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BIBLICAL COMMENTARY

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,
IN CONTINUATION OF THE WORK OF OLSHAUSEN.

DR JOHN H. A. EBRARD

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IX THE UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

BEY. JOHN FULTON, A.M.,

GARVALD.

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MDCCCLIII.

PRINTED BY ROBERT PARK, DUNDEE.

CONTENTS.

Page.
Introduction, . . . - . . .1
The Exordium, ...... 9

PAET FIRST.
The Son and the Angels, . . 29
SECTION FIEST.
The Son is in himself superior to the Angels, . . 32
A practical intermediate Part, .... 63
V SECTION SECOND.
In the Son Man is raised above the Angels, . 70
PART SECOND.
The Son and Moses, . ... 113
SECTION FIEST.
The New Testament Messiah is in himself, as Son, superior to
Moses, . . . . . . 115
Intermediate Passage of a hortatory kind, . . . 130
SECTION SECOND.
In the Son Israel has entered into its true rest, . . 139
PART THIRD.
Christ and the High Priest, . . . . .173
SECTION FIRST.
Christ and Aaron, . 17o
Intermediate Part of a hortatory kind, . . . • 188

VI CONTENTS. Page.
SECTION SECOND.
The Messiah, as a High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, is
a superior High Priest to Aaron,

210

PART FOURTH.
The Mosaic Tabernacle and the Heavenly Sanctuary, * . • 242
SECTION FIRST.
The two Tabernacles correspond to the two Covenants, . 243
SECTION SECOND.
The construction of the Mosaic Tabernacle, . . . 257
SECTION THTRD.
The Service of the Tabernacle. The Blood of the BuUocks and
the Blood of Christ, . . . . . 279

PART FIFTH.
The laying hold on the New Testament Salvation, . . 312
SECTION FIRST.
Theme of the Exhortation, ..... 313
SECTION SECOND.
First Motive. Danger and consequences of falling away, . 320
SECTION THIRD.
Second Motive. Calling to mind their former Faith, . 323
SECTION FOURTH.
Third Motive. The historically demonstrated power of Faith, 329
SECTION FIFTH.
Fourth Motive. The blessing of Chastisement, . 352
SECTION SIXTH.
Fifth Motive. The choice between Grace and Law; a choice
between Salvation and Judgment, . . 3g2
SECTION SEVENTH.
Concluding Exhortations, . 3gw

CONTENTS. Vll
APPENDIX.
ON THE DATE, DESTINATION, AND AUTHOR OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.
CHAPTER FIRST. l'jge.
The Circle of Readers, ..... 379
CHAPTER SECOND.
Time of Composition, ... . 383
CHAPTER THIRD.
Whether written originally in Greek, . . . 389
CHAPTER FOURTH.
The Writer. A) External Testimonies, . . .394
CHAPTER FIFTH.
Continuation. B) Internal Reasons, . . . 407
A) Particular Intimations, ..... 408
B) The Doctrinal Import, . ... 409
C) Words and Phrases, . . . . .415
D) The Style, ...... 417
CHAPTER SIXTH.
Conclusion. The particular Hypothesis, . . . 420
Literature, ...... 430

INTRODUCTION.

The Lord Jesus Christ has said : Search the Scriptures, for
they are they which testify of me. The Holy Scriptures of the
old covenant testify of Christ, and that not merely because
particular prophecies pointing to Christ are to be found here and
there in them : The entire history of the revelation of God in
the old covenant is one great preintimation of the future Mes
siah ; and this /aci-revelation and /aci-prophecy formed the
condition and the basis of the particular won?-prophecies which
God gave in a supernatural manner by his special instruments.
It is wrong to overlook this unity of basis ; but it is equally so to
attempt to derive these particular word-revelations as develop
ments from that basis, and to overlook their properly supernatural
character. In the garden of Eden immediately after the fall,
God directs the hope of the human race to a son of the woman,
who is to break the power of the serpent ; Eve exults in her first
joy as a mother — she has born a man child, and with him she
has received Jehovah back again ; she regards her child as the
promised one who is to win back for men the favour, nearness,
and possession of Jehovah. She is mistaken. The human race
must first go deep downwards in order to be able to rise upwards
— yes, it must pursue an ever downward course, all human
greatness must be brought low, until humanity is so humbled as
to be capable of placing itself in a purely receptive relation
towards the salvation provided ; then, and not till then, will the
woman's seed be given to it ; for it cannot produce that seed. —
This is the fundamental law of all revelation and all prophecy in
the Old Testament.

INTRODUCTION.

