all setting aparty 
 the consecrating, the instituting of the new 
 and divine relation, out of which the sanctify- 
 ing process ('2:11, oi oYia^dfievot) springs. 
 Through the offering of the body of 
 Jesus Christ once for all. 'The body of 
 Jesus Christ' is inserted here with allusion to 
 the clause, ' a body didst thou prepare for me.' 
 It intimates tliat the Saviour carried out the 
 purpose for which his body had been formed 
 and given him, in offering it up a free-will 
 sacrifice to God. 
 
 So much for the first part of this emphatic 
 recapitulation — </te earthly offerinrj. The 
 offerings of the law were animal, blind, invol- 
 untary on the part of the victims, having no 
 Inherent excellence or power; that of Christ 
 was voluntary, spiritual, self-determined, an 
 act of obedience. It is efficient, therefore, and 
 final. 
 
 [b) Finality of Christ's priestly ministration 
 as opposed to the oft repeated ministrations of 
 the Levitical priesthood. (11-14.) 
 
 The hi;,-h priestly self-presentation and offer- 
 ing of the royal and eternal Antitype of Mel- 
 chisedec is in like manner as the offering of 
 his body, final. 
 
 11. And every priest, cic— every priest 
 indeed standeth ministeriny day by day, and 
 offering frequently the same sacrifices, which 
 can never takeaway sins. The 'priest' here 
 
134 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 12 But this man, after he had ofTered one sacrifice for 
 sins fur ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 
 
 13 From hencefoith expecting till bis enemies be 
 made his footstool. 
 
 14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever 
 them that are sanciitied. 
 
 15 W/iereof tlie Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: 
 for alter that he had said before, 
 
 IG This is the covenant that I will make with them 
 after those days, s;iith the Lord; I will put my laws 
 into their iieans, and in their minds will 1 write them ; 
 
 17 And their sins and iuiquities will I remember no 
 more. 
 
 18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more 
 ofl'ering for sin. ■ 
 
 12 never take away sins; but he, when he had ofl'ered 
 one sacrifice tor ' sins for ever, sat down oh the right 
 
 13 hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his 
 
 14 enemies be made the footstool of his feet. For by 
 one offering he hath perlected for ever them that are 
 
 15 sanctified. And the Holy S|iiril also beareth witness 
 to us: for after he hatli said, 
 
 16 This is the 2 covenant that "i will make with 
 
 them 
 After those days, saith the Lord; 
 I will put my laws on their heart, 
 And upon their mind also will I write them ; 
 then sait/i he, 
 
 17 And their sins and their iniquities will I remem- 
 
 ber no more. 
 
 18 Now where remission of these is, there is no more 
 ottering for sin. 
 
 1 Or, sins J /or ever sat down, etc 2 Or. testament 3 Gr. I will covenant.. 
 
 Stands clearly for the 'high priest,' with 
 whom Christ comes properly into comparison. 
 'Standeth' — in contrast with the royal Mel- 
 chisedec Priest who ' took his seat ' at the right 
 hand of God. 'Which can never take away 
 sins.' 'Which' (airtKe?), as above, ver. 9, not 
 merely' enumerates, but characterizes — of a 
 kind which. On this clause Delitzsch re- 
 marks: "The author does not mean to say 
 that the sins for whose expiation the offerings 
 •were brought remained unforgiven to the 
 worshiper, but that the offerings could pro- 
 duce no perfect peace of conscience, no as- 
 sured certainty of a gracious state, no actual 
 internal cleansing, and foundation of a new 
 spiritual life." What I suppose the author 
 means properly to say is, that the offerings 
 themselves had no power to produce forgive- 
 ness of sin, or to work any new spiritual life. 
 That all this might have existed, and in the 
 case of all genuine worshipers veaWy did exist, 
 I suppose he would by no means deny. There 
 was piety, there was true spiritual life, there 
 was consciously forgiven sin under the Old 
 Testament ritual. But it was not the product 
 of that ritual. That symbolized salvation : it 
 had the shadow of the good things to come; 
 but it never created the first holy emotion, nor 
 inspired the first breath of spiritual joj'. 
 
 12. But this man, etc. — He himself (or 
 emphatic he) after offering one sacrifice for 
 sins took his seat forever at the right hand of 
 God. A royal Priest, after the order of Mel- 
 chisedec, with an untransferable priesthood. 
 
 13. From henceforth, etc — henceforth 
 avmiting till his enemies beinade his footstool. 
 According to the promise made him at his 
 exaltation, Ps. 110 : 1: "Sit thou at my right 
 hand until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
 stool." (Mail. 22:44; 1 Cor. 15 : 25.) 
 
 14. For by (with) one offering he hath 
 perfected for ever them that are sancti> 
 fied — and therefore needs not renew that 
 offering, as the victims slain under the law, 
 which could bring no perfection, and required 
 constant renewal. 
 
 (c) Finality of the New Covenant, of the 
 sacrifice which seals it as effecting the absolute 
 remission of sins. (15-18.) 
 
 And finally, to all this the Holy Spirit 
 sets his seal by declaring that under tiie New 
 Covenant, ratified by the blood of Christ, a 
 work of inward regeneration is wrought, and 
 the sins of the believer are effaced froin his 
 consciousness forever, and thus sets aside all 
 possible need of any further offering. 
 
 15-17. The Holy Ghost (Spirit) also is a 
 (beareth) witness to us. The Holy Spirit, as 
 the special Inspirer of Scripture, and thus, so to 
 speak, responsible for all which Scripture con- 
 tains, and giving to it his sanction, is referred 
 to by the author, 3 : 7. See also 9:8. For 
 after that he had said {having said), This 
 is the covenant that I will make with 
 them after those days, saith the Lord — 
 giving my laws on their hearts, and vpon their 
 mind also I will write them, and their sins a7id 
 their iniquities I will rememherno more. The 
 point of the quotation lies in ver. 17. Yet the 
 others are also important as showing that true 
 and proper forgiveness stands only in connec- 
 tion with a system which can reach and reno- 
 vate the spiritual nature. We have now the 
 final inference. 
 
 18. Now where remission of these is, 
 there is no more {7%o longer) offering for 
 sin. Whether 'no longer' (oiic «ti) be taken 
 here as logical or temporal (either, equally ac- 
 cordant with Greek usage), it matters little; 
 the conclusion is the same. The complete, 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 135 
 
 unconditional forgiveness of sin renders un- 
 necessary any further expiatory sacrifice, and 
 the system which actually imparts that must 
 supersede forever the system which could only 
 point to it 
 
 With this triple reiteration of the forevei — 
 tiie absoluteness and finality of the work of 
 Christ closes this brief, but striking epilogue. 
 Let us again glance back over it. That work 
 is final. 
 
 First. In substituting a free, voluntary, obe- 
 dient sacrifice of the body of Christ, in place 
 of the animal sacrifices of the law. 
 
 Second. In substituting the royal, untrans- 
 ferable Melchisedec high priesthood of Christ, 
 with its single high-priestly oblation, for the 
 ineffectual and therefore oft-repeated minis- 
 trations in the sanctuary of the Levitical 
 priests. 
 
 Third. In introducing a new, spiritual cove- 
 nant, which engraves its record on the heart, 
 and in effacing the guilt of the conscience ren- 
 ders furtlier offering unnecessary. 
 
 Ill each of these divisions our ear catches 
 the echo of that 'forever' (eU tok aiioya), which 
 at 6 : 20 forms the closing topic of his grand 
 thesis: 'After the order of Melchise- 
 i^Ec;'. — 'a high priest' — 'forever.' 
 
 Tlie argument is completed. The three 
 grand sections of the discussion proper are 
 closed. Jesus, the Apostle of a New Cove- 
 nant, greater than the angels, the messengers 
 and ministers of the Old; Jesus, the Founder 
 of the New Testament house of God, the spir- 
 itual Israel, greater than Moses, the founder 
 and lawgiver of the household of ancient 
 Israel ; and finally and especially — for this was 
 the grand topic to which the author was has- 
 tening, and all that precedes was but subordi- 
 nate and introductory — Jesus, the great High 
 Priest of the New Covenant, comprising in 
 liis own person the regal and eternal dignity 
 symbolized in Melchisedec, and the power 
 really to expiate, forgive, and bring near 
 t« God, symbolized in Aaron — all these 
 topics have passed successively before us, 
 and each has been touched briefly, grandly, 
 weightily, as befitted the weighty theme. 
 
 But the author's aim was practical, not theo- 
 retical. This sublime discussion, like all other 
 portions of Scripture, had its origin in imme- 
 diate spiritual necessities. Its purpose was to 
 re-establish the waning faith of converts from 
 
 Judaism, who were in imminent danger of 
 lapsing back to their old worship and aposta- 
 tizing from the living God. With a view to 
 this, he has already thrice broken the thread 
 of the discussion, in order to give to his doc- 
 trine a most impressive, practical turn, and 
 now, the argument proper being completed, 
 the whole remainder of the Epistle assumes a 
 hortatory character, and that, too, never for a 
 moment forgetting the one leading purpose of 
 warning its readers against apostasy. Until 
 its very last chapter, it never so far loses sight 
 of this as to turn to those general exhortations 
 which belong to the Christian life. The key- 
 note struck at tlie beginning is, with a marvel- 
 ous concentration and intensity of purpose, 
 carried through to the end. With the skill, 
 too, which marks its general structure, the au- 
 thor so manages as to take up the thread of ex- 
 hortation here precisely where he had dropped 
 it at 4 : 16, where he first formally entered on 
 the subject of Christ's priesthood. There the 
 injunction is: 'Let us approach with boldness 
 to the throne of grace' ; here, ' Having there- 
 fore boldness, let us approach with a true 
 heart,' in full assurance of faith. 
 
 PART II. HORTATORY. 
 
 Exhortation to the readers, in view of their 
 having such a High Priest, and access to 
 the heavenly throne, to draw near with bold- 
 ness and maintain their fidelity to their Chris- 
 tian profession ; and this enforced by the ter- 
 rible consequences of apostasy, and by an 
 appeal to them to secure by steadfastness, 
 until the now near end, the fruits of their 
 former sufferings and fidelity. (19-39.) 
 
 (rt) Exhortation to approach God boldly by 
 the new and living way into the sanctuary 
 opened in Christ, to stir up each other in love, 
 and not forsake the Christian assemblies. 
 (19-25) 
 
 (6) Enforcement of this exhortation by set- 
 ting forth (as at 6 :3-8) the fearful conse- 
 quences of apostasy. (26-31.) 
 
 (c) The author reminds them encouragingly 
 of their former sacrifices for Christ, and urges 
 them not to lo.se the reward of their labors, 
 but to endure with faith and jjatience during 
 the brief interval until the Second Coming. 
 (32-39.) 
 
136 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Cii. X. 
 
 19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into 
 the holiest by the blood of Jesus, 
 
 20 By a new and living way, which he hath conse- 
 crated for us, through the vail, that is to say, his fiesh; 
 
 21 And luwiiig s. high priest over the house of God; 
 
 19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into 
 
 20 the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way 
 which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, 
 
 21 through ihe veil, that is to say, his flesh ; and liav- 
 
 Another of the numerous triplets into which 
 the divisions of this Epistle naturally falls. 
 
 (rt) Exhortation to approach God boldly, 
 to stir up each other to love, and not to forsake 
 the Christian assemblies. (19-25.) 
 
 19. Having therefore, brethren, bold- 
 ness, etc.— /or the entering into; literally, 
 'for the entrance of the sanctuary' — that is, 
 the hcrtvenly Holy of Holies, figurative for the 
 iniinediute presence and communion of God. 
 By (m) the blood of Jesus. The connec- 
 tion of this clause is variously given. By 
 many (with Bleek), "an entrance in or by the 
 blood of Jesus," to which Delitzsch objects 
 that entering in or with blood is strictly a high- 
 priestly act. But is not the believer's entrance 
 into the sanctuary conceived as strictly in or 
 by the blood of Jesus? Jesus goes in by his 
 own blood, but as Forerunner, leading his 
 people after him, who thus enter in or by his 
 blood. By Delitzsch the construction is given, 
 ''boldness, or confidence in the blood of Jesus' ; 
 'boldness or confidence,' that is, which restson 
 the sacrifice of Jesus. By others, as Liine- 
 mann. it is connected with the previous clause 
 as a whole: ' having boldness for the entrance 
 ... in the blood of Jesus.' Perhaps there is 
 not much choice in the constructions. In 
 either case the "blood of Jesus," shed in sac- 
 rifice on the cross, and figuratively borne into 
 the heavenly Holy of Holies, there to be sprin- 
 kled on the mercy .seat, is the efficient means 
 of realizing that approach to God which the 
 blood of Old Testament victims only symbol- 
 ized. 
 
 20. By a new and living way, etc. — 
 Which he dedicated for us, as a new and living 
 way. 'Which' {entrance, eiaoSo?) is described 
 as 'new,' because hitherto unopened and un- 
 known; 'living,' not because it leads to life, 
 not as equivalent to life-giving, but in contrast 
 with the natural and lifeless ' way ' of stone, 
 that led the high priest into the earthly sanc- 
 tuary; a living, spiritual path, which brings 
 to the true heavenly goal. This entrance 
 Christ dedicated by himself passing over it. 
 Through the vail, that is to say, his flesh. 
 
 The flesh or body of Christ is compared to the 
 vail which hung before the earthly Holy of 
 Holies, because as long as his body remained 
 uncrucified, an entrance into that sanctuary 
 was impossible, In the crucifixion the body 
 of Christ and the vail of the sanctuary were 
 rent simultaneously. The figure, however, is 
 here merely accidental. We are not to sup- 
 pose that the author regarded the vail of the 
 tabernacle as symbolizing properly the body 
 of Christ. It is only so conceived for the mo- 
 ment, with perhaps an allusion to the ' living 
 way' that took its place. The vail partakes 
 of that character of life. The vail of the old 
 tabernacle was dead matter; the living (though 
 dead) body of Christ takes its place. 
 
 But shall we construct the 'through' («i<i) 
 with the 'way' [locally, "through the vail," 
 as Bleek, De Wette, Liinemann, Kurtz), or 
 with 'dedicated,' taking it instrumentully 
 "by means of" (as Delitzsch, who says that 
 the idea is not that for us the way leads 
 through the vail, since this was done away by 
 Christ )? Though this is true, yet as the n)eans 
 by which Christ entered the Holy of Holies 
 was his own broken body, and he entered as 
 the Forerunner of his people, and it is not un- 
 natural to conceive that through which we 
 pass instruinentally as also that through which 
 we pass locally, I think the local construc- 
 tion with 'way' (o&6v) more natural.' 
 
 21. And having a [great) priest over the 
 house of God. Our first ground of encourage- 
 ment for drawing near to God is that our great 
 Forerunner has passed through the vail and 
 opened a path by which we may follow him, 
 so that the vail no longer exists, except rather 
 as a means of, than an exclusion from, en- 
 trance. Our second is, that in that awful 
 sanctuary, that house of God, we have a Great 
 Priest to make intercession for us, and shield 
 our weakness under the blaze of the Divine 
 Majesty. 'Great Priest' is not here a syn- 
 onyiTi for ' High Priest,' but rather designates 
 Christ as exalted in kingly and priestly ma- 
 jesty. The 'house of God ' seems here to be 
 the heavenly house, the abode of God, and 
 
 1 With the verb we should have expected an added iio(\6iiv. 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 13T 
 
 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assur- 
 ance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 
 conscience, and our Dodies washed with pure water. 
 
 23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without 
 wavering ; for he is faithtul that promised ; 
 
 22 ing a great priest over the house of God ; let us draw 
 near with a true heart in ' fulness of faith, hav- 
 ing our hearts sprinkled from an evil 2 conscience: 
 
 23 and having our body washed with pure water, let us 
 bold fast the confession of our hope that it waver 
 
 I Or, full assurance 2 Or, conscience, and our iody watked with pure water : let us hold fast. 
 
 the predestined dwelling place of his chil- 
 dren. The 'house of God' (3:2) was God's 
 house on earth (and, perhaps, also in heaven), 
 the organized coniinunity of his people, the 
 New Testament ' house of Israel.' Here, it is 
 rather that ' house of my Father in which 
 are many mansions,' where God dwells, and 
 where Jesus has gone to prepare a place for 
 his disciples. 
 
 22. Let us draw near — that is, to God, to 
 the heavenly sanctuary — with a true heart 
 — with a real, genuine heart (aAijdii'^s), a heart 
 that answers to the name; hence, not false, 
 not hypocritical — in full assurance of faith. 
 At 6 : 11 he exhorts the readers to strive after 
 the 'full assurance (n-A>jpo<^opta) of hope' ; here, 
 with very similar idea, to come in 'the full 
 assurance of faith.' Hope looks forward to 
 the end ; faith lays hold of the means. Hope 
 fastens on the anticipated glories; faith on 
 him and his work, by whom they are to be 
 realized. By faith we dismiss all doubts of 
 our right to enter the path previously trod by 
 the Redeemer, and of the eflScacy of his 
 atonement and intercession. 
 
 Having {had) our hearts sprinkled from 
 an evil conscience. This clause, I think, 
 stands immediately, and most naturally, con- 
 nected with the preceding. It completes the 
 statement of the subjective moral conditions 
 under which we can draw near to God, and 
 assigns the ground on which we may have 
 the 'true heart' and the 'full assurance of 
 fiiith ' ; namely, that our hearts have been 
 sprinkled fiom an evil conscience. Until the 
 'blood of sprinkling,' instead of being sprinkled 
 over our bodies, falls upon our hearts, and 
 cleanses away the sense of guilt, replacing it 
 with conscious reconciliation, pardon, and 
 spiritual peace, there can be no ' true heart,' no 
 real confidence of faith. As then the people 
 of the Old Covenant were sprinkled outwardly 
 by Moses with the blood of the unconscious 
 victims, so let us come with boldness, having 
 had onr hearts sprinkled with the blood of 
 him who, through an eternal spirit, offered 
 himself to God. This participial clause (as 
 
 also the following), is not a part of the exhor- 
 tation, but is the basis of the exhortation. 
 These clauses express the ideal condition of 
 the believers. He has had his heart sprinkled 
 from an evil conscience, and his body washed 
 in pure water. These are the conditions of 
 his entrance on the Christian life. The sprink- 
 ling of the heart from an evil conscience is 
 the distinguishing feature of the gospel — it is 
 the primary gift of Christ ; and, as having 
 had this sprinkling, and the subsequent and 
 corresponding external washing of baptism, 
 the disciples are exhorted to all Christian con- 
 fidence and fidelity. 
 
 23. And having (Aarf)our bodies washed 
 with pure water, let us hold fast {main- 
 tain) the confession of our hope unwaver- 
 ing). Calvin and some others have found 
 in this first clause a reference (Ezek. 36:25) 
 to the outpouring of the Spirit; but such a 
 reference is forbidden alike by the use of 
 the term 'body,' showing a material appli- 
 cation of water, and the connection of the 
 passage. The purifying rites of the Old 
 Covenant were partly with blood and partly 
 with water. Expiation was symbolized by 
 blood — simple cleansing, and moral purity, by 
 water. The New Covenant meets the Old at 
 every point. For the sprinkling of the blood 
 of beasts upon the body it has the sprinkling 
 of the blood of Christ upon the heart. For 
 the lustrations with water, by which the priests 
 cleansed themselves when entering on their 
 duties, and especially for that complete bathing 
 of the body which the high priest underwent 
 before entering the inner sanctuary (i-ev. i(!:4), 
 the Christian priesthood, before following 
 Christ within the vail into the presence of 
 God, must also submit to the same symbol- 
 ical clean:ing, though vastlj' more significant. 
 This is clearly baptism—" not the putting away 
 of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a 
 good conscience toward God." Thus the au- 
 thor unites the outward and the inward; the 
 efficient and the sacramental elements of the 
 Christian life; deliverance from the guilt and 
 power of sin wrought by the Holy Spirit oq 
 
138 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 24 And let us consider one another to provoke uuto 
 love and to good works : 
 
 25 Not lorsaking the assembling of ourselves together, 
 as the manner of some is ; but exhorting one aiwlher: 
 and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. 
 
 24 not; for he is faithful who promised : and let us con- 
 sider one another to provoke unto love and good 
 
 25 works; not lorsaking our own assembling together, 
 as the custom of some is, but exhorting one anolher; 
 and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing 
 nigh. 
 
 the application of the blood of Christ to the 
 soul, and then this moral renovation and 
 purity — a death to sin and a resurrection to 
 holiness — symbolized in the bath of baptism. 
 As the preceding clause naturally connects 
 itself with what goes before, so this connects 
 itself with what succeeds — with baptism asso- 
 ciates itself 'confession' (6iio\oyia), an ac- 
 knowledgment of devotion to Christ. Only 
 by thus separating the clauses do we avoid 
 a very abrupt transition. Unwavenng, un- 
 bending^ is the predicative qualification of 
 'confession.' Let us hold our confession un- 
 bending, so that it shall not waver. The 
 author proceeds to assign a reason ; For 
 faithful is he that promised. God, who 
 made the promise, is faithful and true (ixhess. 
 5: 24; icor. 1 :9), "he gives by Covenant and by 
 oath" (6:13-18); and by both, alike, it is im- 
 possible for him to deceive. 
 
 24. Verse 22 exhorts believers to come in 
 full confidence oi faith ; verse 23 to hold un- 
 wavering the confession of hope ; the present 
 verse completes the triad of Christian graces. 
 And let us consider one another to pro- 
 voke {stir up) unto love and to good 
 works. The idea is not (as the original might 
 be possibly construed), 'let us contemplate 
 one another, for the purpose of finding in our 
 common example a stimulus to love and good 
 works,' but, ' !et us give heed to one another, 
 that we may stimulate one another,' etc. As 
 Christian brethren, members of the same great 
 household, having access to the same heavenly 
 sanctuary, and fellow-worshipers, let us regard 
 one another's interests, and each strive for the 
 good of all. 
 
 25. Not forsaking the assembling of 
 ourselves together — the gathering together 
 for Christian communion and worship. This, 
 of cour.«e, does not mean not abandoning alto- 
 gether the Christian assemblies, which, of 
 course, would be a token of final apostasy, 
 and to which the language, 'as the manner of 
 some is,' would be inapplicable; but that fail- 
 ure, frequently and statedly, to gather them- 
 selves in Christian assemblages, whether from 
 indifference or fear or doubt, which would 
 
 endanger their Christian steadfastness, and 
 certainly check their spiritual growth. As 
 the manner of some is. Some had already 
 given this token of indifference and half- 
 heartedness in the Cliristian profession, and 
 thus laid themselves liable to just rebuke. 
 The language does not mark formal apostates, 
 but those who might be on the road to apos- 
 tasy. But exhorting one another — as, by 
 clear implication, they could do most effect- 
 ually in their assemblies, where they could be 
 fired by a common zeal. And (by) so much 
 the more, as ye see the day approaching 
 {drawing nigh). ' The day ' is the day of 
 Christ, the day of the Lord's return, which, 
 according to his prediction, was supposed to 
 be near, which, in fact, was near, and of which 
 the tokens were already visible. That, ac- 
 cording to the whole scheme of Hebrew 
 prophecy, our Lord puts his symbolical and 
 anticipatory coming in the breaking up of the 
 Jewish state, and the final extinction of the 
 old theocratic system, in place of that final 
 and greater coming, which the former but 
 foreshadowed, and that, according to this prin- 
 ciple, we are to interpret the numerous New 
 Testament prophecies on this point, seems 
 well nigh certain. Two things are clear: 
 First, that our Lord repeatedly gave his dis- 
 ciples to understand that his return was to be 
 speedy and before the passing away of that 
 generation, and that, accordingly, such an 
 expectation existed in the church; secondly, 
 that, in fact, this coming was only figurative, 
 while that for which it stood — the Parousia, 
 in its absolute sense — was far in the future, 
 and was known to be so by the Spirit that pre- 
 sided over the whole scheme of prophecy. 
 Indications of the coming day of wrath about 
 to break over devoted Jerusalem were doubt- 
 less already visible. The emphasis lies not on 
 'day' or 'approaching,' but on 'see.' It is 
 by how much his readers see the day of the 
 Lord apy)roaching, by how much its lurid 
 light is already breaking along the horizon of 
 the future, that they are exhorted to fidelity. 
 (h) The exhortation sharpened by the ter- 
 rible consequences of apostasy. (26-31.) 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 139 
 
 26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received i 
 the knowledge of the truth, there reiuaiiielh no more 
 sacriticc for sins, 
 
 27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and 
 fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. | 
 
 26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received 
 the knowledge of the truth, there reniaineth no 
 
 27 more a sacrilice for sins, hut a tertain fearful expee- 
 taliou of jadguieut, and a ' fierceness of tire which 
 
 1 Or, jealousy. 
 
 26. For if we sin wilfully (voluntarily). 
 The sin is clearly thut of apostasy — that is, 
 as denoted by the present participle (aiiap- 
 TavovTiav), that abiding m sin, that yielding 
 ourselves permanently to its power, which 
 marks an evil heart of settled unbelief. And 
 the sin itself is not so much sinful indulgences, 
 which spring up in consequence of departing 
 from God, as those internal acts wliich consti- 
 tute thut departure itself. It is not sin, in its 
 incidental effects, in its blossoms, that is struck 
 at; but sin, in its essential nature, and in its 
 deepest root; unbelief, with its natural con- 
 comitants. Similarly John uses the term 
 (1:39), "Every one that is begotten of God 
 does not commit sin; because his seed re- 
 maineth in him, and he cannot sin because he 
 is begotten of God.'' To 'sin voluntarily' or 
 ' wilfully,' then, is voluntarily to renounce 
 the faith which we have reposed in Christ, 
 and make a formal return to the beggarly 
 elements which we had abandoned. After 
 we have received [receiving) the knowl- 
 edge of the truth— after being 'enlightened' 
 "^nd ' tasting the good word of God.' ' Knowl- 
 edge' (tTriyfajffis), here equivalent to 'recogni- 
 tion,' ' acknowledgment,' not merely a passive 
 illumination {yvC>a<.^), but one which had been 
 accompanied by a positive movement, and a 
 full and ratifying assent of the mind ; thus a 
 stronger and more emphatic word than the 
 latter (yvcio-is). 
 
 On the question whether this marks a true 
 child of God, and, if so, whether it is possible 
 for him actually so to sin, see the remarks at 
 6:3-5. I would here simply repeat : (1) There 
 is not, in all the Epistle, I think, a positive dec- 
 laration that the persons in question do fall 
 away. The only thing positively stated is the 
 desperate consequence of such falling, in case 
 it may happen. The power of divine grace 
 has been exhausted, and the case, therefore, 
 is hopeless. (2) There are repeated statements 
 made throughout the New Testament that the 
 truly regenerated cannot fall away. Such, 
 among others, is the passage (i Johns :9) quoted 
 above ; such John 10 : 28, 29; Rom. 8 : 35-39. 
 It is difficult to see how passages like these 
 
 could be written, if it were a fact that many 
 who had been regenerated by the grace of 
 God, did actually fall again under the final 
 power of the devil. (3) In the whole New 
 Testament, apostasy is regarded as .mhjectively 
 possible. The apo.stle, who probably had no 
 doubt of his final salvation, yet says, "1 keep 
 my body under, lest after preaching to others 
 I myself prove reprobate." And so every 
 where he treats the per.>5everance and final 
 salvation of believers as resting instrumentally 
 on their efforts; and, subjectively, they are 
 always in danger of falling away. The Epistle 
 to the Hebrews only puts this general doctrine, 
 which pervades the entire New Testament, in 
 a stronger and more solemn light, by how 
 much the case was more pressing, and the 
 danger more imminent. But neither here nor 
 elsewhere is there an explicit declaration of 
 the possibility of that falling away of believers, 
 which, if admitted, revolutionizes the New 
 Testament doctrine of salvation, and goes far 
 to take away the sacredness and divinity of a 
 heavenly birth. 
 
 There reniaineth no more (a) sacrifice 
 for sins. Either, there will be no repeated 
 oflering for sin ; Christ will not die again ; or, 
 the benefits of that offering which has been 
 made will be no longer available to them. 
 So far as the language may refer to the oh-; 
 jectively impossible falling away of true be- 
 lievers, it is the former; so far as to the lapse 
 of the highly enlightened, but not really 
 regenerate, it is the latter. If Christians fall 
 away, the entire resources of salvation are 
 exhausted ; the blood of Christ has proved its 
 utmost power and been inefficacious. If others 
 fall away who have reached a very high grade 
 of spiritual enlightenment, who liave exj)er- 
 ienced all of divine influence i?<< regeneration, 
 their recovery is morally impossible. God 
 will not bless the eflbrts for their renewal, but, 
 like the field that has answered the rains and 
 sunshine only with thcjrns and thistles, will 
 give them over to the burning. 
 
 27. The last verse gave the negative side 
 of their punishment; the present gives its 
 positive. But {there remaineth) a. certain 
 
140 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 2S He that despised Moses' law died without mercy 
 under two or three witnesses: 
 
 2y Of how luiicli sorer puuishnient, suppose ye, shall 
 he be thought worthy, who halh trodden under foot the 
 Sou of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, 
 wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, aud hath 
 done despite uuto the Spirit of grace? 
 
 28 shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set 
 at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on 
 
 29 the u-ord of two or three witnesses : of how much 
 sorer punishment, tliiiik ye, sbiill he be judged 
 worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of 
 God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, 
 wherewith he was sanctified, i an unholy thing, aud 
 
 1 Gr. a common thing. 
 
 fearful looking for of judgment. By 
 
 ail elegant metaphor the epithet ' fearful ' 
 is transferred from the 'judgment' to the 
 exi)ec'tation of it, the nature of the judg- 
 ment being thus inferable from that of the 
 foreboding of it. 'Judgment' ((cpiVn) is here, 
 as occasionally elsewhere, equivalent to con- 
 demnation 'KaTdLKpLfTii), 'a certain ' (tU), giving a 
 certain vagueness to the representation, and 
 imjil^'ing it as indescribable, heightens its fear- 
 ful character. And fiery indignation (a 
 wrath of fire), which shall {is about to) de- 
 vour the adversaries. The two clauses give 
 the entire elements of their condition. Their 
 present allotment is an inward, fearful antici- 
 pation of vengeance; their future is an out- 
 ward 'wrath of lire' that will devour them at 
 tlie final judgment which they shudderingly 
 anticipate. 'Wrath of fire' (n-upbs ^^Ao?), not 
 'fiery indignation,' as in the Common Ver- 
 sion. The fire itself in which that day shall 
 be revealed (I Cor. 3 : 13, " For the day shall 
 disclose it because it is revealed in fire"), 
 is personified and represented as putting forth 
 its wrath. 'About to' ((it'AAoi/ros) refers to the 
 speediness of the coming wrath. They could 
 see the day approaching in which Christ would 
 come to be glorified in his saints, and to take 
 vengeance on his enemies. It is not always 
 near in precisely the sense in which it was 
 then ; for then, in awful symbol, it was just at 
 band ; but it is always near to the eye of faith 
 which rccl«)ns that " the Lord is not slack con- 
 cerning his promise as men count slackness.'' 
 The language clearly alludes to Isa. 26:11; 
 Septuagint, 26 : 11 : "Wrath (^ijAos) shall seize 
 an ignorant people, and now fire will devour 
 
 the adversaries" (wOp tou« vnevavriovi; tStrai). 
 
 28. An emphatic repetition of tlie sentiment 
 expressed in 2:2, 3, and of the sentiment 
 (though more indirectly expressed) of 3 : 7-19. 
 What is stated hypothetically (though not 
 douhtingly) in chapter 2 is here stated posi- 
 tively. He that despised (any one setting 
 at nought i a9£T>/<Tos, doing away with, annul- 
 ling, abrogating, so far as in his power; see 
 
 deeTij<ris, 7 : 18) the law of Moses died with- 
 out mercy {compassion) under two or three 
 witnesses. Many minor violations of the 
 Mosaic law were punished with death ; but the 
 special reference here seems (as is natural) to 
 cases of blasphemy (Lev. 24: n-is), idolatry, and 
 instigation thereto (Deut. 17:2-7), especially, per- 
 haps, the latter, as here the condition of two 
 or three witnesses is especially prescribed. 
 This falling away from Jehovah was more 
 than a mere ordinary transgression. It was a 
 virtual annulling (ieeTTjo-t?) of that law; a re- 
 nunciation of its authority, and thus stands 
 in a like category to falling away from Christ. 
 The argument proceeds from the less to the 
 greater. 
 
 29. Of how much sorer punishment, 
 suppose {think) ye, shall he be thought 
 worthy. In this 'think ye' the author leaves 
 the case to the judgment and conscience of his 
 hearers. They, in view of the relative de- 
 grees of guilt, may decide for themselves on 
 the relative degrees of punish tnent in the two 
 cases. 'Deemed worthy' — namely, by God 
 in the final judgment. As there can be no 
 worse earthly punishment than death, thtit 
 here spoken of must of course be after death. 
 Who hath trodden under foot the Son of 
 God. 'Trod down,' 'trampled' (KaTaTraTtir, as 
 Matt. 6 : 9, "they will trample them under 
 their feet"), the strongest expression of con- 
 tempt and act of insult. Of course, it is not 
 intended to aflRrm that these apostates treat 
 with wanton contempt and contumely the 
 Saviour whom they abandon, but that thoy 
 virtually do so; such is a fair interpretation 
 of their act of desertion. In turning their 
 backs on Christ they, as it were, denj' and 
 crucify him afresh, and ratify the rejection of 
 him by their fathers. This is written, we 
 must remember, to those whose fathers and 
 nation had but recently, with reviling and 
 blasphemy, rejected the Messiah. And halh 
 counted the blood of the covenant, 
 wherewith {in which) he was sanctified, 
 an unholy thing {impure). The blood of 
 
Ch. X] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 141 
 
 30 For we know hiiu that hath said, Vengeance 
 helonytllt unto me, I will recompense, sailh the Lord. 
 And again, The Lord shall judge his people. 
 
 31 h is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
 living God. 
 
 30 hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we 
 know hiiu who said, Vengeance helongeth unto me, 
 I will recomj)ense. And again, The Lord shall judge 
 
 31 his peoi)le. it i.s a fearful tiling to fall into the hands 
 of the living God. 
 
 Christ shed in ratification of the New Cove- 
 nant is the blood of the Covenant. In this 
 blood— in its sphere, through it, by it— the 
 believer had been sanctified, had been made 
 hofy (aytos), here referring not so much to that 
 proce.ss of personal sanctification, which each 
 believer inwardly undergoes, as to the formal 
 outward relation of saints, holy or consecrated 
 ones, into which all are brought by virtue of 
 their faith in Christ. The blood of Christ, by 
 which this sacred cleansing bas been wrought, 
 the apostate from him thus decides to be un- 
 clean ; whether bnpure as opposed to ])ure (as 
 Tholuck, Ebrard, Liinemann, etc.), or com- 
 7no)i as opposed to sacred (as De Wette, Del- 
 itzsch), it is difficult to decide. Perhaps both 
 conceptions are substantially included in it. 
 Hath done despite unto (outraged, treated 
 contumelionsLy) the Spirit of grace. All 
 gracious influences which bad wrought upon 
 him were the product of the Spirit. It was 
 the Spirit tiiat had enlightened him (John 
 16:13, "he shall lead you into all truth"), 
 that had quickened him, that had applied to 
 him the sanctifying efficacy of the blood of 
 Christ. As all spiritual life is the product of 
 the Spirit, religious apostasy, as it is a tramp- 
 ling on the blood of Christ as its formal and 
 legal author, so is heaping contumely on the 
 work of the Spirit, as its efficient, internal 
 author. The one is not intended to mark the 
 unpardonable sin, or the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost, more than the other. Both are differ- 
 ent aspects of the same act. The Spirit of 
 grace is either the Spirit, as the gift of grace 
 (as Bleek, De Wette, Liinemann), or, better 
 (with Bohme, Delitzsch, Moll), as the efficient 
 principle of grace. 
 
 30. For we know him that hath said, 
 Vengeance beiongeth unto me, I will rec- 
 ompense, saith the Lord. And again. 
 The Lord shall {will) judge his people. 
 These citations indicate the punishment which 
 nniy be expected to fall upon these willful 
 transgressors. God is not only a God of grace, 
 but a God of judgment. ' We know him that 
 hath said' is at once an elegant and an em- 
 phatic mode of saying, "We know what is 
 implied in the language of him who says," 
 
 etc. It i)oints to our knowledge of the recti- 
 tude and truthfulness of him who makes the 
 utterance. The citations are, the first from 
 Deut. 3:^ : 35, the second from Deut. 32 : 36, 
 repeated in Ps. 135: 14. The first deviates in 
 form alike from the Hebrew original ("ven- 
 geance is mine and recompense'), and still 
 more from the Septuagint ("In the day of 
 vengeance I will recompense"), but accords 
 with the form of quotation in Rom. 12 : 19. 
 Whether influenced in its form by that of 
 Romans, or both founded on some current and 
 familiar mode of expressing the sentiment, is 
 doubtful. Nor does it matter, as the thought 
 is unaffected. In the former pa.ssage there is 
 in the original a direct declaration of God's 
 judicial severity in dealing with his enemies, 
 and it is obviously and directly in point. In 
 the second, there is a seeming discrepancy be- 
 tween the original import of the passage and 
 the use to which the author api)lies it. But it 
 is only seeming. The Lord will judge his 
 people by interposing mercifully in their be- 
 half. But this merciful interposition in their 
 favor involves the infliction of vengeance on 
 their enemies. The judgment of God for 
 Israel in Egypt was a judgment -upon and 
 against the Egyptians. 
 