After that judicial visitation by which the degenerate race of
man was buried and baptized (immersed, sunk) in the flood,
Noah, who came forth from this baptism as the father of a new
humanity, the second Adam of the old covenant, lays on Shem's
head the blessing that the Lord shall be his God ; Canaan shall
serve Shem, Japhet shall live with Shem in peace and friendship.1
And when the families of men, five generations after Noah, are
separated from each other, the promise is made to the Shemite
Abraham on account of his faith, that his posterity shall form the
central point of a future reunion of mankind in the blessing. But
not until after three generations of affliction will God put the seed
of Abraham in possession of the inheritance promised to him
(Gen. xv.) ,
Here begins the operation of that wonderful principle of delay,
according to which the laet part of a promised epoch is extended
anew to a period embracing several epochs, and the last of these
is again distributed into several epochs, and so forth. The third
generation after Abraham, that of Joseph, with which the afflic
tion properly speaking first begins, lengthens itself out again to
three generations. On the expiration of these comes the promised
redemption of the seed of Abraham from affliction (Gen. xv.),
but in such a manner as that the redemption then first begins,
and this too only typically and preliminarily. Israel is redeemed
from the Egyptian bondage; as in Noah the human race, so
under Moses the seed of Abraham passed through a baptism, and
came forth from a baptism in the Bed Sea ; Israel was emanci
pated through Moses, but came not through Moses into its
rest, into the possession of the promised land. Joshua con
ducted it into the land, but the land was not yet entirely
possessed, Israel continued to be harassed and oppressed by the
heathen, and the last forty years previous to the battle at
Ebenezer were truly again years of bondage. Being ao-ain
delivered by Samuel, the people obtained in Saul a king, but not
after God's heart, full of carnal timidity and carnal courage,
insolent and faint-hearted. The king after God's heart, David'
must again himself reproduce the destinies of the whole seed of
1 To dwell in the tents of any one = to be hospitably received bv
any one. - j

INTRODUCTION.

Abraham in his own individual life, and, through much tribula
tion, enter into glory. But yet his reign was one of war
and conflict, not of peace, and the triumphing prince of peace,
Solomon, was after him.
Doubtless there was given in David a fulfilment of the old
promises of salvation, but one that was merely human, therefore
lying under the curse of everything human, and liable to pass
away. Hence there was opened up to David by means of the
prophet Nathan (2 Sam. vii.) a second perspective view of the
promised salvation, in the fulfilment of which, however, the same
law of delay obtains as in the first. Not David, but his seed after
him shall build a house to the Lord; for him the Lord will build
a house, and will be his father, and he shall reign with God for
ever. David immediately perceives, and rightly (2 Sam. vii. 19 ;
comp. chap, xxiii. 1), that this wonderful prophecy " points to
the distant future," and represents the form of " a man who is
God." And, in like manner, Solomon, when he Consecrates the
temple of stone (1 Kings viii. 26 — 27) acknowledges that that
prophecy of Nathan's is not yet fulfilled by this act. Therefore,
when Solomon sought, by intercourse with the nations, by mar
riage and philosophy, to break through the limits of the Mosaic
law, he wrongly anticipated a freedom which was to become
possible only through the new covenant, plunged himself and his
people into idolatry, and brought about a deep national decline ;
and so his proverbs and his song of songs are placed as monu
ments, not merely of his wisdom, but at the sametime also of his
folly, among the Chethubim of the Old Testament canon.
Solomon's temple of stone then, was only a first, a provisional
fulfilment of Nathan's prophecy. Under him, and after him,
the kingdom, power, and glory of Israel fell more and more into
decay, and as ungodliness increased, the prophets, and Elias
among the number, looked around for the judgments of God.
But to him it was revealed that the Lord is not in storm and fire,
but in the still small voice ; and Joel, too, uttered the same
truth. The people deserve indeed even now judgment and
destruction ; but with the judgment the Lord will grant forgive
ness; He will first pour out His Spirit, and then come to judgment.
Redeeming grace is to go before judicial severity. The eye of
hope was now turned to redeeming grace ; the promised des-
a 2

INTRODUCTION.

cendant of David was more and more clearly revealed to the
prophets. He is not to be born in palaces ; as the first, so the
second David must be sought by the daughters of Zion in times
of sore travail, of heavy afflictions, by the sheepfolds of Bethle
hem (Mic. v. 5.) The daughter of the house of David, so
haughty under Ahaz, must, by unheard of sufferings, be brought
to conduct herself in a purely receptive manner as a maid
(TTohy) m order to bring forth the son, and she will then, no
longer trusting in her own strength, call him " God with us."
Israel, appointed as the servant of God to convert the heathen,
but altogether unfit for this work (Is. xlviii.), and himself an
idolater (Is. xliv.), is to be again brought into bondage by a force
coming from the Euphrates (Assyrian, later, from Is. xxxviii.
onwards, Babylonian) ; in the time of his subjugation the true
servant of God will come, will first work out by his atoning
sacrificial death the inward redemption, the forgiveness of sins
(chap, liii.), then convert the heathen (chap, liv.), and , finally
convert and deliver the still hardened Israel (chap. lxiv. — lxvi.,
comp. Rom. xi.) But here again comes in a delay. Not 70
years, as Jeremiah has prophesied, is the subjugation of Israel
under the heathen to last ; but as Daniel has revealed, 7 x 70
years, nay, as is immediately added by way of correction, still
longer (inasmuch as from the building of Jerusalem under
Nehemiah 7 x 62 years were to elapse.) After 70 years indeed,
Israel is to return to their land ; but the subjugation under the
heathen is to continue over five centuries. — Accordingly, the
rebuilding of the temple under Zerubbabel was again but a
type of the building of the temple already promised by Nathan,
which God himself was to undertake. And so Malachi, the last
of the prophets, directed the eye of the people to the messenger of
the Lord, who was soon to come to his temple, to visit and to sift
Israel, and to separate the wheat from the empty chaff (comp.
Matth. iii. 12.)
This signification and course of prophecy must of itself have
appeared to any one who gave attentive heed to the Old Testa
ment, and who in heart and mind belonged to that covenant • not
however, to the impenitent, not to the mass of the people of
Israel. Now the two books of the New Testament in which is
represented the insight of the spiritually-minded Israelites into

introduction.

the Old Testament revelation after it was brought to full maturity
by the Holy Spirit, are, the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle
to the Hebrews, to which, however, the address of Stephen (Acts
vii.) is to be added as a very important passage having the same
character. Stephen adduces from the collective history of the
Old Testament (in which he points throughout with special
emphasis to the principle of delay already noticed1) rather the
negative proof— that the law and the temple, although divine, are
not the highest and last form ofthe revelation and dwelling-place
of God. Matthew adduces rather the positive proof — that Jesus
is the promised son (seed) of Abraham and David, that in him,
therefore, the first prospect disclosed to Abraham (Gen. xv.), as
well as the s(econd opened up to David through Nathan (2 Sam.
vii.) have found their termination. Matthew, too, refers to the
same law of delay, when, in chap. i. 2 ff., he shews, that in
place ofthe three j-|yyn> Gen. xv., there came three great periods,
that of typical elevation until the time of David, that of decline
until Jeremiah, and that during which the house of David
was in a condition of poverty and lowliness until Mary. In con
ducting this proof, however, the Evangelist does not of course
take as the frame-work of his particular reasonings an exposition
of the Old Testament prophecy, but a record of the New Testa
ment fulfilment. The Old Testament prophecy is by Matthew
taken for granted as already known. The Epistle to the Hebrews,
on the contrary, goes out from the Old Testament, formally
developes the component parts of that dispensation in a treatise
systematically arranged, and shows how, in all its parts, it points
to Jesus. The history of Jesus is here taken for granted as
known. This method is more remote, more indirect, and more
philosophical than the other. — Stephen's practical aim was. to
defend himself from the charge of speaking blasphemy against
the law and the temple ; that of Matthew was to furnish the
Jewish Christians with a written substitute for the oral preaching
of the twelve. What practical necessity occasioned the writing
of the Epistle to the Hebrews ?
No book of the New Testament, and, in general, of the Holy
Scriptures, owes its origin to a mere subjective literary choice, to
1 Comp. my Crit. of the Gospel History, 2 ed. p. 689.

introduction.

a mere love of writing on the part of the author. The Epistle to
the Hebrews, accordingly, however systematic and almost scien
tific its contents are, was occasioned by a practical necessity.
The investigations concerning its author we must refer from the
introduction (to which they do not belong, and where they are
not as yet even possible) to the close of the commentary ; but, for
the better understanding of the epistle itself, some preliminary
observations respecting the occasion of it must needs be made.
It is evident from Acts ii. 5, and Acts xv., and Gal. ii., that
the Jewish Christians, though not resting their justification before
God on the Mosaic law, yet observed that law (Acts ii. 38, iii. 19,
iv. 12.) And this too was quite natural. For that law was not
only given by God, and not yet abrogated by him, nay, observed
even by Christ himself (Gal. iv. 4 s.), but besides this, being
national as well as religious, it had become so entirely a part of
the Israelitish customs and manner of life, it was so wrought into
the texture of the whole conduct and life of that people, that so
long as they were a people, and so long as Jewish Christians
were members of the Israelitish state, a renunciation of those
national customs was purely inconceivable. It may, indeed, be
doubted whether the Israelites who had become Christians, con
tinued to fulfil those legal observances which bore a more
optional character. It can scarcely be supposed, for example,
that every one who fell into a sin would bring the guilt or the
sin-offering into the temple. On the other hand, the manner of
preparing meats, the observance of the Sabbath, &c, remained
the same.
Indeed, until the destruction of Jerusalem, when God, by the
overthrow of the Israelitish state, put an end to Israelitish
nationality and customs, the hope of seeing Israel converted as a
whole, although it had been ever lessening, was not entirely given
up ; and this of itself was a reason for the Jewish Christians not
separating themselves from the Israelitish community. Thus the
Jewish Christians, or to speak more correctly, the Israehtes who
believed on the Messiah, were in the habit of frequenting the
temple for daily prayer. But the hatred of the unbelieving Jews
towards them grew more and more intense. Towards the end of
the fiftieth year they no longer suffer the presence of the
apostle Paul in the temple (Acts xxi. ss.), although they dare not

introduction.

yet openly cast him out as a Jewisli Christian, but avail them
selves of the pretext that he has taken a Gentile Christian into
the temple along with him. But that the time came when
Christians as such, Jewish Christians also, were no longer
suffered to appear in the temple, may be inferred from the Epistle
to the Hebrews. The persecution of the Christians under Nero
may have emboldened the Jews ; their courage rose when they
saw the Christians sacrificed also by the Romans. This period
of affliction for the church in Jerusalem may have begun
in the sixtieth year. There were, however, weak ones in whose
minds conscientious scruples might be awakened by this exclusion
from the Theocracy of the old covenant. They were not yet
able to walk without crutches. They were afraid lest with the
privilege of access to the temple and of fellowship with the
commonwealth of Israel, they should lose at the same time their
claim to the common salvation of God. Such weak ones are not
to be sought among the older members of the church who had
already grown grey in Christianity, but rather among the
neophytes and such as were on the point of conversion. Con
version to Christianity threatened to come to a stand. And yet
it was the last hour ; and whoever was to be saved from the judg
ments impending over Israel must be saved now. In these
circumstances the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, designed
for a certain circle of neophytes and catechumens then existing ;
useful for all in future times who should occupy an analogous
position. The aim of this epistle is to prove from the nature and
principal elements of the old covenant itself, that the revelation
and redemption through the Messiah promised in the old cove
nant, is represented even in the old covenant as an absolute
revelation, as sufficient in itself, by which the Old Testament
types become superfluous.