 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
 hands of the living God. This closes and 
 puts the seal on this terrible passage of warn- 
 ing. It is the sentiment which spontaneously 
 rises to the mind in view of the crime and him 
 against whom it is committed. The willful 
 transgressor throws himself into the hands of 
 an avenging God. David, when offered a 
 choice between punishments, chose pestilence 
 rather than war, on the ground that it was 
 better to fall into the hands of God than of 
 man. David's choice was made in faith, but 
 even so he found this alternative sufficiently 
 terrible. God's chastising and correcting 
 judgjiients are fearful ; how much more then 
 his punitive! If he scourges so severely those 
 whom he will save, how much more those 
 wliom he will destroy! If the cup of mercy is 
 often mingled with so bitter ingredients, how 
 when " the wine of his wrath is poured out with- 
 out mixture into the cup of his indignfttioal " 
 
142 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 ">2 But call to remeniln-aiice the former days, in 
 which, after ve were illuiuiDated, ye endured a great 
 fight of afflicfions; 
 
 43 Partly, whilst ye were raade a gazing-stock both 
 by reproaches ajid afflictions; and jiartly, whilst ye 
 became companions of iheni that were so used. 
 
 34 For ye had compassion of me in my Itonds, and 
 took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in 
 yourselves that ye have iu heaven a better and an en- 
 during substance. 
 
 32 But call to remembrance the former days, iu 
 which, after ye were enliglilened, ye endured a great 
 
 33 conflict ol sufferings; partly, being made a gazing- 
 stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, 
 becoming partakers with them that were so used. 
 
 34 For ye liolh had compassion on tliem that were ia 
 bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your posses- 
 sions, knowing ' that ye have lor yourselves a better 
 
 1 Marty anctent AUitiortties read that ye have your own selves/or a, etc. 
 
 (c) Eiict)urageineiit from past fidelity, and 
 exliortation not to throw away its fruits. 
 (32-39.) 
 
 The author, as before in chapter 6, follows 
 his awful threat (*-^) by words of encourage- 
 ment, so here again 'changes his voice' 
 (Gal. * : 20), and presents considerations of a more 
 cheering character. He will not overwhelin, 
 but alarm. He will not drive them to despair, 
 but stir up by all possible means any smolder- 
 ing embers of spiritual life. He turns to the 
 brighter side of the picture. 
 
 32. But call to remembrance the former 
 days, in which, after hieing illuminated, 
 ye endured a great fight of afflictions (a 
 conflict of sufferings). Whether 'illumi- 
 nated ' here refers to their being enlightened as 
 to the deficiencies of Judaism and the nature 
 of Christianity, or, as elsewhere, is simi)ly a 
 term for coming to the knowledge of Christ, 
 spiritual enlightenment in general, is perhaps 
 doubtful. I think it is the latter. The lan- 
 guage here, as noticed by Chrysostom, is the 
 carefully chosen language of commendation. 
 They 'endured' (vTronefetf), implying resolu- 
 tion and firmness. Tiiey endured not trials or 
 temptations, but a struggle, a wrestling, a con- 
 flict (ii9Ai?<^ti'), which called forth theirvoluntary 
 and active powers, and a great (n-oAA.ji/) strug- 
 gle — no (ordinary one — of suffering and afflic- 
 tion. To what /nets this refers, whether the 
 early history of the Christian Church in Pal- 
 estine, including all its various persecutions, 
 or possibly (with Alford) more recent perse- 
 cutions in Rome, it is impossible to determine. 
 Titefactthiitit wasasecondgeneration, and not 
 the early members of the Jerusalem Church, 
 that would be now addressed, is against (yet 
 not decisively) the former supposition. 
 
 33. Partly, Avhilst ye Avere made, etc. 
 On the one hnnd^ being made a gazing stock 
 (a spectacle). Both by reproaches and 
 
 afflictions (eeaTpi^raffoi, equivalent to Qiarpov 
 
 yeiTjS^i/ai, 1 Cor. 4:9: "To be made a spectacle 
 
 to the world and to angels and men"). 
 Through reproaches and afflictions heaped 
 upon them, they were held up, as it were, to 
 the contemptuous gaze of the world. On the 
 other hand, becoming partakers with them 
 loho found themselves so situated ; namelj', in 
 affliction and reprotich. '.So' not referring 
 back to endured, and denoting the firmness 
 with which they endured the struggle, but to 
 the 'being a gazing stock by afflictions and 
 reproaches,' and indicating that these Chris- 
 tians had not only themselves borne affliction 
 and obloquy for the cause of Christ, but had 
 also attached themselves to those who, amid 
 persecution and reproach, had maintained the 
 Christian faith, and bestowed on them sympa- 
 thy and succor. The Acts is full of the names 
 of eminent leaders in the Church, as Stephen, 
 Peter, James the First, Paul, etc. — objects of 
 hate and persecution, and many of them los- 
 ing their lives for the sake of Ciirist. It is to 
 sympathy and aid extended to such as these 
 that this probably refers. 
 
 34. This expresses the same thought as the 
 preceding in reverse order. For ye had, 
 etc. — ye both sympathized with them that were 
 in bonds, and ye received with joy the plunder- 
 ing of your goods. The expression is em- 
 phatic, and indicates a record of the must 
 satisfactory character. Thej' took the plun- 
 dering of their property, not only with resig- 
 nation, but with joy. Thej' 'rejoiced and 
 were exceeding glad' when they suftered, 
 knowing that 'great was their reward in hea- 
 ven.' (Matt. 5:11.) Knowing that ye have for 
 yourselves a better and an enduring possession. 
 The added ' in heaven ' of the Textus Receptus 
 is probably a gloss. With or without it, the 
 ' possession ' is obviously the heavenly in- 
 heritance — the 'incorruptible' and 'undefiled' 
 inheritance of 1 Peter 1 : 4. 'Have for your- 
 selves' contrasts enii)hatically the treasure 
 which is their own with the earthly goods 
 which they held at the pleasure of others. 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 143 
 
 35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which 
 hath great recompense uf reward. 
 
 3() For ve have need of patience, that, after ye have 
 done the will of (iod, ye might receive the promise. 
 
 37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will 
 come, and will not tarry. 
 
 38 is'ow the just shall live by faith: but if any man 
 draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 
 
 35 possession and an abiding one. Cast not away there- 
 fore your boldness, which bath great recompense of 
 
 36 reward. For ye have need of ' paiieuce, that, hav- 
 ing done the will ol Ijod, ye may receive the promise. 
 
 37 For yet a very little while, 
 
 He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry. 
 
 38 But 'my righteous one shall live by laith : 
 
 And if he sliriuk back, my soul hulh no pleasure 
 in him. 
 
 1 Or, ttedfattnett 2 Some aocieiit autborilies read (Ae rij/Ateoua one. 
 
 35. The verse, in view of this noble record 
 of the past, renews the exhorttition. Cast not 
 away therefore (/a^ an-o^dATiTe) — either, 'Lose 
 not with an involuntary loss,' or, 'Throw not 
 away voluntarily.' The verb will admit either 
 signification. The latter seems, here, prefer- 
 able, as it is also more strictly the meaning of 
 the word. Your confidence — your joyful 
 assurance — which hath a great recom- 
 pense. Their joyful Christian confidence is 
 not to be wantonly thrown awaj', or lightly 
 parted with. It has an intrinsic value. God 
 acknowledges, tipproves, and will reward it, 
 in the fulfillment of all the hopes which it 
 involves. This fulfillment God, although 
 strictly as a matter of mere grace, yet in some 
 sort as a record (similarly as at 6 : 10) for their 
 firm and glad confidence, will bestow upon 
 them. 
 
 36. For ye have need of patience {stead- 
 fast endurance), in order that, doing the 
 will of God, ye may obtain the promise. 
 The two last clauses may be resolved either 
 temporally; 'that, after doing the will of 
 God, ye may obtain,' etc. ; or, instrument- 
 ally, 'that by doing the will ye may ob- 
 tain'; or, both, regarded as parts of our 
 comple.x idea; 'doing ye may obtain,' equiv- 
 alent to 'ye may do and obtain.' The idea 
 is, then, you need steadfastness that ye may 
 do the will of God, and, so doing, obtain 
 the promise. At all events, the idea is not 
 that, having already, in time past, done the 
 will of God, ye may in the future obtain the 
 promise. Both the doing and the obtaining 
 are yet in the future, and both conditioned 
 upon steadfast endurance. Of course, the 
 doing of God's will is not attributed to the 
 Christian in the .«ame absolute and perfect 
 sense as in ver. 7 (I come to do thy will) to 
 Christ. That indiciites a voluntary obedience 
 taking the place of a mere animal sacrifice, 
 as the ground of an eiBcacious atonement; 
 this indicates conformity to God's will and 
 law, not as a ground, but as a condition, of 
 
 salvation. To 'receive or obtain the promise' 
 here, as often elsewhere, its fultiUnient. They 
 have been saved, as yet, only or mainly in 
 hope. The fulfillment, the 'enduring sub- 
 stance,' comes when Christ shall return to 
 those who look for him without sin unto sal- 
 vation. So the next verse. 
 
 37, 38. A free quotation from Hab. 2 : 3, 4, 
 introduced by a phrase from the Septuagintof 
 Isa. 26 : 20. For yet a little while {how 
 little!) This from Isa. 26:20, where God 
 calls his people to enter into their chambers, 
 and hide thein a very little until the storm be 
 overpast. And he that shall come {cometh) 
 will come, and will not tarry. Now {but) 
 the just, etc. — On accmint of his faith shall 
 he live, and if he shrink back, my soul hath no 
 pleasure in him. The words are freely quoted 
 from a passage in Habiikkuk, which has pri- 
 mary reference to the coming overthrow of 
 the Chaldean dominion, and looks from 
 thence, according to the habitual shortening 
 of prophetic perspective, forward to the com- 
 ing of the Messiah. The Septuagint version 
 runs thus: "Because the vision is yet for a 
 time, and it will appear at last, and will not 
 come to nought. If he be tardy, wait for 
 him; for he will surely come, and will not 
 tarry. If (one) shrink back, my soul hath no 
 pleasure in him ; but the just, he, by his faith, 
 shall live." In the Hebrew original, the ' vis- 
 ion ' — namely, the revealed destruction of the 
 Chaldean power — is still the subject of the 
 following verb, 'will come and will not delay.' 
 The Septuagint translators have given it a 
 personal reference to God as the Jlessiah, and 
 our author applies it definitely to Christ and 
 to his second coming. He has also, in citing, 
 reversed the order of the two last clauses, 
 perhaps accidentally, perhaps to make thd 
 verb 'shrink, draw back' (iuroffTciAjfrai) refer 
 more definitely to the 'past' as its subject. 
 In the original (Septuagint), the sulyect of 
 the verb is clearly indefinite, 'if he,' that is, 
 'any one draw bixck' ; and there is no gram- 
 
144 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. X. 
 
 39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdi- I 39 But we are not ' of them that shrink back unto per- 
 tion ; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. dition ; but of them that have faith unto the 2 saving 
 
 I of the soul. 
 
 1 Or. 0/ shrinking back . . but o/ faith '2 Or, gaining. 
 
 matical reason why it may not be so in our 
 Epistle. Looking at the Old Testament pas- 
 sage, I am strongly inclined to render, as in 
 the English version, "and if any man draw 
 back," and this not so much on theological as 
 philological grounds. So far as the sense is 
 concerned, it is entirely in harmony with the 
 uniform tone of this Epistle to put, hypothet- 
 ical ly, the case of the believer's falling away, 
 and then to declare the hopelessness of his 
 condition. Granting that the verb 'shrink, 
 or draw back' refers to 'the just,' it makes 
 just such a supposition as is repeatedly eke- 
 where made; and, as in all the other passages, 
 does not commit the author to the positive 
 doctrine that the really just man ever does 
 fall away. The original again reads, either, 
 "My (God's) just man shall live by faith," 
 or, " The just man shall live by my faith " — 
 that is, "faith in me." The text in Hebrew 
 is uncertain ; but, with Delitzsch, etc., we give 
 it as cited in Kom. 1 : 17, where Paul makes it 
 the starting point and text of his elaborate and 
 noble exposition of the gospel doctrine of jus- 
 tification. Of course, as the author has not 
 made a formal quotation, he has not studied a 
 precise adherence to the original text. He 
 has rather accommodated it to his purpose 
 than strictly cited it as proof. Still, there can 
 be no just doubt that he has, in the spirit of 
 an enlarged and just interpretation, trans- 
 ferred the Old Testament picture to the New. 
 All the lines of the Old Testament prophecy 
 converge on the Messiah, and, with the pro- 
 gress of historical development, on his first 
 coming, as the beginning, and on his second 
 coming, as the crown and consummation of 
 his work. Tiie Old Testament faith changes 
 its outward form, but not its essential char- 
 acter, as it fixes itself definitely on a revealed 
 Messiah, and a Messiah yet again to be re- 
 vealed in glory. So the just shall live in 
 consequence of his trust in God, but at no 
 time since the fall could this trust have been 
 
 a mere confidence in the integrity, purity, 
 and justice of God without a felt need of 
 atonement and forgiveness; and since the 
 appearing of Christ, it can take no other spe- 
 cific direction than toward his expiatory and 
 interceding work. In this alone, the sin- and 
 guilt-stricken soul of man finds its needs met. 
 We may not know who, or how many, from 
 the Gentile world have been saved witi)out the 
 proclamation of the gospel, but we hazard 
 nothing in saying that whoever have, have 
 been saved through the intercession of Christ, 
 and so saved that their first glimpse of him 
 and his redemption, wherever obtained, was 
 welcomed by them as precisely adapted to 
 their spiritual needs, as "all their salvation 
 and all their desire." ' My soul,' Hebrew for 
 'I' — that is, God, whose language the writer 
 is citing— 'hath no pleasure in him' ; that is, 
 abhors and rejects him. 
 
 39. But again the writer's kindly feeling 
 induces him to hope for the best in regard to 
 his wavering brethren, and to let them feel 
 that he has not lost confidence in their stead- 
 fastness. But Ave are not of them that 
 {such as) shrink back unto perdition, but 
 of them that believe {are of faith) to the 
 saving of the soul. "Are not of shrinking 
 back" — that is, we belong not to, are not the 
 children of,shrinking back ; are not such as to 
 shrink back. 'Unto perdition' — that is, so 
 that our course should end in perdition, in 
 eternal destruction. 'Unto perdition' ex- 
 presses the natural and inevitable result of 
 the drawing back, as ' unto the gaining, or 
 savingof the soul ' expresses the natural result 
 of faith. They are not added as that which 
 the recreant on the one hand and the believer 
 on the other seeks as his goal, but as the 
 writer's statement of the necessary conse- 
 quence of either course respectively. ' Per- 
 dition ' is the losing of the soul; the 'gaining 
 of the soul ' is eternal life. 
 
Ch. XI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 145 
 
 N 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OW faith is the substance of things hoped for, the I 1 Now faith is ' assiiraneeof<Ain<7j hoped for, a 2 con- 
 evidence of things not seen. , I 'i viciion of things not seen. For therein the elders 
 
 1 Or, (Ae giving substance to 2 Or. test. 
 
 Cli. 11. (2) Encouraging survey of the 
 achievements of faith in Jewish history. 
 Muster roll of the heroes of faith. (1-40.) 
 
 Illustrutions from Old Testament and an- 
 cient Jewish history of the power of that faith 
 wliich is inculcated on the readers. Tlie author 
 uses the term ' faith ' not in its narrower — more 
 strictly, New Testament — sense, for faith in 
 Jesus Christ as the condition of salvation, but 
 in its broader ciiaracter, as that principle 
 witiiin us wiiich passes out of the visible and 
 the present into the sphere of the invisible 
 and the future, which thus postpones sensible 
 olijects to spiritual realities, and the evanes- 
 cent present to the abiding future. Inasmuch 
 as this faith exists only in hearts which God 
 lias touched by his grace, — a grace bestowed 
 only through the atonement of Christ, either 
 past or prospective, — there is no contradiction 
 between the doctrine of this Epistle and the 
 prevailing New Testament doctrine in regard 
 to faitii. Paul, in Romans, and our author, 
 in Hebrews, are contemplating the subject 
 from different points of view. The one has 
 his eye on the moral law, and on the need of 
 a righteousness appropriated by faith to cover 
 our sin and guilt; the other is looking at the 
 manner in which this in-dwelling principle of 
 faith would evince itself in all ages, even when 
 there was as \'et no clear revelation of Christ. 
 Paul himself, on other occasions, uses the word 
 in the same sense; as 2 Cor. 5:7,' We walk 
 by faith, not by sight.' 
 
 (a) Illustrations of faith in the antedeluvian 
 believers. (1-7.) 
 
 1. Now faith is, etc. — But faith is confi- 
 dence in things hojted far, a conviction of 
 the things that are not beheld. Some, from 
 the position of " is " (cVni-) and the absence of 
 the article from 'faith' (irio-rtv) have supposed 
 tiiey must construct ' and there is a faith,' mak- 
 ing it a verb (\f e.visteiice, instead of a copula, 
 and thus affirming emphatically that there 
 is such a grace as faith, with the following 
 nouns in apposition: A faith — to wit, a confi- 
 dence, etc. But this without necessity. Such 
 apposition of 'is' (ecmv), as copula, and such 
 an absence of the article with the subject, are 
 
 among the familiar usages of the language. 
 The advanced position of the verb simply 
 throws emphasis on it. 'But faith is,' etc.— 
 equivalent to. But that which faith is, is this. 
 We have thus a definition of faith, and a 
 definition adapted to the purpose of the 
 writer. He considers it in its two elements 
 as related to the future and as related to 
 things tinseen. It seems now to be the author's 
 purpose not to state, rhetorically, what faith 
 may prove to those who possess it, but strictly 
 what is its nature as a subjective exercise. 
 The word 'substance' (\nt6<T-ta<Ti.^), therefore, 
 which means, primarily, a standing under, 
 and then a foundation, substance, but which 
 then comes in later Greek to mean confide^ice 
 (see 3 : 14 ; 2 Cor. 9 : 4), seems to have much 
 more naturally this meaning here (so Luther, 
 and most recent interpreters) ; and, again, 
 for 'evidence,' or, proof (eAeyxo«), we under- 
 stand here naturally the conviction furnished 
 by the proof, the clear assurance of things 
 not seen. We thus have a beautiful and 
 complete definition of faith applicable to 
 all the cases to which the author proceeds to 
 apply it. The statement that 'Faith is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen,' is indeed, rhetorically, 
 just and beautiful, but less pertinent to the 
 author's purpose than that which looks at 
 this grace in its strictly subjective nature. 
 This answers the question which we natu- 
 rally ask, "What was faith, as exercised by 
 those saints of the elder time?" It was an 
 abiding confidence in anticipated good, and a 
 clear conviction of unseen realities. It seems 
 uncertain whether 'things' (wpay/oioTui') belongs 
 to the preceding clause or the following. The 
 Greek interpreters construct it mostly with 
 the preceding; the modern, mainly on rhyth- 
 mical grounds, with the following. I in- 
 cline to the earlier construction. It seems to 
 me that while, perhaps, mere rhythm would 
 favor the later construction, rhetorical force 
 would point to the other. But it matters 
 little. 
 
 2. For by it (in this) the elders— they of 
 the elder time, elders not merely on the 
 
146 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XL 
 
 ■ For by it the elders obtained a good report. 
 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were 
 framed by the word of (iod, so that things which are 
 seen were not luade of things which do appear. 
 
 3 had witness borne to them. By faith we und<rrstand 
 that the • worlds have been framed by the word of 
 (jod, so that what is seen bath not been made out of 
 
 1 Gr. agea. 
 
 ground of age, but of dignity; looking upon 
 tlieni far back in the past, we naturally asso- 
 ciate them with the dignity and venerableness 
 of age — obtained a good report (we7-e at- 
 tested) received a good attestation, alike from 
 God, who approved tiiem, and history, that 
 has recorded their deeds. 'In this' is prob- 
 ably to be constructed directly with the verb 
 — not, "Being in this, they were attested," 
 but, "they were attested in this," 'they re- 
 ceived tiieir attestation in this.' 
 
 The author passes now to a catalogue of the 
 ancient heroes of the faith. He would natur- 
 ally begin with Adam ; but as what is recorded 
 of him is rather a lamentable lapse from faith 
 than an illustration of it, and as he leads the 
 mind back to the very scene of creation, our 
 author commences by illustrating the opera- 
 tion of faith in connection with this great, 
 prime fact of history and article of belief. 
 
 3. By faith we understand that the 
 worlds were (have been) framed by the 
 word of God — In order that not from tilings 
 which are apparent should have sprung that 
 which IS seen. 
 
 It may be objected to the author's statement 
 that our recognition by faith of the creation 
 of the world by the word of God, is Incon- 
 sistent with the fact that this creation is matter 
 of express record, and that we acquire the 
 knowledge from that record. True; but in 
 reply, we say that this record itself appeals to 
 the principle of faith within us, without which 
 we could not appreciate, and should not accept, 
 the record. Faith is that general principle of 
 our nature which, according to the definition 
 (ver. 1) enables us to pass from the visible to 
 the invisible, to rise above the phenomenal 
 into the realm of spiritual reality and spiritual 
 truth. Faith, then, accepts the testimony 
 which God gives concerning creation; it es- 
 tablishes reason, intellect (vovi) upon its throne 
 in opposition to sense ; it enables us to discover 
 the evidences that the universe has sprung 
 from the power and wisdom of God, instead 
 of having its origin in material and sensible 
 causes. We understand (voovixtv), we have an 
 
 intellectual, rational perception, as Paul, in 
 Romans, declares that the invisible things of 
 God are clearly seen from the creation of the 
 world, being understood (roov/ucro) from his 
 works. So reason, under the influence of 
 faith, recognizes God as the Author and Con- 
 troller of the universe. 'The worlds' (oiwras) 
 — that is, the whole system of created things, 
 the created universe. Moll makes these seuns 
 (aioii/es) to be the laws and potencies of the 
 spiritual world, out of which have sprung, 
 secondarily, the things which are seen, and 
 which thus form the contrast to the 'things 
 which appear.' But as it seems to me without 
 reason, and to the great detriment of the sim- 
 plicity and justness of the thought. 'The 
 word of God' is not here the Logos, the hy- 
 postatic Word, but (as 1 : 4) the utterance, the 
 decree or fiat of God (p^/^ia) referring, prob- 
 ably, to the language, 'And God said.' 'In 
 order that' (fis t6, implying purpose, not 
 result).* This arrangement was made, and 
 we made to discern rationally by faith the 
 truth that the world has been framed by the 
 word of God, in order that [to our apprehen- 
 sion] what is seen should not have sprung 
 from what appears, in order that we might 
 clearly see that the objects and phenomena 
 which we behold have a higher than merely 
 sensible origin. While man in his original 
 constitution was made to see God in nature, 
 by the fall he has lost that power, at least, 
 that disposition. He now naturally banishes 
 or ignores God in creation; he rests in ma- 
 terial causes; he refers back the tilings which 
 are seen to sensible causes and phenomena. 
 Sin has cut the bond which, to the eye of 
 man, unites the universe with the Creator. 
 Faith restores that bond. It reunites the sev- 
 ered links of the great chain ; it enables man 
 to rise above the sphere of sensible causes, and 
 once more see in the universe, with all its 
 phenomena, a product of spiritual power. 
 This is the simple teaching of the passage. It 
 gives to faith its place as the grand power that 
 binds the creation to the Creator. It is an 
 exemplification, then, of that second element 
 
 1 The fis TO here, and the toO m^ of verse 5, may, indeed, denote simple result. 
 
Ch. XI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 147 
 
 4 By faith Abe! offered unto God a more excellent 
 sacrilice than Cain, by which he obtaiiud witness that 
 he was righteous, Uod testifying of his gifts: and by it 
 he being dead yet speaketh. 
 
 4 things which do appear. By faith .\bel offered unto 
 God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through 
 which he Had witness borne to him that he was 
 righteous. 'God bearing witness -in respect of his 
 gilts: aud through it he being dead yet speaketh. 
 
 1 Tbe Greek text in Ibis clause is soiuewhiii, uacenalii 'i Or, over kU gifts. 
 
 of faith; namelj-, that it is a 'conviction of 
 things wliich are not seen.' The creation 
 wrought by the word of God, by a spiritual 
 agency, is an unseen, spiritual fact, wliich ex- 
 perience has shown can only be apprehended 
 by faith. The wisdom of Greek philosophy 
 never attained to it, hardly dreamed of it. 
 
 .As to the construction. Many have taken 
 the phrase firj « ^<ii.voiJ.iva>v as equivalent to « rwf 
 lii| <^a.ivoii.iv<av, from the things which do not ap- 
 pear, and regarded this as equivalent to noth- 
 ing, thus making the sentence signify "that 
 that which is seen may [in their estimation] 
 have sprung from nothing." But this would 
 be totally to mistake the purpose of the writer. 
 He has nt> wish or design to exalt notking. It 
 is not nothing, but God, from whom he de- 
 clares all things to have sprung. This con- 
 struction of 'not' ((iij) is, indeed, barely 
 possible; but even then we are under no 
 necessity of supposing that the writer has 
 made use of so awkward a periphrasis to 
 express 'nothing'; on the contrary, it is 
 much more natural to understand ' the things 
 which do not appear' as spiritual powers and 
 agencies. 
 
 But a far more natural construction of the 
 'not' (i^^), and that now generally adopted, 
 is with 'sprung' (yeyofecat), "in order that not 
 from things which appear may have sprung 
 that which is seen." The inquiry, then, arises, 
 "What is the antithesis to the 'things which 
 appear,' and from which faith does recognize 
 them to have sprung?" Moll declares it to 
 be the teons before mentioned — si)iritual laws 
 and potencies; but, as it seems to me, with 
 nothingto justify his intepretation, eitherinthe 
 thought or the language. Delitzsch contrasts 
 with ^' things which appear^'' (<i)aivoii.ivMv) "in- 
 telligible things" (voT\ri), invisible archetypes 
 or patterns, after which, as existing in the 
 divine mind, sensible and material things were 
 constructed. This Platonic turn of the thought 
 nothing in the pas,sage warrants. It would 
 seem that the antithesis to the "things which 
 appear" lies on the very face of the passage, 
 and in the natural drift and exigencies of 
 
 thought. The writer is illustrating his defini- 
 tion of faith as a conviction of unseen things. 
 What are these things? Simply' God, with that 
 system of truth of which he is the centre. By 
 faith, then, we recognize that the universe has 
 been framed by tlie v;ord of God, in order that 
 that which is seen, the phenomenal world on 
 which we look, may be seen to have sprung, 
 not from things which appear, but from what? 
 — clearly from the word and power of God. 
 Faith raises us from phenomenal to spiritual 
 causes ; from second and inelRcient causes to 
 the Supreme, the one great First Cause. Noth- 
 ing can be simpler ; and the passage thus inter- 
 preted is luminous and eloquent with a beau- 
 tiful and fundamental truth. 
 
 4. By faith Abel offered unto God a 
 more excellent (^nkiiova, more, target — that 
 is, qualitatively, in all the true attributes of a 
 sacrifice; hence, better) sacrifice than Cain. 
 In what respect better? Abel was a shep- 
 herd ; Cain a husbandman ; Abel brought of 
 the first fruits of his flock; Cain of the first 
 fruits of his field. Both were probabl}' osten- 
 sibly thank offerings; neither of them osten- 
 sibly propitiatory. Yet Abel brought a bloody 
 sacrifice, such as might befit a guilty person 
 needing expiation before God. As each, how- 
 ever, brought the offering which belonged 
 naturally to his vocation, it might seem that 
 the difference was accidental, and that Abel 
 brought his offering with as little conscious- 
 ness of guilt and of a need of atonement as 
 Cain. Our author, however, expressly de- 
 clares that Abel brought his better offering 
 by faith ; thus, while he brought an intrinsi- 
 cally more appropriate sacrifice for a guilty 
 being — a sacrifice of blood — the choice was not 
 accidental, but was dictated by faith. In 
 other words, there was already a recognition 
 of man's need of an atonement, and a dim 
 premonition and greeting in this very dawn 
 of time, of the great oblation of Calvary. 
 His faith embraced both elements; it em- 
 braced a conviction of unseen realities, and 
 confidence in anticipated good. Hy (through) 
 which he obtained witness that he was 
 
148 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not 
 see death; aua was not found, because (jod had trans- 
 lated hiiu : for l)ef(jre his translation he had this testi- 
 mony, that he pleased Liod. 
 
 5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not 
 see death ; and he was not found^ because God trans- 
 lated him: for ' he hath had witness borne to him 
 that before his translation he had been well-pleasing 
 
 1 Or, before his translation A« hath had witness borne to him. 
 
 {he was attested to be) righteous. ' Through 
 ■which' {fii) may refer either to 'faith' or 'sac- 
 rifice.' Grammatically, from its position, it 
 would refer rather to the latter, and this 
 makes a perfectly good sense, as in fact it was 
 his sacritice which, at least for history, pro- 
 duced the attestation. Still, as 'faith' is the 
 prevalent idea, it is better, perhaps, to take it 
 as referring to faith, and the 'through which 
 lie was attested' as corresponding to the ' were 
 attested in this' of ver. 2. The testimony re- 
 ferred to is here not that of Christ (see above 
 Matt. 23 : 35), but the testimony of God at 
 the time, as borne both in his reception of the 
 offering, and his subsequent avenging of the 
 murder of the offerer. God testifying of his 
 gifts. This refers to the declaration (Gen. 4:4) 
 that ' God had respect to,' looked with approval 
 upon, Abel and his offering, and undoubtedly 
 signalized his acceptance by an outward sign, 
 probably by consuming the victim with light- 
 ning. Some such manifest expression must be 
 assumed, in order to account for the outburst 
 of envy and wrath in Cain. 
 
 And by it (that is, clearly, by fttith) he be- 
 ing dead — after dying, though dead — yet 
 (still) speaketh. It seems extraordinary that 
 the Greek interpreters, Chrysostom, Theodo- 
 ret, with many more recent, should have taken 
 the stiU here temporally, of the time of the 
 author, and the verb 'speaketh' (AaA^r), also 
 of the then present time; making the passage 
 declare that through faith Abel still speaks to 
 all after ages, exhorting them to faith (Chrys- 
 ostom), or, is spoken of (equivalent to AaAeirat, 
 is celebrated, Theodoret). This, indeed, is a 
 proper thing to say of Abel, as of any other 
 ancient worthy, and no more of him than of 
 any other, unless, perhaps, the author may 
 choose to regard that voice with which after 
 death Abel cries to God as still sounding on 
 through the ages. But that voice was not an 
 exhortation to faith, nor is it a voice of eulogy 
 on the martyr. There can be no reasonable 
 doubt, I think, that the passage refers to the 
 crying of Abel's blood in the ears of God, im- 
 mediately after his murder. The word still 
 (cTt) is logical, not temporal, and by-familiar 
 
 Greek u.sage refers back to the participle; the 
 verb 'speaketh' is the historical present, the 
 two forming a sharp contrast to the preceding 
 participle, 'upon dying, he still speaks'— he 
 speaks even after he dies. 'The voice of thy 
 brother's blood crieth unto me from the 
 ground.' It was Abel's faith that caused God 
 to hear, as it were, the cry of his blood as it 
 sunk into the ground and to bring to account 
 him who shed it. "Precious in the sight of 
 the Lord is the death of his saints." Faith 
 gives a voice to their wrongs in the ear of 
 God. 
 
 5. By faith Enoch was translated — here 
 elliptically ; by faith Enoch was enabled so to 
 live that he was translated. 'Translated' — 
 that is, removed, from this world to God. 
 " Withdrew to the divinity" (Josephus, "An- 
 tiquities 1 : 3, 4). We have here the inspired 
 comment on the brief statement. Gen. 5 : 21. 
 That he should {might) not see death. 
 The Greek naturally means, in order that he 
 might not see, rather than, 'so as not to see.' 
 Nor is there any difficulty in this. God did 
 not merely take Enoch, so that he did not, but 
 with the purpose that he should not, 'see 
 death.' He designed to snatch him away from 
 the clutches of death, and thus vindicate his 
 extraordinary piety, and perhaps give to that 
 elder time a token of a future existence. 
 And he Avas not found, because God 
 translated (removed) him. The phrase is the 
 Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew, "and was 
 not because God took him." For before his 
 translation he (has) had witness borne to 
 him that he{hasbeenattestedtohnve)^\ea^eA. 
 God. The phrase 'pleased God' (fvope<n(lv tw 
 flew) is again the Septuagint for the Hebrew 
 "walked with God," and expresses its substan- 
 tial meaning, denoting that intimacy, that 
 walking with God, which is the result and 
 reward, as well as the process, of a life of 
 piety. The passage admits one or two differ- 
 ent constructions. If we take the 'before his 
 removal' with 'has been attested' — that is, 
 'he has been attested before his removal' — 
 then probably the preposition 'before' is to be 
 taken locally, and the words ' his removal ' 
 
Ch. XI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 149 
 
 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: 
 for he that conietU to God must believe that he is, and 
 i/ial he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. 
 
 7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not 
 seen as yet, movea with fear, prepared an ark to the 
 saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the 
 world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by 
 faith. 
 
 6 unto God: and without faith it is imiws-sible to be 
 well-pleasing unto him: fur he that cometh to (iod 
 must believe that he is, and l/iat be is a rewarder of 
 
 7 them that seek after him. By faith Noah, being 
 warned u/ God concerning things not seen a.s yet, 
 moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving 
 of his house; through which lie condeiune.i the 
 world, and became heir of the righteousness which is 
 
 for the passage which records his removal. 
 Thus we have: " For before the record of his 
 removal he has had the testimony borne to 
 him that he pleased God," as in fact the de- 
 claration that he pleased God immediately 
 precedes the statement that he was not found 
 because God took him. If, on the other hand, 
 we take the clause 'before his removal' with 
 the verb 'to have pleased,' then the preposi- 
 tion is to be taken temporally^ and we have, 
 "for he stands attested previously to his re- 
 moval to have pleased God." The perfect, 
 'he has been attested' (/xe/naprupijTai), probably 
 denotes that the fact of the attestjition stands 
 before our eyes. 
 
 6. The author proceeds with his usual de- 
 liberation. He has not yet given his proof, 
 only collected the materials for it. We have 
 found that Enoch enjoyed the extraordinary 
 prerogative of escaping death. But this was 
 because ' he pleased God ; ' and the author now 
 draws his inference. But without faith it 
 is impossible to please him : for he that 
 cometh to God — not (as some), "he v/ho 
 goes to God as did Enoch," but, as in former 
 chapters, "he who approaches God in sacri- 
 fice and worship" (4:i6;7:2+; 10:22) must bc- 
 lieve that he is — must have that element of 
 faith which is a conviction of unseen realities, 
 of spiritual trutli. And that he is {proves) a 
 rewarder of them that dilig'ently (earn- 
 estly) seek him — must have that other ele- 
 ment of faith which consists in confidence in 
 future blessings, as the result and reward of 
 present fidelity. Thus faith always looks into 
 the unseen and forward to the future. We 
 cannot truly believe that God is, without also 
 believing that he e.xists as a Being who cares 
 for and will reward virtue. The must (5«i), it 
 is necessary, expresses, however, ratlier a logi- 
 cal than a moral necessity. It behooves, in- 
 deed, every one to believe that God is; but 
 here the author is establishing a point, and 
 the 'must' marks simply the necessary con- 
 nection between his premise and his conclu- 
 Bion. 
 
 7. We pass from Enoch to the hero of the 
 
 flood. By faith Noah, being warned of 
 
 God — concerning things not seen as yet ; that 
 is, of God's purpose to destroy tlie world by a 
 deluge. Of that deluge there were not as yet 
 the slightest sensible indications. The decla- 
 ration of God, communicated wc know not 
 ho.vv, was Noah's only evidence in the case, 
 and his act therefore was an act of pure faith 
 in a Being unseen, and an event wholly be- 
 yond the sphere of sense. Noah's faith, too, 
 was doubtless sorely tried. He built the ark 
 slowly before an unbelieving and mocking 
 world. Often must he have been sorely 
 tempted to abandon the work which they 
 stigmatized as foolish and fanatical, and join 
 them in that careless revelling, that utter dis- 
 regard of everything beyond the present 
 (Matt, u : 37-40), which characterized them — "they 
 knew not till the flood came and destro^-ed 
 them all" — but he persevered in faith. Moved 
 with fear (i)4 reverent fear or foresight)^ 
 prepared an ark to the saving (safety) of 
 his house. ' Moved with fear' is not a very 
 happy rendering of the verb(ci'Aa|3j)eeis). Either 
 'in reverent fear ' or ' in reverent foresight.' I 
 prefer the former: 'giving reverent heed to tlie 
 divine declarations.' By (through) which 
 he condemned the world. 'Through 
 which' might (as Chr^'sostom and many) 
 agree with 'ark'; he condemned the world 
 through the ark which he built; or, with sal-* 
 vation, 'safety'; he condemned the world 
 through the salvation which lie obtained by 
 building the ark. Neither of these meanings 
 is entirely inapposite. Yet it is better, doubt- 
 less, in conformity with the controlling idea 
 of the chapter, to refer it to faith. By faith 
 he condemned the world. His long, patient, 
 believing, waiting upon God, while the ark 
 was prepr.ring and the world was scoffing, 
 itself pronounced condemnation on an unbe- 
 lieving and scoffing world, and he, on the 
 other hand, became heir (inheritoi — that is, 
 possessor) of the righteousness which i.^ 
 by (according to) faith. The exjyression has 
 reference, probably, to the fact that No-h is 
 the first who in the Old Testaniei<t is expressly 
 
150 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XL 
 
 8 By fiiith Abraham, when he was called lo go out 
 into a jilace which be should after receive for an inherit- 
 ance, obeyed ; and he went out, not knowing whither 
 lie weni. 
 
 y By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as m 
 a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac 
 and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 
 
 8 according to faith. By faith Abraham, when he was 
 called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was 
 to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not 
 
 9 knowing whither be went. By faith he became a 
 sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his 
 own, 'dwelling in teuts, with Isaac and Jacob, the 
 
 1 Or, Itaving taken up his abode in tents. 
 
 called 'righteous.' (Geii. G : 9; conipare.Ezek. 
 14 : 14, 20.) Some have supposed, but with no 
 sufficient reason, that Noah is called 'heir' or 
 'inheritor' of the righteousness of faith, as 
 entering into and, as it were, inheriting that 
 righteousness which had already' belonged to 
 Abel and Enoch. It has probably a single 
 and absolute reference to Noah. Noah was 
 a righteous man and a ' preacher of righteous- 
 ness' ; but as in the author's conception (or in 
 the fact of the case) there could be no right- 
 eousness that did not rest upon faith in invisi- 
 ble and spiritual realities, his righteousness is 
 called, in conformity with the main tenor of 
 tiie chapter, ' the righteousness according to 
 faith.' There could be no other, for none 
 could be righteous who did not please God, 
 and without faith it is impossible to please 
 him. I do not see the necessity of supposing 
 any poletnical reference to Paul's doctrine of 
 the 'righteousness of faith.' The standing 
 point of the two writers is entirely diiferent. 
 Paul is discussing the principle of justification 
 in view of the claims of the moral law, and 
 the atonement of a manifested and crucified 
 Saviour. Our author considers that principle 
 as operating long ages before there was any 
 distinct exhibition of the atonement. Paul's 
 mode of stating the doctrine of faith in rela- 
 tion to Abraham (Rom. 4) will be found on ex- 
 amination to coincide precisely with that of 
 our author. Abraham believed God, and it 
 was accounted to him for righteousness. Just 
 80 according to this chapter, Noah, Abraham, 
 Moses, etc. Every act of faith in the saints 
 of the Old Testament involved the generic 
 character of that faith which in the gospel 
 concentrates itself upon the person and fin- 
 ished work of Jesus Christ. They trusted 
 God, they took him at his word ; they felt a 
 sense of unworthiness and a need of forgive- 
 ness, and discerning dimly, very dimly, the 
 rudiments of a gracious economy, cordially 
 and siivingly embraced it. 
 
 (b) Exainpleof Abraham and Sarah. (8-12.) 
 8. By faith Abraham, when he was 
 
 called — being called— that is, being summoned 
 (Geu. 12: 1-4) ; not "he who was called Abra- 
 ham," as some, led by the present participle, 
 have supposed. The present participle is finely 
 used to denote that, not ''upon being called' 
 (icAr)0eis), but ''while being called' (itoAoufteyot) 
 he obeyed. His obedience responded instantly 
 and half anticipatingly to tiie call. Obeyed 
 — hearkened obediently to the call (vn-aKouw, the 
 word being selected as corresponding to Ko-Xilv). 
 Tiie call of Abraham was to abandon his 
 country and go forth into a region which God 
 should show him; he hastened to go out into 
 a place which he should after receive for 
 an inheritance — this place was Canaan. 
 And he went out, not knowing whither 
 he Cometh — historical present for ivent. Abra- 
 ham's trust was absolute and extrtiordinary. 
 It was not until he reached Canaan that he 
 knew even his jilace of destination. But his 
 faith embraced the elements of a conviction 
 of the unseen, and confidence in future good. 
 Like a child, he placed his hand in the hand 
 of this unseen Father, to be led whither he 
 himself knew not. 
 
 9. By faith he sojourned in (irapuKijcrcK, in 
 classic Greek, dwelt along side; in Hellenistic 
 Greek, dwelt as stranger or sojourner); 'so- 
 journed into' («is), a pregnant construction 
 for ''went into and sojourned there,' as is com- 
 mon in Greek. The land of promise— the 
 land which God promised to give to his pos- 
 terity. Acts 7 : 5. As in a strange (an alien) 
 country — as, though promised to his posterity, 
 yet belonging to another people, and himself 
 as having in it no right of possession. "God 
 did not give to him of the land so much as to 
 put bis foot on." In what, then, did Abra- 
 ham's faith consist? Was it in his sojourning 
 in a land which did not belong to him, on the 
 strength of the promise that his posterity 
 should receive it? Or was it in his dwelling 
 in a land which bis posterity were to receive, 
 and which thus was by anticipation his, as if 
 it belonged to strangers, and thus declaring 
 himself a pilgrim on the earth? Doubtless 
 
Ch. XL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 151 
 
 10 For lie looked for a city which hath foundations, | 10 heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked 
 wliose builder aud maker U God. for tlie city wliicli liaih the foundations, whose 
 
 11 Through faith also Sarah herself received strength 11 ' builder and maker is God. By laith even Sarah 
 to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she | herself received power to conceive seed when she 
 
 I Or, archiUct. 
 
 his faith embraced both elements. He so- 
 journed, under the promise of God, in a land 
 of strangers, on the strength of God's promise 
 that it should belong to his posterity. Again, 
 although it was thus in some sort his own, he 
 60j«iurned in it as belonging to strangers, and 
 thus, neither returning to hi? old home, nor 
 having any present hcAiie, he lived in a state 
 of voluntary exile, seeking a country and a 
 city to come. It is then his sojourning in this 
 land, as an alien land, that the writer has now 
 specially in view, as in so doing he renounced 
 all earthly inheritance, and declared his trust 
 in a higher spiritual and future good. B^h 
 the elements of faith entered largely into his 
 — a conviction of unseen realities, confidence 
 in future good. 
 
 Dwelling in tabernacles with (not <rvV, 
 together with, implying accompaniment, but 
 fieri, in common with, implying participation). 
 Isaac, to be sure, dwelt in tents in company 
 with Abraham, but Jacob did not. Isaac 
 and Jacob, the heirs with him of the 
 same promise, Abraham, though rich in 
 herds and flocks and servants, was prohibited 
 from building or occupying any town, or even 
 permanent dwelling house. His mode of life, 
 as well as that of his sons, was primitive and 
 nomadic; he lived in tents, which enabled 
 him easily to transport himself from one 
 place to anotlier. Something of this may be 
 due to the migratory habits of an Oriental 
 nomad chief, but much more, we may be sure, 
 to that divine dispensation which made the 
 life of Abraham, in its perpetual demand for 
 and exercise of faith, a pre-eminent pattern 
 for the believers who were to be his spiritual 
 offspring. 
 
 10. For he looked for a (was awaiting the) 
 city which hath foundations (or, the foun- 
 dations). Not (with Grotius and some) the 
 earthly Jerusalem — a reference so inapposite 
 that it seems inexplicable how any should 
 have so understood it — but the Jerusalem 
 which is above (Oai. i:26), "the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem, the city of the living God" (n.ti), 
 which hath foundations (see Rev. 21 : 14, for 
 the foundations of the Jerusalem descended 
 
 from God out of heaven), and which is thus 
 stable and abiding, as against the changing 
 and temporary character of tent life. That 
 Abraham was with a distinct consciousness 
 looking for the heavenly Jerusalem as his 
 future home, we need not a.ssert nor suppose. 
 The latent elements of the Old Testament 
 faith come first to clear consciousness in the 
 New, and in the light of its clearer revelations 
 the New Testament writers can both iiiterpret 
 the dark hints of the Old and the real nature 
 and objects of the faith of the early saints. But 
 that such was the real essence of that faith we 
 may infer from those traditions of the S^-na- 
 gogue and articles of Jewish belief which 
 gradually explicated themselves out of the 
 Old Testament records, and prepared the way 
 for the fuller revelations of the gospel. Mar- 
 tha's declaration to our Lord that her brother 
 should rise again at the resurrection at the last 
 day seetns but the more articulate utterance of 
 the faith of those ancient worthies (see ver. 3.5 
 and compare 2 Mace. 7) who laid down their 
 lives in hope of 'a better resurrection,' thus 
 assuring us that even the doctrine of the resur- 
 rection was not without its Old Testament 
 foreshadowings. So the heavenly, as con- 
 trasted with the earthly Jerusalem, is a Jew- 
 ish doctrine before the coming of Christ and 
 its descent to earth after the Second Coming, 
 as in Revelation, is in harmony with Jewish 
 belief respecting what should -happen in the 
 times of the Messiah. 
 
 Whose bnilder and maker (whose archi- 
 tect and builder) is God — (as planner of this 
 city God is its rexviTi)<!; as its actual founder 
 and builder, its 6»)|u.ioupyds). 
 
 11. Throu§:h laith also Sarah herself. 
 This emphasis on Sarah either as contrasted 
 with her husband, who, as tiie head of the 
 woman and as being pre-eminent in faith, 
 would naturally in this relation be alone no- 
 ticed ; or, as having been previously barren ; 
 or (with Liinemann, Delitzsch, Moll, etc.) 
 because she had at the first been unbelieving 
 as to God's promise («en. 18:12. 15), whence her 
 transition to a state of faith was the more re- 
 markable. Received strength to conceive 
 
152 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 was past age, because she judged him faithful who had 
 promised. 
 
 12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as 
 good as dead, so inuny as the stars of the sky in multi- 
 tude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innu- 
 merable. 
 
 13 These all died in faith, not having received the 
 promises, but having seen them afar ott, and were per- 
 suaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed 
 that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. 
 
 14 For they that say such things declare plainly that 
 they seek a country. 
 
 was past age, since she counted him faithful who 
 
 12 had promised : wherefore also there sprang of one, 
 and him as good as dead, so vumy as the stars of 
 heaven in multitude, and as the sand, which is by 
 the sea shore, innumerable. 
 
 13 These all died ' in faith, not having received the 
 promises, but having seen them and greeted them 
 from afar, and having confessed that they were 
 
 14 strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that 
 say such things make it manifest that they are seek- 
 
 1 Gp. according to. 
 
 seed (/or the founding of an offspnng), or 
 with many (as Clirysostoin, Theophylact, etc.), 
 'for the reception and conceiving of seed.' 
 When she was past age (and that contrary 
 to the period of her life), as she was now 
 past the age at which offspring might have 
 been expected, even had she previously had 
 children. Because (since) she counted 
 him faithful who had promised. Thus 
 Sarah, like Abraham, her lord, .staggered not 
 at the promise through unbelief, believing 
 that what God had promised he was able to 
 accomplish. "Against hope" — that is, against 
 all rational ground of probability she believed 
 in hope. 
 
 12. Therefore sprang there, etc. — Where- 
 fore also there were begotten from one (Abra- 
 ham), and that, too, when become as dead 
 {vev€Kpo>oiJ.€vov, deadened, having lost his repro- 
 ductive power. The same epithet is applied to 
 Abraham's body (Roin. 4: i9), as also to the like 
 condition of Stirah) ; [a seed] ; as the stars of 
 the sky in m.ultitude, as the sand which is along 
 the border of the sea, the innumerable. Such 
 are the terms of the promise to Abraham. 
 
 (Gen. 13:16; 15:5; 22: 17, etc.) And the promisC haS 
 
 been, and will be fulfilled, alike in Abrahams 
 natural and his spiritual seed. . 
 
 (c) Retrospective glance at the above-cited 
 ■believers. (13-16.) 
 
 13. These all .(yl6?YtAam 'a«rf the patri- 
 archs, not the atitediluvian worthies) died in 
 faith — not, ' by faith,' as before, because faith 
 was not the cause of their death — not having 
 received the promises (that is, the fulfill- 
 ment of them), but seeing and greeting 
 them (aanaaafifvoi, not, 'embracing,' but, 'sa- 
 luting,' as one salutes the harbor and shore 
 which he is approaching). That is, their death 
 of faith corresponded to their life of faith. 
 The declaration is not that they died in faith, 
 becaus& they had not received the promises, 
 but had seen them, etc. (this would require oi 
 
 (co/i«<To/i€rot instead of Mi) ; but their death was a 
 death in accordance with faith, as being a 
 death of those who had not received the prom- 
 ise, but who saw and greeted them ; that is, 
 the author does not tell us that these men 
 died in faith, not in sight, and then assign as 
 the reason that they had not received, etc. 
 But he tells us that their deatli had the char- 
 acter of faith in that without receiving tlie 
 fulfilled promises, they yet saw and greeted 
 them from afar. And confessed that they 
 were strangers and pilgrims [sojourners) 
 on the earth. This was part of their dying 
 in faith, that though they had not received 
 the promises, they yet saw and greeted them; 
 and were thus willing, in view of the higher 
 and greater blessings which these promises 
 held out, to regard themselves as strangers and 
 pilgrims on the earth. The language refers to 
 that of Abraham. (Geo. 23:4.) They thus showed 
 that they had that faith which rises above the 
 .sensible, and passes beyond the present, and 
 takes hold of unseen and enduring good. 
 
 14. For they that say such things de- 
 Clare plainly {show) that they seek {are 
 seeking) a (equivalent to their) country (a 
 fatherland). The man who styles himself a 
 sojourner and an exile, clearly implies that he 
 has in view somewhere a country' which shall 
 be to him his country, a fatherland, of which 
 he can use that endearing language, ' my 
 country.' The English language is unfortu- 
 nate in having no single word which (without 
 the prefix of the possessive pronoun) expresses 
 the difference between the Greek region, ter- 
 ritory (x<ipa), and native land, fatherland 
 {narpU), country as the home of one's ances- 
 tors and the place of his citizenship. This is 
 the force of the term here. The Germans 
 render it adequately and beautifully by "Fath- 
 erland"; we have to leave its most essential 
 idea unexpressed and dependent on explana- 
 tion. It is not natural for man to be a mere 
 
Ch. XI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 153 
 
 15 And truly if they had been mindful of that country 
 from whence they came out, they might have had op- 
 porturiily to have returned. 
 
 16 But' now tliey desire a better country, that is, a 
 heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called 
 their God : for he hath prepared for them a city. 
 
 15 ing after a country of their own. And if indeed 
 they had been mindful of that country from which 
 they went out. they would have had opponuniiy to 
 
 16 return. But now they desire a better cuuntry, ilial 
 is, a heavenly: wherelore (iod is not ashauie^l of 
 them, to be called their God: for he hath prepared 
 for them a city. 
 
 cosmopolite, a rover. As his heart demands 
 a home, so his inextinguishable sentiments 
 demand a 'country.' The reasoning of the 
 author is just : the very fact of these patriarchs 
 styling themselves pilgrims and sojourners 
 pointed to a demand of their heart and their 
 faith for a land which they could call their 
 country. 
 
 15. And truly, if, etc. — And if, indeed 
 (when they were thus styling themselves), they 
 had had in mind (were making mention ofj 
 that [fatherland] from which they cam,e forth. 
 If Abraham, for example, when (Gen. 23 = 4) he 
 calls himself a sojourner and a pilgrim, had 
 referred to his present residence as compared 
 ■with the land of his birth, they might 
 (would) have had opportunity to return 
 — and return assuredly they would, argues 
 the author, if they had had no higher and 
 better hope in the future. No man loves to 
 bean alien and e.xile; but they consented to 
 spend a life of estrangement from country, 
 city, and home, and the only ground and justi- 
 fication of their procedure is their faith that 
 laid hold, as the reward of their earthly dis- 
 franc'iiisement, on a future and better country. 
 
 16. But now (as it is, vvv, logical, now, as 
 the case stands, in fact) they desire {are seek- 
 ing for) a better country, that is, a hea- 
 venly. If there were doubt about 'the city 
 that hath foundations' (ver. lo), whether, that 
 is, it refers to the earthly (as Ebrard), or to the 
 heavenly .Jerusalem, this language would seem 
 to settle it. If they were seeking a heavenly 
 country, tliey would surely .seek the heavenly 
 city — the metropolis of the country. As to 
 the sentiment, we may well admit that our 
 author has explicated more from the language 
 of the patriarchs than was distinctly in their 
 consciousness. They may have acquiesced in 
 their own disfranchised and alien condition 
 consciously on the ground of the entrar:ce of 
 their posterity into an inheritance which was 
 withheld from them. But the author has not 
 drawn more from their language iind conduct 
 than, in the light of the New Testament, was 
 implicitly contained in them. The whole in- 
 
 terpretation hangs together. If the lineal de- 
 scendants of Abralmm were not the true peo- 
 ple of God, but only typified them ; if tlie rest 
 of Canaan was not the true rest, but only sym- 
 bolical of the Sabbath rest into which the real 
 Israel shall enter; if all this was actually 
 wrapped up in these promises — then the faith 
 of the patriarchs, which led them to submit, 
 in view of the promises, to a long life of 
 earthly expatriation, contained precisely that 
 element, though half latent to themselves, 
 which is here ascribed to it. The whole gist 
 of the matter is involved in that remarkable 
 language of Christ: "Your father Abraham 
 rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was 
 
 glad." (John 8: 36.) 
 
 Wherefore God is not ashamed {of them) 
 to be called their God. God revealed him- 
 self specially as the 'God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob' (Exod. 3:6; Acts 3: 13, etc.), vvhich indeed 
 became his familiar designation. The extra- 
 ordinary faith of these patriarchs, their life- 
 long expatriation in simple reliance on his 
 promise — a promise vvhich in their dtiy never 
 seemed to have advanced a step toward reali- 
 zation — earned for them this eminent preroga- 
 tive. On the other hand, that it was still an 
 act of condescension in God; that, extraordi- 
 nary as was their faith, it could lay him under 
 no obligation so to honor them, is here (as at 
 2 : 11, where the like term is applied to the 
 Redeemer's entering into brotherly relations 
 with his people) beautifully implied in the 
 'not ashamed' (ai<rxui'€Tai). God has to hum- 
 ble himself in allowing himself to be so de- 
 signated. 
 
 For he hath prepared for them a city. 
 This again not the earthly, but the heavenly 
 .Jerusalem, the city of the living God, which 
 is here represented as prepared for the ptitri- 
 archs. This is in conformity with the typology 
 of the context. God gave their natural seed 
 the earthly Canaan ; he gave to their .spiritual 
 seed, along with them, the heavenly Canaan. 
 He bqilt, or had built for their literal seed, the 
 earthly .Jeru.salem ; he built himself ('whose 
 architect and builder was God ') for their spir- 
 
154 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up ] 17 By faith Abraham, being tried, i offered up Isaac; 
 Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered yea, he that liad j;ladly received the promises was 
 up his only begotten sun. 18 ottering up his only begotten swi; ev, n he. -to whom 
 
 18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed 19 it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called : ac- 
 he called; I 
 
 1 Gr. hath offered up 2 Or, of. 
 
 itual seed, aiid of course for them in an emi- 
 nent degree, the heavenly Jerusalem. The 
 city is, of course, again placed in contrast with 
 the movable tent, which marked their migra- 
 tory and shifting life. [The logical 'for' (yap) 
 states the ground on which we know that he 
 was not ashamed, etc. It states a single point 
 as illustrative of that truth.] 
 
 {d) Examples of the Jewish patriarchs. 
 (17-22.) 
 
 17. Another feature illustrative of faith in 
 the life of the ' father of the faithful.' As 
 Abraham was indebted to his own faith and 
 Sarah's for the birth of Isaac, so his faith re- 
 ceived another extraordinary trial in regard 
 to him. Many have taken offense at the in- 
 cipient offering of Isaac, but I do not see on 
 what just grounds. He who gives life has a 
 right to take it in what manner he pleases, and 
 it lies as much in his sovereign pleasure to 
 commission a father to plunge the sacrificial 
 knife into the bosom of a child as to commit 
 the taking of life to the agencies of nature, or 
 to the ministers of civil justice. The only 
 thing required to justify the command on the 
 one hand, and the implicit obedience on the 
 other, is the evidence that there are, or may 
 be, sufficient intrinsic grounds for the proceed- 
 ing. These, I think, can be discovered in the 
 present case. Looking upon Isaac as the heir 
 of promise, this command to put him to death 
 was perhaps the severest test to which Abra- 
 ham's faith in God could possibly be put. 
 Looking again at him as a type of Christ, and 
 at the probable place of the transaction as the 
 scene of the great substitutionary sacrifice of 
 the ages, we see reason for God's selecting pre- 
 cisely this form of trial ; and it no more indi- 
 cates a barbarous age than does his demand 
 for the expiatory blood of Christ as the only 
 salvation of humanity, or his committing to 
 human tribunals the universal right to take 
 life for adequate offenses. So long as sin is in 
 the world, death will reign in every form in 
 which the righteous Moral Ruler sees fit to 
 inflict it. 
 
 By faith Abraham, when he was {being) 
 
 tried, (hath) offered up Isaac. The perfect 
 tense, instead of the aorist, represents the act 
 as performed and on record before the eyes of 
 man. The perfect brings it into relation to 
 the present time. It is here also spoken of as 
 done; "he has offered him up," because in 
 fact the entire act was contemplated in his 
 faith, and the failure to consummate it was, so 
 far as concerned Abraham's faith, a mere acci- 
 dent. He intended when he bound Isaac on 
 the altar to slay him ; any mental reservation 
 would have vitiated his faith. When tlie 
 writer, however, throws the act back into the 
 past he states the case more exactly. And he 
 that had received [accepted) the promises. 
 Abraham had not merely 'received' (Sexo/^"0 
 the promises; he had 'accepted' them [6.va- 
 SexoMai), he had appropriated them, acted on 
 them, and thus seemingly exposed his whole 
 plan and course of life to utter subversion and 
 overthrow by this act of obedience. Offered 
 (w«s offering) up (^started to offer up, com- 
 menced offering up — here the author, in resum- 
 ing, is more exact) his only begotten. The 
 epithet 'only begotten' sharpens the concep- 
 tion of the faith involved in the act. It does 
 so doubly, since to slay his only begotten 
 would be doubly wounding to the parental 
 heart, and since after this 'only begotten' 
 there was no one left in whom the great prom- 
 ises to which he had sacrificed his earthly life 
 could be realized. The latter is here probably 
 the point mainly in view. 
 
 18. Of (in relation to) whom it was said. 
 The rendering "to whom" referring " whom" 
 to him 'who had accepted the promises' to 
 Abraham, is more generally adopted, but I 
 believe erroneously. The preposition (n-pd? 
 with the accusative) will bear equally well the 
 rendering 'in relation to' (see 1 : 7, 8), and 
 the ' whom ' then refers to the ' only begotten ' 
 Isaac. Either construction is possible, but 
 with the latter the quotation becomes more 
 forcible and of more pregnant import. That 
 in Isaac shall thy seed be called, (cen. 
 21 : 12.) This again is added as heightening our 
 impression of his fai'th, by showing how com- 
 
Ch. XI.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 155 
 
 19 Accounting that God was able to raise him. up, 
 even from tlie dead ; from whence also he received him 
 in a figure. 
 
 counting that God is able to raise up, even from the 
 dead; from whence he did also in a figure receive 
 
 pletely his obedience was to subvert the prom- 
 ise. 
 
 19. Accounting {estimating, coming to a 
 rational conclusion) that God was able to 
 raise him up, even from the dead — or bet- 
 ter, as a general truth, That God is able even 
 to raise from the dead. This consideration 
 might seem at first view to detract from the 
 faith of Abraham. If lie reflected that God 
 could, and thought it very possible that lie 
 would, raise Isaac from the dead, the difficulty 
 and heroism of putting him to death seem 
 greatly diminished. But here is precisely the 
 pith of the writer's argument. He has not in 
 mind the struggle of Abraham's feelings in 
 yielding up his only begotten son, his heroism 
 in performing a difficult and dreadful act, but 
 the implicitness and absoluteness of that faith 
 wiiich enabled him to do it. For Abraham to 
 have proceeded to slay Isaac in accordance 
 with the divine conmiand, but with the con- 
 viction or the fear that the pi'omise was thus to 
 be nullified, would have been an act of obedi- 
 ence indeed, but by no means distinctively an 
 act of faith. His faith consisted in reconciling 
 the great seeming contradictions in the circum- 
 stances of the case. He had received promises 
 guaranteed by the veracity of Jehovah, whose 
 fulfillment required the life of Isaac, and he 
 was now commanded to perform an act which, 
 to the eye of sense, extinguished those prom- 
 ises forever. Abraham did not seize either 
 one horn of the dilemma. He did not either 
 cling to the promise and refuse the sacrifice, 
 or yield obedience and abandon the promise. 
 His obedience did not hesitate, and his faith 
 did not falter. He believed that God could 
 aiid would fulfill his promise, and that in this 
 fulfillment he would raise Isaac from the dead. 
 Thus it is not mere moral heroism, the sacri- 
 fice of paternal afl^ection, despairing obedience, 
 that the author is here celebrating; hui faith, 
 confidence in spiritual realities — a belief that 
 God is, and that he will accomplish his prom- 
 ises and reward his servants. It is faith in its 
 double aspect of confidence in what is hoped 
 for, and conviction of what is unseen. 
 
 From whence also he received him in a 
 figure (back). Of all the interpretations 
 put on this much disputed clause, this is, on 
 
 th,e whole, perhaps liable to the least objection. 
 It lies naturally in the words, takes 'figure' 
 (jrapa/SoAfl) in its usual New Testament sense, 
 and makes an unexceptionable and appropriate 
 meaning. We must be careful, however, not 
 to reduce the meaning of 'in a figure' {if napa- 
 ^oAtj) to a mere 'as it were' or 'so to speak' 
 (cos €iros tine'iv), which deprives it of all its force. 
 We must give it, on the contrary, its full sig- 
 nification. Abraham considered that God was 
 able to raise Isaac from the dead, and from 
 the dead he sj'mbolically received him. Isaac, 
 stretched upon the altar, lay in atypical death. 
 He did not really feel the power of death, but 
 lay in its likeness or image; and in a likeness 
 or symbol, as one who had been devoted to 
 death and subject to its power, his father re- 
 ceived him back. It can scarcely be doubted 
 that the author regards Isaac here as a type of 
 Christ, and that in this latent view lies the 
 real explanation. Isaac was to be put to death, 
 and underwent all the outward forms involved 
 in dying; but finally, when God's purpose was 
 accomplished, he was raised without actually 
 tasting of death. He thus typified our Lord, 
 who indeed was not only bound and con- 
 demned, but actually drank the cup of death. 
 Still his death, after all, in comparison with 
 ordinary human death, was as the death of 
 Isaac; it was but a seeming, a parabolic death. 
 Death, in the very act of striking, lost his 
 hold upon his victim. He had over Christ no 
 real power. The Saviour laid down his life, 
 but he took it again; snatched himself from 
 the mortality and corruption of the grave, and 
 thus, like Isaac, died but in a figure (eV irapa- 
 PoKfj). The points of resemblance then are 
 greater than the points of contrast. Abraham 
 received Isaac from the dead in a figure, just 
 as the Father received his Son who was cruci- 
 fied. Both were condemned to death, both 
 stretched out upon the altar; but over neither 
 had death any power; over the one, because 
 the slaughtering knife was arrested in its de- 
 scent; over the other, because, although it fell 
 and his blood flowed, yet it could not reach 
 his essential vitality, nor prevent him froia 
 speedily and triumphantly emerging from 
 the realm of death. The raising of Isaac, 
 then, was an acted parable. It stood along- 
 
156 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. xr. 
 
 20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning 
 things to come. 
 
 21 By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both 
 the sous of Joseph : and worshipped, leaning upon the 
 top of his staff. 
 
 22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of 
 
 20 him back. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, 
 
 21 even concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, 
 when he was a dying, blessed each of the sons of 
 Joseph ; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his 
 
 22 stafi". By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made 
 
 side of, symbolized, represented, an actual 
 raising from the dead. And the special pro- 
 priety of so representing it here is that it thus 
 points forward to a similar, but far more mo- 
 mentous transaction, occurring on this very 
 spot, in which ages after, the great Son of 
 Promise, the spiritual Isaac, in whom the seed 
 of Abraham were to be called, was thus by 
 his death for a moment to darken the hopes of 
 his followers, and apparently defeat the prom- 
 ises, but in reality to rise again essentially un- 
 touched by its power. 
 
 To enumerate all the explanations of this 
 difficult passage would be almost endless. I 
 will add a few. They have turned on the dif- 
 ferent meanings given, partly to the adverb 
 ''whence^ {oOiv), partly to the verb received, or 
 ' recovered ' {Uoixiaino), but chiefly to the words 
 'in a figure' (ev irapapoxfj) . In regard to the 
 first, it has been doubted whether the adverb 
 (60fv) was to be taken locallj'^ ''from whence,^ or 
 logically, as everywhere else in this Epistle, 
 ' whence, ' from which cause. As to the second, 
 it has been doubted whether the verb (iKoniaaro) 
 meant received, bore off to him,self, obtained, 
 referring to the original obtaining of Isaac, or 
 received back, recovered, referring to his pres- 
 ent receiving him as from the dead. The 
 meanings of the phrase 'in a figure' (iv rrapa^oKri) 
 are much more various. It has been read 
 ' in a figure or sj'mbol ' (equivalent to tU rrapa- 
 fioK^v) ; namely, of the resurrection of the dead, 
 or of the resurrection of Christ, or of both. 
 It has been rendered as an adverb (equivalent 
 to irap(ip6\.ta^), unexpectedly, wonderfully: 'in 
 the way of substitution,'- by the substitution of 
 the ram ; ' in his presenting or delivering him 
 up ' ; ' in a bold venture,' etc. 
 
 20. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and 
 Esau concerning things to come. Things 
 still in the future, and which, therefore, he 
 could predict only in faith in a Being at once 
 omniscient and omnipotent. Apart from faith, 
 all forecasting of the future is but shrewd con- 
 jecture, and all prediction is fanaticism or 
 knavery. Isaac foretold the mutual relations 
 of Jacob and Esau (Gen. 27 : 22-29), giving to 
 Jacob, the younger, the preference, ^s is in- 
 
 dicated also by the first place being given to 
 him here. 
 
 21. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, 
 blessed both (each of) the sons of Jos- 
 eph. Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. 48:20) here 
 again also, as^ in the blessing of Jacob and 
 Esau, reversing the natural relations of the 
 two, and putting the 3'ounger before the elder 
 — a feature which made the element of faith 
 more marked and conspicuous. Here, as in 
 the preceding case, confidence in God, the 
 Unseen Kuler, and the conviction that he was 
 speaking under his inspiration, vindicated to 
 his blessing the character of faith. And wor- 
 shipped (bowed in tvorship), leaning upon 
 the top of his staff. The Hebrew is sup- 
 posed to mean "And prostrated himself in 
 worship upon the head of his bed" — that is, 
 turned himself in worship so as to bring his 
 face to the pillow. The Septuagint adopted a 
 different pointing from the Masoretic (reading 
 ntSD, staff, for P^S, bed), having in mind, 
 perhaps (Gen. 32 • 10), "With my staff I crossed 
 over the Jordan." The difference between 
 the Hebrew and Septuagint was, however, of 
 slight consequence to the auth()r,-and it was 
 not necessary to correct the version. A more 
 serious difficulty, perhaps, is found in the fact 
 that this worshiping of Jacob i.s recorded not 
 in connection with the blessing of the sons of 
 Joseph, but with his directing Joseph con- 
 cerning his burial. (Gen. 47:31.) Here, again, 
 we may simply say that the author selected 
 that event from the closing life of Jacob, 
 which best — or, at least, sufficiently' — illus- 
 trated the patriarch's faith ; and, in connection 
 with this, introduced the equally pertinent 
 fact of his 'worshiping' as ftlso illustrative of 
 his faith. The close connection in which the 
 two events stand render the transfer easy. 
 He might have mentioned that just alluded to, 
 or the blessing pronounced in the spirit of 
 prophetic faith on all his sons (Gen. 49), but he 
 lets one example stand for the whole. 
 
 22. By faith Joseph, when he died — 
 when dying {rfkevriov) ; endinr/ his life (Gen. 50 : 26, 
 cTcAeuTTj^c) — made mention of the departing 
 of the children {so7is) of Israel; and gave 
 
Ch. xr.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 157 
 
 the departing of the children of Israel ; and gave com- 
 luandiiieiit conceming his bones. 
 
 23 By faith Mn.sos, when he was born, was hid three 
 mouths uf his parents, because tliey saw he was a proper 
 child ; and they were not afraid of the king's command- 
 ment. 
 
 24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused 
 to be called the son ol Pharaoh's daughter; 
 
 25 Choosing rather to sutler attliction with the people 
 of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; 
 
 mention of the departure of the children of Israel; 
 
 23 and gave commandment concerning his bones. By 
 faith Moses, when he wa.>i born, was hid three mouths 
 by his parents, because they saw he was a goodly 
 child ; and they were not afraid of the king's com- 
 
 24 maiidment. By faith Moses, when he was grown up, 
 refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter ; 
 
 25 choosing rather to be evil entreated with the people 
 of (iod, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a sea- 
 
 commandment concerning his bones. 
 
 Though early transported to Egypt, and there 
 having flourished through a long period of 
 prosperity and power, and though his family 
 were now all happily, and, apparently, perma- 
 nently located there, Joseph yet remembered 
 the promise, and his heart and his faith turned 
 to the true iiome of Israel. His command 
 concerning his bones was made in the full 
 faith that, against all present appearances, the 
 promise would yet be fulfilled, and with firm 
 trust, therefore, in the being and the veracity 
 of the unseen but Omnipotent Promiser. His 
 dying request was complied with. (Ex. i3:i9.) 
 His bones wore placed (Josh. 24:32) in Shechem, 
 in the field purchased by his father. 
 («) Example of Moses. (23-29.) 
 From the patriarchs of Israel, the writer 
 passes to its great leader, Moses. 
 
 23. By faith Moses, when he was born, 
 was hidden three months of {by) his pa- 
 rents {ita.Te(mv — literally, fathers ; put here for 
 father and mother) because they saw he.was 
 a proper child — or, that the child was fair 
 (Acts? : 20), a child 'divinely fair ' (aartlov tw fletS, 
 fair for God). It was no mere human admir- 
 ation of its beauty that moved the parents to 
 save the life of the child; but something in 
 the character of its beautj', which marked it 
 for a higher destiny, for the fulfillment of 
 some divine purpose. Their faith consisted 
 apjiareiitly in this— that, recognizing the child 
 as born for some special mission, they dis- 
 obe^-ed the mandate of the king for his de- 
 struction. Without a divinely infused spiritual 
 element in their motive, God would not have 
 given them the faith for its execution. Nor 
 did their hiding of Moses indicate a lack of 
 faith. Precisely the reverse. Their purpose 
 to save Moses in disregard of the royal edict, 
 indicated faith, and led to their using the 
 necessary means of saving him. Without 
 the using of those means, faith would not 
 have been faith, but presumption. It is not 
 audacity, nor mere courage, that the author 
 
 celebrates, but faith — the divinely inspired 
 principle that believes in the future and be- 
 holds the unseen. 
 
 24. By faith Moses, vjhen he was grown 
 up — being grown to manhood; literally, be- 
 coming large, or grown (Exod. 2:ii) ; accord- 
 ing to Acts 7 : 23, about forty years old ; not. 
 as some, " becoming great in reputation and 
 power"— refused to be called the son of 
 Pharaoh's daughter. The absence of the 
 article before 'daughter' may be accidental; 
 or it may be intended to turn attention from the 
 person to the rank — a daughter of the royal 
 family of Egypt. This refusal (or, denial) 
 may not have been made on any specific occa- 
 sion. His refusal was a practical one; it first 
 evinced itself outwardly, and, perhaps, to his 
 own consciousness, in the acts by which he 
 showed that his heart and his allegiance were 
 with his people and their God, perhaps by his 
 slaying the Egyptian, and his flight to Midian. 
 
 (Exod. 2 : 12, 15.) 
 
 25. Choosing (not, having chosen, as the 
 tense of the participle allows, but does not 
 require; the 'refusing' and the 'choosing' 
 appear as coincident) rather to suflTer afflic- 
 tion with the people of God than to 
 enjoy the pleasure.^ of sin for a season 
 (have a temporary enjoyment from, sin). 
 
 ' To suffer affliction ' (Kaitoi>x«i<TSot, to be ill- 
 treated), to meet treatment such as the Jews 
 were then experiencing from Pharaoh, who 
 knew not Joseph. When Moses made his 
 choice the people were in ignominious and 
 degrading bondage. He chose to share their 
 fortunes, j'et. in a divinely inspired faith 
 (Acts 7: 25) that through his hand God would 
 work their salvation. We must remember 
 that throughout this catalogue it is not natural 
 courage or patriotism that is celebrated, but 
 the faith that apprehends alike both the 
 unseen and the future. ' The people of God ' 
 — the standing name of the Jews in the Old 
 Testament, not as necessnrilj' involving a 
 spiritual character, but marking their divine 
 
158 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 26 Esteeming the repiouch of Christ greater riches 1 26 ^u ; accounting the reproach of ' Christ greater 
 than tlie treasures in Egypt: for he had respect uuto riches than the tieasiires of Egypt- for he loolsed 
 
 the recompense of the reward. { 
 
 1 Or, the Chritt. . 
 
 selection. God had chosen the patriarchs, and 
 they had expanded into 'a people.' Under 
 Moses they were to become an organized com- 
 munity — the Old Testament 'people of God.' 
 'The temporary enjoyment of sin' — not ex- 
 actly equivalent to our phrase, "The pleas- 
 ures of sin for a season." The reference is 
 not to what are strictly called sinful pleasures. 
 The 'enj<jyment' wiiich Moses renounced 
 might have been, under other circumstances, 
 perfectly legitimate. It was legitimate in the 
 case of David and Solomon — the power and 
 splendor of a throne. Moses could purchase 
 them only by that apostasy from God in which 
 theautiior (led partly, perhaps, by the peculiar 
 circumstances of his readers) finds the essence 
 of all sin (3: 12, i3; io:26) ; and called, as was 
 Moses, to the deliverance of his enslaved 
 countrymen, he could purchase this earthly 
 rank and greatness only by turning his back 
 on his calling, his people, and his God. He 
 could have purchased it only by 'sin.' 'Sin,' 
 here, is not the genitive of the object, but of 
 the subject. It is not the enjoyment which 
 consists in sin, but the enjoyment which would 
 have arisen from sin. 
 