THE EXORDIUM.

(Chap. i. 1—3.)
While all the rest of the New Testament epistles begin by
mentioning the name and office of their authors, as also the
churches for which they are intended, this form of introduction
which was usual in ancient times is wanting in the Epistle to the
Hebrews. Some have sought to account for this circumstance
by saying that the author intended to compensate for the effect of
a formal superscription by the solemn and highly oratorical style of
the introduction. This supposition, however, will not suffice fully
to explain the case. The impression that would have been made on
the readers and hearers by the name of an apostle or some other
authoritative person, might indeed be compensated by the im
pression which the lofty utterance of the heart and mind of such
a person could not fail to produce ; they could, so to speak, hear
the man from the force of the toords, and forthwith believe that
they saw him before them. But the want of the superscription
itself was not thereby compensated. We can scarcely conceive
that any one would have addressed a letter to a church without
mentioning his name at all. It only remains therefore to be
supposed, that this writing which we hold under the name of the
Epistle to the Hebrews was originally accompanied by a shorter
epistle properly so called, and therefore that the epistle itself was
not one in the proper sense of the term. And this supposition is
confirmed by a number of considerations drawn from the sub
stance of the epistle, to which our attention will be directed at the
proper time, and of which we will here specify some of the most
striking. The hortatory passages are not, as in the most of the

10 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.

other epistles, closely engrafted on the didactic, so that the
doctrinal parts pass naturally into the practical ; but the former
are wound up in a strictly scientific manner without any hortatory
and practical side-glances, and the latter are abruptly placed
between the doctrinal sections (chap. ii. 1 — 3, iii. 1 — 19, v. 11
— 6, 12, &c.) The practical parts too, show a systematic form
the result of reflexion,— an intended transition to a new doctrinal
section is introduced in the form of a short hortatory or personal
remark (iii. 1, viii. 1.) The particular sections of the doctrinal
parts are, however, marked by a peculiar species oi formal super
scriptions, of which we shall soon have to speak, and the nature
of which can be seen from the translation which we have annexed
to the commentary. Moreover, the course of the investigation
and the reasoning in the doctrinal parts is often so intricate, so
many ideas are often compressed into few words, that we can
hardly suppose the object of the epistle was fulfilled by a single
reading before the assembled church (as we must suppose was
the case even with the most didactic of Paul's epistles, that to
the Romans, which however might easily be understood on a
first reading); but it rather appears, that this Epistle to the
Hebrews was designed, after having been read, to serve as a
groundwork for a formal course of instruction, very probably of
instruction for catechumens. This opinion is confirmed also by
the passages chap. v. 11 ss. ; vi. 1 ss., where the writer makes
some systematic remarks on the method of instruction to be pur
sued in the Christian Church ; with which may be compared
also the passage viii. 1, where again in a systematic form a
recapitulation is given of what has been said on to that place,
as the foundation of what is farther to be brought forward.
After all, then, we shall not be chargeable with undue boldness
if we maintain, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was, in respect
of its form, not an epistle in the proper sense, but a treatise. That
this assertion implies no denial of its having been written with a
practical aim is evident from what has been said in the introduc
tion ; all that we think and say is, that in respect of its form
it goes beyond the nature of an epistle, of a direct effusion in
which the writer transfers himself in spirit to his readers and
speaks to them although not without a plan (comp. the Epistle to
the Romans), yet always without the consciousness of system and

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3. 11
from the immediate impulse of the heart, and that it therefore
thoroughly bears the character of a systematic treatise. Hence
also we account for the absence of the address which is indispen
sable to every epistle. A mere verbal salutation by the person
who conveyed the writing could not supply the place of this
address, not even on the supposition of its being a treatise. It
would be too strange to suppose, that the author who had written
so much should not write a few additional lines with his own
name. These accompanying lines, however, in the case before
us, would be addressed not to the church, but rather to some
individual teacher in it, and we can easily see from this how they
might come to be lost.
That the writing was intended for a certain limited circle of
readers, not for a circle of churches, not even for one entire
church, is very evident from chap. iii. 6, v. 12. The persons
there addressed form quite a definite circle of persons represented
as undergoing a course of instruction. This, of course, does not
imply that the writing was not used for a similar object in all
analogous cases beyond this circle, and that, in this way, at a
very early period, it may not have obtained a circulation suited
to its high importance.
The three first verses, inasmuch as they develope the ground-
idea of the epistle, form a sort of introduction to the principal
parts which follow from ver. 4 onwards. The structure of the
period in these verses has justly been noticed by all commen
tators as remarkable for its beauty. The period is as perspicuous
and clear as it is long, rich, and complicated ; a fine succession
of thought expressed in a form finished even to the minutest
detail, gives it a claim to rank among the finest periods of the
Greek authors. The first verse gives forth in a majestic style
the ground-theme ofthe whole treatise. The revelation of God in
his Son is opposed to the revelations of God by the prophets as the
higher, as the one, undivided, absolute revelation. To confirm
this the person and loork of the Son are developed in ver. 2 — 3.
Ver. 1. The subject with the clauses in apposition to it forms a
series of parallel antitheses to the verbal-predicate with its
qualifying clauses. " God who has spoken to the fathers by the
prophets." AaXeiv is used in the sense of -ft-y to denote the

12 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
revealing utterance of God, in which sense it frequently occurs in
the Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 2, ix. 19, &c), and elsewhere in
the New Testament (Acts iii. 24 ; James v. 10 ; 2 Pet. i. 21.)
By the TraTepes here are meant, of course, not merely the patri
archs, but all those former generations of Israel that have preceded
the rifiels, those at present living; in a word: the forefathers.
The idea implied in irpo^nyiai is to be understood in a similarly
wide sense ; even in the Old Testament fc^} does not always
denote merely the prophet with reference to his special office, but
sometimes quite generally, every organ of divine revelation. It
is so used here. IIpoipfjTai, here, according to the context,
comprehends all Old Testament organs of revelation, in so far as
they were mere organs of God, in opposition to the Son, who,
according to ver. 3, was more than a mere organ. It is doubtful,
however, in what sense the preposition iv is to be understood.
The interpretation given by those who take irpo<pr)Tai, to denote
the writings of the prophets, and refer the iv to these writings, is,
on account of the parallel member iv vim, altogether untenable.
Much more may be said in favour" of that explanation which we
find already given by Thomas Aquinas, and afterwards adopted
by Beza, Carpzov, Alberti, Bleek, and others, that ep is to be
taken in the strictest and most proper sense in which it is used
in Greek. According to this, .iv cannot be referred immediately
to XaXelv (for the author surely does not intend to say that God
has spoken in the prophets — within them, — he rather says that God
has spoken to the fathers -by the prophets), but a>v must be
supplied. God was in the prophets and spoke to the fathers ; he
was in the Son and spoke to us. But although, in itself consi
dered, it might be proper enough to speak of God being in the
prophets (i.e. relatively through his Spirit), and in like manner
of God being in Christ (by the absolute hypostatic presence of
the Logos in him), still it is in the highest degree improbable,
that an author whose purpose it was from the outset to mark
with the strongest emphasis the difference between the Son and
the prophets, and the superiority of the former over the latter,
should have placed those two entirely different modes of the
indwelling of God parallel to each other by means of the same
expression. I decidedly agree therefore with the interpretation
of Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, and

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3. 13
Tholuck, that the iv here in both places has an instrumental
signification, and is to be understood in the sense of the Heb. 5,
" by." Granted that this use of the word cannot be shown in
the genuine Greek profane literature, there is nothing to prevent
our regarding it as a Hebraism. Bleek, indeed, thinks the
language of the Epistle to the Hebrews bears a so purely Greek
character, that we must hesitate to admit the supposition of a
Hebraism ; but how easily might such an unconscious Hebraism
slip from the pen of a native Israelite, who naturally thought in
Hebrew what he wrote in Greek, however careful he was to
construct his periods in genuine Greek ! And is not the use of oi
alcoves in ver. 2 likewise a Hebraism ? But are not unconscious
Hebraisms in the use of prepositions much more easily accounted
for in an author who in other respects writes good Greek, than
conscious Hebraisms in the use of nouns for which (as for oi
almvei) genuine Greek expressions (J> Koo-fio^, ra rrrdvTa) were
quite at hand ?
The adverbs iro\v/j.epm and 7roXuTpo7rw9, according to Tholuck
and others, have no specific intelligible meaning, because no airXoos
or icpdTral; stands opposed to them, but are used merely for the
sake of amplification. But aTrAco? and i^dira^, as we shall
immediately see, would not even have formed a right antithesis.
That a writing of which the tot verba tot pondera holds so true,
begins with an amplification, is a supposition to which recourse
will then only be had when every possibility of another interpre
tation has been cut off. Already several among the Fathers,
and then Calvin, Limborch, Capellus, J. Gerhard, Calov, and
Bleek, explain iroXvp.epm as pointing to the different times and
periods, TroXvTpoirm to the different ways and forms of the divine
revelation in the Old Testament dispensation. This interpre
tation, however, does not precisely bring out the idea of the
writer. nd\v/j,ep6j<; does not contain precisely a chronological
reference ; the antithesis is not that God has spoken often by the
prophets but only once by his Son (according to which less would
De attributed to Christ than to them), but the opposition is,
between the distribution of the Old Testament revelation among
the prophets, and the undivided fulness of the New Testament
revelation by Christ. IToAvyiiepiw? means not " many times,"
but " manifoldly," " in many parts." In like manner, the Old