 26. Esteeming [accounting) the reproach 
 of Christ greater riches than the treas- 
 ures of Egypt — which as sovereign of Egypt 
 he would have enjoyed, but which would 
 have brought to him less true happiness, atid 
 therefore less real wealth, than 'the reproach 
 of Christ.' Of this brief phrase it is difficult 
 to reach the exact meaning. Moses' choice 
 had of course reference to the condition of the 
 Israelites when he made it. They were suffer- 
 ing outrage, indignity, reproach. This Moses 
 chose to suffer along with them. This 're- 
 proach' and contumely endured by the people, 
 into which Moses entered, was 'the reproach 
 of Christ.' It is not, then, merely such re- 
 proach as Christ endured, or such reproach as 
 his service imposes. The ' reproach,' the 
 shame of the people, were the reproach, the 
 shame of Christ, which Moses took upon him- 
 self in casting in his lot with the people of 
 God. In what sense, then, were the wrongs 
 and outrages inflicted on the chosen people 
 
 the reproach of Christ? In a typical sense, 
 says Hofmann, in that Israel in Egypt was a 
 type of Christ in the flesh, and its bondage 
 and sulferiiigs, in its spiritual calling, as the 
 predestined fountain of salvation, not merely 
 in its natural relations, prefigured the indigni- 
 ties heaped on him in whom Israel's spiritual 
 calling found its consummation. In a mysti- 
 cal sense, says Stier, in that the people of God 
 in all times have a vital bond of union. The 
 Old Testament believers were already mem- 
 bers of the as yet un revealed Head. In the 
 pre-existcnt pTrsence of Christ, as Logos in the 
 Old Testament Israel, say De Wette and Tho- 
 luck ; "the reproach which Moses took on 
 himself is called the 'reproach of Christ,' as 
 Paul calls the sufferings of Christians the suf- 
 ferings of Christ — that is, Christ struggling 
 and suftering in his church, as in his body. 
 But this reproach is referred to him here, in 
 view of the oneness of the Old and the New Tes- 
 taments, and the Eternal Logos ruling in the 
 former." Delitzs^h unites all these idegs, with 
 the added thought of a certain preparation for 
 the incarnation and sufferings of Christ run- 
 ning- through the history of ancient Israel, 
 and thus finding it dimly pointed to in this 
 ignominy and reproach of the people of God 
 in Egypt. 
 
 A moment's survey of Moses' peculiar posi- 
 tion may reconcile us to this complex concep- 
 tion. Beyond all preceding believers, Moses 
 typified Christ. He was the Old Testament 
 apostle, the commissioned one of God. He 
 was the Old Testament deliverer, the rescuer 
 of God's people from bondage. He was the 
 human founder of the Old Testament house- 
 hold of God. And in all these capacities he was 
 the direct antitype of our Lord. He wrote 
 and prophesied of Christ. In him the Messi- 
 anic promise arose on the world with a full- 
 ness and clearness which it had not assumed 
 before. The typical character of the Old 
 Testament history was deepening, and all the 
 relations of Moses were pregnant with Messi- 
 anic significance. In a sense, therefore, which 
 could be attributed to none of his predeces- 
 sors, the shame and reproach into which 
 
Ch. XI] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 159 
 
 27 By faith he forsook Kgypt, not fearing the wrath 
 of the Icing: for he endured, as seeing him who is in- 
 visible. 
 
 •28 Tlirougli faith he kept the passover, and the 
 bprinkling oi blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn 
 should touch theiu. 
 
 27 unto the recompense of reward. By raith be forsook 
 Kgypt, not fearing the wralh of the kii.g : for he eii- 
 
 28 dured, as seeing him who is invisihie. By faith lie 
 1 kept the passover, and the sprinkling of llie blo<jd, 
 that the de.'^trover of the firstborn should not touch 
 
 1 Or, initituted. Or. hath made. 
 
 Moses entered were the shame and reproach 
 of Clirist. 
 
 27. By faith he forsook (quitted) Egypt, 
 not fearing the wrath of the king. Inter- 
 preters have widely differed on this passage, 
 whether it refers to Moses' first leaving of 
 Egypt for the Land of Midian, or his second 
 and final quitting of it for Canaan. The early 
 expositors generally referred it to the former; 
 Calvin and many succeeding scholars (as 
 Bohme, Bleek, Ebrard) to the latter; while 
 Bengel, De Wette, Tholuck, Liinetnann, Del- 
 itzsch, Moll, espouse the older view. It seems 
 to me that the older view is almost certainly 
 right. As to the relative importance of the two 
 events, while the later one assumes the greater 
 formal magnitude, yot really the flight into 
 Midian was intrinsically not less significant, 
 as decisive of Moses' whole subsequent career. 
 It was pre-eminently in this that he turned his 
 back on Egyptian royalty, and sealed his ad- 
 herence to the fortunes of his people. It may 
 have been this flight which declared his em- 
 phatic refusal to be called the son of a daugh- 
 ter of Pharaoh. The term applied to his leav- 
 ing, quitted, abandoned (KartAin-ei'), though it 
 might indeed be applied to the Exodus, seems 
 here "to point to something personally and 
 exclusively pertaining to Moses." Also the 
 phrase "not fearing the wrath of the king" is, 
 on the whole, I think, more favorable to this 
 view. In the later Exodus there was no im- 
 mediate question of the wrath of the king 
 (though he did finally pursue with his army 
 the retreating Israelites) ; but in his first with- 
 drawal he fled directly from the wrath of the 
 king. But this is no real impeachment of 
 the author's accuracy. Moses fled from the 
 wrath of the king, because he would not suc- 
 cumb to his will, and because he had chosen a 
 course which defied his power. The immedi- 
 ate act of flight was (like his parents' hiding 
 
 him when he was an infant) an act of prudent 
 fear; the general decision smd course wliich 
 rendered that flight necessary was a practical 
 defiance, in faith, of Egypt's sovereignty, and 
 a turning of his back on all the greatness it 
 could offer him. , Moses' course in either of the 
 two departures was determined and pursued in 
 practical and open defiance of the wrath of the 
 king;^ but the language seems more especially 
 applicable to the first, besides its chronological 
 relation to the subsequently mentioned pass- 
 over and crossing of the Red Sea. 
 
 For he endured, as seeing him {the King) 
 Avho is invisible. As before he evinced that 
 feature of faith which has confidence in hoped- 
 for good, so here that element of it which be- 
 lieves in unseen realities. He could defy the 
 sovereign whom he saw, because his believing 
 eye was fixed on the Sovereign — such is evi- 
 dently the ellipsis — whom he saw not, and 
 whom none sees." The unseen King was the 
 King of kings. 
 
 28. Through faith he kept (Gr., hasmade) 
 the passover. 'Made' here, probably not in- 
 stituted, but performed, celebrated, although 
 the perfect tense has made may be used, with 
 reference to the results of that celebration hav- 
 ing continued down to the then present time — 
 ' he has performed that paschal rite which is the 
 foundation of the permanent institution. And 
 the sprinkling {pouring forth) of blood — 
 the pouring or smearing of blood on the door- 
 posts and thresholds. (Exocl. 12:7, 22, etsrq.) At 
 this time the act was rather a sprinkling or 
 smearing than strictly pouring, the language, 
 perhaps, being drawn from later usage, when 
 the blood was poured out at the foot of the 
 altar. Lest, etc. — that he who destroyed the 
 first born might not touch them. (Exod. 12: 2n.) 
 Moses and the Israelites performed this pas- 
 chal rite at the command of God. sprinkling 
 the blood of the victim on the doorposts, and 
 
 ' The faith of Moses lay in his decision, and Its spir- 
 itual grounds. Having this faith and acting upon It, 
 he would do whatever acts his choice thus made in- 
 volved — to face Pharaoh, or to flee from him. When 
 the time came to /ace him, God nerved him to do it. 
 
 2 A like paradox and paranomasia, and in repard to a 
 like subject {ra. aopara KaSoparai, there mediated by 
 cooii/Kfo, see ver. 3) in Rom. 1:2'); one of the occasional 
 points of contact between two minds" wide as the polei 
 asunder" in constitution and culture. 
 
160 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 29 By faith they passed through the lied sea as by 
 dry land : which the Egyptians assaying to do were 
 drowned. 
 
 30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they 
 were compassed about seven days. 
 
 :'A By faith the harlot Rahab 'perished not with them 
 that believed not, wheu she had received the spies with 
 peace. 
 
 32 And what shall I more say ? for the time would 
 
 29 them. By faith they passed through the Red sea as 
 by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do 
 
 30 were swallowed up. By faith the walls of Jericho 
 fell down, after they had been compassed about for 
 
 31 seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot perished not 
 with them that were disobedient, having received 
 
 32 the spies with peace. And what shall I more say ? 
 
 eating with loins girded, shoes on their feet, 
 and staff in hand. Thus there was a double 
 symbol and a twofold exercise of faith. Their 
 sprinkling the blood of the lamb as a security 
 against the Destroying Angel marked their 
 trust in God, who had instituted means in 
 themselves so impotent for the result; and 
 their eating the passover girded and equipped 
 for travel, showed their confidence that the 
 long-delayed hour of deliverance, in spite of 
 the king of Egypt, had come at last. 
 
 29. By faith they passed through the 
 Red Sea as by {through) dry land. The 
 transition to the plural, 'Israelites,' is entirely 
 natural. It is, of course, not affirmed that 
 faith was individually exercised by all the 
 vast company. The act as a whole was one 
 which demanded, and was made in, faith. 
 Nothing but miraculous power could cause 
 the waters to retire, and open a safe passage 
 for the multitude through the bared bosom of 
 the sea. And as divine power could alone 
 produce the result, so faith in, at least, the 
 leader of Israel, was the condition of its exer- 
 cise. "When Moses was bid to stretch out his 
 rod over the sea, had he unbelievinglj' refused, 
 or unbelievingly performed the act, the result 
 would not have followed. God opened the 
 miracles of his power, as he does those of his 
 grace, to the call of faith. The faith which 
 moved the arm of Moses moved also the arm 
 of Omnipotence. Nor need this fact stumble 
 us, for the faith itself was an inspiration of 
 the Almighty— was the first act of the miracle. 
 The faith that upheld the walking, and the 
 arm that sustained the sinking, Peter, were 
 alike the Lord's. Which the Egyptians, 
 etc. — Of which the Egyptians, making trial, 
 were swallovjed vp. " Of which " ; namely, 
 either 'dry land' (Inpo? scil. v"!?), or, 'sea' 
 (floAatrffT)?), with either of which the pronoun 
 equal 1}' well agrees; or, possibly, 'crossing' 
 (6tai8d(r«<09, supplied from JtopaiVu), ' of which 
 crossing or passage,' etc. 'Swallowed up,' 
 a forcible metaphor from the verb ' to drink 
 
 up (KarairtVw). 
 
 (/) Examples from the Exodus of Israel to 
 the time of the Maccabees. (30-40.) 
 30. By faith the Avails of Jericho fell, 
 
 etc. — beiyig encompassed about seven days. 
 'By faith,' of the people and priests, with 
 Joshua at their head ; not necessarily a vital 
 faith in all, though the recent wonders must 
 have made it well nigh universal. This faith 
 led them to perform an act not having the 
 slightest intrinsic power or tendency to accom- 
 plish the result; and God, in reward of their 
 faith and obedience, miraculously accom- 
 plished it. Faith here, as elsewhere, implies, 
 as conditions of the act and result, a quality 
 in the actor. The inhering quality leading to 
 the result is expressed elliptically by ' By 
 faith the walls of Jericho fell.' The faith 
 induced the compassing, which was the out- 
 ward, as faith was the inward, condition of 
 the overthrow. 
 
 81. By faith Rahab, the harlot, per- 
 ished not with them that disobeyed. 
 (Josh. 2: 6; 7:22, seq.) Rahab had been, in her 
 previous life, like Mary Magdalene, a dis- 
 reputable woman ; but she was a chosen vessel 
 of mercy, and selected to be in the ancestral 
 line of David and of Jesus ; for the like reason, 
 I think, with the selection of Ruth, the Moab- 
 itess, and of the son of Bathsheba, to fore- 
 shadow the broadness of the coming redemp- 
 tion. When she had {having) received the 
 spies with peace. When the Israelitish spies 
 entered Canaan, she received them hosi)it!ibly, 
 saved them from capture, and dismissed them 
 in peace (Josh. 2 : ii) ; and this from no treachery 
 to her country, but from a divinely wrought 
 conviction, founded on the wonders God had 
 wrought, that Jehovah was God in heaven 
 and earth, and had given them the land. For 
 this so remarkable faith, she perished not 
 when her people (Josh. 6: 21) were consigned to 
 destruction. 
 
 32. And what, etc. — And why do I speak 
 further? or, as many, ^ And what shall I say 
 farther?' with little difference in the sonso. 
 The author finds it vain to attempt an enu- 
 
Ch. XL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 161 
 
 fail me to tell of Gideon, and 0/ Barak, and 0/ Samsou, 
 and ((/ Jeiihlhali : of David also, and Saiuiiel, and uj tbe 
 jirophets : 
 
 3.J Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouihs 
 of lions, 
 
 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
 the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed 
 valiant in tight, turned to tlight the armies of the aliens. 
 
 for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, 
 Samson, Jeplithah; of David and Samuel and ihu 
 
 33 proi)liets: who through faith suljdued kingdoms, 
 wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped 
 
 34 the mouths of lions, quenched the jx»wer of tire, es- 
 caped tbe edge of the sword, from weakness wero 
 made strong, waxed mighty in war, tjriied to flight 
 
 ineration of nil the ancient heroes of faith. In 
 fact, he has just reached the period of history 
 when they swarm thickly upon him. For 
 the time would (will) fail ma- in recount- 
 tug concerning Oldeon, Barak, Samson — 
 three among the judges of Israel, Gideon 
 put before the earlier, Barak, because, per- 
 haps, a more notable exatnple of faith. Barak 
 needed to be spurred on by Deborah, but still 
 exemplified, though not in the most striking 
 manner, the Old Testament faith. Samson, 
 too, displays in sacred history no specially 
 elevtited character; yet, chosen and raised up 
 by God, he wrought deliverance for his country 
 in his natne. The humblest of these Hebrew 
 believers still stood in bright contrast with the 
 great ones of the Gentiles. Their standard of 
 moral action was, in tnany points, low ; but 
 tliey had &. principle of belief and trust in the 
 living God which tended to the development 
 of all virtue. That principle, as yet wrought 
 but itnperfectly through the limited bestow- 
 mentof the Spirit, whose fuller effusion was to 
 signalize a later age. Of Jephthah ; of David 
 also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. 
 David again is put before Samuel, in order, 
 probably, to bring the latter into connection 
 with the prophets, of whose order he might 
 be almost regarded as the founder. 'The 
 prophets' are Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, etc., 
 down through the long ages of the Old Testa- 
 ment history. 
 
 33. Who through faith subdued king- 
 doms—as Gideon the Canaanites, Jephthtih 
 the Ammonites, Samson the Philistines, David 
 manj' kings and kingdoms. Wrought right- 
 eousness — either, as kings and judges and 
 prophets executed righteousness and judgment 
 for the people, or in their own persons per- 
 formed acts of righteousness. Of Samuel and 
 David, and <>f Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah, and 
 many of the later prophets, this was emi- 
 nently true ; some earlier ones, whose lives 
 do notshine on tlie page of history, still, judged 
 by the s'andard of their times, doubtless often 
 
 — Realized the fulfillment of promises. This 
 is true, doubtless, of mtiny earlier heroes. God 
 promised them success, and bestowed it in re- 
 sponse to their faith. It is, perhaps, still more 
 emphatically true of many later ones. Joel 
 obtained the promise of the removal of the 
 locusts and the drought; Isaiah, of the deliv- 
 erance of Jerusalem by the annihilation of 
 the hosts of Assyria; Daniel, of the end of 
 the Chaldean captivity. And, as they ob- 
 tained the promises, so they obtained their 
 fulfillment. Stopped (shut) the mouths of 
 lions. Samson and David both fought with 
 lions and overcame them ( Judg. u : 6 ; 1 sam. 17 : 3*-x6) • 
 but the reference seeins specially to Daniel in 
 the lions' den, "Who shut the mouth of the 
 lions" (Septuagint). (Dan. 6: is.) 
 
 34. Quenched the violence (]->owe7-) of 
 fire. Expressive; not merely the _/?rr?«es, but 
 the power. Reference to the three youths who 
 (Dan. 3 : 1-30), for their refusal to bow to the idol 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, were thrown into a fiery 
 furnace, and came forth without even the 
 'smell of fire on their garments.' Escaped 
 the edge of the sword — as Dtivid that of 
 Saul (1 Sam. 18 : 11), Elijah that of Jezebel, Elisha 
 the encompassing hosts of Syria; Jeremiah, 
 Baruch, Ebedmelech, Gedeliah, in Chaldean 
 times. Out of (/row) weakness were made 
 strong. Samson was restored from his help- 
 lessness; David often was brought up from 
 the depths of despair; Hezekiah, brought to 
 the verge of the grave, had his life lengthened 
 fifteen years. Waxed (became) valiant in 
 fight — proved themselves tnighty in war — 
 Joshua, the judges, David, and many believ- 
 ing and victorious heroes in the time of the 
 kings. Turned, etc., to rout armies of for- 
 eigners. Gideon, Jonathan, and many others. 
 Perhaps, however (with Delitzsch), in several 
 of these latter specifications, as 'escaped the 
 edge of the sword,' and thence on, the author 
 has in mind, along with the earlier acts, the 
 times of the Maccabees: "The escape of 
 Mattathias and his sons to the mountains, the 
 
 exercised high virtues. Obtained promises i trustful uprising of the small and increasing 
 
162 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XI. 
 
 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: 
 and others were tortcired, not accepting deliverance; 
 that they might obtain a better resurrection : 
 
 36 And others had trial of true/ niockings and scourg- 
 ings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 
 
 oT Tliey were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were 
 tempte<l, were slain with the sword : thi-y wandered 
 about in sheepskins and goatskins ; being destitute, 
 afflicted, tormented ; 
 
 35 armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a 
 resurrection : and others were ^ tortured, not accept- 
 ing 2 their deliverance; that they might obtain a 
 
 36 better resurrection: and oiheis had trials of mock- 
 ings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and im- 
 
 37 prisonment : they were stoned, they were sawn 
 asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with 
 the sword : they went about in sheepskins, in goat- 
 
 1 Or, beaten to death 2 Gr. the redemption. 
 
 host, the first victories of Judas Maccabeus 
 over Apollonius, Seron, etc., the formal vic- 
 torious wars of the Hasmonsean heroes with 
 the Syrians and neighboring nations. It has 
 been alleged, indeed, that the mighty inspira- 
 tion of the Maccabean period was rather 
 human than divine, rather patriotically pop- 
 ular than theocratically national ; but the 
 Book of Daniel shows, in prophetic deline- 
 ation of that time, a holy peopl'3 of the Most 
 High struggling with the impious, anti- 
 Christian world-power, and claims for their 
 struggles the greatest conceivable significance 
 in the march of sacred history." Hence, 
 Delitzsch regards these declarations as point- 
 ing specially to the Maccabean times.^ This 
 seems the more probable, as some of the im- 
 mediately following examples seem, almost 
 beyond doubt, to be taken from the Macca- 
 bees. 
 
 35. Women received their dead — by a 
 resurrection. As the woman of Sarepta 
 (1 Kings 17 : 17), her son restored by Elijah ; that 
 of theShunamites('^Kings4:i7) by Elisha. And 
 others were tortured {stretclied on the 
 wheel), as the aged Eleazar and the seven 
 brothers with their mother (^Macce: i8-3i:7, s.seq.) 
 tortured on the tympanum., a wheel-formed 
 instrument of torture, on whose spokes the 
 victims had their limbs extended, and were 
 thus barbarously maltreated. Not accept- 
 ing deliverance ; that they might obtain 
 a better resurrection. These Maccabean 
 martyrs are probably placed in contrast with 
 the women above named, whose faith serves 
 but as a foil to that of the others. These 
 women had faith which enabled them to re- 
 ceive their sons to earthly life by resurrec- 
 tion; the heroes of Maccabees had faith which 
 Enabled them, when their earthly life was 
 offered them at the expense of their religion, 
 to sacrifice it for a still better resurrection — a 
 resurrection, not to their transitory earthly 
 
 life, but of the glorified body, to life eternal. 
 "The King of the world," said the second of 
 the sons (2 Mace. 7:9), "will awaken us, dying on 
 behalf of his laws, to a life eternal." It is an 
 interesting question how far the doctrine of 
 the resurrection of the dead had developed 
 itself out of the hints of the Old Testament 
 (as Dan. 12 : 2), so that our Saviour had not so 
 much to announce the fact of the resurrec- 
 tion as hlm.'ielf as its author, and so that when 
 he said to Martha, "Thy brother shall rise 
 again," she was prepared from her antecedent 
 teaching to reply: "I know thtit he shall rise 
 in the resurrection, in the last day." 
 
 36. And others had {received) trial of 
 mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover 
 {further), of bonds and imprisonment. 
 Still the heroes of the Maccabean times (1 
 Mace. 9 : 26; 2 Mace. 6 : 30; 7 : 37, in which 
 the terms here used are found). 
 
 37. They were stoned. Zechariah, son of 
 Jehoiada (2 Chron. 24 : 20-22), and, according to tra- 
 dition, Jeremiah, the author turning back now 
 to inspired history. They were sawn asun« 
 der — perhaps Isaiah, who is said to have ex- 
 perienced this fate from Manasseh. Were 
 tempted — a declaration in this place, between 
 the preceding and following verbs, unnatural 
 and unaccountable. It is probably either a 
 careless transcription and corruption of the 
 preceding word ('sawn asunder, inpaaOrtaav \ 
 'tempted,' ineipaaSr^aav) , or a Corruption of 
 some word of kindred form (as enpicey\aav, or 
 eTrp^o-eijo-ov, or iv€itpri<r0r)<Tat', v}ere bumt). They 
 were slain with (literally, died by slaughter 
 of) the sword. The martyrdom of prophets 
 was coinmon in Israel, as by Ahab, Omri, etc. 
 (I Kings 19: 10.) See in general Matt: 23:37: 
 "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou that killest 
 the prophets, and stonest them which are sent 
 unto thee ! " They wandered {went) about 
 in sheepskins — more especially Elijah, who 
 lived a wandering, solitary, almost savage 
 
 I It is especially worthy of note that the words >rop«|ii./3o\at, oAAdrpioi, are favorite words in the Maccabean records. 
 
Ch. XL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 163 
 
 38 Of whom the world was not worthy : they wan- 
 dered in deserts, and in uiouutains, and m dens and 
 caves of the earth. 
 
 3y And these all, having obtained a good report 
 through faith, received not the promise : 
 
 38 skins; being destitute, afflicted, evil entreated, (of 
 whom the world was not worthy), wandering in 
 deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of 
 
 39 the earth. And these all, having nad witness borne 
 to them through their faith, received not the promise, 
 
 life, clothed in sheepskins, and still more 
 coarsely, in goatskins; being destitute, 
 afflicted, tormented {maltreated). The 
 lives of Elijah and many of those prophets of 
 God were a perpetual succession of destitu- 
 tion, of affliction, and of persecution and out- 
 rage. 
 
 38. Of whom the world was not worthy 
 — a sort of abrupt and unexpected turn. In- 
 stead of saying, 'being deemed unworthy by 
 the world,' which would naturally stand in 
 connection with the world's rejection of them, 
 he adds, as it were unexpectedly, the real fact 
 that the world was not worthy of them. The 
 world repudiated as unworthy of it those of 
 whom itself was not worthy. They wan- 
 dered {wandering) in deserts, and in 
 mountains, and in caves and clefts of the 
 earth. As persons of whoin the world was 
 not worthy, God withdrew them from the 
 world to solitary sojourn. These statements 
 were eminently true of the Maccabean times, 
 when, alike for leaders and followers, deserts, 
 mountains, and caves were common places of 
 refuge; but the author has more probably 
 in view the Old Testatnent prophets; as Eli- 
 jah, who fled from the rage of Jezebel into a 
 cave tif Mount Horeb, and who, as well as his 
 successor Elisha, frequented the solitudes of 
 Carmel ; the hundred prophets whom Obadiah 
 concealed by fiifties in two caves. 
 
 The author here breaks off his enumeration, 
 but glances back for a gi^neral summary. All 
 these persons received their attestation through 
 faith; all obtained an honorable record. It 
 will be seen at a glance that the cases are of 
 the widest diversity, and there seems at first 
 view almost an incongruity in bringing cases 
 so utterly unlike as the heroic sacrifices of 
 Abraham and Moses, the resolute endurance 
 of the Maccabean martyrs, the life-long wan- 
 derings and self-exile of patriarchs and proph- 
 ets, into connection with cases such as that of 
 Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph, and Joseph 
 in dying giving command concerning his 
 bones, or Moses by faith celebrating the i)ass- 
 over. But si deeper glance shows us that they 
 are all perfectly congruous with each other 
 
 and pertinent illustrations of the principle the 
 authi)r is exemplifying. That which he has 
 undertaken to commemorate is faith — simple 
 trust in invisible realities, in the being and 
 declaration and veracity of God. To this 
 single and specific object he is entirely ftiith- 
 ful. It matters not what external form of 
 development it assumes, whether that of active 
 courage, of passive endunince, of sacrifice of 
 the affections, of prophetic utterance on the 
 couch, of a sacrificial offering. The simple 
 point is the trust in God which the act ex- 
 liibits; the rising above the domain of sense 
 into that of spirit; the clear perception, the 
 firm conviction of spiritual realities. This 
 may be as fully evinced by a prophetic utter- 
 ance of a d3'ing patriarch as by the warrior 
 going forth to encounter death. In fad, it 
 may imply coinpleter and purer faith by how 
 much human and earthly elements sire less 
 likely to mingle with it. The courage which 
 rushes into battle may derive part of its inspi- 
 ration, even in the son of faith, from human 
 impulses and passions; the courage that plun- 
 ges out into the unknown future, that diires 
 unhesitating to predict what, yet hidden in its 
 womb, no sagacity can foresee and no human 
 power bring about, is matter of pure and tibso- 
 lute faith. Thus faith is contemplated in its 
 single character of restoring the sundered 
 tie between the soul and God, of recognizing 
 his being, promise, power, and veracity, and 
 the more practical form which it assumes in 
 legitimately working itself out, is of secondary 
 importance. 
 
 39. And these all, having obtained 
 {though ohtnining) a good report through 
 faith — the concessive participle (fiaprvpTjefiTe?), 
 though being attested, emphatically phiced. 
 Received not the (fulJiUment of the) prom- 
 ise. The protnise certainh' they received, 
 and believed, but their faith was not rewarded 
 with possession. Ftir down the ages they 
 caught a glimpse of the glorious inheritance, 
 but did not enter into it. Abraham, who re- 
 ceived the promise thtit in his seed all nations 
 should be blessed, and who rejoiced in a vision 
 of the day of Christ, yet saw but dimly, and 
 
164 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XL 
 
 40 (iod having provided some better thing for us, I 40 God having ' provided some better thing concerning 
 that they without us should not be made perfect. us, that apart from us they should not be made per- 
 
 fect. 
 
 1 Or, foreteen. 
 
 went down to the grave in faith. Prophets 
 and kings in long succession desired to see his 
 day, but did not see it. The Desire of the 
 nations, the Light that was to enlighten the 
 nations and be the Glory of Israel, did not 
 visit them. The more immediate reference is 
 to the present life. They lived and died in 
 the hope, but not the possession, of the spiritual 
 blessings vouchsafed to the days of the mani- 
 fested Messiah and of the Better Covenant. 
 
 40. God having provided {providing) 
 some better thing for {concerning) us. God 
 withheld from them his highest gift, and re- 
 served it for us of the Spiritual Economy. This 
 is put encouragingly and comfortingly, as if 
 God looked down the ages and had such re- 
 gard for us of the later time that he held back 
 from them his richest gifts that they and we 
 might enter into perfection together — a gra- 
 cious and perfectly legitimate way of putting 
 the simple truth tliat the purposes of God are 
 developed gradually; that he does not bring 
 humanity at a bound to the goal of its hopes 
 and its destinies; and that the inheritance that 
 former ages sighed for has come to us at last. 
 
 True, these blessings are in a measure future 
 to us as well as to them. The Sabbath rest of 
 God, the spiritual Canaan, the eternal inherit- 
 ance, are ours also, still in hope. But with 
 immense differences in degree. We have the 
 image (eiicioi') where they had the shadow (o-xta) 
 of the heavenly things. We have the mani- 
 fested Saviour, the outpoured Spirit, the full 
 revelation. John, the harbinger, amid the 
 very breaking light of the new day, and more 
 privileged than the greatest of the Old Econ- 
 omy, its Davids and Isaiahs, was inferior to 
 the humblest of the New. The perfecting 
 (T«Aenu(7ts) that was to come with the Messiah 
 is still indeed in the future, but the perception 
 of it is so clear and the foretaste so rich that, 
 compared with what is given, almost nothing 
 seems withheld. 
 
 That they without {apart from) us may 
 not be perfected. They and we are together 
 to enter perfection ; together to enter the Sab- 
 bath rest of God, and sit down at the marriage 
 supper of the Lamb. But as this is still in the 
 future, have they as yet received no benefit 
 from the death of Christ? Undoubtedly, they 
 have. Whatever was their place and condi- 
 tion, they could not but await anxiously the 
 development of the promises that had sus- 
 tained and cheered them on earth. They 
 could not be indifferent spectators of the grand 
 drama of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, 
 of the Resurrection and the Ascension, nor 
 fail to realize in their own immediate condition 
 great results from those events. All Hades 
 must have thrilled with the great fact of accom- 
 plished redemption; its gates sprang back on 
 their hinges, and its righteous occupants rose 
 into a hitherto unknown freedom and salva- 
 tion. The boundary line between the saints 
 of the two Dispensations was obliterated. 
 Whatever blessedness belonged "henceforth" 
 to the dead that died in the Lord, belonged 
 equally to their Old Testament predecessors. 
 It is among the prerogatives of Christian be- 
 lievers that they have come to the "heavenly 
 Jerusalem, and to the spirits of the just made 
 perfect." This must point to a different state 
 of facts from what had existed before. An- 
 cient men of God had died and gone into 
 Sheol, to the spirits of the just, indeed, but not 
 of the "just made perfect." Now, not abso- 
 lutely indeed, they are still relatively per- 
 fected. All the privileges accorded to the 
 New Testament believers are theirs. They 
 are represented bj' the elders that in the vision 
 of the Apocalypse encircle the throne of the 
 Lamb. They dwell in the heaven of the 
 Saints, and with all the believing dead will 
 accompany the glorified Son of man in his 
 Second Coming. 
 
Ch. XII] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 WHEREFORE, seeing we also are compassed about 
 with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay 
 aside every weiglit, aud the siu which doth so easily be- 
 set us, and let us run with patience the race that is set 
 before us. 
 
 1 Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed 
 about with so great a cloud of witutsses, lay aside 
 I every weight, and the sin which -doth so easily 
 beset us, and let us run with patience the race that 
 
 1 Or. all eumbrance i Or, doth clotely cling to ut. Or, it admired of many. 
 
 Ch. 12 : (3) Renewed exhortation, suggested 
 chiefly by this historical survey. (12 : 1-29.) 
 
 («) Incitement to endurance from the en- 
 compas-sing presence of this host of witnesses, 
 and especially of Jesus, their Leader. (1-3.) 
 
 The preceding examples of faith have been 
 intended, as they were eminently calculated, 
 to inspire with fresh courage the wavering 
 Hebrew believers. This grand procession of 
 their believing ancestors, passing before their 
 eyes, must have rekindled their expiring en- 
 thusiasm. The example of those old heroes 
 and martyrs must have been as a trumpet call 
 to the spiritual conflict. Alike what they did 
 and what they suffered in behalf of the truth, 
 and in confidence in unseen realities, might^ 
 strengthen the feeble disciples. The apostle 
 proceeds, however, to a direct personal appli- 
 cation. 
 
 1. Wherefore, etc., therefore (emphatic 
 deduction : totyapoiv, elsewhere in the New 
 Testament only in 1 Thess. 4 : 8) let us also 
 (as well as they), having encompassing us so 
 great a cloud of witnesses. The author now 
 transfers his readers to a Grecian race course, 
 along whose sides are grouped as spectators 
 the whole long line of distinguished confessors 
 and champions of the faith, whom he has just 
 enumerated. Instead of coldly appealing to 
 the memory and the reason, he by a magic 
 sweep of his pen brings the whole body of 
 them around his readers, and thus brings to 
 bear upon them not only the force of their 
 example, but of their ideal presence. They 
 are exhorted to fidelity, not only by the remem- 
 brance of these illustrious heroes of faith, but 
 also by the consciousness that they themselves 
 are acting in the immediate presence and under 
 the eye of the men who have wrought these 
 deeds. Nor is this in mere figure. From their 
 home in the clouds, from their heavenly rest, 
 they are actually bending down to behold us. 
 
 Witness (jiopTu?) is therefore to be taken here 
 apparently in both senses; namely, that of 
 witnesses to the faith, and witnesses, specta- 
 tors of those who have now succeeded to their 
 struggles. That the word will easily bear 
 either signification is certain, and it seems 
 hardly doubtful that by a sort of usus preg- 
 nans the author has them both in mind here. 
 Lay aside every weight {6yKov, hulk, inflating 
 pride) ; here, however, not probably taken in 
 the latter ethical significance, as by Bengel, 
 but every bulky encumbrance, everything 
 that impedes the lightness and fleetness of our 
 movements, as all burdens of Jewish and legal 
 observances, all that obstructs the free spirit 
 and action of the gospel. And the sin which 
 doth so easily beset us — the easily encotn- 
 passitig sin — (cOTr€pio-TaToi',easilj' standing round, 
 readily encompassing and besetting our way) in 
 the sense probably intended by the ' beset' of 
 the Common Version ; ready at any moment to 
 spring upon us and arrest us in or draw us 
 from our course. This seems, on the whole, t?he 
 most natural and easy of all the manifold 
 meanings which have been put upon this word. 
 It is adapted to the figure of the runner who 
 is able to be enconvpassed, clung to, set upon 
 at every moment by sin, that lurks by his side 
 or lies crouched in his path. ' Sin ' is probably 
 here as elsewhere in the Epistle conceived in 
 the form of 'unbelief,' which shows itself in 
 departing, falling away, from the living God. 
 It was this unbelief and attendant disobedience 
 by which sin deceived and slew our first parents, 
 causing their apostasy from God ; it was this, 
 " the deceitfulness of sin," which destroyed the 
 Israelites in the wilderness; it is the opposite 
 of this which in the form of faith draws the 
 soul back to God; and it is this malignant, 
 deceitful, ever-active principle that the Chris- 
 tian athlete is to regard as specially impeding 
 his course.* And let us run, etc., let ua in. 
 
 ' Einrtpia-Tarov (except in passages in Chrysostora re- I and the connection. From the active vepu<rTavai lo 
 ferring to this Epistle) is found nowhere but here, and hrinrj rourid, to trnnx/orm, it luinht be ensi/;/ lynnsforming 
 we are thrown back for its meaning on its etymology us, but in no very appropriate sense. From middle 
 
166 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our 
 faiili ; wlio for the joy ihat was set belore him endured 
 the cross, Uespising the shame, anu is set down at the 
 right hand of the tnrone of God. 
 
 2 is set before us, looking unto Jesus the i author and 
 perfecter of our faith, who for the joy thai was set 
 belore liini endured the cross, despising shame, and 
 liath sat down at the right hand of the throne of 
 
 1 Or, captain. 
 
 patient endurance rim the race (literally, the 
 struggle, the contest) that lies before us A 
 
 2. Looking unto, looking aviay from our- 
 selves, to the Leader and Perfecter of our 
 faith, Jesus. Nut ' author and finisher,' as one 
 that originally produces fuith in us, and then 
 brings it to perfection. 'Leader' (ipxwos) is 
 our Conductor, the one who has preceded us 
 on the path of faith, the great Captain of our 
 faith as he is the Captain of salvation. Keeping 
 in view the autlior's definition of faith, con- 
 fidence in anticipated and unseen good, and 
 readiness to sacrifice all for this, the meaning 
 becomes perfectly clear. Christ led the way 
 for his people, he set the great example of this 
 clear-sighted faith. In view of the promised 
 reward, of the spiritual seed that was to be 
 given him ("Thine they were and thou 
 gavest them me," etc. : read the whole of John 
 17), he renounced the heavenly glory, he 
 did not consider even his equality with God a 
 thing to be violently seized upon (but rather, 
 as it were, earned by sacrifice and suffer- 
 ing), and yielded himself up with unshrinking 
 and unwavering fidelity to obedience, tempta- 
 tion, toil, and death. He thus is the Captain, 
 the Pioneer, the great Leader of his people 
 on this path of faith. And as he is the Leader 
 in this career of faith, so he is its Perfecter. 
 As he sets to his people the great example of 
 faith, and puts them on the path, so he brings 
 them to the goal. As he leads his people into 
 the trials and conflicts of faith, so he leads 
 them out into its victory and rewards. As he 
 entered the perilous and toilsome path to be 
 followed by his people, so he emerges from it 
 into triumph and glory for a like result to 
 them. Perfected himself, he becomes the 
 
 Author of eternal salvation to all that obey 
 him. He is the Perfecter of our faith as he 
 leads it to the enjoyment of its objects. The 
 two terms 'Leader' and 'Perfecter' are ex- 
 plained in the two following clauses. 
 