14 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
Testament revelation is said to be one of many fomis, in oppo
sition to that rpoiros which was not one among the many, but the
one which outweighed the many, the absolute, which fully
corresponded with the ovaia. Thus we see how a airai; or
d7rXais could not follow in the opposite member of the sentence.
The real antithesis to iro\vp,ep<Jo<; and iroXvrpoirm'i lies in ver.
2, 3.
The time denoted by irakai is commonly explained of the time
before Malachi, with whom the succession of the prophets ceased.
But surely the writer does not mean to say specifically, that God
has spoken in times of old, but no more since these times. Hakai
is rather explained simply from the antithesis iir ia-^drov, &c,
without supposing that a remote and heterogeneous allusion is
made to the interval between Malachi and the Baptist.
Burt the expression iir ia^drov t&v rjfj,ep5)v tovtwv (that the
reading io-yd-rav is false may now be considered as fully esta
blished) with which we pass to the second member of the sentence
— the predicate, — stands in need of being interpreted itself.
Here also, the supposition of a Hebraism is indispensable, not
one that can be said to be either involuntary or voluntary, but
one that was quite as intended as it was necessary, inasmuch as
it relates to a dogmatical conception specifically Jewish. Formally
explained according to the Greek grammar, the words would
signify " at the end of these days." But what days are to be
understood by these % The aetas of the writer % But the
incarnation of Christ took place at the beginning not at the end
of the period. Or are we to understand the days ofthe prophets ?
But these did not reach down to the time of Christ ; and itdXat,
too would then form no antithesis. With reason, therefore,
have Bleek and others explained hf iaxdrov, &c, as equivalent
to the Hebrew Q^JJ n^PlMl- Conformably to the Old Tes
tament prophecy, the Israehtes distinguished the period of the
world which then was as the j-ftj-j Q^y from the period of
glorification which was to begin with the resurrection the Q^Sy
^pj; the advent and work ofthe Messiah was to form the tran-
sition from the one to the other, and this was therefore wont to
be viewed and denoted partly as the end of this time, partly also
as the beginning of the future. That the Messianic or " last "

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3. 15
time would again divide itself into two periods — that of the life
of Jesus in his humiliation, and that of his coming again in
glory — was as yet not at all known to the Jews, and the Chris
tians of the apostolic age had as yet no intuition at least of
the length of the intervening period, nay could not have such
an intuition, hence they included the whole period from the
birth of Christ on to his promised coming again in the eo"xa™
r/fiepai (Acts ii. 17 ; 1 John ii. 18.) In opposition to it then,
irdXai denotes the whole antecedent period, the time of the pro
mise of the Messianic prophecy which preceded the time of the
fulfilment. In the time of the fulfilment has God spoken to us by his Son.
The idea expressed in wto? needs limitation on two sides. Firstly,
vlos is not simply synonymous with X070? (John i.), it is nowhere
in the Holy Scriptures used to denote the only begotten qua
eternally pre-existent. And therefore, formally at least, the
ecclesiastical terminology goes beyond the biblical usage, when it
transfers the name Son to denote also the relation which that person
holds in the Trinity ; this transference, however, is indeed
perfectly justifiable, because he who with respect to his incar
nation is called vlo<s in Scripture, is the same who before his
incarnation existed from eternity with the Father. Indeed, the
doctrine of Scripture (John i. 14) is not that the eternal Logos
was united to a son of Mary, to a human nature in the concrete
sense ; but that the eternal hypostatical Logos became man,
assumed human nature in the abstract sense, concentrated itself
by a free act of self-limitation prompted by love, into an embryo
human life a slumbering child-soul, as such formed for itself
unconsciously and yet with creative energy a body in the womb
of the Virgin, and hence he who in the Scripture is called uto?
qua incarnate is one and the same subject with that which with
respect to its relation of oneness with the Father is called o X670?
or 6 fwvoyevrj<;. Nay, even qua incarnate he can only therefore
be called the Son of God because in him the eternal p,ovoyevij<;
became man. And hence, in the second place, we must guard
against explaining the idea involved in the vios from the relation
of the incarnate as man to the Father, as if he were called " Son"
in the sense in which other pious men are called " children" of
God. For it is evident even from the antithesis to the irpocpryrai,

16 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
chiefly, however, from the second and third verses, that vm is
the designation of the man Jesus qua the incarnate eternal
X070?. This is apparent chiefly from the absence of the article.
Exactly rendered, we must translate the words thus — " God
spake to us by one who was Son," who stood not in the relation of
prophet but in the relation of Son to him. If it were iv to5
vla>, then Christ would be placed as this individual in opposition
to the individuals of the prophets ; but as the article is wanting
it is the species that is placed in opposition to the species
(although of course Christ is the single individual of his species.)
Ver. 2. The description ofthe person ofthe vio<s begins in the
second verse, from which it evidently appears how God hath
revealed himself by Christ not Tro\vfiepa><} Kal TroXvTpoTrws, but
absolutely and perfectly. Christ was more than a human instru
ment, he was himself God.
The principal question in the interpretation of this verse is
whether the clause ov eOrjicev, &c, denotes an act which preceded
that described in the clause 5*' ov, &c, or one which followed it.
The meaning of the second clause is clear ; from it therefore we
must set out in our investigation.
Oi alibves (as in xi. 3) is used in the sense of the Hebrew D^V
Cttv'iy to denote the worlds, while in Greek it signifies only the
times. By the Son has God made the worlds ; we find the same
in John i. 1 ss. ; Col. i. 15 — 22. The eternal self-revelation of
God in himself, through the eternal utterance of his fulness in
the eternal personal word wliich God speaks to himself (John i. 1)
and in the breath of the eternal spirit, forms the ground and
therewith the eternal (not temporal) prius of the revelation of
himself proceeding from the will of the Triune in a sphere which
is not eternal, but one of time and space, which is not God but
creature. And as the will which called creation into being is the
will of the one Triune God, the Son and the Spirit were there
fore partakers in the work ; the world was made by the Father
through the Son.
Now, in what relation to this act does the act denoted by the
words ov ednnce KXr/povo/iov vavrcov stand ? Were we to regard
it as an act preceding the creation of the world, we might then

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3. 17
be tempted to explain it of the eternal generation ofthe Son him
self. But how in this case can an all things be spoken of which
the Son receives as an inheritance 1 How can it be said : whom
(the Son) he made heir, how can the Son be presupposed as already
existing, if it be his generation that is intimated in these words ?
The only sense then that can be affixed .to the words on this
hypothesis is something to the effect, that God already before the
creation of the world destined the Son, who was generated from
all eternity, to be its future possessor. But what practical aim
could such an idea have in the context, — not to say that a
before and after can have no place in eternity? We are,
therefore, compelled to turn to the other view, that of Tho
luck, according to which edtjice, &c, is to be understood of an
act of God performed in time towards the incarnate Son of God,
namely, that crowning of the incarnate one following upon his
sufferings, which is afterwards more particularly described in
chap. ii. ver. 9, and of which the Apostle Paul speaks in Phil. ii.
9 — 11. The Son of God having, out of eternal compassionating
love, laid aside the glory which he possessed in eternity (John
xvii. 5), and having in his incarnation come under the category
of time, and here again having glorified his inner being under
the form of a. human free will, and under the form of obedience
manifested his eternal love (Matth. xxvi. 39 ; Heb. v. 8, x. 7),
forthwith received back again that glory and honour (John xvii. 5),
received the dominion over heaven and earth from the Father's
hand as his crown and his just reward, and received this as the
incarnate, who still continues to be man, not divesting himself of
the nature which he once assumed (Heb. vii. 26, comp. with ix.
12, 24.) And thus it is shown at length in Heb. ii. 5, that in
him as their head and king mankind are exalted above the angels.1
1 We must here guard ourselves against a representation of this sub
ject which sprang up in the scholastic period, and passed also into the
period of the Reformation, chiefly into the Lutheran theology — a repre
sentation which unconsciously leads back to Nestorianism, and from
which, if one would escape its consequences without giving up itself,
there is no other outlet but Eutychianism. It is this — that the divine
and the human nature in Christ were two parts, or portions, or concreta,
which were united in the one person of Christ " as fire and iron are
united so as to make redhot iron,'' and that the one part, the divine,
always remained in possession of the &6£a, while the other part, the
B

18 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
In this then lies the great difference between Christ and the
prophets. The prophets were heralds of the promised future
inheritance ; Christ is the heir himself, the Lord and King in the
Kingdom of God. The inheritance, as it appeared to the
prophets, was still more or less limited to the people of Israel ;
at least the participation of the Gentiles in it appeared as yet
under the form of a reception of the Gentiles into the commu
nity of Israel ; the inheritance as it has appeared in the fulfilment,
is that kingdom of Christ which embraces the whole human
race (Ephes. ii. 19), nay heaven and earth (Ephes. i. 20 ss.)
human, was only raised to a participation in the hot-a at the exaltation
of Christ. When Eutyches taught (Mansi, torn. vi. p. 744): i< hvo
(j>vo-ea>v yeyevvrjoSai tov Kvpiov i)fia>v irpb rrjs evao'eats, jiera 8e tt)v evatriv piav
(jiio-tv (ehai), the acute Leo justly observed at the conclusion of the ep.
Flav. that the first clause (Nestorian), was quite as wrong as the second
(Monophysite.) Tarn impie duarum naturarum ante incarnationem
unigenitus Filius Dei dicitur, quam nefarie, postquam verbum caro
factum est, natura in eo singularis asseritur. The two natures, the
Divine and the human, the filius Dei and the filius Mariae, were not
first separately existent, so that their union constituted the entire Christ ;
but the Logos, retaining his natura divina, his Divine nature, and
laying aside the poptftr) 8cov, assumed in place of this the poptyt) SoiiKov,
i.e., he assumed the nature of men (an assemblage of properties, not
an existens), and thus both natures, the Divine and the human, must
now be predicated of him. As, if a king's son, in order to free his
brother imprisoned in an enemy's country, were to go unknown into that
country, and hire himself as servant to the prison-keeper, he would be
both a real king's son and a real servant ; the nature of a king's son be
longs to him (only not the /no/x^ij but also the Sofa and r«/u) of such), for
he would still be the son of a king ; but the nature of a servant also
belongs to him, for he really performs a servant's work and endures a
servant's sufferings. But such a person could never have arisen through
the union of a king's son with a servant. Never could it be said of
him as is said of Christ in the formula of concord (epit. ep. 8), the unio
personalis is not a mere combinatio, quia potius hie summa communio
est, quam Deus cum assumpto homine vere habet, or affirm. 6 : Quo-
modo homo, Mariae filius, Deus aut filius Dei vere appellari posset
aut esset, si ipsius humanitas (this is evidently understood as an existens
concretum) cum jilio Bei non esset personaliter unita. If we regard
the two natures as two subsistences or parts, constituting together the
one person, there remains then no way of escape from the extremest
Nestorianism except that to which Eutyches had recourse, namely, that
the one part participated in the properties of the other. Nestorianism
is therefore by no means the opposite of Eutychianism, but merely what
it presupposes. He who has no part in the former needs not the latter
to help him out. In " Philippism " lies the saving of our theology from
such errors.