 Who for the joy that was set before him 
 endured the (a) cross, AesT^i^in^ {disregard- 
 ing) the shame. Here, tiien, was the grand ex- 
 emplification of that principle which Moses ex- 
 emplified in an humbler way, of submitting to 
 present sacrifice and suffering in view of future 
 good. Christ submitted even to a cross (the 
 absence of the article turns attention from the 
 individual thing to the kind, such a thing as a 
 cross), making light of the shame, and all in 
 view, like Moses, of the recompense of reward, 
 the joy that was proposed to him in the salva- 
 tion of a purified and grateful people, and 
 here, perhaps, more particularly in his exalta- 
 tion at the right hand of God. The prospect 
 of the reward bore him up in all his depths of 
 agony. Some translate, ''''instead of the joy 
 set before him" — that is, instead of the con- 
 tinued joy which lay before him as dwelling 
 in the bosom of the Father ; but this, although 
 easily found in the words, is less in harmony 
 with the writer's purpose. ' For' (avri) is here 
 'in exchange for,' as 'a compensation for,' as 
 'the price of.' He was willing to pay the 
 price of his humiliation and sufferings for the 
 glor3' that was in reserve (2:9); "on account 
 of the suffering of death crowned with glory 
 and honor." And is set down (hath taken 
 his seat) at the right hand of the throne 
 of God. This was the joy set before him, the 
 reward and crown of his sufferings. In this 
 he was 'perfected' himself, and in this too he 
 became the Perfecter of the faith and hope of 
 
 irfpiio-Tacrfiai to transform onew//, it might be, as Matthai 
 explains here, changeable, inconstant, equivalent to 
 fvixtTaKivriTov : but this meaning also is here not very 
 appropriate. The kindred words irepiaraTo^, anepiara- 
 To?, (vKaTaaraToi, generally have a passive or middle 
 signification, surrounded, or slandinc/ ronnd, ivell consti- 
 tuted, easily chnnrifd, etc. Euir6pi(TTaTo?, then, might be 
 easily stood nro«j?rf, equivalent to avoided, shunned, and 
 so here Chrysostom; or possibly, easily, gladly stood 
 around, equivalent to universally loved, prized, as Kr- 
 nesti : or (middle) easily, standing round, erwompassing. 
 
 and this either as a garment which clings to us and im- 
 pedes our way, as De Wette, Lunemann.etc, or (as Valck- 
 naer, Delitzsch, Ebrard,) lurking round us, ready to beset, 
 entangle, ensnare us. This meaning we have adopted 
 above, as on the whole most probable. 
 
 1 The special ayuiv^ however, here as in 1 Cor. 9 : 25, 
 being the race (Sp6;iio«). tpex^iv Spo/jiov, 'to run a 
 race,' would be more natural than Tpe'xeii' ayojya ; the 
 latter, however, is uot harsh ; English, to run in the 
 content. 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS 
 
 167 
 
 3 For consider him that endured such contradiction 
 of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and laini 
 in your luinds. 
 
 4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving 
 against sin. 
 
 3 God. For consider him who hath endured such 
 gainsaying of sinners against ' him.-elf, tliat ye wax 
 
 4 uut weary, laiutiug in yuur souls. \u have nut yet 
 
 1 Uanr ancieuc autboritie> read thenuelve*. 
 
 his people. His exaltation had no selfish end, 
 but stood inseparably coupled, as did his humil- 
 iation, with the exaltation of humanity. It is 
 clear, then, wiiy we should look away to 
 him who, as the Leader of our faith, en- 
 tered before and for us on his path of believ- 
 ing obedience and suflering, and as its Per- 
 fecter, perfected himself, has taken his seat 
 at the right hand of God to give eternal 
 redemption to all who follow in his path of 
 faith and suffering. 
 
 3. For consider him that (Aa^A) endured 
 such contradiction (gamsaying) of sinners 
 against himself, that ye may not wenry, 
 fainting in your souls. The construction is 
 equivalent to, ' for considering him, ye will not 
 faint,' etc., again equivalent to, ' considering 
 the gainsaying of sinners which he endured, ye 
 will not,' etc. The thought, however, receives 
 depth and vitality from the personality of the 
 Lord. It is not the abstract suffering, but the 
 concrete sufferer that is to stimulate and sus- 
 tain us. 'Gainsaying' 'contradiction' (ovti- 
 Xoyia) doubtless here stands as the representa- 
 tive (as taken by the Greek interpreters) of all 
 the varied forms of opposition and hostility 
 which our Lord encountered. The word, says 
 Delitzsch, precedes and represents the act. 
 Our Lord was charged as a revolutionist be- 
 cause he, as was alleged (John i9: 12)^ "speaketh 
 against CiEsar" (dfTiAeyEiTu Kmo-opt). He himself 
 was to be (Luke 2: 34) "a sign spoken against " 
 {ar\ii.€lov avTiktyoii-ivov), an expression evidently 
 summing up all forms of hostility. In ' faint- 
 ing,' ' becoming relaxed ' («<cXuo/iei'ot), we have 
 still the figure of the race. 
 
 (A) Their afflictions the fruits of God's chas- 
 tening love. (4-11.) 
 
 4. Ye have not yet, not yet have ye with- 
 stood unto blood, contending against sin. 
 There seems here a transition from running to 
 boxing, as in 1 Cor. 9: 24-27. "running (so 
 7-un I) and boxing (so box I, not as Common 
 Version 'so fight I') are coupled together." 
 ' Sin ' is here represented as an opponent in 
 boxing, to whom resistance must be made, if 
 necessary, even unto blood. In this, says 
 
 Delitzsch, there is no charge upon them that 
 they have not offered all needed resistance, but 
 that the pressure of sin upon them has not yet 
 been such as to demand the extreme of resist- 
 ance : it is only implied that they have not yet 
 been called to the supreme trial of faith. But 
 does not the connection with what follows, 
 "and ye have forgotten,"' imply a censure, 
 and lead us to suppose that in this precisely 
 the author blames them; namely, that they 
 have not resisted unto blood, struggling against 
 sin? Had he said: 'struggling against sin- 
 ners,' the case would have been different. 
 They could not be required to shed their blood 
 under persecution until persecution arose. 
 But in the contest with sin it is otherwise. 
 They were bound to contend against it unto 
 blood rather than yield ; and as these Hebrew 
 Christians had yielded, had allowed them- 
 selves to be driven to the very point of apos- 
 tasy — the sin of sins — the presumption is that 
 their failure to resist unto blood was charged 
 on them as a crime. As a mere intimation of 
 a privilege — of their exemption thus far from 
 bloody persecution — the passage seems wholly 
 out of place, and its connection with ver. 5 
 most unnatural. I therefore believe, with 
 Liinemann, that the 'sin' which they had not 
 as yet resisted unto blood was the internal 
 temptation to apostasy: that the 'unto blood ' 
 is to be taken figuratively, markingtheirfailure 
 to make the extreme and desperate resistance 
 which they ought against its might; and con- 
 sidering the immediate connection with our 
 Lord, I think there is a reference to his bloody 
 sweat intheGarden, inhisagonyofresistanceto 
 the violent assaults of temptation. This would 
 give the passage a peculiar force and tender- 
 ness : but if we do not adopt this, there is at 
 least no difficulty in taking the ' unto blood ' 
 figuratively of the utmost extremity of spir- 
 itual resistance: and indeed to mix up real 
 bloodshed with figurative running and boxing 
 is most unnatural. In every point of view it 
 is better to take it figurativelj' : and hence all 
 the questions about the Hebrews of Palestine, 
 or Rome, or Alexandria, having or not having 
 
168 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIL 
 
 5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speak- 
 eth unto you as unto children. My .'-on, despise not 
 Ihou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou 
 art. rebuked of him : 
 
 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and 
 scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 
 
 7 If ye endured chastening, God dealeth with you as 
 with sous; for what son is he whom the father chasten- 
 eth not? 
 
 5 resisted unto blood, striving against sin: and ye 
 have forgotten the exhortation, which reasoneth 
 with you as with sons, 
 
 My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the 
 
 Lord, 
 Nor faint when thou art reproved of him ; 
 
 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, 
 
 And scourgeth every son whom lie receiveth. 
 
 7 'It is for ch;istening that ye endure; God dealeth 
 with you as with sous; for what son is there whom 
 
 1 Or, Bndure unto chastening. 
 
 suffered bloody persecution become quite irrel- 
 evant to this passage. It has to do with an- 
 other matter, the Christian combatant's strug- 
 gle against sin, even unto blood. 
 
 5. And ye have forgotten the exhorta- 
 tion which holds converse with you as sons. 
 Many interpreters read this as a question; 
 and even Delitzsch, while not forinally, 
 yet does so virtually. This is almost neces- 
 sary, so long as we take the preceding verse as 
 a mere declaration that the Hebrew Christians 
 had not as yet Oeen called to assert their fidelity 
 by their blood ; for the incongruousness of 
 coupling this with a strong declaration of 
 censure, 'and ye have forgotten,' is obvious. 
 But, on the other hand, to connect it as a 
 question with the preceding declaration, is 
 intolerably harsh. The explanation above 
 given removes all the difficulty. They have 
 failed of that last and extreme resistance which 
 they ought to have made to sin; they have 
 allowed themselves to relax and faint(€(cAu'€o-9ai); 
 and have forgotten the exhortation, etc. All 
 is easy and natural, both in thought and ex- 
 pression ; and the thought suggested by the 
 'fainting, relaxing yourselves' {ixXvoufvoi), is 
 naturally carried out ; and, indeed, it is not 
 improbable that the quotation following was 
 suggested by its containing the word for 'nor 
 faint, be relaxed' in soul when reproved 
 («Aue<r9ai). My son, despise not {make 
 not light of) the chastening of the Lord. 
 (Prov. 3: 11, 12.) The declaration here made in 
 Proverbs maj' point back to the Book of Job; 
 at all events, we have in that book a striking 
 example of paternal chastisement — chastise- 
 ment outvvardlj' severe, but intended in love, 
 and working the fruits of righteousness, as it 
 causes the virtues of a pious character to shine 
 out with augmented lustre. Chastening 
 (irotSeio) here, evidently, that form of disci- 
 pline which consists in chastisement. To this 
 chastisement these Christians had been more 
 
 or less subject; that they had endured out- 
 ward persecution is not denied nor improb- 
 able ; but whatever it was, whether open 
 persecution, or the seductive temptations of 
 Judaism, and perhaps reproach, they had 
 failed to meet it firmly, and very nearly given 
 waj' to apostasy. This is clearly implied in 
 ver. 12, which fully confirms our view. There 
 is no need of the interrogative form, in order 
 to soften the language; the author does not 
 intend to soften it here more than elsewhere 
 in the severe, and even terrible, rebukes scat- 
 tered through the Epistle. Nor faint (ckAuou) 
 — relax thyself, give up the tension of endeavor 
 and struggle, and abandon all resistance ; a 
 clear allusion to ver. 3 — when thou art re- 
 buked {corrected, iX(yx6)x(voi;) , probed, sifted, 
 convicted ; and thus shewn tip to oneself, com- 
 monly in classical Greek, by searching words 
 and arguments ; here, by searching providen- 
 tial inflictions. 
 
 6. For whom the Lord loveth he chas- 
 teneth. Emphasis on ' loveth.' Chastisement 
 is a mark of love. The withholding of cor- 
 rective discipline marks abandonment of God. 
 "He is joined to his idols; let him alone." 
 And scourgeth every son whom he re- 
 ceiveth (accepteth) — as his own, in whom he 
 has pleasure. , The scourging is not the scourg- 
 ing of punishment, but of discipline; not the 
 token of judicial wrath, but of correcting love. 
 The author gently says that the Hebrews had 
 forgotten so to take the discipline to which 
 they had been subjected, and receiving it as 
 if it came in wrath, not in love, had sunk 
 under it. In stating plainly the fact, he yet 
 displays his usual tenderness in treating le- 
 niently its cause. They h&di forgotten the ex- 
 hortation. 
 
 7. Application of the preceding citation. 
 For if ye endure chastening. Emphasis 
 on 'chastening,' not on 'endure' — referring 
 to what they endure, not the mode of enduring 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 169 
 
 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are 
 partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 
 
 9 Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh 
 which corrected ua, and we gave /Afm reverence: shall 
 we not much rather be iu subjection unto the Father 
 of spirits, and live? 
 
 10 For they verily for a few days chastened tts after 
 
 8 kis father chasteneth not? But if ye are without 
 chastening, whereof all have been made partakers, 
 
 9 then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, 
 we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we 
 gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be 
 in subjection unto the Father of 'spirits, and live? 
 
 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us as 
 
 1 Or, our tpirits. 
 
 it.^ God dealeth with you as w-ith sons 
 
 — more exactly, '^ As toward sons, God beareth 
 himself toward you.' For what son is he 
 whom the («) father chasteneth not? — 
 
 that is, Who can be properly called a son 
 whom a father, etc. ? Others (as Bleek, De 
 Wotte, Tholuck, Liinemann), "For what son 
 is there whom a father chasteneth not? " with 
 substantially the same sense, but the construc- 
 tion less forcible and less elegant. The article 
 is designedly omitted, both with ' son ' (vidt) 
 and 'fatht-r' (iraTijp). The sentiment is obvious. 
 It assumes the fact that ours is a world of im- 
 perfection and sin, and the grand law that 
 character is developed and virtues are born in 
 
 trial. (I Peter 1 : 6, 7 ; James 1 : 2, :i.) 
 
 8. But (or, and, fie, slightly disjunctive) if 
 ye be without chastisement — of tvhich all 
 have become partakers ; which all the pious 
 of former ages have been called to share, and 
 in which their graces have been developed — 
 then (ipa, so then, particle of inference; but, 
 in the classics, never standing tirst, as here), as 
 the logical consequence from the preceding — 
 are ye bastards, and not sons — illegitim,ate, 
 not genuine and acknowledged children. Ye 
 lack one necessary condition and token of 
 the filial character. In granting temporal, 
 God withholds spiritual, prosperity. In leav- 
 ing you to the full enjoyment of j-our portion 
 here, he shows that he has no portion in re- 
 serve for you hereafter. The ore that is not 
 worth refining is not worth preserving. See 
 Luke 16 : 2^5, " Thou in thy lifetime receivedst 
 thy good things, and similarly Lazarus evil 
 things; and now he is comforted, but thou art 
 tormented." 
 
 9. We have had fathers, etc.— Then while 
 
 the fathers of our flesh (our fleshly fathers) 
 we had as chasteners, and gave thetn rever- 
 ence, shall we not much rather be subject to 
 the Father of our spirits, and live 9 I take 
 the 'then' (iira), with the old commentators, 
 as introducing a question of surprise and dis- 
 pleasure, as theti is not infrequently used in 
 English. Then did we do this, and shall we 
 not do that? So the particle is familiarly 
 used in the classics, and so may it naturally 
 be in this Epistle, which in so many instances 
 employs the elegant classical constructions.* 
 God is here called the " Father of our spirits," 
 as contrasted with "fathers of our flesh." The 
 passage probably involves no special teaching 
 respecting the origin of spirits. Physiolog- 
 ically, probably in the same sense in which 
 man is father of the body he is father of the 
 soul ; our entire humanity descends by propa- 
 gation. But man is the father of our flesh, as 
 his discipline reaches mainly our outward and 
 temporal interests. God is the Father of our 
 spirits, as his care extends to, and his power 
 quickens, our spiritual natures. The reasons, 
 then, for acquiescing in and profiting by the 
 discipline of our Heavenly Father, are incom- 
 parably stronger than those for a like submis- 
 sion to that of our fleshly parents. 'We had.' 
 He is addressing men and women once subject 
 to human parents, but subject to them no 
 longer. 
 
 10. For they — They indeed were chastening 
 us for a few days, ' with reference to' (wpo?) a 
 few days — the brief period of our earthly life; 
 or, perhaps, only for the few days during 
 which their discipline lasted (in which case 
 we may, with Delitzsch, give to npo^ a double 
 reference to time and purpose, 'for a few 
 
 1 Many editors (as already Chrysostom) read fU 
 iraiSctaM, instead of ei Ttai&dav •= perhaps, endure for 
 the purpose of discipline, endure in accordance with, 
 and as matter of, discipline — but very harsh. 
 
 2To the objection that in that case the answering 
 clause should have been <t<il o» or ou 6e n-oAu niKKov, 
 " and sliall we not much rather," it is sufficient to reply 
 
 that the ixiv (tiro tou? fiiv) shows sufficiently that such 
 a construction was actually in the writer's mind, but 
 that he accidentally, or carelessly, abandoned it. We 
 may properly construct ti-ra according to what was 
 obviously the intended construction. The other ren- 
 dering ofciTa (ftirthemwre, in Ihe. nerl jihtce) may be the 
 true one, but it is comparatively weak and inelegant. ■ 
 
170 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 their own pk'asure; but he foroj(;' profit, that we might 
 be prrtakers of his holiness. 
 
 U Now uo chastening for the present seeiueth to be 
 joyous, but griovous: nevertheless, afterward it yield- 
 eth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them 
 which are exercised thereby. 
 
 12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, 
 and the feeble knees; 
 
 seemed good to them: but he for our profit, that ue 
 
 11 may be partakers of his holiness. All chastening 
 seemeth for the present to be not j(jy<ius, but 
 grievous : yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit 
 unto them that, have been exercised thereby, even 
 
 12 Ihe fruit of righteousness. Wherefore i lift up the 
 
 1 Gr. make straight. 
 
 days,' and, ''with reference to a few days'). 
 Thus tlicir discipline is confined, as such, 
 within the limits and interests of this earthly 
 life. Except as coupled with and subordinate 
 to divine discipline, it cannot reach bej-ond 
 that. And it has another limitation : These 
 earthly parents chastised us according to their 
 ov^npleasure — better, 'according to that which 
 seemed good to thetn.' Human discipline is, 
 at best, in a measure, and especially as con- 
 trasted with the divine, arbitrary and capri- 
 cious. Neither the knowledge nor the moral 
 state of an earthly parent, regarded as an 
 earthly parent, — and so soon as we regard 
 liim ill a higher light, his discipline takes its 
 sanction and coloring from the divine, — ena- 
 bles him to rise into pure and enlightened 
 regard for the welfare of the child. More or 
 less of earthly passion vitiates the best human 
 chastisement. 
 
 But he for our profit, that we might be 
 partakers (partake) of his holiness. These 
 two clauses relate chiasticaUy to the two i)re- 
 ceding. They chastise at their pleasure, arbi- 
 trarily and capriciously ; he purely for our 
 profit, and with no alloy of evil passion. 
 They, again, chastise us for our temporal, 
 fleshly interests; he, that we may become 
 partakers of his holiness, and thus may secure 
 spiritual and eternal good. We need not, 
 then, and ought not (with Liinemann) to refer 
 'for a few days' to both parents, our earthly 
 and heavenly. The discipline of our earthly 
 parents has respect, properly, to but a few 
 days; it comprehends in itself no vital and 
 permanent interests — that of God being de- 
 signed to bring us to participate in his purity, 
 has, thus, reference to our everlasting welfare. 
 
 11. Now no chastisement— literally, all 
 chastisement (not, alike that of God and of 
 man, of our heavenly and our earthly parents; 
 the comparison with our earthly parents is fin- 
 ished, and the reference is exclusively to the 
 discipline of our Heavenly Father. It refers 
 to his chastisement in every form in which it 
 
 may come) seemeth, for the present indeed, to 
 be matter not of joy, but of pain. In itself, 
 and, therefore, in its immediate consequences, 
 chastisement is not agreeable, but painful. 
 Yet afterward (in its ultimate effects) it 
 yieldeth (a7ro6i6uio-i, renders back, pays in re- 
 quital, like the earth rendering back tiie 
 rewards of tillage) to them t)iat have been, 
 disci2Jlined by it. Trained, disciplined (ytyvy.- 
 vacrixivoii) by exercise and conflict. The word 
 the same as 5 : 14, "who have their perceptions 
 exercised" or disciplined. Here, however, the 
 discipline is of sterner character. There it is 
 a discipline of exercise and use ; here of strug- 
 gle and conflict. And the fruit produced by 
 this discipline is through the grace, and in 
 accordance with the benevolent purpose, of 
 God. The peaceable — a peaceable fruit of 
 righteousness. It is 'a fruit of righteousness' 
 through the gradual overcoming of evil, and 
 the purification of the lietirt; & peaceful frmi, 
 as against the struggles and griefs of the period 
 of chastisement, and the still stormier commo- 
 tion of the reign of sin. It produces early an 
 incipient inward peace, and by-and-by, sub- 
 duing every conflicting iind disorderly ele- 
 ment, brings one into perfect peace — "tlie 
 peace of God, which passeth understanding." 
 
 (c) They are to resist firmly all relaxing 
 tendencies by cultivating unity, purity, and 
 constant watchfulness. (12-17.) 
 
 12. Tlie preceding delineation of the nature 
 and excellence of divine chastisement is in 
 the author's highest style of elegance and dig- 
 nity. The selection of words is remarkably 
 felicitous, and the sentences are harmoniously 
 balanced. It is a sort of ' rhetorical common- 
 place' on the nature of chastisement in the 
 finest style of rhetoric, while it is perfectly 
 (ilear, from its being so elaborately carried out, 
 that the persons in mind had been iicavily 
 chastened, and from ver. 4, 5, and 12 that as 
 yet this chastening had not wrought in them 
 its legitimate eifects. They had not nerved 
 themselves up in the arena of conflict, but 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 171 
 
 13 And make straight paths for your feet^ lest that 13 bands that hang down, and the palsiid knees; and 
 
 niake straight paths for your feet, that that which 
 is laiue be not ' turned oui ol llie way, bui rather be 
 
 ■which is lame be turned' out of the way ; but let it 
 rather be healed. 
 
 14 Follow geace with all men, and holiness, without 
 which no man shall see the Lord: 
 
 healed. 
 
 14 Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctifi- 
 catiou without which no man shall see the Lord: 
 
 1 Or, put out 0/ joint. 
 
 suffered themselves to become faint, relaxed, 
 exhausted. They needed tliis eloquent and 
 forcible presentation of tlie nature and pur- 
 pose of divine chastisement, and tlie forcible 
 exhortation whioli follows. 
 
 Wherefore (in view of the fact that trial 
 and discipline are but modes of parental love) 
 lift up the hands which hang down {have 
 becatne enfeebled), and the knees that have be- 
 come relaxed— stWl carrying forward the figure 
 of the race, or the agonistic struggle, and 
 quoting freely from the lofty strains of Isaiah 
 (35:3)j whose language harmonizes with the 
 elevated diction of the author. "The whole 
 twelfth verse," saj's Delitzsch, "is a long- 
 continued trumpet blast," and the elegant flow 
 of the previous diction, and finally the lofty 
 character of the quotation from Isaiah culmi- 
 nates in a fine dactylic line which very prob- 
 ably exemplifies the inspiration that spontane- 
 ously and almost unconsciously swells into the 
 cadence of song.' 
 
 13. Rendered simply into plain English, it 
 runs: And make straight paths for your 
 feet. So better than " with your feet " (ashy 
 many commentators), as there is no special 
 relation between the tracks of the feet and the 
 straight or level paths, and this added clause 
 becomes in fact a mere superfluity; for pro- 
 vided the paths be made straight, it can be of 
 no sort of consequence ivith what they are 
 made so. To make straight paths for their 
 feet, on the other hand, is a thought entirely 
 pertinent and natural, harmonizing perfectly 
 wiih what follows. 
 
 Lest — that what is lame may not be turned 
 
 out of the way ; not 'dislocated,' or put com- 
 pletely out of joint (for which there is scarcely 
 any authority in tlie word wTpan-ij), but turned 
 aside, turned out of its course; and thus 'that 
 which is lame' (to x^^o") means not the lame 
 part of the body, the lame limb, but, abstract 
 for concrete, the lame person, the lame ele- 
 ment in the church — the members who, defi- 
 cient in spiritual vitality and strength, and 
 enfeebled and corrupted by Judaistic influ- 
 ences, go haltingly in the Christian path. 
 The church is exhorted to make straight and 
 level courses for their feet, to remove every 
 incumbrance that may lie along the spiritual 
 race course that the lame and more halting 
 may not be completely stopped and thrown 
 out of their course. But rather bfi healed — 
 that those inclined to Judaism may not be left 
 to total aposta.sy, but rather cured of all their 
 Judaizing tendencies, and brought once more 
 fully into the path of Christian faith and duty. 
 The 'halting' is doubtless mainly the waver- 
 ing between Judaism and Christianity. The 
 plain and straight path avoids all unnecessary 
 turnings, elevations, depressions, roughnesses, 
 everything which could easily ensnare a weak 
 conscience or disturb an unsettled faith. 
 
 14. Follow (follow after, pursue) peace 
 with (atnong) all men — here, not among all 
 men indiscriminately, but among all the mem- 
 bers of the church. The author's immediate 
 anxiety is for the fidelity and steadfastness of 
 the church, and for the avoidance of every- 
 thing which may threaten it. He is too much 
 absorbed in reclaiming the church from its 
 incipient and threatened apostasy, to allow of 
 
 ^ Ka'i Tpo^'a? 6pSo9 Trot^craTe Tois iroirtv viiuv. Imi- 
 tated from Septuagint, Prov. 4 : 26. The more flexible 
 German can here attain something of the stately ele- 
 gance of the Greek. Delitzsch renders it : 
 
 " Uud gradspiirige Gleise bereitet fiir euere Fusse." 
 
 Bohme thus : 
 
 " Und fiir euere Fiisse bereitet euch ebene Bahnen." 
 
 In simple English, "And makestraight paths for your 
 feet," the poetical rhythm, as well as the special ele- 
 
 gance of the diction, is entirely lost. It might be 
 rhythmical'y rendered : 
 
 "And for your feet prepare ye level pathways." 
 Nor does the poetical impulse immediately exhaust 
 itself Besides a certain poetical coloring over the 
 whole, we hare a little below two complete iauiUo 
 trimeters: 
 
 OB X*"?'^ oi>icis oi/ifToi rhv Kvpiov 
 "Eitianoitovvm lit) Tis varepuiy olto ic.t.X, 
 
172 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 15 Looking diligcDtly lest any man fail of the grace 
 of God; lest any root of biiterness springing up 
 trouble you, and tliereby many be defiled ; 
 
 15 looking carefully ' lest there be any man that - falleth 
 short of the grace of God • lest any root of bitter- 
 ness springing up trouble you, and thereby the 
 
 1 Or, whether 2 Or, falleth hack from. 
 
 his deviating into general directions regarding 
 their Christian work and character. The first 
 thing is to assure their Christianity, their 
 Christian disciplesliip. Peace among all the 
 members is to be sought by avoiding all im- 
 pure and foreign elements, by removing every 
 unnecessary ground of dissension and offense. 
 And holiness — a consecrating of themselves 
 to the Lord, sanctification — without which 
 no man shall see the Lord.' Whether by 
 'the Lord' is intended here God or Christ seems 
 difficult to decide. 'Blessed are the pure in 
 heart, for they shall see God,' would point to 
 the one, while passages like "Ye shall die in 
 your sins, and where I am ye cannot come," 
 would indicate the possibility of the other. 
 As to the essential thought, it is of course 
 immaterial ; as to see God is to see Christ, and 
 the converse. 
 
 15. Looking diligently (watching, €iri<7(co- 
 Ttovvm, overseeing, having watchful oversight, 
 but with no reference to official action), giving 
 careful heed and attention. Lest any man 
 (one), fail short of the grace of God. Whether 
 this is to be taken with the verb (rf) under- 
 stood, as a complete construction, 'be falling 
 short,' equivalent to 'fall short,' or as a par- 
 ticipial clause, subject of trouble (cfoxA^), 
 harass, with a broken construction, is doubt- 
 ful. The latter (with Liinemann, De Wette, 
 Delitzsch, etc.) seems preferable. The con- 
 struction of the Greek [ixntpiov an-d), which 
 (more than the mere vanpiiv) marks voluntary 
 and guilty delinquency, leads to the impres- 
 sion that the writer already had it in his mind 
 to put them on their guard, not against failing, 
 coming short of the grace of God, but against 
 the pestilent influence of persons who might 
 stand aloof from, or fall willfully short of that 
 grace. This, I think, is also pointed to in the 
 verb to 'watch' {ini.<TKoiT€lv). I think, there- 
 
 fore, that the writer intended to write, 'lest 
 any one, falling short,' etc., may harass you, 
 or may prove a root of bitterness; but con- 
 tiixuing the discourse by a reference to D(mt. 
 29 : 18, was Ted to abandon his construction, 
 and take it up, and, lest — I say — any root of 
 bitterness springing up trouble you. 2 
 The passage in Deut. 29 : 18 reads, ' Lest there 
 be among you a root springing up in gall and 
 bitterness ' (Septuagint, m>) n? iarXv iv vii.lv pt^a 
 avu) liivovaa. iv xo^fi "li ""«?'?); English Version: 
 ' Lest there be among you a root that beareth 
 gall and wormwood.' The 'root of bitter- 
 ness' in the Old Testament is a source of cor- 
 ruption, temptation, and apostasy; heathen 
 men and women, dwelling among the Israel- 
 ites, and alienating them from the worship of 
 the living God. So here the 'root of bitter- 
 ness' is a person ' failing of the grace of God,' 
 with heart untouched by the spirit of Christian 
 faith, and sowing among the disciples the 
 seeds of doubt, heresy, and utter alienation 
 from the doctrines of Christianity; a person 
 who, like Esau in the family of Isaac, has no 
 spiritual affinities with the children of tlie 
 promise, and whose sensual mind will both 
 itself be drawn away and draw away others 
 from their Christian steadfastness. The dan- 
 ger of apostasy, and of the influences which 
 seduce into apostasy, is apparent in the au- 
 thor's mind. The bitter and poisonous root, 
 then, denotes here primarily persons, not doc- 
 trines or dispositions, as Antiochus Epiphanes 
 is called 1 Mace. 1 : 10, 'a sinful root' (pi^a 
 
 d^apTuiAo; ) . 
 
 4.nd thereby (through it) (the) many (it 
 iroAAot, Lachmann, Tischendorf; Textus Ke- 
 ceptus, TToAAoi, many) be defiled. "A little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump." One 
 poisonous plant may infect the whole atmos- 
 phere, and destroy many. 
 
 1 OB xiapU for x<"P'« o" shows that the iambic rhythm 
 is here not unintentional. 
 
 2 Whether the cfo^Aij, trouble, hnrasx, was in the text 
 of the Septuafiint employed by the aiitlior is doubtful. 
 The Alexandrian Codex, which be usually follows, has 
 it, but so awkwardly introduced th.it it looks more like 
 a correction from this passage (m'J ti? iaiiv iv ii/jilv 
 
 pi^a irixpi'af avta ^vovira evoxAjJ <tat irtKpia), in which the 
 text has been clearly tampered with in an endeavor to 
 unite incompatible readings. Tlie use of evox^fj may 
 very probably, as suggested by Delitzsch, be occasioned 
 by its atSnity in sound to fv xoA>5, making a sort of 
 verbal correspondence not unfamiliar to the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
Ca. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 173 
 
 16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as 
 Esau, who for one morsel of meal solJ his birlhriglit. 
 
 17 For ye know how that afterward, when be would 
 have inherited the blessiug, he was rejected: for he 
 found no place of ropentauce, ihougli he sought it care- 
 fully with tears. 
 
 16 many be defiled ; ' lest there be any fornicator, or 
 profane person, as Esau, who for one uie.->s of meat 
 
 17 sold his own iiirtDriglu. l-'or ye know that even 
 when he afierward desired to inherii. the blessing, 
 he was 2 rejected ; for he found no place for a change 
 of mind ih his father, thougli he sought it diligeuiiy 
 with tears. 
 
 1 Or, whether 2 Or, rejected (/or he found noplace of repentance), etc. Or, rejected; for . . . 0/ repenlanee, etc. 
 
 16. An illustration of this defiling and pois- 
 oning root of bitterness is found in Esau, and 
 his relations to the Abrahamic family. Lest 
 there be any fornicator, or profane per- 
 son, as Esau. Whether fornicator (n-dpi-os) 
 should be referred here as so commonly in the 
 Old Testament (though rarely in the New) 
 to spiritual whoring, going after strange gods, 
 seems doubtful. The connection of the above 
 quoted passage, which has reference to allure- 
 ments to that idolatry which constitutes spir- 
 itual harlotry, as well as the natural require- 
 ments of the passage itself, would seem to 
 point to this interpretation. The general ab- 
 sence of this use of the word in the New Tes- 
 tament is, on the other hand, though not 
 decisively, against it. With Bohme, Tholuck, 
 Ebrard, etc., I incline to the spiritual view, 
 as it seems out of place to select literal forni- 
 cation out of the whole catalogue of sins as 
 one to be specially guarded against. The gen- 
 eral driftof the passage certainly seems against 
 it. Still either makes a not inapposite sense, 
 and if the author had Esau in mind, his selec- 
 tion of traits may have been determined by 
 the well-known or traditional character of 
 Esau, whose marriage with a Canaanitish 
 woman grieved his parents, and showed both 
 his sensuality and his profaneness — that is, his 
 willingness to sacrifice his high theocratic 
 relations, as one of the chosen family and by 
 birth an heir of promise, to worldly impulses 
 and sensual desires. Esau contaminated him- 
 self and tlie pure stock of Abraham by inter- 
 mixture with idolatries, and by encountering 
 the temptations of such a connection. And 
 again, in throwing away his birthright for 
 relief from a paroxysm of hunger, he showed 
 himself 'profane' (^c^tjAos), not inspired with 
 the spirit and principles of the Abrahamic 
 family, not heeding the covenant relations 
 which God had entered into with it, but ready 
 to cast his lot with the sectaries of the world 
 outside. His 'fornication' may have been 
 spiritual or natural, as we may well suppose 
 would accompany one of his violent fleshly 
 
 appetites and unspiritual temper. Or very 
 possibly, the word here may fluctuate between 
 fleshly and spiritual fornication, each being 
 intimately connected with the other. Tiie 
 case of Esau, then, is admirably in point as 
 applied to those who, failing of tlie grace of 
 God, sensual, out of sympathy with the spir- 
 itual nature and hopes of the gospel, may seek 
 to draw back the disciples into the worldly 
 elements of Judaism. In accordance with the 
 general spirit of the Old Testament, Esau is 
 presented here, not so much in his personal 
 character as in his theocratic relations. In 
 the gospel, however, the distinction between 
 the two entirely ceases. Man is legally what 
 he is personally. 
 
 Who for one morsel of meat (« single 
 meaO sold his birthright. (Gen.25:3i.) Esau 
 manifested his contempt for his birthright, 
 and his indiflPerence to the high spiritual bless- 
 ings which belonged to the descendants of 
 Abraham, by his readiness to barter away the 
 prerogatives of the first born in that family. 
 It is not necessary wholly to approve the con- 
 duct of Jacob; we certainly cannot but con- 
 demn that of Esau. He manifested, with 
 whatever principles of native and merely 
 worldly generosity, a total insensibility to the 
 peculiar and extraordinary prerogatives of 
 his house. With those prerogatives he could 
 not have been unacquainted; he could not 
 have been unaware of the extraordinary his- 
 tory and destination of his family-. He was a 
 ' profane' person, in that he voluntarily^ threw 
 himself outside of the sphere of those high 
 blessings wrapped up in the Abrahamic Cove- 
 nant. And persons of corresponding char- 
 acter, unspiritual, sensual, unsusceptible to 
 the pure truths of Christianity, were equally 
 dangerous to the purity and steadfastness of 
 the spiritual offspring of Abraham. Moral 
 Esaus among them would be poisonous and 
 bitter roots. 
 
 17. For ye know how that afterward, 
 when he would have inherited the bless- 
 ing, he was rejected. His case is analogous, 
 
174 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 intimates the writer, to that of those who have 
 been admitted to the privileges and hopes of 
 the gospel and have abandoned them. He 
 had been heir to the blessings promised to 
 Abraham, and had lightly esteemed and 
 thrown them away. The case was then de- 
 cided. He had no chance of recovering them ; 
 they were gone forever beyond his reach. His 
 case was like that of those who had been once 
 enlightened, and have fallen away; like that 
 of the land, which, having drunk in the rains 
 of heaven, and yielded but thorns and briers, 
 receives no ' blessing,' but is reprobate, dis- 
 carded (a6o(ct(*6?), just as Esau was reprobated 
 (aiii&oKiniiadti). The Verb means more than 
 'rejected' — it implies the ground of the re- 
 jection, and, consequently, its finality. He is 
 tried, proved (Soici/na^uj), and is given up as not 
 standing the trial, as worthless, reprobate 
 (dSoKiftos). We have but a repetition, then, 
 in another form, of the — in this Epistle — oft- 
 repeated assertion of the hopeless condition of 
 the apostate. He is to the church of Christ 
 what Esau, after selling his birthright, was to 
 temporal Israel. 'Rejected,' discarded — by 
 whom? Some say, by God; others, by his 
 father — more truly, by both, his father acting 
 simply as the organ of the divine will. God 
 had inspired Isaac's blessing of Jacob, and 
 Isaac felt that, if he would, he could not revoke 
 it. Esau's etforts, then, for recovering the lost 
 blessing, were necessarily vain — for he found 
 no place of (for) repentance though he 
 sought it carefully with tears. It is com- 
 monly supposed that the repentance for which 
 Esau found no place, was in his father. But this 
 ignores both the construction and the connec- 
 tion. Had the author referred to the change 
 in Isaac's mind, perspicuity required that he 
 should say so, or give some hint of it. As it 
 is, the language naturally refers the repent- 
 ance to himself. And this harmonizes with 
 the connection. The writer illustrates the case 
 of the reprobate Christian by that of the 
 reprobate Esau. But the former cannot be 
 renewed to repentance. When fairly and 
 completely backslidden, his case is hopeless, 
 and there is no place for repentance. This 
 
 character Esau symbolizes. He had turned 
 his back on the theocratic blessing, and it 
 were now but a mere platitude in the connec- 
 tion to say that he found no place for change 
 in the mind of his father. He found no place 
 for repentance in hi^nself ; no chance of un- 
 doing the mischief which his sensuality and 
 unbelief had wrought ; no chance of cherish- 
 ing a repentance which should produce the 
 legitimate fruits of repentance. He was rep- 
 robated ; his error, and its results, were irre- 
 trievable. That Esau was absolutely and 
 finally rejected in his personal relations to 
 God ; that he may not have so repented as to 
 be personally accepted of him — I do not be- 
 lieve to be necessarily implied. His case is 
 viewed in its t3'pical aspect ; he is presented to 
 us in his theocratic relations. As Isaac's first 
 born, the blessing promised to Abraham had 
 naturally descended to him ; and now, by his 
 sensuality and unbelief, by his want of faith 
 precisel3' in its double element of believing in 
 the invisible and looking forward to the future, 
 he had lost it for himself and his offspring ir- 
 recoverably. He found no place for an effect- 
 ual repentance. 
 
 I have, with many (as the Revised Version, 
 margin), put this clause in a parenthesis, and 
 thus made the following, ' sought it with tears,' 
 refer back to the 'blessing.' This is most natural 
 in thought, and makes, at least, an equally 
 easy and elegant construction, and a paren- 
 thetical construction of which this Epistle 
 presents cases enougli amply to justify the 
 present.' I adopt this construction, however 
 (with Delitzsch), not because I deem it strictly 
 necessary, but simply much more easj' and 
 natural. It is more natural to say that Esau 
 sought for the blessing with tears, than that 
 he sought for repentance with tears. This 
 latter construction I should not (with De- 
 litzsch) reject as contrarj' to the historical fact, 
 but simply as less natural. A writer might 
 say that Esau, in seeking the blessing, sought 
 for that repentance which should bring it 
 back — that is, he sought the fruits of repent- 
 ance, and thus might, in a sense, be said to 
 seek for repentance itself. Still, the construc- 
 
 1 How Moll can affirm that the assumption of such a 
 parenthesis is against the genius of the Epistle I can 
 scarcely comprehend— 7 : 11, 19, 21 ; 10 : 8, 24 are ample 
 to prove the contrary. I believe there are many cases 
 in the New Testament where the assumption of a 
 
 parenthesis will alone clear up the construction, as 
 John 1 : 14. I take Rom. 9:3 (r\vx6ixr)v — xP'<'"''°>') as a 
 case in which a parenthesis is almost certain, and es- 
 sentially illuminates the passage. 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 175 
 
 IS For ye are not coiue unto the mount that might 
 be louclied, and that burned wiih fire, nor unto black- 
 ness, and darkness, and teiupesl, 
 
 19 And the .suiiud of a trumpet, and the voice of 
 words; which vuict they tliat heaid entreated that the 
 word should not be spoken to them any more : 
 
 20 (b'or they could not endure that which was com- 
 manded, And if so much as a beast touch the mount- 
 ain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through wiih a dart: 
 
 21 And so terrible was the sight, llial Moses said, I 
 exceedingly fear and quake:) 
 
 18 For ye are not como unto i n mount that might be 
 touched, and that burned with tiie, and unloblack- 
 
 19 ness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a 
 trumpet, and the voice of words; which voire they 
 that heard intreated that no word more should be 
 
 20 spoken unto them : for iliey could not endure that 
 which was enjoined, II even a beast touch the 
 
 21 mountain, it shall lie stoned ; and so fearful was the 
 appearance, thai Moses said, I exceedingly lear and 
 
 1 Or, a palpable and kindled Jlrt. 
 
 tion is awkward, and it seems to me far simp- 
 ler, and liable to no objection, to throw the 
 clause, "he found no place," etc., into paren- 
 thesis, and refer back the ' it ' (avriji/) to 
 'blessing.' Thus all becomes easj'. 
 
 (d) They are to hearken to these exhortations 
 in view of the grandeur and exalted character 
 of the New Covenant, and the danger of dis- 
 regarding its blessings and claims. (18-29.) 
 
 We have here the final summing up of the 
 ■whole exhortation, or rather, perhaps, of the 
 whole preceding discussion, in one magnificent 
 comparison and solemn appeal. The passage 
 is in an almost epical strain of sublimity — it 
 is a long, loud trumpet peal from Sinai re- 
 echoed in softened notes from Sion, the heav- 
 enly Jerusalem, exhorting the readers by all 
 the richer prerogatives of the New Covenant, 
 and by all the sharper woes of spurning it, to 
 Christian steadfastness and fidelity. As if the 
 writer would bring into comparison that pas- 
 sage of the spiritual Israel into its Sabbath 
 rest mentioned (3:3), with the desert sojourn 
 of ancient Israel, he proceeds: 
 
 18. For ye are not come — hare not dravm 
 near to a mountain that is handled; that is, 
 to an earthlj-, material mountain, which is 
 palpable to sense; namely, Mi)unt Sinai, be- 
 fore which ancient Israel was brought in the 
 wilderness. And that burned — and to kindled 
 fire. Most commentators take the participle 
 (icexaujieVoi) as attributive of 'mount' (6pei)i 
 'and burning with fire'; but the position of 
 'mount' (opei) is adverse to it, and Deut. 
 4 : 36 mentions the great fire separately. It 
 seems more natural, therefore, to take it as 
 above. Nor unto blackness {cloud gloom) 
 and darkness and tempest. Such is the 
 language in Deut. 41 : 11. 
 
 19. And the sound— .^nrf to a blast of a 
 
 trumpet (Kxod. i9: is)— and the («) voice of 
 words (Deut. 4: 12, ^ufij prt^dTuv) which they 
 that heard— the Israelites at the foot of the 
 mountains-^begged {napji'njaai'ro, begged ofl^, 
 entreated againat) that no further word should 
 be spoken to them; referring to Deut. 5 : 25, 
 where the terrified people entreat that God 
 may not speak further to them directly. 
 
 20. For they could not endure— co?<W 
 not bear that which was enjoined. "' If even a 
 beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned," 
 cited from Exod. 19 : 12, 13, but not with 
 verbal exactness." 
 
 21. And— so fearful was the apjyearance 
 {spectacle) that Moses said, I exceedingly 
 fear and quake {lam terrified and tremb- 
 ling!). The punctuation of the passage here 
 given, — I mean a pause after 'And,' — one 
 imparting much elegance to the construction, 
 is due to Beza. The language here attributed 
 to Moses does not occur in the Old Testament 
 narrative in this connection. But, subse- 
 quently, when on the mount he learned of 
 the idolatry of the Israelites, he exclaimed, 
 
 ' I am in terror !' ("EK<i,ofi6%), and in Acts 7 : 32 
 it is said of him, when he saw the burning 
 bush, that, being filled with trembling, he did 
 not venture to contemplate it (eVrpojuos Si yev6- 
 iifvo^ ovK fToXfia KaTavoriaai) . Either, therefore, 
 tradition put into the mouth of Moses this 
 language at the time of God's descending 
 (which seems not improbable), or the author 
 combines different and scattered elements into 
 one picture. It matters little, perhaps, which, 
 though I confess I incline (against Delitzsch, 
 Moll, etc.) to the former. Moses may at first 
 have well shared the terror of the people. 
 Verses 2C, 21 are parenthetical, illustrating, 
 in passing, the terrific m.'tjesty of the divine 
 appearance. 
 
 ''Opet, rejected by Westcott and Hort, but retained 
 by Tischendorf, and inserted in the Revised Version. 
 1 regard it as almost certainly genuine. 
 
 *"0r thrust through with a dart" (ij /SoAi'Si Kararo- 
 
 ffu9)j<r€Toi), read by Erasmus, and belonging to the 
 Textus Receptus, is rejected by all critical editions, and 
 greatly weakens and mars the passage. 
 
176 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIL 
 
 22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the 
 city of the living (iod, the heavenly Jerusalem, aud to 
 an iunuuierahle company of angels, 
 
 23 To tlie general assembly and church of the first- 
 born, which are written in heaven, and to God the 
 Judge of all, aud to the spirits of just men made per- 
 fect. 
 
 22 quake: but ye are come unto mount Ziou, and unto 
 the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 
 23 >and to ^ innumerable hosts of angels, tcj the general 
 assembly and church of the firstborn who are en- 
 rolled iu heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to 
 
 1 Or, and to innumerable hosts, the general asseinbly of angeUt and the church, etc '2 Gr. myriads o/ angeU. 
 
 Thus ancient, temporal Israel came, in its 
 journey, to a material, visible mountain, from 
 which they were yet to stand at a distance, 
 and behold and hear with terror the tokens of 
 the Divine Presence. It was at once sensible 
 and terrible, repelling from God rather than 
 attracting toward him. The spiritual Israel, 
 on its way to its Sabbath rest, has a different 
 experience. The earthly seems to have disap- 
 peared, and the heavenly has opened. A 
 spiritual world, the heavenly Sion and the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, with God its King, an- 
 gels and glorified spirits its inhabitants, Jesus, 
 through whose mediation it is accessible, ap- 
 pears, at once infinitely higher in its prerog- 
 atives, and correspondingly more terrible in 
 its penalties. 
 
 22, 23. But ye are come unto mount 
 Sion — not the eaithly Zion, the mountain of 
 the citj' of David, but the heavenly Zion qd 
 which is the throne of God and his glorified 
 Son: 'Yet have I set my king on Zion, the 
 mountain of my holiness.' It is no mountain 
 that can be touched, but spiritual. (Rev. u -. i.) 
 John saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion. 
 It is the seat of the city of the living God, 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, and thus at once 
 the counterpart of the earthly- Sinai, and the 
 antitype of the earthlj' Zion. In this city, on 
 this mountain, God has fixed his throne, and 
 here the Son of David is to hold the seat and 
 capital of his dominion and reign forever in 
 glory over the spiritual Israel. The distinc- 
 tion which in the earthly city of David existed 
 between Mount Zion and Mount Moriah, the 
 more immediate localitj' of the temple, is now 
 
 to be entirely done awa^', and palace and tem- 
 ple, king and great high priest will together 
 fill with majesty and glory this heavenly city. 
 In Rev. 21, this heavenly Jerusalem appears 
 descending to earth to make earth again the 
 scene of the consummated, as it has been of 
 the nascent and growing, glories of the king- 
 dom. And to an innumerable company. 
 And to myriad ones, a festal host of angels, 
 and a congregation of firstborn ones, v)lio. are 
 registered in heaven. Such is, perhaps, the 
 best construction of these diflRcult and dis- 
 puted words. A festal, joyous company {iravri- 
 yupt?) of exulting angels, \\\ full chorus of song 
 and dance, jubilant before the throne. After 
 angels, who, as ministering spirits, are subor- 
 dinated to the heirs of salvation, come the 
 heirs of salvation themselves, the congregtition 
 of the faithful, the church of the ' firstborn,' 
 not the saints of the Old Testament, not the 
 earliest believers or martj-rs of the New, but 
 the whole body of believers who are registered 
 and enrolled in heaven, whose citizenship is 
 there, and who as heirs of its prerogatives and 
 glory are ^rs^6o?-n (Trpwrdroicoi). The firstborn 
 is, as such, the natural heir to the estate. 
 Christians are all equally heirs: they are all 
 firstborn ; all enrolled and destined to the full 
 prerogatives of heavenly citizenship. There 
 seems a covert relation to the case of Esau. 
 There the inheritance was confined to one. 
 There could be but one temporal firstborn ; 
 here is a " congregation of firstborn ones." It 
 is to this goodly fellowshipof angels and saints 
 that the New Testament Israel has come.^ 
 And to <-Jod — and- as their judge, to the 
 
 1 1 follow Delitzsch constructing this passage. Some 
 construst : 
 
 ' And to myriads of angels, a festal company, and to 
 the church of the firstborn,' etc., in which the isolated 
 position of ' a festal company ' (n-acjiyvpi?) seems awk- 
 ward. 
 
 Others : 
 
 'And to myriads, a festal company of angels, and to 
 the church,' etc.. making ' a festal company ' (iravTjyiipis) 
 an apposition with nupiacrii', hut again making 'myri- 
 ads' (ii.v(>i.6.<nv) awkwardly solitary. 
 
 Others : 
 
 ' And to myriads of angels, the festal company and 
 church,' etc. ; but then we miss the ' and ' (koi) before ' a 
 festal company' jrar^yupn, which we have with all the 
 other members of the polysyndeton, and which it seems 
 unaccountable should have been omitted. The above 
 construction avoids all these difficulties and brings to- 
 gether the angels and the church into a union entirely 
 corresponding to that in which they appear throughout 
 the New Testament. 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 177 
 
 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, | 24 the spirits of just uieu made perfect, and to Jesus 
 and to the blood of sprinkling, that speuketh better the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of 
 
 things than Ma/ 0/ Abel. I sprinkling that spcaketh belter ' ihau lluit of Abel. 
 
 1 Or, thim Aha. 
 
 God of all. They are come to this church 
 universiil, and with it to that God of all things, 
 wiio will judge it— 'the Lord shall judge his 
 people' — who will vindicate its members 
 against all their foes and persecutors, and on 
 whose rigiiteous fidelity they can rely with 
 implicit confidence. As the God of all, more 
 probably, of all things, lie is able to execute 
 that needed work of judgment for his church, 
 always struggling, always suffering, always 
 oppressed. Hence we see (with Delitzsch) why 
 ' God' is introduced precisely here in the enu- 
 meration, and why in his character of Judge. 
 And to the spirits of just men {righteous 
 ones) made perfect. The righteous who 
 have already gone to heaven, who have fin- 
 ished their testimony and sealed it, some by 
 their blood, all by their death. These are 
 perfected; they have reached the goal of their 
 destiny and their striving. This includes alike 
 the Old Testament saints who have since the 
 death and resurrection of Christ entered into 
 tiie glory of the New Testament believers, 
 and all the New Covenant saints, who have 
 died in the Lord. In a comparative sense 
 these are all perfected, although it is yet true 
 that a higher stage of glory, a more entire 
 perfection awaits them with the resurrection of 
 their bodies at the Second Coming. 
 
 24. And to Jesus the mediator of the (a) 
 new covenant — and a covenant by so much 
 better than the Old, as its Mediator and its High 
 Priest, and its sanctions, are all higher than 
 those of the Old. That Old Covenant was in- 
 adequate to secure obedience: it was neces.sary 
 to replace it by a New ; and to such a New 
 one, and to its Mediator, Jesus, they have 
 come. The author here is not thinking of the 
 glorified and reigning Christ, but of the aton- 
 ing and interceding Jesus ; hence the name of 
 tenderness, the name of the suffering, dying 
 man, and the emphatic pre-position of that 
 character under which and for the sake of 
 which he is here mentioned. To a New Cove- 
 nant, to a Mediator of that New Covenant, 
 and to .Jesus as that Mediator they have come. 
 Follf)wing naturally on the ' Covenant' (fioe^- 
 Kij) is the blood that consecrated it. 
 
 And to the blood of sprinkling {to sprink- 
 led blood) — blood sprinkled upon the people 
 of old in symbolical expiation, but since the 
 great sacrifice sprinkled upon the heart in 
 eflectual cleansing from an evil conscience. 
 Moses sprinkled the people with blood at the 
 foot of the mount, at the receiving of the 
 Law ; signifying that cleansing and expiation 
 could be made only with blood. That speak- 
 eth better {moremic/htily) than {did) that of 
 Abel. This refers not to the blood of Abel's 
 sacrifice, but his own blood which, sinking into 
 the ground, called to God for vengeance. This 
 vengeance cry which God heard and could not 
 but hear, represented all the cry of outraged 
 and unappeased justice which went up from 
 our guilt-stained earth to God : a cry wfhich 
 could never be silenced or denied but by the 
 mightier pleading of a better blood.. That 
 blood was shed by Christ. It nof merely 
 speaks better things then did Abel or the blood 
 of Abel, — that follows from the different nature 
 of the two sacrifices, — but it speaks more might- 
 ily than did Abel. The plea for mercy in the 
 blood shed by the righteous victim of the New 
 Covenant overpowers and swallows up the 
 vengeance plea of the righteous victim of the 
 earlier time. It speaks more mightily, and 
 thus mercy rejoices against vengeance. 
 
 We have reached the end of the parallel. 
 It will be observed that the author studiously 
 omits the article in the second as in the first 
 series of the antithesis. It is difficult to give 
 the full force of this in English, but it is much 
 more elegant and forcible in Greek. By omit- 
 ting the article he designates not the particular 
 things, as known, but the kind or class of things, 
 as if now first spoken of. Ye have come to a 
 mountain, Zion, to a city of the living God, to 
 a festal company, to a congregation of first- 
 born ones, to a Judge, the God of all, to spirits 
 of righteous men perfected, etc. 
 
 Again, Delitzsch, with some others, finds 
 not perhaps a strictly designed, but, after all, 
 not an accidental correspondence in the num- 
 ber of members constituting the parallel, each 
 containing the perfect number seven. On the 
 one hand— (1) the material mountain, (2) the 
 
 M 
 
178 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XII. 
 
 25 See that ye refuse not liim that speaketh : for if 
 they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, 
 much more skull not we esciipt, if we lurn away from 
 him that speakelh from heaven: 
 
 '26 Whose voice tiien .shook the earth: but now he 
 hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the 
 earth only, but also heaven. 
 
 Ti And this uord, Yet once more, signifieth the re- 
 moving of those things that are shaken, as of things 
 
 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if 
 they escaped not, when tliey refused him that 
 warned (lient on earth, much more shall nol we escape, 
 who turn away from him ' that uarneth Irom hea- 
 
 26 ven : whose voice then shook the earth : but now he 
 hath promised, saying. Yet once more will I make 
 to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. 
 
 27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the remov- 
 ing of those things that are shaken, as of things 
 
 1 Or, that is from heaven. 
 
 "burning fire, (S) cloud gloom, (4) darkness, 
 (5) tempest, (6) the trumpet blast, (7) voice 
 of words. On the other — (1) Mount Zion, (2) 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, (3) the myriad host 
 of angels and believers, (4) God, the Judge, 
 (5) the spirits of tiie perfected righteous, (6) 
 the mediator Jesus, (7) the blood of sprink- 
 ling. Without attempting, with some, to 
 carry out the antithesis, and place the different 
 members one against each other, it is certain 
 that with Mount Sinai is contrasted Mount 
 Zion, and not improbably with the ' voice of 
 words' which -drove off the listening and 
 affrighted multitudes, the still more loudly 
 and mightily speaking blood of sprinkling. 
 Thus the first and last members of the parallel, 
 seem placed in designed, or certainly in real 
 correspondence to each other. 
 
 25. See that ye refuse not, beg off from, 
 deprecatingly decline to hear (TrapaiT^crijo-fle same 
 as ver. 19, Ttap^rriaavro, deprecated, begged off), 
 him that speaketh (\akovvTa, perhaps with 
 reference to \a.\oumi., just preceding, ver. 24) — 
 that is, apparently God, who of old spoke 
 through angels on Sinai, and now speaks 
 through his Son from the heavenly Zion. God 
 is ultimately the speaker in both cases (as see 
 1:1) then on earth, now from heaven. For 
 if they escaped not out of reach, but were 
 compelled to abide the hearing, when they re- 
 fused to hear (irapainjcra/uc^'oi) him that warned 
 them (or, uttered his oracles) on earth, locally 
 and in a limited manner, so that it was possible 
 to withdraw from the sound of his voice, as 
 also looking at the lessened dignity of one who 
 spoke on earth. Much more, etc. Much less 
 shall we [escape] who turn away from him that 
 speaketh from heaven. If th e endeavor to escape 
 from the hearing of that limited, local, earthly 
 iitterance on the summit of Sinai was vain, 
 how much more vain the endeavor to get out 
 of the reach of that voice which is uttered from 
 the heavens. God once spake on Sinai through 
 his angels; he again speaks on earth through 
 
 his Son. This latter is not now adverted to, 
 but rather the voice which he now utters 
 through his Son glorified and exalted at his 
 right hand in the heavens. This voice from 
 the heavenly Zion, to which the marching 
 church has come, and at the foot of which she 
 now, as it were, lies — this voice of God through 
 the Mediator, promising where he once threat- 
 ened, forgiving where he once condemned — 
 this voice sent down to men, speaking of par- 
 don and reconciliation, and eternal life, uttered 
 from its exalted place, whence it can ring out 
 over all the earth, exempted from those limita- 
 tions of space and matter which circumscribed 
 and hemmed in that, but from the opened 
 heavens speaking into the spiritual ear of 
 humanity, — this we cannot escape from. This 
 voice, like a trumpet blast, echoes over all the 
 world, and this calls up the thought of the 
 final and grand scene in which that voice is yet 
 more fully to reveal its power. 
 
 26. Whose voice then shook the earth 
 — at the descent on Sinai were thunderings 
 and lightnings and earthquake — but now he 
 hath promised, saying, Yet once more 
 {once for all) I shake not the earth only, 
 but also heaven. Cited from Haggai 2 : 6, 
 from the Septuagint, referring to the future 
 reign of the Messiah. One final concussion is 
 to overthrow all things which can be over- 
 thrown, and leave only those inherently 
 imperishable, to remain forever; because, of 
 course, as there is to be no subsequent shaking, 
 the things which then survive, are eternal. 
 The kingdoms of the world, all that is purely 
 temporal, will then be convulsed and buried 
 in ruins; while the spiritual kingdom of 
 Christ will emerge and stand unshaken. 
 
 27. And this word (language) yet once 
 more (once for all) signifieth the removing 
 {the displacem,ent) of those things that 
 are shaken. The ' once for all ' implies that 
 the world will be thrown down finally and 
 forever; that there can be no need of any 
 
Ch. XII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 179 
 
 that are made, that those things which cannot be 
 shaken may reiuiiin. 
 
 26 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot 
 be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve 
 God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 
 
 that have been made, that those things which are 
 
 28 not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a 
 
 kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have 'grace 
 
 whereby we may offer service well-pleasing tO'Uod 
 
 1 Or, thank/ulnett. 
 
 renewed shaking, as the purpose of the shak- 
 ing will be accomplished. But the purpose of 
 the shaking can only be to test the durability 
 and permanence of the elements subjected to 
 it; and, of course, everything that can be 
 shaken is shown to be void of permanence, 
 and will be removed, to leave place for the 
 permanent and everlasting. As of things 
 that are (have been) made — and, of course, 
 changeable and perishable. "What has been 
 made by hands can in like manner be de- 
 stroyed. That those things which cannot 
 be (ore not) shaken may remain. It may 
 be asked, how the removal of the things which 
 are shaken can produce the permanency of 
 those that are not shaken. Their abiding 
 cannot be caused by the shaking and removal 
 of the others. True, not strictly. But the 
 shaking which shows the perishable to be 
 perishable, and causes its removal, and which 
 shows the imperishable to be imperishable, 
 may be easily conceived as causing it to abide. 
 That which tests and determines the abiding 
 quality of an object it is easy to look upon as 
 the cause of its abiding. Or we may easily 
 take the expression as elliptical, 'in order that 
 the things which are unshaken [and they only] 
 may remain.' The transient is to give way to 
 the permanent, the mutable to the immutable, 
 the temporal to the eternal. Earth and heaven 
 will be shaken and pass away. But a new 
 heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth 
 righteousness, and connected with Christ's 
 spiritual kingdom, will take their place and be 
 forever. Delitzsch, with some others, constructs 
 "as having been made, in order that the things 
 which are not shaken may remain." They con- 
 sider the use of 'made' (ircn-oiij/itei'oii'), standing 
 absolutely in the sense of 'formed, created,' 
 without any complementary clause, as harsh 
 and unwarrantable. It may, perhaps, be some- 
 what harsh ; but is not, I think, liable to any 
 serious objection; while, on the other hand, 
 it seems not very easy to see in what sense the 
 things which are shaken can be said to have 
 been made, in order that those which are not 
 shaken may remain. At least, it is a very 
 
 harsh way of expressing the thought that the 
 temporal and changeable are but iniages and 
 types of the unchangeable and eternal, out of 
 which these latter are to be developed, to say 
 that the former have been made, in order that 
 the latter may abide. Nor do I believe, with 
 Delitzsch, that the declaration "this word yet 
 once for all," signifies the removal of the things 
 shaken, demands some such complementary 
 expression as this. Rather, the language "yet 
 once for all I shake," clearly implying that 
 there is to be no further shaking, must natur- 
 ally imply, therefore, that the proper purposes 
 of shaking will be then accomplished; and, 
 of course, we can, strictly speaking, see no 
 object in shaking things, except for their re- 
 moval. If they are to remain, and, of course, 
 to relapse back into their previous condition, 
 why shake them? A shaking which is de- 
 clared to be final, must, then, unless it is an 
 idle display of power, result in the removal 
 of all that can be shaken. If it be said that 
 the unremovable things, as the new heavens 
 and the new earth, are also said to be ' made,' 
 we may reply. True, this may be said in spe- 
 cial instances, but, speaking generally, they 
 belong to the category of spiritual and eternal 
 things which are not conceived as being made. 
 The natural rule is that that which has been 
 made may be unmade. 
 
 28. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom 
 that cannot be moved (shaken). This is 
 here taken for granted. He has no occasion 
 now to prove that the kingdom of God and of 
 Christ is one of the things — or, rather, the one 
 thing — which shall not be shaken. The old- 
 world monarchies had passed away; the last 
 of them, with the earth itself, was destined to 
 pass away, and then (Dan. 7 : is), ' The saints of 
 the Most High would receive the kingdom 
 
 (koi irapoA^i^ofrai t^v fiaaiKdav aycoi i/ijiiirrov). This 
 
 kingdom we are to receive not as a dominion 
 or empire united under one Prince, of which 
 we are to be subjects merely, but as a glorious 
 dominion of which we are to be participants. 
 Christians are represented not as subjects in a 
 glorious kingdom, but rulers in a glorious 
 
180 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Cii. XIII. 
 
 [ 29 with 1 reverence and awe: for our God is a consum- 
 I ing fire. 
 
 For our God is a consuming fire. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LET brotherly love continue. 
 2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for 
 thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 
 
 1 Let love of the brethren continue. Forget not to 
 show love unto strangers: for thereby some have 
 
 1 Or, godly /ei 
 
 kingdom. Let us cherish gratitude is better 
 here than let us have grace (which would 
 require x"?'*' 'X^m^") i ^^t ws retain, hold on 
 to grace (would require Karexioiiev x'^'P"')- 
 Whereby (through which; namely, gratitude) 
 we may serve God acceptably (Codex 
 Sinaiticus, Aarpeuojaev, we do serve, etc.), as 
 ministers or worshipers of God in his spiritual 
 sanctuary, like those who took literal part in 
 the ancient ritual ; service, not merely in the 
 general sense of rendering obedience — though 
 obedience is, of course, the essence of the 
 service — but with specific allusion to the ser- 
 vice of the sanctuary — with pious reverence 
 and godly fear ; filial reverence («iAo/3eia, 5 : 7), 
 which will lovingly heed his transcendent 
 greatness and authority; '■fear' of the pun- 
 ishments that await disobedience. 
 
 29. For our God is (also) a consuming 
 lire. A ground of the fear and devoutness 
 which are the mark of our service. The 
 thought is not, "for also our God, as well as 
 the God of the Old Testament" (which would 
 require {rnxoiv 6 fled?, or, still better, 6 yap ijixe- 
 Tepos fleos), but, "for also is our God " — that is, 
 not only a God of grace and benignity, but 
 also (<cat) a consuming fire. He speaks in 
 power as well as in love. He proifers grace 
 and salvation, and bestows an everlasting 
 kingdom ; but he also destroys those who un- 
 gratefully and unbelievingly reject his prof- 
 fers. Delitzsch supposes that the expression 
 points to the double quality of fire — its power 
 to illumine, as well as to burn ; fts benig- 
 nant, as well as it3 wrathful nature. The lan- 
 guage is cited from Deut. 4 : 24 (»tupios o Oeds 
 
 ffow TrOp (caTai'aAio'/col' itrri, flebs ^rjAioTT)?). 
 
 CONCLUSION. (13 : 1-25. ) 
 
 For the first time in the entire Epistle the 
 author's tone now relaxes. There has previ- 
 ously been almost no word, apparently, said 
 that did not bear upon the one single purpose 
 of rescuing his readers from incipient and 
 
 threatened apostasy, of preserving them on 
 the foundation of the gospel. There has 
 been scarcely a single exhortation, or argu- 
 ment, that has not been directed to this 
 end. The dreadful consequence of falling 
 away from God has hitherto been the key- 
 note of the entire Epistle. The tone now 
 changes. Some general exhortations addressed 
 to Christians as such, and on more general 
 points of Christian duty, are now introduced. 
 The author has done his work so elaborately, 
 so thoroughly, that he can now afford to turn 
 for a few moments to what may be termed 
 the commonplaces of Christian exhortation, 
 although so full is his mind of the one grand 
 theme that he yet again returns to it before 
 concluding his Epistle. 
 
 Ch. 13. (1) Practical admonitions to vari- 
 ous Christian duties. (1-9.) 
 
 1. Let brotherly love continue. From 
 6 : 10; 10 : 33 it is clear that the Christians ad- 
 dressed had been formerly eminent for this 
 virtue. From this passage, it is evident that, 
 however weakened by the lowered tone of 
 their Christian life, it still existed among 
 them. In their Judaizing inclinations, they 
 would be tempted to restrain their fraternal 
 intercourse with Gentile Christians, and, in- 
 deed, with each other as disciples. Hence the 
 special importance of reminding them to re- 
 vive and cherish this grace, and also the 
 putting first of the noun rather than of the 
 verb is a delicate intimation that there was 
 some slackening in this respect. He says, 
 'Let brotherly love continue'; not, 'Let 
 brotherly love continue,' as if its present ex- 
 istence were no matter of doubt, and the only 
 question was of its continuance. 
 
 2. Be not forgetful, etc. {do not forget the 
 entertainment of strangers). This is one spe- 
 cific and very important form which brotherly 
 love might assume. "When the lines are as 
 sharply drawn as between Jews and heathen, 
 and between both and Christians, the latter 
 being objects of common hatred, the enter- 
 
Ch. XIII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 181 
 
 3 Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with 
 them ; and them which suffer adversity, as being your- 
 selves also in the body. 
 
 4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed unde- 
 filed: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. 
 
 5 //«< yoKr conversation 6e without covetousness; and 
 be content with such things as ye have: for he hath 
 said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 
 
 3 entertained angels unawares. Remember them that 
 are in bonds, as bound with them; them that are 
 evil entreated, as being yourselves also in the body. 
 
 4 Let marriage be hatl in honour umong all, and tel the 
 bed be undetiled: for fornicators and adulterers (iod 
 
 5 will judge. ' Be ye free troiu the love of money: 
 content with such things as ye have: for himself 
 bath said, 1 will in no wise fail thee, neither will I 
 
 1 Gr. Let your turn of miod be free. 
 
 tainment of traveling Christians by their 
 brethren would become an urgent duty, and 
 upon Jewish Christians some cogent induce- 
 ments to it might be drawn from their earlier 
 annals. For thereby some have enter- 
 tained angels unawares. Abraham, Lot, 
 etc., would readily occur as illustrations of this 
 statement. The pith of the thought is that in 
 entertaining Christians in the name of Christ, 
 we are always entertaining angels, or rather 
 him who is exalted infinitely above the angels. 
 " I was a stranger, and ye tooU me in." Hos- 
 pitality to his people is recognized as hospi- 
 tality to their King. 
 
 3. Remember (that is, with kindness and 
 active aid) them that are in bonds, as 
 bound with them — those who, for their 
 fidelity to Christ, are subjects of persecution 
 and imprisonment. This phenomenon was 
 too common in the primitive church to justify 
 us in making it any clue to the destination of 
 the Epistle. The measure of their kindly re- 
 membrance is to be 'as bound with them,' as 
 sharing their imprisonment. Enter into their 
 bondage as if it were your own; bring it as 
 near to your sympathies as if you were actual 
 participants in it. "I was in prison, and ye 
 came unto me." Them which (who) suffer 
 outrage, as being yourselves also in the 
 body — and consequently liable to the same 
 abuse. The consciousness of being ourselves 
 exposed to any particular form of suffering 
 will enhance our sympathj' for those who are 
 already enduring it, especially when precisely 
 the satne causes exist in us which have brought 
 indignity and outrage upon them. The appeal 
 is not purely to our natural sympathies; it 
 involves the idea that we may experience the 
 same sufferings for the same cause. The dis- 
 tinction which Delitzsch draws between our 
 sympathy in the two different cases as spring- 
 ing, the one from spiritual, the other from 
 natural fellowship of suffering, seems scarcely 
 
 tenable. "We need not exclude the natural 
 element from the former, nor the spiritual 
 from the latter. 
 
 4. Marriage is, etc. — Let marriage be in 
 all things held in honor, and the bed icndefiled. 
 That the passage is in spirit hortatory cannot 
 be doubted. It is better, therefore, to render 
 it so, I think, even though we may grant the 
 actual supplying o^ the imperative (cVtoi) un- 
 wonted, and perhaps not strictly in the author's 
 mind. The exhortation seems to strike at the 
 incipient gnostic asceticism (i Tim. 4:3) on the 
 one hand, and on the other at the licentious- 
 ness which, while seemingly hostile, is really 
 its natural accompaniment. Whether mar- 
 riage is to be held in honor, and hence not 
 disowned by a transcendental and spurious 
 piety, or held in honor, and hence not violated 
 by adulterous passion, might be doubtful. 
 The latter might .seem rather to harmonize 
 with the connection, but the former, as ob- 
 served above, seems also to have been in the 
 writer's mind. And the two are closely allied; 
 for when marriage as an institution is, /or any 
 reason, thought light of, it will soon be vio- 
 lated by lustful passions.! But whoremong- 
 ers (fornicators) and adulterers God will 
 judge — in a sense different from that in which 
 he will 'judge his people' ; he will judge the 
 latter for vindication, the former for punish- 
 ment. He will pronounce sentence upon and 
 condemn them. ' God ' (6 ded?) placed em- 
 phatically last. 
 
 5. Let your conversation — Let yotir dis- 
 position be free from avarice, being contented 
 with what ye have. Free from that love of 
 money which is a root of all evil (i Tim.6: lo), 
 and drowr-5 men in destruction and perdition. 
 'What ye have' (ri napovra), the present, exist- 
 ing things, those which are present to us, with 
 which we are to be content, without, however, 
 relaxing our labor, and feeling an honest de- 
 sire to better our condition. Man is false to 
 
 * Taii^t, elsewhere in the New Testament, tke marriage festival; here, the marriage relation. 
 
182 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIII. 
 
 6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, 
 aud I will not fear what man shall do unto me. 
 
 7 Remember them which have the rule over you, 
 M'ho have spoken unto you the word of God: whose 
 faith follow, considering the end of Ikeir conversation. 
 
 8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and 
 for ever. 
 
 9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doc- 
 
 6 in any wise forsake thee. So that with good courage 
 we say, 
 
 The Lord is my helper ; I will not fear : 
 What shall man do unto uie? 
 
 7 Remember them who had the rule over you, who 
 spake unto you the word of God ; and considering 
 
 8 the issue of their ilife, imitate their faith. Jesus 
 Christ is the same yesterday and to-day, yea and i for 
 
 9 ever. Be not carried away by divers and strange 
 
 1 Gr. manner of life 2 Gr. unto the ages. 
 
 his reason if he does not acquiesce in the 
 present; he is false to his aspirations and 
 capacities if he does not seek for better in the 
 future. 
 
 For he hath himself saifl^ I will not fail 
 thee, nor will I abandon thee. _ An excellent 
 argument, but where has God said this? In 
 various passages the Old Testament gives 
 half of it. "I will not leave thee, nor neg- 
 lect thee' (Josh. 1:5); ' I will not abandon thee' 
 (oen. 28 : 15) ; 'I will not abandon ' (isa. *i : 17), are 
 passages which express the idea, and the words 
 in part, but not wholly. But on the otlier 
 hand, Deut. 31 : 6 gives us almost exactly this 
 language; namely, 'He will not leave thee, 
 nor will he abandon thee,' but not as spoken 
 by the Lord, but as spoken of the Lord 
 through Moses. That, however, which God 
 inspires his people to say of him may well be 
 regarded as said by himself. There seems, 
 therefore, no objection to taking this as sub- 
 stantially the direct utterance of God. The 
 passage, transformed into the form which it 
 assumes here, occurs also in Philo. It is not 
 impossible that it has been modified a little 
 from Deuteronomy as part of a liturgical ser- 
 vice, and thence taken by our author. In 
 any case, his statement is true, as that which 
 God has inspired his servant to say regarding 
 his relations to his people, he may be justly 
 said to sa.v himself. The same language, how- 
 ever, applied in the same way by Philo, may 
 indicate that it had passed into current use in 
 this form. For the sentiment, see Matt. 6 : 28: 
 "And why take ye thought for raiment," etc. 
 
 6. So that we may boldly [confidently) 
 say. The Lord is my helper; and I shall 
 not fear. What shall man do unto me ? From 
 Ps. 118 : 6, one of the songs of praise of the 
 Jewish festivals. The sentiment, generalized 
 so as to indicate the sufficiency of God for us 
 in all respects, and reminding the readers of 
 God as a helper against the violence of man, 
 prepares the way for the mention of those 
 
 Christian leaders who have attested their 
 fidelity by a violent death. 
 
 7. Remember them that had the rule over 
 you {your leaders) — here, apparently, those 
 who are dead — which spake unto you the word 
 of God. 'To speak the word of God' [XaXilv 
 Tov Aoyov ToC 0eou), an expression used by Luke. 
 (Acts 4 : 31 ; 8 : 25 ; 13 Tie.) Considering [contemplat- 
 ing) the issue of their walk — the end of their 
 earthly life, which the author avoids designat- 
 ing directly by death, or the end of life, but 
 the termination of their Christian walk (avaa- 
 Tpoi^ij, as often elsewhere; see ovao-Tpec^eereat, 
 10 : 33). The reference is perhaps chiefly, 
 though not exclusively, to martyrs (as, if the 
 readers lived in Palestine, Stephen, James the 
 Apostle, James the brother of our Lord, etc.); 
 at any rate, such as had crowned a Christian 
 life with a happy and blessed death. Imitate 
 their faith, and like them be faithful unto 
 death. 
 
 8. Jesus Christ [is) the same yesterday, 
 and to day and forever. Christ from his 
 ascension is forever unchangeable; a practical 
 truth referring, not to his eternal Sonship, but 
 to his unchangeable nature as Redeemer and 
 Head of the church. As such his claims upon 
 his people are the same for every age. "The 
 same obligation which lay (m the martyrs to 
 follow him with fidelity, even to death, rests on 
 you," says the writer, " will rest on his people 
 for all time ; and the rewards also are sure and 
 abiding." The absolute unchangeableness of 
 the Head of the church suggests the perma- 
 nent character of Christian obligation and 
 reward. Hence, also, the following injunc- 
 tion. 
 
 9. Be not carried about (ted aside) by 
 manifold and strange teachings. Not prob- 
 ably, as understood by niany, teachings or 
 doctrines regarding the sacrificial rites and 
 festivals of the law, and especially the pass- 
 over, which, however, now superseded by tho 
 gospel, would still be hardly designated as 
 
ch. xrii.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 183 
 
 trines: for t7 is a. good thing that the heart be estab- 
 lished with grace; uot with meats, which have not 
 protited them tliat have been occupied therein. 
 
 10 We liave an altar, whereof they have no right to 
 eat which serve the tabernacle. 
 
 11 For the bodie;; of those beasts, whose blood is 
 brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, 
 are burned without the cauip. 
 
 teachings: for it is good that the heart be stab- 
 lished by grace; not liy nieat.s, wherein they that 
 
 10 1 occupied themselves were not profited. We have 
 an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who 
 
 11 serve the tabernacle. Kor the bodies of those beasts, 
 whose blood is brought into the holy place ^liy the 
 high priest as an offering for sin, are burned without 
 
 I Gr. walked 2 Gr. through. 
 
 'manifold and strange doctrines.' These ex- 
 periences point ratlier to subtle and casuis- 
 tical innovations, and in all probability to 
 those precepts of a false and spurious asceti- 
 cism, which in the later period of the Apos- 
 tolic Epoch were already creeping into the 
 church, and which, even eaflier, required 
 Paul to declare that the kingdom of God con- 
 sists not in "meat and drink, but in righteous- 
 ness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Rom. 
 14:17.) Theallusions in Paul's Epistles to those 
 casuistical and hair-splitting distinctions to 
 the " ordinances and commandments of men," 
 "Touch not, taste not, handle not" (coi. 2:20), 
 to the rising up of false, corrupt teachers, who 
 should "command to abstain from meats 
 which God hatK created to be received with 
 thanksgiving" (1 T.m. *:3, «), show what symp- 
 toms of half Judaizing, half gnosticising here- 
 sies were already developing themselves in 
 the church. And to these it seems in the 
 highest degree probable (Tholuck, Ebrard, 
 Delitzsch, Moll, etc.) that the writer alludes. 
 For it is a good (excellent) thing that the 
 heart be established with (by) grace — it 
 is grace with which the heart should be 
 grounded and confirmed in the Christian life. 
 Not with (by) meats by which they that were 
 conversant with them were not profited. The^' 
 drew from these meats (Ppul/xara, things eaten, 
 food in which they sought an outward and 
 ritual justification) no real profit. No out- 
 ward ceremonies could avail ; not the food 
 wiiich goes into a man, but the thoughts 
 which issue from him, have power to defile or 
 purify. Grace alone, working eflSciently in 
 the soul, can truly establish it in the Christian 
 life. 
 
 (2) Renewed exhortations against apostasy. 
 (10-21.) 
 
 10. We have an altar (emphasis on have, 
 ixoiLtv) — 'an altar,' not Christ himself; not 
 that of the Lord's Supper (as Ebrard, etc.), 
 but the cross on Golgotha, on which Christ 
 was offered up. Whereof (/ro?n which) they 
 
 have no right {privilege) to eat who serve 
 the tabernacle. The mention of meats 
 {Ppiiixara) suggests the old Levitical rites, the 
 clean and unclean animals under the law, 
 and thus prepares for the mention of that spir- 
 itual food which Christians are permitted to 
 take from that victim which wiis offered lipon 
 the Christian altar. This victim was Christ; 
 this altar was his cross. Of this food every 
 Christian may and must eat; his flesh and hia 
 blood are the nourishment of his people. 
 
 U. For the bodies of those beasts (ani- 
 mals) whose blood is brought into the 
 sanctuary by the high priest for sin (as 
 an atonement for sin) are burned without 
 the camp {encainpment). Of the sin offer- 
 ings which were offered by the Jewish priests, 
 Delitzsch enumerates several of which certain 
 portions were allotted to the priests, as tlie 
 he-goat brought by the prince, and the goat or 
 sheep of the ])rivate person, etc. But, from 
 these the priests of the law were excluded, as 
 the sin offering of the high priest for himself, 
 that of the congregation in several cases of 
 unwonted transgression, and especially the 
 combined sacrifice of the high priest and the 
 congregation on the great Day of Atonement. 
 In these cases the blood of the victims was 
 borne by the high priest into the sauctuary; 
 in the last one, into the inner sanctuary; and 
 the fattest pieces were consumed on the altar, 
 and all the rest, instead of being, so far as 
 might be, eaten by the priests, was carried 
 without the camp into the desert, and there 
 given to the flames. It is to the latter of these 
 cases, probably, that reference is here specially 
 made. The burning of the sacrificial animal 
 is regarded as typical, and as the Jewish priest 
 had no right to follow the victim that had 
 been offered for sin out into the desert, so 
 Christ, having been rejected from the walls of 
 Jerusalem (answering to the ancient encamp- 
 ment), and having there died as a sin offering, 
 those who still abide in the tabernacle, whostill 
 adhere to Judaism, have nothing to do with 
 
184 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIII. 
 
 12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the j 12 
 people with his own blood, sult'ered without tlie gate. 
 
 13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the i 13 
 camp, bearing his reproach. 
 
 14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek 
 one to come. 
 
 15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise 
 to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving 
 thanks to bis name. 
 
 the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might 
 sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered 
 without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto 
 him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For 
 we have not here an abiding city, but we seek alter 
 the city which is to come. Through him i then let us 
 offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that 
 is, the fruit of lips which make confession to his 
 
 1 Some aucieDt auttaoriiies omit then. 
 
 him, and no participation in him. As the 
 priest who remained in the temple had no 
 right to follow the victim without the pale of 
 the encampment, and there feast on its flesh, 
 so those who abide in Judaism, and who thus 
 sanction and ratify the sentence of condemna- 
 tion and anathema which expelled Christ from 
 the city and made him a sin olFering, have no 
 privilege to follow him forth and partake the 
 life-giving banquet of his flesh. Their adher- 
 ence to Judaism cuts them off" from this right. 
 The propriety of the author's comparison maj' 
 be easily traced. The blood borne by the 
 high priest into the Holy of Holies symbolizes 
 the high-priestly blood which Christ bears 
 into the heavenly sanctuary ; while the slaugh- 
 ter of the victim in the outer court, its being 
 olfered on the altar, and the final burning of 
 the carcass beyond the precincts of the camp, | 
 all find their concentrated representation in i 
 the one offering on Golgotha. The richness of , 
 the antitype enables it to gather and express | 
 in itself the fullness of various tj'pes. j 
 
 12. Wherefore Jesus also, that he ! 
 might sanctify the people with {by) his 
 own blood, suffered without the gate. 
 The ' wherefore ' is, of course, not to be taken 
 as if Jesus suffered in this way in order to 
 conform to this symbol. In fact, the symbol 
 was pre-adapted to the great fact which it was 
 to illustrate. The ' wherefore ' is really logical 
 and elliptical, and is equivalent, perhaps, to 
 this; "for which reason we may find in this a 
 parallel to the case of our Lord," etc. As the 
 sin offering of the day of atonement was 
 finally carried without the camp to be burned, 
 so Jesus suffered without the gate of the city 
 of Jerusalem, which answers to the ancient 
 Jewish encampment. And as that victim, in 
 its sacrifice and burning, effected for the people 
 a ceremonial cleansing, so the sacrificed body 
 and the sprinkled blood of Jesus secures for 
 his people a real purification. 
 
 13. Therefore — inasmuch as Jesus suffered 
 without the gate, and inasmuch as we cannot 
 
 share the rich benefits of his atoning death so 
 long as we abide in the precincts of Judaism 
 — let us go forth to him without the camp 
 
 — let us quit the camp of Judaism, the service 
 and the ritual by which so long as we abide 
 we cannot share the benefits of his sacrifice, 
 cannot feast upon that passover which has 
 been slain for us, but which we continue to 
 regard as an accursed thing; that camp, to 
 remain in which is rejection of Ciirist, to go 
 back to which is denial of Christ, and to go 
 forth from which brings us into participation 
 and union with Christ. Bearing his re- 
 proach — the reproach which we share in 
 common with him, indignities heaped upon 
 him, and which, borne by us, bring us into 
 near relation to him. The rejjroach which we 
 bear tlms becomes his reproach. Of course, 
 the reproach here has special reference to the 
 reproaches and insults which they would suffer 
 in turning their backs on Judaism. The writer 
 thus turns back once more to that subject of 
 which his mind and heart are full, the warn- 
 ing of his brethren against relapsing into 
 Judaism. With this the next sentence beau- 
 tifully connects itself. 
 
 14. For here have we — For we have not 
 here an abiding city, bid we seek after 
 that which is to be. Why linger in the 
 earthly Jerusalem ? It is not our true and 
 permanent residence. The Jerusalem which 
 is above, which hath foundations, the city of 
 the living God, the mother of us all — this is 
 that which we seek, and the present Jerusa- 
 lem, ther fore, shall not detain us. The lan- 
 guage is, of course, symbolical. The earthly 
 Jerusalem represents the Judaistic sj-stem, of 
 which it had been so long the seat ; the heav- 
 enly Jerusalem represents the freedom and 
 spiritual blessings of the gospel. The capital 
 of the Old Testament Theocracy is not the 
 capital of that kingdom in which is our citi- 
 zenship, and which is tt> remain unshaken. 
 
 15. By him therefore — through him, then 
 (with a special emphasis on Aim; througli him, 
 
Ch. XIIL] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 186 
 
 16 But to do good and to commuDicate forget not: I 16 name. But to do good and to communicate forget 
 for with such sacrifices Goit is well pleased. | not: for with such sacrifices (jod is well pleased. 
 
 17 Obey theiu that have the rule over you, and sub- 17 Obey them who liave the rule over you, and submit 
 uiit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they to them : for they watch iu behalf of your souls, as 
 
 that must give account, that they may do it with joy, 
 and not with grief: for that is uni)rotitable for you 
 
 they that shall give account; that they may do thi 
 with joy, and not with 'grief: lor this were unpro- 
 fitable for yoH. 
 
 1 6r. groaning. 
 
 as the great sacrifice and High Priest of the 
 New Covenant, not through the rites of Ju- 
 daism — let us offer a sacrifice of praise to God 
 'continually,' and not at distant intervals. 
 'A sacrifice of praise,' spiritual, however, and 
 not an animal sacrifice, like the thank- or 
 praise-offerings (Svaia. cifeo-to)?, Lev. 7 : 12-15) 
 of the Old Testament ritual. In the Psalms 
 (116:17:50:14) this praise- or thank-offering is 
 the symbol of the gratitude of the heart and 
 of the lips; and among the traditionary 
 maxims of the synagogue (Delitzsch) is one 
 that, ' In future all other sacrifices cease; but 
 tlie sacrifice of praise (the thank-offering) 
 ceases not.' 
 
 The author explains this sacrifice of praise, 
 this spiritual thank-offering— <Aai is, the fruit 
 of lips which make confession (acknowledg- 
 inent) of his name. Hosea 14 : 2 probably 
 suggests the language here used, "And we 
 will render to him in return the fruit of our 
 
 lips " (beptuagint, xai <i»'Tajro6cu<ro^c»' xap-nov xiiKfrnv 
 
 riiiuiv). The fruit of the lips means the words, 
 which have their roots, so to speak, in the 
 heart, which spring up and germinate in 
 thoughts, as the branches, and burst forth 
 through the lips in words, as the flowers and 
 fruits. 
 
 But along with our sacrifices of praise, the 
 utterance of our lips, we must render other 
 offerings also ; namely, beneficence and liber- 
 ality. 
 
 16. But to do good, etc.— But doing good 
 and com.municating, forget not. " I will have 
 mercy ;" that is, I desire the exercise of mercy, 
 says God, "and not sacrifice." The sacrifices 
 of God are a broken and a contrite heart and 
 penitent feelings, expressing themselves in 
 acts of love and beneficence. For with 
 such sacrifices God is well pleased. The 
 blood of victims is valued by him only as an 
 act of obedience and as a symbol ; beneficence 
 and mercy are intrinsically excellent, and 
 always well pleasing. 
 
 17. Obey them, etc. — Field obedience to 
 
 those who lead you, and be submissive (sub- 
 mit) to them. The rulers of the church or 
 churches addressed probably stood firm in the 
 faith, and very possibly deplored the symptoms 
 of half-heartedness and apostasy which dis- 
 closed themselves in their brethren. It is not, 
 however, necessary to assume anything in 
 regard to the character of these particular 
 spiritual leaders. Submission to spiritual as 
 to temporal authority ; respect and deference 
 to age and authority — were the general duties 
 enjoined on the New Testament churches; 
 and the present injunction may only be in the 
 spirit of that general obligation. They were 
 exhorted to obey {vfCeeaee), and to concede, 
 yield to them, even when their requirements 
 may cross their own views or feelings. For 
 they ('they' — emphatic, avroC — they are the 
 ones who, they as a class ; thus not designat- 
 ing so much the character of the individual 
 leaders, but the obligations and functions of 
 the oflBce) watch — exercise sleepless vigilance 
 (oypvir»'o0(7-i) — for (on behalf of ) your souls — 
 for their well being and salvation; as hav- 
 ing to render in an account. The classical 
 phrase (Aoyoi' a-no&ovvai.), to render a reason, or 
 render an account of one's opinions or one's 
 conduct. When the Great Shepherd shall ap- 
 pear, these under shepherds will be expected 
 and required to render to him an account of 
 the flock committed to their charge. 
 
 That they may do it, etc. — In order that 
 with joy they may do this and not grieving. 
 This 'in order that' assigns a motive for their 
 obedience; namely, that they may (not, render 
 their account, but) exercise their watchful ctire 
 — for to this the ' do this ' refers ; ' with joy ' — 
 that is, in view of the success of their min- 
 istry, and not sighing over its un fruitful ness. 
 Disobedience and refractoriness on the part of 
 the church, would tend to frustrate all the 
 faithful labors and watchcare of their spiritual 
 overseers. For this is unprofitable for you — 
 that is, changing the negative' into the positive 
 idea; injurious, productive of evil. The ex- 
 
186 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIII. 
 
 18 Pray for us: for we trust we have a good con- 
 science, iu all things willing to liv« honestly. 
 
 19 But 1 beseech you the rather to do this, that I may 
 be restored to you the sooner. 
 
 20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from 
 the dead our Lord .Jesus, that great Shepherd of the 
 sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
 
 18 Pray for us : for we are persuaded that we have a 
 good conscience, desiring to live honourably in all 
 
 19 things. And I exhort you the more exceedingly to 
 do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. 
 
 20 Now the God of peace, who brought again from 
 the dead the great shepherd of the sheep ' with the 
 
 1 Or, hy. Gr. in. 
 
 pression is a litotes, designedly saying less than 
 is meant. 
 
 18. Pray for us. Whether the author here 
 uses the plural for the singular (Bleek, Liine- 
 mann, etc. ), or includes with himself his fellow 
 laborers among the Hebrew Christians, it is 
 not easy to decide. Perhaps the latter is more 
 probable. For we trust we have a good 
 conscience. On this ground he can confi- 
 dently ask for their prayers ; as, knowing 
 that they have honest and upright purposes 
 in the sight of God, they furnish the moral 
 conditions required for hoping for the divine 
 blessing, and under which the prayers of the 
 saints for them nay prove effectual. A hyp- 
 ocrite cannot otherwise than hypocritically 
 ask others to pray for him. The 'trusting' 
 that we have a good conscience is the lan- 
 guage of that proper self-distrust, which, 
 aware of the deceitfulness of the heart, will 
 not take its own moral consciousness as final 
 and positive proof of rectitude. ' We trust 
 we have a good conscience.' God way judge 
 U8 more deeply and correctly. In all things 
 willing (rvishing) to live honestly (conduct 
 ourselves honorably). The natural emphasis 
 on 'wishing' (fleAoi/Tts) implies a certain modest 
 spirit of self-defense, as if he and his fellow- 
 laborers had to encounter suspicion and re- 
 proach on the part of the Hebrew churches. 
 'We trust,^ says he, 'we have a good con- 
 science' — it is our wish in all things to deport 
 ourselves honorably. Imperfect as may be 
 our action, we have, at least, upright and 
 honorable aims. The specific idea may be 
 that they have no desire to trample on Jewish 
 prejudices, to break away from Jewish re- 
 straints, but to proceed in all things, as be- 
 tween Jews and Gentiles, with caution and 
 due consideration. 
 
 19. But I beseech you the rather {the 
 ■more abundantly — more earnestly) to do 
 this; namely, to pray for us; and, more es- 
 pecially, of course, for me — that I may be 
 the inore quickly restored to you. From 
 this some have inferred that the author was 
 
 now in prison, though by no means with cer- 
 tainty. Innumerable otlier hindrances be- 
 sides this may have demanded their prayers; 
 and were he in prison, we might naturally 
 expect (though this, also, in the great brev- 
 ity of personal reference, is by no means 
 certain) that he would be more explicit 
 regarding it. The most which we can infer 
 with confidence, is that the writer has stood in 
 important, and still stood in kindly relations, 
 to the church or churches addressed; that 
 he was consciously a person of consideration 
 among them, and was either expecting or ex- 
 pected to rejoin them at some distant period. 
 On the whole, the allusion is too slight and 
 vague to furnish any satisfactory clue, either 
 to the author or to the recipients of the 
 Epistle. 
 
 20, 'i\, A beautiful and magnificent form 
 of benediction: one whose exceeding solemnity 
 might suggest the idea that the author regarded 
 himself as near his departure from earth. 
 
 Now {and may) the (iod of peace — appro- 
 priately so designated with reference to his 
 desire that they may be delivered from the 
 turmoil and conflicts of false doctrine, and be 
 established in the calm and peaceful faith and 
 doctrines of the gospel — who brought again 
 {back) from the dead the Great Shepherd 
 of the sheep, and as he thus dissolved the 
 bands of death to bring up the Great Shepherd 
 and restore him to his church, can rend asun- 
 der any bands which hold the under shepherds 
 away from their folds. (1) Here only in the 
 Epistle the writer alludes to the resurrection 
 of the Lord. Elsewhere his view has alter- 
 nated between his humiliation in the flesh, and 
 atoning sacrifice on the cross, and his heavenly 
 exaltation and high priesthood in the upper 
 sanctuary. Here the fact of the resurrection 
 comes in naturally and beautifully between 
 these two, and cotnpletes the recognition in 
 the Epistle of all the grand epochs or periods 
 in the Redeemer's life; his pre-existent, eter- 
 nal Sonship, his creative agency, his incarna- 
 tion, his suffering life, bis death, his resurrec- 
 
Ch. XIII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 187 
 
 21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his 
 will, working in you that wliicb is well pleasing in his 
 sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever 
 and ever. Amen. 
 
 22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of 
 exhortation: for 1 have written a letter unto you in 
 few words. 
 
 blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, 
 
 21 make you perfect in every good ' thing to do his 
 will, working in 2 us that which is well-pleasing in 
 his sight through Jesus (.hrist; to whom be the 
 glory " for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
 22 But I exhort you, brethren, bear with the word of 
 exhortation : for I have written unto you in le* 
 
 1 Mauy aacieni auihnrUUs read work 2 Maoj- aucieot authorities read you 3 Or. unto the ages of the ages. 
 
 tion and ascension (for really both of these are 
 contained in the bringing back, avayayiov), and 
 liis glorification. (2) The expression here may 
 perhaps be referred back to Isa. 63 : 11 : 
 '■ Where is he who brought up out of the sea 
 tiie shepherd of the sheep?" (Septuagint, 
 
 jroO o avafiipdaai ex t^! 0oAd(7(rrj9 Toi' woinei'a Ta>i' jrpo/Sd- 
 
 TU.I/. ) As Moses, then, tiie shepherd of the flock 
 of Israel, was brought up out of the Red Sea, 
 so Christ, the Great Shepherd, is brought up 
 out from the dead. (3) The clause also reminds 
 the readers of the one Shepherd, from whose 
 fold they are not to stray. 
 
 Through (in) the blood of the (an) ever- 
 la.sting covenant. Whether this is depend- 
 ent on the participle 'brought back' (ivayayuiv), 
 or the adjective 'great' (fi6'7as),andtli us whether 
 it declares that Christ was brought back in the 
 blood, etc., or is a Great Shepherd in the blood, 
 is a point on which expositors are divided. 
 Each is grammatically possible, and each is 
 unexceptionable in sense. It was 'in' (here 
 equivalent to, by virtue of, so better than 
 'with,' Calvin, Bleek, etc., 'in' as denoting 
 accompaniment), the blood of an eternal cove- 
 nant, that Christ became a spiritual Head and 
 and the Shepherd of his people : it was in vir- 
 tue of that same blood that God brought him 
 back from among the dead. I scarcely see a 
 ground of deciding between them. Our Lord 
 Jesus — Jesus is his name as dying, or as ascend- 
 ing and rejoicing. The one is the designation 
 of affection, the other of reverence. The one 
 points to his love in dying for his people, the 
 other to his power to protect and glorify them. 
 
 Make you perfect' in every good work, 
 in order that ye m.ay do his will. The doing 
 of God's will is dependent on his fashioning 
 and perfecting them in every good work. God 
 works in advance of man. As he chooses his 
 people before they choose him, so he must 
 work in them the work of faith with power, 
 before they will work to do his will. Work- 
 ing (accomplishing) in you that which is 
 well pleasing in his sight through Jesus 
 
 Christ — transforming your natures, bestowing 
 on you those gifts of his grace which work 
 renovation in your hearts, and this through 
 Jesus Christ, through whom all spiritual influ- 
 ences are bestowed, and all sanctifying work 
 wrought. 
 
 To whom be glory for ever and ever. 
 Amen. To whom ; namely, to Christ the 
 subject immediately preceding; or to God the 
 principal subject of the entire period ? Either 
 reference is grammatical, either would be in 
 accordance with the doctrine of the Epistle, as 
 of the entire New Testament. " To him who 
 loved us, and washed us from our sins in his 
 own blood." The sentence, however, is cer- 
 tainly better rounded and more complete 
 in its rhetorical structure if the thought re- 
 turns at the close to its original starting point, 
 and if making a somewhat fuller pause after 
 Christ, we refer the ' to whom,' back to ' God.' 
 
 (3) Final injunctions, pei'sonal references 
 and salutations. (22-25. ) 
 
 22. And I beseech you, brethren, suffer 
 (bear with) the word of exhortation. This is 
 the second instance (seever. 19) of the author's 
 use of the first person singular in the entire 
 Epistle. This is so totally at variance with the 
 universal character of the acknowledged Paul- 
 ine epistles, that of itself it goes far to decide 
 against the Pauline authorship of this. It is 
 difficult to conceive how that full, overflowing, 
 impetuous nature, everywhere else breathing 
 out so lavishly and warmly its individual feel- 
 ings and sentiments, could here have put upon 
 them so strict a rein. The reference here is 
 undoubtedly, not merely to the more strictly 
 hortatory parts of the Epistle, but to the entire 
 discussion, which is itself one grand exhorta- 
 tion. The Epistle has a strictly practical pur- 
 pose throughout. Its argument is closely 
 interwoven with its admonitions, and all alike 
 are Intended to rescue its readers from im- 
 pending apostasy. For the phrase ' word of 
 exhortation,' see Acts 13 : 15. For I have 
 written— /or also with brevity have I writ- 
 
 * Kara^i^u to frame, construct, JU, fashion. 
 
188 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 [Ch. XIII. 
 
 28 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at 
 liberty ; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you. 
 
 ■-'4 iSalute all them that have the rule over you, and 
 all the saints. They of Italy salute you. 
 
 25 (jrace be with you all. Amen. 
 K Written to the Hebrews from Italy by Timothy. 
 
 23 words. Know ye that our brother Timothy hath 
 been set at liberty ; with whom, if he come shortly, 
 1 will see you. 
 
 24 Salute all them who have the rule over you, and 
 all the saints, i They of Italy salute you. 
 
 25 Grace be with you all. Amen. 
 
 1 Or, The brethren from. 
 
 ten to you. 'For also' (ical yap) designating 
 here perhaps an additional reason, besides the 
 weighty intrinsic considerations, why they 
 should favorably receive his Epistle. " Much 
 as I had to say I have written with all possible 
 brevity ; I have condensed my matter, in order 
 not to be burdensome, into the smallest possi- 
 ble compass." None can read this Epistle 
 carefully without being sensible of the entire 
 justness of this statement. Considering the 
 number sind magnitude of the topics treated, 
 it is a marvel of brevity and condensation. 
 This of itself, placed alongside of the diffusive- 
 ness of the post-apostolic writers, indicates the 
 inspiration of the Epistle. Nothing can exceed 
 its pregnant and most suggestive 'conciseness. 
 Every clause might be expanded into a chap- 
 ter, every chapter into a volume. 
 
 23. Know ye that our brother Timothy 
 is {hath been) set at liberty. Some, instead 
 of 'know,' render as indicative, 'ye know,' 
 but probably incorrectly. De "Wette urges 
 that if it were imperative, tbe author, wishing 
 to give information, would have been more 
 explicit ; but this is pure conjecture. He 
 might only wish to say exactly this, assum- 
 ing that what else might appertain to the 
 matter was either already known, or soon 
 would be, as be anticipates a speedy visit to 
 them, both oT Timothy and himself. 'Hath 
 been set at liberty.' From this we may infer 
 that Timothy had been probably imprisoned, 
 though of this we elsewhere know nothing. 
 If this imprisonment was at Rome, then the 
 writer of this could scarcely be at Rome, un- 
 less we take the 'if he come quickly,' of Tim- 
 othy'scoming to them (which, indeed, Ithink 
 very possible) rather than of his coming to 
 him. It would seem to mark an epoch in the 
 life of Timothy later than any of Paul's epis- 
 tles, and therefore, I think, after the death of 
 the great apostle. If, as Alford supposes, the 
 Epistle was sent to Jewish Chrii^tians in Rome, 
 then Timothy could not have been imprisoned 
 there. 
 
 Some render, instead of 'set at liberty' 
 {airoKtXviiivov), 'sent away,' 'despatched' — as 
 
 Luke uses the word (acu is : 3; 15 : so), of oflBcial 
 sending forth — that is, either with this letter 
 to you, or elsewhere; and in accordance 
 with this supposition is the traditionary sub- 
 scription of the letter, "Written to the He- 
 brews from Italy through Timothy." As the 
 word will bear this meaning, then, on the 
 supposition that Timothy had not been im- 
 prisoned, and that he had now gone as the 
 bearer of this Epistle, the word would be its 
 own interpreter, and nothing more would be 
 needed. If Timothy was sent in any other 
 direction, something would seem necessary to 
 be added, in order to make its import clear. 
 Under these circumstances, while ' set at 
 liberty' is the more natural rendering, yet 
 it seems impossible, to arrive at any certain 
 conclusion. That, however, Timothy could 
 not have been now sent with this Epistle to 
 them, seems to follow from the next. With 
 whom, if he come shortly {quickly), I 
 will see you. This certainly would seem 
 unnatural, though not impossible, to be said, 
 in case Timothy was now gone on a mission to 
 the churches with this Epistle. It therefore 
 much more probably refers to an imprison- 
 ment from which Timothy had now been re- 
 leased, and in consequence of which, coming 
 to the writer, they were together to visit these 
 Christians. I think, therefore, that the evi- 
 dence, slight as it is, tends to show that the 
 Epistle is post-Pauline. Nothing more, how- 
 ever, and not even that can with certainty be 
 drawn from it. The 'if he shall come very 
 quickly,' is, probably, 'if he come to me,' 
 and not, 'if he come to you'; and yet this 
 latter is very possible. But in either case, 
 how the speediness of Timothy's coming was 
 to affect the movements of the author, remains 
 entirely in the dark. 
 
 24. Salute all them that have the rule 
 over {lead of) you, and all the saints — 
 alike officers of the church and private breth- 
 ren ; the whole body of Christians with whom 
 they might stand in any connection. They 
 of (from) Italy salute you. This phrase 
 again fails to give any decisive clue to the 
 
Ch. XIII.] 
 
 HEBREWS. 
 
 189 
 
 locality either of the writer or receivers of 
 the Epistle. The phrase 'those from Italy' 
 (oi airb T^s "iToAias) most naturally denotes those 
 who belong to a certain place or country, but 
 are now distant from it, as "the Jews from 
 
 Asia" — oi ttTTO rrii 'A<rias 'lovSaloi (Acts 21: 27) — 
 
 namely, the Jews who belonged to, and came 
 from, Asia. It may, however, be equivalent 
 to ' those who belong to Italy ' (oi « Tijs 'iraAias) 
 and dwell there; as Acts 17: 12, "those of 
 
 Thessalonica" {ol anb rrn QeaaaXoviKrii) . Thus, 
 
 then, here the phrase would most naturally 
 mean, judged simply by itself, 'those from 
 Italy,' who are in another country ; and this 
 would mark the locality of the writer as out 
 of Italy, and the probable destination of the 
 Epistle as to Italian Christians, to whom their 
 distant countrymen send greeting. But it 
 
 may also denote those that belong to Italy 
 and dwell there; and thus mark the writer as 
 now dwelling in Rome, or some other part of 
 Italy, and sending their greetings to churches 
 elsewhere. Thus the utmost that it certainly 
 proves is that either the writer of the Epistle 
 was in Italy, or its recipients were; and judg- 
 ing the phrase simply by itself,' the latter 
 would be the more probable; but if it could 
 be made out with any certainty that it was 
 addressed to Christians in Palestine or else- 
 where, then it would be pretty clear that the 
 Epistle originated in Italy. This is made 
 much more probable by the fact that the 
 Epistle was so long unknown to the Western 
 churches, which seems inexplicable if it had 
 been originally addressed to Roman or Italian 
 Jewish Christians. 
 
THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 A. C. Kendrick, D. D. 
 
 1 Fragmentarily and diversely ^ God, having of old spoken unto our fathers 
 
 2 in the prophets, hath in the close of these days spoken unto us in his Son,'' whom 
 
 3 he hath appointed inheritor of all things : by whom also he made the worlds ;' who, 
 being the effulgence of his glory, and the express image of his substance, and 
 sustaining all things with the mandate of his power, after making a cleansing of 
 
 4 sins, took his seat at the right hand of Majesty in the lofty * [heavens], becom- 
 ing ^ so much superior to the angels, as he hath inherited a name transcending 
 
 5 theirs. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, 
 
 Thou art my Son ; 
 To day have I begotten thee? 
 and again, 
 
 I will be to him a Father, 
 And he shall be to me a Son ? 
 
 6 And when he shall bring back into the inhabited world the Firstborn, he 
 
 7 saith,® And let all the angels of God worship him. And while in respect to the 
 angels he saith, 
 
 Who maketh his angels (messengers) winds, 
 And his ministers a flame of fire : 
 
 8 [He saith] in respect to the Son, 
 
 Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever ; 
 
 The sceptre of rectitude is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 
 
 9 Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity ; 
 Therefore, O God, thy God ' hath anointed thee 
 With the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 
 
 10 And, 
 
 Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth, 
 And the works of thine hands are the heavens. 
 
 1 Fragmentarily, as to substance : diversely ^ 
 as to mode. Or, in many portions and many 
 modes. 
 
 * Greek, "Ec y;<?. The absence of the article 
 emphasizing the character. 
 
 * Or, ages. 
 
 * 'Zv vipri\oli belongs in construction to ^(taflKrfv. 
 
 * rivo}Mevoi, not. being made, as Common Ver- 
 sion, nor, having become, as Revised Version, 
 nor, having proved himself, as Farrar: but 
 
 becoming (the simplest and most natural ren- 
 dering of the participle); i. e., thus in his 
 outward exaltation reaching the position that 
 corresponded with his measureless intrinsic 
 dignity. He thus became outwardly and 
 entirely what he was already in his essential 
 nature. 
 
 • Proleptic, equivalent to, will say. 
 
 ' Or, Ood, thy God. 
 
 191 
 
192 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 11 They shall perish, but thou continuest : 
 And they all as a garment will grow old ; 
 And as a vesture shalt thou roll them up, 
 And they shall be changed.' 
 
 12 But thou art the same, 
 And thy years shall not fail. 
 
 13 And in re.«pect to which of the angels hath he said at any time, 
 
 Sit thou at my right hand, 
 
 Until I shall make thine enemies thy footstool ? "^ 
 
 14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to render service for the sake of 
 them that are to inherit salvation ? 
 
 2 For this cause we ought the more earnestly to give heed to the things which 
 
 2 have been heard,^ lest, perchance, we drift away from them. For if the word 
 which was spoken through angels proved stedfast, and every transgression and 
 
 3 neglect received a rightful recompense, how shall we escape after neglecting so 
 great a salvation ? which having at the beginning been spoken through the 
 
 4 Lord, was by them that heard him confirmed unto us, God bearing them joint 
 attestation alike with signs, and portents, and various acts of power, and im- 
 partings of the Holy Spirit, according to his will. 
 
 5 For not unto angels did he put in subjection the coming world concerning 
 
 6 which we are speaking. But one in a certain place testified, saying. 
 
 What is a man that thou art mindful of him ; 
 Or a son of man that thou regardest him ? 
 
 7 Thou didst lower him some little below the angels ; 
 With glory and honor didst thou crown him ; 
 [Thou didst set him over the works of thy hands ;] 
 
 8 Thou didst subject all things beneath his feet. 
 
 For in subjecting to him all things, he left nothing unsubjected to him. But 
 
 9 as it is, we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But him who hath been 
 for some little made lower than the angels, even Jesus, we behold, because of 
 his suflTering of death crowned with glory and honor, that, by the grace of God, 
 
 10 he might, on behalf of every man,* taste of death. For it was befitting him, 
 because of whom are all things, and through whom are all things to render, as 
 
 » So Tiscbendorf, Ed. 8. Westcottand Hort, 
 after X A B r^ad, "As a garment, and they 
 shall be changed." Or, "As a garment also 
 shall they be changed." The reading would 
 seem to be from some MS. error. 
 
 « Literally, The footstool of thy feet. 
 
 ' Toi« o<cov(T9«r<ri, literally, the things which 
 were heard, answering to, oi \akTi\9ivTt^, which 
 were spoken. 
 
 * Pregnant construction apparently equiva- 
 lent to, that the death which he had taste! 
 might be for the benefit of every man — that 
 is, of universal humanity. So somewhat simi- 
 larly 1 Peter 4:6. " The gospel was preached 
 to the dead, that they might be juilged, in- 
 deed," equivalent to, "although they had been 
 judged, etc., they might live, etc." 
 
Ch. III.] TRANSLATION. 193 
 
 one bringing many sons unto glory, the Leader of their salvation perfect through 
 
 11 sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all 
 
 12 from One : ' for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, 
 
 I will announce thy name unto my brethren ; 
 In the midst of the congregation I will sing praise to thee. 
 And again, 
 
 I will put my trust in him : 
 
 13 And again, 
 
 Behold, I and the children that God gave to me. 
 
 14 Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, he himself also 
 similarly took part in the same ; that through death he may destroy him that 
 
 15 hath the dominion of death, that is, the devil ; and may deliver those who 
 
 16 through fear of death are, through all their lifetime, subjects of bondage. For 
 it is not, in sooth,* angels of whom he cometh to the rescue, but he rescueth the 
 
 17 seed of Abraham. Whence it behooved him to be in all things assimilated to 
 his brethren, that he may prove himself merciful and a faithful high priest in 
 
 18 things relating to God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For 
 wherein he hath himself suffered being tempted,' he is able to succor them 
 that are tempted. 
 
 3 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, contemplate the 
 
 2 apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus, as one who was faithful to him 
 
 3 that made him,* as was also Moses in all His house. For he hath been deemed 
 woi'thy of more glory than Moses, by how much more honor than the house 
 
 4 hath he who established it. For every house is established by some one ; ^ but 
 
 5 he who established all things is God. And Moses, indeed, was faithful in all 
 His house as a servant, for a testimony to that which was hereafter to be 
 
 6 spoken ; but Christ as a Son over His house ; whose house are we, if we hold 
 fast unto the end our confidence, and the glorying of our hope. 
 
 7 Wherefore, according as saith the Holy Spirit, 
 
 8 To-day, if ye shall hear his voice, 
 
 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation ; 
 In the day of the temptation in the wilderness : 
 
 9 Where your fathers tempted me in making pi-oof of me. 
 And saw my works during forty years : 
 
 10 Wherefore I was angry with this generation ; 
 
 » 'One,' that is, Father. 
 
 *A)j irou, a light and often slightly ironical 
 particle of affirmation, " Von knoio doubt- 
 less,'" ^^ you knoio I suppose," "' in sooth." 
 
 ^Or, ii)herein he hath suffered by being him- 
 self tempted. 
 
 * Or, appointed him. Compare 1 Sam. 12: 
 
 6. It reff'ps, doubtless, either to his human 
 birth or his mediatorial exaltation. 
 
 ^Has some subordinate and earthly founder, 
 while the universal and supreme founder is 
 God, to whom all are responsible, alike Moses 
 and Jesus. 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 [Ch. IV. 
 
 And I said, They always go astray in their heart ; 
 But they did not know my ways : 
 
 11 So that I swore in my wrath, 
 Tliey shall not enter into my rest. 
 
 12 Look to it, brethren, lest in any of you there shall be an evil heart of unbelief 
 
 13 in falling away from the Living God. But exhort one another, day by day, so 
 long as it is still called ' to-day,' ^ that of you there be no one hardened by 
 
 14 the deeeitfulness of sin. For we have become participants of Christ, provided 
 
 15 that we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end. In its 
 being said, 
 
 To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
 
 Harden not your hearts as in the provocation. — 
 
 16 For who,'^ when they heard, provoked him ? Nay, did not all they that came 
 
 17 out of Egypt through Moses? And with whom was he angry during forty 
 years? Was it not with them that sinned? And their carcasses fell in the 
 
 18 wilderness ! And to whom did he sware that they should not enter into his 
 
 19 rest, but to them that disobeyed him? And we see that they were not able to 
 enter in because of unbelief! — 
 
 4 Let us fear, therefore, lest haply, though there remaineth a promise of 
 
 2 entering into his rest, any of you may seem to have come short of it. For we 
 have, indeed, received the glad message just as did also they ; but the word of 
 their hearing did not profit them, not having united itself by faith with them ' 
 
 3 that heard it. For we enter into his rest as those who have believed ; accord- 
 ing as he hath said,* 
 
 So that I sware in my wrath. 
 They shall not enter into my rest ; 
 And this, indeed, his ^ works having been accomplished [and thus his rest 
 
 4 established] from the foundation of the world. For he hath said m a certain 
 
 place concerning the seventh day thus, And God rested in the seventh day 
 
 5 from all his works. And in this place again [he hath said], They shall not 
 
 6 enter into my rest. Since therefore it remaineth * that some may enter into 
 it, and they who formerly had the glad message did not enter in because of 
 
 • Or, so long as the '^ to-day" is still called 
 [in your ears]. 
 
 Tor who, etc. Abrupt break in the pre- 
 ceding thought and construction, in order to 
 sharpen the appeal he is about to make by 
 reminding them who they were that thus 
 sinned and perished. 
 
 * Or, not having united itself with faith in 
 them, etc. Or, <rvyKeKfpa<Tiievovi, not being 
 united by faith with them that heard, as, per- 
 
 haps, with Caleb and Joshua. But the id( a is 
 exceedingly harsh. 
 
 ^ The quotation seems made to prove by the 
 fact that some are now excluded from it, that 
 the rest did actually exist as a possibility for 
 some. 
 
 * 'His': the article being here, I think, as 
 often in Greek, equivalent to the pronoun. 
 
 * ' Kemaineth ': as a logical conclusion from 
 the language. 
 
Ch. v.] 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 195 
 
 7 disobedience, he again fixeth a certain day ; namely, ' To-day ;' saying in David 
 so long a time afterward (as hath been said before), 
 
 To-day, if ye shall hear his voice, 
 Harden not your hearts. 
 
 8 For if Joshua had brought them to their rest, he would not after this be 
 
 9 speaking of another day. So then there remaineth a sabbatic rest for the people 
 
 10 of God. For he who hath ' entered into His rest hath also himself rested from 
 his works even as God did from his own. 
 
 11 Let us be earnest, therefore, to enter into that rest, in order that none may fall 
 
 12 after the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and 
 effective, and sharper than a two-edged sword, and penetrating even to the 
 severing of soul and spirit — both joints and marrow — and sits in judgment on 
 
 13 the reflections and thoughts of the heart. And there is no created thing that 
 is not manifest in his presence ; but all things are naked and laid bare to His 
 eyes with whom is our account. 
 
 14 Having, therefore, a Great High Priest who hath passed through the heavens, 
 
 15 Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not an high 
 priest who cannot sympathize with our infirmities, but who hath been tried in all 
 
 16 respects like as we are, apart from sin. Let us approach, therefore, with boldness 
 to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace for seasonable 
 succor. 
 
 5 For every high priest, being taken from among men, is constituted in behalf 
 of men in things relating to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for 
 
 2 sins ; being able to deal tenderly with the ignorant and erring, since he is him- 
 
 3 self also encompassed with infirmity, and because of it is bound, as for the 
 
 4 people, so also for himself, to bring offerings for sins. And not unto himself 
 doth any one take the honor, but being called of God, even as was Aaron. 
 
 5 So also Christ did not glorify himself to be made a high priest ; but he [glori- 
 fied him] who said unto him, 
 
 Thou art my Son, 
 
 To day have I begotten thee ; 
 
 6 even as he also saith in another place, 
 
 Thou art a priest forever. 
 After the order of Melchisedec. 
 
 7 Who, in the days of his flesh,'' offering up" entreaties and supplications, with 
 
 * Karinavatv. If We refer this to Christ we 
 should give to the aorist its stricter rendering, 
 *' He who rested," " rested also himself: " but 
 if, as is more natural, to the believer, we ren- 
 der more idomatically "he who hath en- 
 tered," "hath himself rested." 
 
 ' Affirmation, by a striking example (the 
 agony of Gethsemane), of the first essential 
 priestly quality, his humanity (Aa/xiJavo/uitro? .'f 
 
 ' 'Offering up': on a single occasion (wpoo-tv^y- 
 «a«, aorist participle) ; namely, in the Garden. 
 
196' 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 [Ch. VI. 
 
 strong outcry and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and being 
 '8 hearkened to from his filial piety, although he was a Son, learned from that 
 9 which he suffei-ed obedience ; and being perfected, became to all who prove 
 
 10 obedient to him the author of an eternal salvation, being saluted by God as 
 high priest after the order of Melchisedec. 
 
 11 Concerning which matter^ our discoux'se is long and hard of explanation, 
 
 12 since ye have become dull in your hearing. For when, on account of the time, 
 ye ought to be teachers, ye again have need that one teach you ^ the rudi- 
 mentary principles of the oracles of God, and have come to have need of milk, 
 
 13 and not of solid food. For every one who partaketh milk is without experience 
 
 14 in the doctrine of righteousness : ^ for he is an infant. But solid food is for 
 the mature, who, on account of habit, have their perceptions disciplined for the 
 discriminating of good and evil. 
 
 g Wherefore passing from the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us 
 hasten on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead 
 
 2 works and faith toward God, of a teaching of baptisms and laying on of 
 
 3 hands, and of resurrection of the dead and an eternal judgment. And this will 
 
 4 we do, provided that God permit. For as to those who have been once for all 
 enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift and been made partakers of 
 
 5 the Holy Spirit, and tasted an excellent word * of God, and the powers of the 
 
 6 Coming World, and have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to 
 repentance, since they re-crucify for themselves the Son of God, and put him to 
 
 7 an open shame. For land that hath drunk the rain that cometh frequently 
 upon it. and bringeth forth herbage suitable for those for whose sake it is being 
 
 8 cultivated, partaketh in a blessing from God ; but when it beareth thorns and 
 briars, it is rejected ' and nigh unto a curse ; of which the end is for burning. 
 
 9 But we are persuaded of the better alternative concerning you, beloved, and 
 
 10 things akin to salvation, although we are thus speaking. For God is not 
 unrighteous to prove forgetful of your work, and the love which ye exhibited 
 
 11 toward his name in that ye ministered to the saints, and still minister. But we 
 desire that each of you display the same zeal for the full perfection of his hope 
 
 12 unto the end, that ye may not prove sluggish, but imitators of them who 
 
 13 through faith and patient endurance inherit the promises. For God, in making 
 promise to Abraham, since he could swear by none greater, sware by himself, 
 
 14 saying, 'Assuredly, blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply 
 
 15 thee': and thus by patient endurance he obtained the promise. For men 
 
 1 Either Christ's priesthood, or specially his 
 Melchisedec priesthood I think the former. 
 Certainly not Melchisedec himself. 
 
 'Or, that we teach you what are (riva for 
 
 Tii'a). 
 
 8 Or, in a discourse of righteousness. 
 
 *"Pr)ti.a,, utterance, ordinance; notAoyo*, word 
 as properly vehicle of thought, speech. 
 
 ^TiKTovaa, oioKijios, disapproved, discarded; 
 the figure is that of life and responsibility-. 
 
Ch. VII.] TRANSLATION. 197 
 
 16 indeed swear by the greater, and to them in every dispute a confirmatory limit 
 
 17 is the oath. In respect of which God, wishing to display more abundantly to 
 the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his counsel, interposed with 
 
 18 an oath ; that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible that God 
 should prove false, we may have strong encouragement, who have fled for refuge 
 
 19 to lay hold upon the hope that lies before us, which, as an anchor of the soul, 
 we have both sure and stedfast, and entering to the region within the veil, 
 
 20 where, as Forerunner on our behalf, Jesus entered, becoming, after the 
 
 ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC, A HIGH PRIEST FOREVER.' 
 
 7 For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met 
 Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed 
 
 2 him ; to whom also Abraham opportioned a tithe of all ; being first by interpre- 
 tation King of Righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is, King of 
 
 3 Peace ; -vithout father, without mother, without record of descent, having neither 
 beginning of days, nor end of life, remaineth a priest in perpetuity. 
 
 4 And observe how great is this man to whom also Abraham gave a tithe of 
 
 5 his choicest spoils — the patriarch. And while they who of the sons of Levi 
 receive the priesthood, have a command, according to the law, to tithe the 
 people — that is, their brethren, and that though they have issued from the loins 
 
 6 of Abraham — he who does not derive his descent from them has tithed Abraham, 
 
 7 and hath blessed the man who had the promises. And beyond all contradiction 
 
 8 the less is blessed by the greater. And here, indeed, dying men receive tithes ; 
 
 9 but there, he of whom it is testified that he liveth. And, as one might say, 
 
 10 through Abraham also Levi, who receiveth tithes, has been tithed ; for he was 
 still in the loins of his father when Melchisedec met him. 
 
 11 If indeed, therefore, acco>ii;:>/y'.<«^?ne^i^ was^ through the Levitical priesthood 
 (for on its basis the people have had their legislation) what need was'' there that 
 after the order of Melchisedec a different priest should arise, and not be called 
 
 12 after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being transferred, there becometh 
 
 13 also of necessity a transference of the law ; [but it has been transferred] ; for 
 he of whom these things are said, is member of another tribe, from which none 
 
 14 hath given attendance at the altar. For it is conspicuously evident that our 
 Lord hath arisen out of Judah, in respect to which tribe Moses spake nothing 
 
 15 concerning priests. And [the transfer] is still more abundantly evident if 
 
 16 [equivalent to, in that], after the likeness of Melchisedec, there ariseth a diflfer- 
 ent priest, who is made not after the law of a fleshly commandment, but after 
 
 17 the power of an indissoluble life. (For it is testified. 
 
 » As the author enters more fully on the subject of the priesthood, he repeats formally and 
 solemnly its three grand features: After the order of Melchisedec — high priest — forever. 
 » Or, were — were there. 
 
198 TRANSLATION". [Ch. VIII. 
 
 Thou art a Fr'iest forever, 
 
 After the order of Melchisedec) — 
 
 18 For there follows a disannulling of the preceding commandment because of 
 
 19 its impotence and unprofitableness — (for the law brought nothing to perfection) 
 — and the introduction in its stead of a better hope by which we draw near 
 to God. 
 
 20 And inasmuch as it is not without the swearing of an oath — for they indeed 
 
 21 have been made priests without an oath ; but he with an oath through him 
 that saith in respect of him, 
 
 The Lord sware and will not repent, 
 
 22 Thou art a priest for ever ; — 
 
 23 by so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better covenant. And they 
 indeed, "have in numbers been made priests because of their being hindered by 
 
 24 death from abiding [in the priesthood] ; but he, because of his continuing for- 
 
 25 ever, hath his priesthood untransmissible : whence also he is able to save unto 
 completeness ' those who come to God through him, since he always liveth to 
 make intercession on their behalf. 
 
 26 For such a High Priest was [also] befitting us — holy, innocent, undefiled, 
 
 27 being separated fi-ora sinners, and become higher than the heavens! who hath 
 not necessity day by day, as those high priests, previously, on behalf of their 
 own sins, to offer sacrifices, then for those of the people ; for this he did once 
 
 28 for all in offering up himself For the law constitutes men high priests, having 
 infirmity : but the word of the oath, which succeedeth to the law, the Son, who 
 is perfected for evermore. 
 
 8 And as a chief point in the things which we are saying.* we have such an 
 High Priest, who took his seat at the right hand of the throne of Majesty in the 
 
 2 heavens, as minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the 
 
 3 Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed for ofiJering both 
 gifts and sacrifices : whence it is necessary that also this one have somethirg 
 
 4 which he may offer. For if, indeed,' he were on the earth he would not even be 
 
 5 a priest, since there exist those who offer gifts according to the law, who* 
 minister to a copy and shadow of the heavenly, according as Moses hath been 
 divinely admonished when about to construct the tabernacle ; for look, saith 
 He, that thou make all things after the model which was shown to thee in 
 
 6 the mount. But as it is, he hath obtained a more excellent ministry by how 
 much also he is Mediator of a better covenant, that hath been enacted upon 
 
 7 better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless there would not 
 
 'EU TO TTotTeXes, absolutely, completely, to per- if indeed now, which seems less fitting to the 
 ferAion. connection. 
 
 * Literally, which are being said. ^Oirtvfs, such persons as. 
 
 * Ei iMv yop : other authorities read, «i y^iv oCk, I 
 
Ch. IX.] 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 1S9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 8 have been sought a place for a second. [But is not faultless.] For finding 
 fault [with it], he saith to them : ' 
 
 Behold the days come, saith the Lord, 
 
 That I will accomplish over the house of Israel and the house of 
 Judah a new covenant, 
 
 9 Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, 
 
 In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the 
 
 land of Egypt : 
 Because they did not abide in my covenant, 
 And I disregarded them, saith the Lord. 
 Because this is the covenant which I will institute'^ with the house of 
 
 Israel after those days, saith the Lord ; 
 Putting my laws into their understanding, 
 Also upon their hearts will I inscribe them. 
 And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people : 
 And they shall not teach each one his fellow-citizen, and each his 
 
 brother, saying. 
 Know the Lord : because all shall know me, from the least of them unto 
 
 the greatest : 
 Because I will be merciful to their iniquities, and of their sins I will 
 
 make mention no more. 
 In his saying " a new [covenant] " he hath rendered antiquated the first; and 
 that which is becoming antiquated and old is near to extinction. 
 
 9 NoAV the first [covenant] had ordinances of worship, and its sanctuary 
 
 2 belonging to this world. For a tabernacle was erected, the foremost one, in 
 which was both the lampstand and the table, and the setting forth of the loaves 
 
 3 [shew bread] ; which is called sanctuary [the Holy place]. And after the second 
 
 4 veil, the tabernacle which is called Holy of holies ; having a golden censer, and 
 the ark of the covenant overlaid all around with gold, wherein was a golden pot 
 holding the manna, and the rod of Aai'on that budded, and the tables of the 
 
 5 covenant ; and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat ; of 
 which things we cannot now speak severally. 
 
 6 And these things having been thus arranged, into the foremost tabernacle 
 
 7 indeed, the priests enter' continually, accomplishing their sacred services; but 
 into the second one, once in the year the high priest alone, not without blood, 
 
 8 which he offers for himself and the errors of the people : the Holy Spirit show- 
 
 iSome texts read a«Tou«, which requires 
 "finding fault with them"; but the whole 
 connection implies fault in the covenant, and 
 the reading avxoU, attested by B, seems de- 
 cidedly preferable. 
 
 ^ Aiafl^o-o/otac, I will Covenant, institute, accom- 
 plish. 
 
 ^ Ei<ria<Ti»', ' enter continually '; historical pres- 
 ent; the author transports himself hack into 
 the time of the tabernacle and its service. 
 
200 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 ing this, that the way into the holiest of all hath not yet been manifested, 
 
 9 while the foremost tabernacle still hath position ; which is a parable for the 
 
 [then] present time, in accordance with which [parable] are offered both gifts 
 
 and sacrifices that cannot render perfect in the conscience him who offereth 
 
 10 service, [consisting] only in meats and drinks, and various immersions^fleshly 
 ordinances imposed until the season of reformation. 
 
 11 But Christ making his appearance, a High Priest of the good things that are 
 to come, by^ the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands — 
 
 12 that is to say, not of this creation ; and not through the blood of goats and 
 heifers, but through his own blood, entered once for all into the holy place, 
 
 13 procuring^ [for us] an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and of 
 bulls, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling them that are defiled, sanctifieth 
 
 14 unto cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, 
 through an eternal spirit, offered himself blameless unto God, cleanse our con- 
 science from dead works unto the serving of the living God. 
 
 15 And for this cause he is Mediator of a new covenant, in order that by a 
 death taking place for the redemption of the transgressions committed under 
 the first covenant, they who have been called may receive the promise of the 
 
 16 eternal inheritance. For where there is a testament,* there must be necessarily 
 
 17 adduced the death of the testator. For a testament becometh valid in the case 
 of the dead, since [look] whether it, perchance, hath any force while the 
 
 18 testator liveth. Whence neither hath the first covenant been inaugurated with- 
 
 19 out blood. For when every commandment had, according to the law, been 
 spoken by Moses to all the people, taking the blood of the heifers and the 
 goats with the water and scarlet wool and hyssop, he sprinkled both the book 
 
 20 itself and all the people, saying. This is the blood of the covenant which God 
 
 21 commanded unto you. And the tabernacle too, and all the vessels of the 
 
 22 service, he in like manner sprinkled with blood. And, as one may say, all 
 things are, according to the law, sprinkled with blood, and apart from the 
 
 23 shedding of blood there is no remission. It is necessary, therefore, that while 
 the copies of the things in the heavens are cleansed with these, the heavenly 
 
 24 things themselves be cleansed with better sacrifices than these. For into no 
 material sanctuary did Christ enter, the antitype of the true, but into heaven 
 
 25 itself, now to be manifested in the presence of God for us ; and not that he may 
 oftentimes make an offering of himself, even as the high priest entereth into the 
 
 ^ ' By ', that is, through, by means of. 
 
 ^'Evpintvo';, not, having procHred, hut procur- 
 ing, wliich lie formally and fully accomplished 
 by the actual entrance. 
 
 *Ata9i)itT), a testnmentnry disposition, a will, a 
 covenant. The word here slips for a moment 
 half insensibly from the meamng oi covenant 
 
 to that of testament, turning on the pivot of a 
 common word (iiaC^itij), through a common 
 element of meaning (dispensation, arrange- 
 ment), and related by a common demand for 
 a death, as seal of the covenant and condition 
 of the testament. 
 
Ch. X.] 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 201 
 
 26 holy place yeai' by year with alien blood (since thus he must have necessarily 
 suffered many times since the foundation of the world), but as it is/ once for 
 all, in the consummation of the ages he hath been manifested through his sacri- 
 
 27 fice for the doing away of sin. And inasmuch as for men it is reserved once 
 
 28 to die, and after this a judgment, so also Christ, being once for all offered to 
 bear the sins of many, shall a second time, apart from sin, unto those who look 
 for him, appear for salvation. 
 
 10 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image 
 of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer 
 
 2 in perpetuity, make perfect those that engage in them. Since then would they 
 not have ceased to be offered, because that the worshipers, having once for all 
 
 3 been cleansed, would have no longer any consciousness of sins ? But there is 
 
 4 in them year by year a renewed remembrance of sins. For it is impossible that 
 
 5 the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore as he entereth 
 into the world, he saith, 
 
 6 Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not ; 
 But a body didst thou prepare for me ; 
 
 In holocausts and sin offerings thou didst not have pleasure. 
 
 7 Then said I, Lo, I am come, 
 
 (In the roll of the book it stands written concerning me)," 
 To do thy will, God. 
 
 8 Above while saying, Sacrifices and offerings and holocausts and sin offerings 
 thou wouldest not, nor didst have pleasure in (such as are offered according to 
 
 9 the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away 
 
 10 the first that he may establish the second. By which will we have been 
 sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 
 
 11 And every priest, indeed, standeth ministering day by day, and offering many 
 
 12 times the same sacrifices, such as never can take away sins. But this one, after 
 offering one sacrifice for sins forever, took his seat ^ at the right hand of God, 
 
 13 henceforth awaiting till his enemies be placed as a footstool of his feet. For 
 
 14 by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. 
 
 15 And the Holy Spirit also testifieth for us. For after having said before, 
 
 16 This is the covenant which I will establish with them 
 In those days, saith the Lord ; 
 
 Giving my laws upon their heart, 
 
 1 Nuvi it, but as it is; doubtful, perhaps, 
 whother this is the antithesis of Iva woAAaKu 
 jrpo(T(^epjj, ver. 25 («?r«l eiti.-it6iTiJ.ov being then 
 thrown into parenthesis), or of iroAAaicis irafleii', 
 ver. 2(i, which in that case is released from 
 the parenthesis. In any case the e'jr«l «5«t is 
 
 merely logical, inferring the singleness and 
 finality of his entrance from the fact that it is 
 thej^7's^ and only one. 
 
 *0r, it is prescribed to me. 
 
 •Or, took his seat forever. 
 
202 TRANSLATION. [Ch. XL 
 
 17 Even upon their understanding will I inscribe them, 
 
 And of their sins and their iniquities I will no longer have remembrance. 
 
 18 But where there is remission of these there is no longer an offering for sin. 
 
 19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness for our entrance into the sanctuary in 
 
 20 the blood of Jesus, by a way new and living, which he consecrated through 
 
 21 the vail, that is to say, his flesh ; and [having] a great priest over the house 
 
 22 of God ; let us approach unto him with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, 
 
 23 having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. And having our bodies 
 washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope unwaver- 
 
 24 ing — for he is faithful who promised — and let us regard closely one another 
 
 25 for incitement unto love and good works ; not abandoning the assembling of 
 ourselves together, as is the custom of some ; but exhorting one another, and by 
 so much the more as ye behold the day drawing near. 
 
 26 For if we voluntarily sin, after receiving the recognition of the truth, there 
 
 27 I'emaineth no more a sacrifice for sins ; but a certain fearful expectancy of 
 
 28 judgment, and a fiery indignation' that is to devour the adversaries. One who 
 has violated the law of Moses, dies without compassion under two or three wit- 
 
 29 nesses : of how much sorer punishment, think ye, will he be deemed worthy who 
 has trampled under foot the Son of God, and counted unclean the blood of the 
 covenant with which he was consecrated, and done outrage to the Spirit of 
 
 30 grace. For we know him who said. Retribution is for me : I will recompense. 
 
 31 And again, ' The Lord will judge his people.' A fearful thing is it to fall into 
 the hands of the living God ! 
 
 32 But call to mind the former days in which after being enlightened, ye endured 
 
 33 a great conflict of sufferings; on the one hand being made a gazing stock by 
 reproaches and afflictions ; and on the other by being made participants with 
 
 34 them that were thus treated. For ye sympathized with the bondmen, and 
 received with joy the plundering of your possessions, knowing that ye had for 
 
 35 yourselves ^ a better and an abiding possession. Fling not away then your 
 
 36 boldness which hath a great recompense. For ye have need of endurance, in 
 order that by doing ' the will of God ye may gain the promise. 
 
 37 For yet a little— how little ! 
 
 He that coraeth will come, and will not linger. 
 
 38 But my righteous one will live from faith : 
 
 And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. 
 
 39 But we belong not to them that shrink back unto perdition, but to them that 
 are of faith unto the gaining of the soul. 
 
 XI But Faith is the assurance of what is hoped for; a conviction of things which 
 
 1 nupbs ^^Ao?, jealousy or wrath of fire. Fire being personified. 
 ' Or, knowing that ye had yourselves as a better, etc. (So K A.) 
 ' Or, after doing. 
 
Ch. XL] TRANSLATION. 203 
 
 2 are not seen. For in this the elders received their attestation. By faith we 
 
 3 recognize that the worhls have been framed by the utterance of God, so that not 
 
 4 out of things apparent hath sprung that which is seen. By faith Abel oHered 
 unto God a nobler sacrifice than Cain, through which he was testified to be 
 righteous, God bearing testimony over his gifts, and through it, after dying, 
 
 5 he still speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; 
 and he was not found, because God had translated him. For before the 
 translation he hath had the testimony borne to him that he hath pleased God. 
 
 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him ; for he who cometh to God 
 must have faith that he is, and becometh a rewarder to them that seek for him. 
 
 7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned concerning things that were not as yet 
 beheld, filled with pious fear, consti'ucted an ark for the saving of his house, 
 through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness 
 
 8 which is according to faith. By faith Abraham, being called that he should go 
 forth into the place which he was destined to receive for an inheritance, obeyed, 
 
 9 and went forth, not knowing whither he was going. By faith he sojourned in 
 the land of promise, as an alien land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, 
 
 10 heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking for the city that hath 
 
 11 the foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith also Sarah her- 
 self received power for the conception of seed,' even when past age, since she 
 
 12 counted faithful him who had promised. For which reason also there were 
 begotten from one, and him, too, as good as dead, even as the stars of heaven 
 in multitude, and as the sand which is along the margin of the sea, the innu- 
 merable. 
 
 13 In accordance with faith did all these die, not receiving the promises, but 
 seeing them from afar, and greeting them, and acknowledging that they were 
 
 14 strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that use such language show 
 
 15 clearly that they are seeking a country of their own.'^ And if, indeed, they had 
 had in mind that country from which they had gone forth, they would have had 
 
 16 opportunity to return to it. But as it is, they yearn for a better [fatherland], 
 even a heavenly. For which reason God is not ashamed to call himself their 
 God ; for he hath prepared for them a city. 
 
 17 By faith Abraham, being put to trial, hath ofl^ered up Isaac; and he who 
 
 18 had accepted the promises was oflfering up his only-begotten son, in respect to 
 
 19 whom it was said. In Isaac shall thy seed be called ; reckoning that God is 
 
 20 able to raise even from the dead; whence also he received him in a figure:^ 
 By faith also Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the things which were 
 
 21 in the future. By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, 
 
 22 and bowed in worship upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, in dying, 
 made mention of the departure of the sons of Israel, and gave commandment 
 
 ' Or, for the founding of an offspring. * naTpi5a,afntherla}id; Alford, a home. » Or, similitude. 
 
204 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 [Ch. xir. 
 
 23 concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden during 
 three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was fair, and they 
 
 24 did not stand in fear of the command of the king. By faith Moses, on being 
 
 25 grown up, refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh, choosing 
 rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to have a temporary 
 
 26 enjoyment from sin, accounting as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt 
 the reproach of Christ ; for he was looking away to the rendering of the reward. 
 
 27 By faith he quitted Egypt, not standing in fear of the wrath of the king; for 
 
 28 he endured as seeing [the king] that is unseen. By faith he hath observed'' the 
 passover and the sprinkling of the blood, in order that he who destroveth 
 
 29 the firstborn may not touch them. By faith they passed through the Red" Sea 
 as through dry land, which the Egyptians attempting to do, were swallowed 
 
 30 up. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after being encircled for seven days. 
 
 31 By faith Rahab, the harlot, did not perish with them that had proved disobedi- 
 ent, having received the spies with peace. 
 
 32 And what shall I say farther? For the time will fail me recounting con- 
 
 33 cerning Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthah ; David, and Samuel, 
 and the prophets : who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness! 
 
 34 obtained promises, stopped the mouths (;f lions, quenched the power of fire,' 
 escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were rendered mighty, proved 
 
 35 valiant in war, turned to flight embattled hosts of aliens. Women received 
 
 36 their dead by resurrection : and others were broken on a wheel, not accepting 
 
 37 deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others bore 
 trial of mockings and scourgings ; and, yet further, of bonds and im])risonment: 
 they were stoned, they were tempted,* they were sawn asunder, they died by 
 slaughter of the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being 
 
 38 destitute, afflicted, maltreated— of whom the world was not worthy— wandering 
 
 39 in deserts and mountains and caverns and the hollows of the earth. And these 
 
 40 all being witnessed to through their faith, received not the promise, God pro- 
 viding something better concerning us, that apart from us they should not be 
 made perfect. 
 
 12 Therefore ' let also us, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses encompass- 
 ing us, laying aside every weight, and our easily besetting nn* run enduringly 
 2 the race* that lieth before us, looking away unto the Leader and Perfectei^of 
 our faith, even Jesus, who, in view*' of the' joy that lay before him, endured a 
 
 'Or, instituted (irtnoCriKev). 
 
 ^'Eireipiff0ri(rav ; but far more probable, would 
 seem alike in the rhetorical and historical 
 ooniiection, iirp-qae-qiTav, they were burned; a 
 chiinge which may have been easily made, 
 though the reading is without MS. authority. 
 
 ^toiyapovv, therefore ; a long, weighty, em- 
 phatic particle (to»', ye, ipa^ olv, by this, that is 
 to sny, then, now), 1 Thess. 4 : 8. 
 Or, clinging, enfo/dinff. 
 
 ^'Avwi/, literally, contest, struggle. 
 
 ^'AcTt, in face of, in exchange for. 
 
Ch. XIL] translation. 205 
 
 cross, making light of shame, and hath taken his seat at the right hand of the 
 
 3 throne of God. For consider earnestly him who hath endured such contradic- 
 tion at the hands of sinners against himself, ' that ye be not wearied out and 
 
 4 utterly fainting in your souls. Ye have not yet ^ resisted unto blood in your 
 
 5 struggle against sin ; and ye have forgotten the exhortation which discourseth 
 with you as with sons. 
 
 My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, 
 Nor faint when thou art reproved by him : 
 
 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, 
 And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 
 
 7 It is for discipline that ye endure ; God is dealing with you as sons ; for what 
 
 8 son is he whom his father chastiseth not ? And if ye are without chastisement, 
 of which all [sons] have become partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 
 
 9 Then,^ did we have the fathers of our flesh as chasteners, and give them heed, 
 [and] shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of our spirits, and 
 
 10 live? For they indeed chastened us with reference to a few days, according to 
 their own pleasure ; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his 
 
 11 holiness. And all chastening for the present, indeed, seemeth to be not matter 
 of joy, but of pain ; yet afterward it yieldeth a peaceful fruit of righteousness 
 to them that have been disciplined thereby. 
 
 12 Wherefore right ye up the relaxed hands and the palsied knees. 
 
 13 And for your footsteps make ye level pathways ; that what is lame be not 
 turned out of the way, but rather be healed. 
 
 14 Pursue after peace with all, and sanctity, without which none shall look 
 
 15 upon the Lord. Watching carefully lest there be any falling short of the grace 
 of God ;* lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and by means of 
 
 16 it the many be defiled ; lest [there be] any fornicator or profane one, like Esau, 
 
 17 who for one meal sold his own birthright. For ye know that afterward, when 
 he would fail inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place ^ for 
 repentance), although he sought it earnestly with tears. 
 
 18 For ye have not drawn near to a palpable [and material] mountain,® and to 
 
 19 enkindled fire,^ and to darkness and gloom and tempest, and to the sound of a 
 trumpet, and a voice of uttered words, which they who heard refused, entreating 
 
 > Or, themselves, eovrou's, a x D E. 
 
 ' Probably here of internal and spiritual 
 struggle. 
 
 "Etra, more commonly explained here as 
 furthermore; but, I think, erroneously. I take 
 it as the familiar Greek particle of surprise 
 and emotion ; then, emphatic as often in Eng- 
 lish. To T0U9 jieV, oil itoKv (if) fiaAAoc would regu- 
 larly correspond. 
 
 * Or, lest any one [be] lacking the grace of 
 
 God — lest any root, etc. The ti-n n? perhaps 
 takes up the broken construction. 
 
 * For effectual repentance ; his regret was 
 too late -..nd unavailing. 'It'; namely, the 
 blessing of the birthright. 
 
 *'opei, read by Tischendorf, and apparently 
 demanded by the antitheses. 
 
 ' Or, to a palpable mountain and burning 
 with fire. 
 
£0G TRANSLATION. [Ch. XIII. 
 
 20 that no further discourse be addressed to them. For they endured not the injunc- 
 
 21 tion, Even if a beast touch the mountain it shall be stoned ; and, so fearful was the 
 
 22 spectacle, Moses said : I am terrified and trembling ! But ye have approached 
 unto Mount Sion, and the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 
 23 and to myriads of angels, a festal company,' and to a congregation of first- 
 born ones who are registered in heaven, and as judge to the God of all, and to 
 
 24 the spirits of righteous ones made perfect, and to Jesus, Mediator of a New 
 Covenant, and to a blood of sprinkling that speaketh more mightily than that 
 
 25 of Abel.^ See that ye refuse not him who is speaking. For if they escaped not 
 when they refused [to listen] to him who uttei-ed the divine warning on earth, 
 much rather [shall not] we who turn away from him who [uttereth it] from 
 
 26 the heavens. Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath promised, 
 saying : Yet once for all I will shake not only the earth, but also heaven. And 
 
 27 this ' yet once for all ' shows the removal of the things which are shaken, as 
 things that have been made, that the things which are not shaken may remain. 
 
 28 Wherefore, let us, since we receive a kingdom that is unshaken, cherish thank- 
 fulness, through which we may acceptably serve God with reverent awe and 
 
 29 fear. For also our God is a consuming fire. 
 
 13 Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful of the entertaining of 
 
 2 strangers: for thereby some have unawares entertained angels. Remember 
 
 3 those in bonds as bound with them ; them that are ill treated as being your- 
 
 4 selves also in the body. Be marriage held in honor among all, and its bed 
 
 5 undefiled : for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Be your disposition 
 without avarice, satisfied with your present goods ; for he himself hath said, I 
 
 6 will in no wise leave thee, nor in any wise abandon thee. So that with confi- 
 dence we may say. 
 
 The Lord is a helper unto me, and I will not be afraid ; 
 What shall a man do unto me? 
 
 7 Bear in memory those who were your leaders, such as spoke to you the word 
 of God ; and surveying the issue of their course of life, imitate their faith. 
 
 8 Jesus Christ is yesterday and to-day the same, and forever. Be not drawn aside 
 
 9 by various and strange teachings. It is an excellent thing that our hearts be 
 established with grace, not with meats with which they that were conversant, 
 
 10 were not benefited. We have an altar from which they have no license to eat 
 
 11 who serve the tabernacle. For of whatever animals the blood is borne into 
 the sanctuary by the high priest, of these the bodies are burned outside of the 
 
 12 encampment. Wherefore also Jesus, that he might by his own blood sanctify 
 
 13 the people, suffered without the city. Therefore let us go forth unto him 
 
 14 without the camp, bearing his reproach: for we have not here an abiding city, 
 
 ' Or, and to myriads, a festal host of angels. *0r, more mightily than Abel. 
 
Ch. XIII.] TRANSLATION. 207 
 
 15 but we seek that which is to come. Through him, therefoi-e, let us offer up 
 always a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips making acknowledg- 
 
 16 ment to his name. And of doing good and of communicating be not forgetful ; 
 
 17 for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey those that have the leader- 
 ship of you, and submit to them. For they themselves watch sleeplessly for 
 your souls, as having to render an account; that they may do this with joy, 
 and not with sighing : for this were unprofitable to you. 
 
 18 Pray for us : for we persuade ourselves that we have a good conscience, wish- 
 
 19 ing in all things to conduct ourselves becomingly. And I the more exceedingly 
 exhort you to do this, that I may the sooner be restored to you, 
 
 20 And may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead, in the blood 
 
 21 of an eternal covenant, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, perfect 
 you thoroughly in every good work unto the doing of his will, working in you ^ 
 that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory 
 forever and ever. Amen, 
 
 22 And I beseech you, brethren, bear with my word of exhortation ; for I have 
 
 23 written to you in all brevity. Know that our brother Timothy has been set at 
 liberty ; with whom, if he come quickly, I shall see you. 
 
 24 Salute all them that have the guidance of you, and all the saints. Those from 
 Italy salute you. 
 
 25 Grace be with you all. 
 
 ^'Y/ilv; a somewhat better attested reading, rnxlv, us. But the two words, becoming alike 
 in sound, were often confounded in the MSS., and here vi^-iv seems far more probable. 
 
4 
 
 ^ 
 
 <^\W 
 
 Date Due 
 
 ;:a^5 
 
 MAR 4 "^ f 
 
 ^ 
 
 -'^Zl^ltt-r ^ 
 
M t) 
 
 <- it