THE EXORDIUM, T. 1 — 3. 19
Upon this, then, follows that second clause by whom also, &c,
simply by way of confirming and at the same also of explaining
the preceding. Christ was appointed heir of the universe, nay,
this universe has received its being through him. How proper
and natural is it, that he through whom the universe was made,
after having humbled himself and accomplished the gracious will
of the Father, should as his reward be also invested with the
dominion over the universe as with a permanent inheritance. —
The principal idea in KKnpovop,ia is not that of a possession
which any one receives through the death of another, but a
possession which he on his part can transfer as an inheritance to
his posterity, consequently, a permanent possession over which
he has full authority. (The passage chap. ix. 16 ss. would agree
with this interpretation if we were at liberty to translate SiaBtjicn
there by " testament." There too it would be the ic\r)p6vofio<;
himself who had heired the inheritance, not through the death
of another, but who by his own death had acquired the right to
transfer the inheritance to others. Still when we come to that
passage we shall find that there is no reason for departing from
the usual biblical signification of the word Siad^Kn.)
Ver. 3. The twofold idea which lies in the second verse is in
ver. 3 farther explained. These two things were said : that
Christ has been appointed in time (after the completion of
the redemption-work) to the theocratical inheritance of the
Kingdom of God, and that Christ is the eternal ground of the
entire universe. The second of these things is here repeated in
the apposition which belongs to the subject of the third verse : &v
aTravyaa/xa tt)? So^vs ical yapaKTnp tt}? v7roa-rdcreco<s avrov, fytpav
re rib rrdvra too prffian t»)? Swdfiecoi avrov ; the first in the
verb i/cddiaev, &c, wliich contains the predicate and the apposition
belonging to the predicate-idea Troir)adfievo<i, &c, consequently,
in the words /cadapwfibv rroinad^ievos roov a/Aaprt&v, itcddiaev iv
Segig, tt)? fieyaXaavvr)? iv tnJnrXot?. (For that rrovqaafievo<; is in
apposition not to the subject o? but to the predicate-idea con
tained in the verb, appears not only logically, from the idea
itself, but also grammatically, from the want of a ical before
Ka0apicrp,6v.) With regard to the reading, we may consider it as fully made
out after Bleek' s searching investigation, that the words t( Si
b 2

20 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
eavroii' before Kadaptap-bv and r)p,a>v after dp,aprt,&v are to be
cancelled. We proceed now to the^T-s^ member of the sentence — the sub
ject with its appositions. Chiefly the expressions diravyao-p,a
tt)? So^tj? and %apaicrr]p tt)? viroardaeo)<; require here a thorough
investigation. Erasmus, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Limborch, and
others have understood diravyacrpM, of the passive light, i.e. reflec
tion or reflected image which a lucid or illuminated body throws
on a (smooth reflecting) surface. According to this, Christ would
be represented here as an image or reflection of the Father's
glory, consequently, his hypostatical separate existence from the
Father is considered as presupposed, and emphasis laid on his
qualitative sameness with the Father. Others again, as Capellus,
Gomarus, Gerhard, Calov, Bleek, have understood d-jravyaap.a
rather as denoting the active light or the rays which continually
emanate from a shining body. According to this, the son
would be represented rather as a perpetual life-act of the Father.
But the first signification, as Bleek has shown, is, although
etymologically defensible, still against the grammatical usage ;
the second, on the contrary, appears to me to be not justifiable
on etymological grounds, or at least to rest on unprecise expres
sions, and even the first, I would hesitate to defend on etymolo
gical grounds. — ' ArroXapmo), with reference to any body, signifies
to throw out a light from itself, drrao-rpdma) to dart forth flashes
of lightning from itself, drravydfo to throw out a lustre from
itself (not to produce a reflection on another body.) The nouns
ending in p.a, however, denote, not the act as continuing, but
the result of the act as finished. Thus Kijpvyp.a is not the act of
announcing, but the announced message ; in like manner Philo
calls his Logos an diroo-rrao-pa rj diravyacrp,a tt;? pta/capias <£ucre<o?
(ed. Mang. torn. i. p. 35), where drrbo-'TTao-p.a must denote the
separated part, and dtravyao-p.a, consequently, the secondary
light radiated from the original light. In the same sense do we
take the expression here. It denotes, not the brightness received
from another body and thrown back as a reflection or a mir
rored image, nor the light continually proceeding from a shining
body as a light streaming out and losing itself in space, but it
denotes a light, or a bright ray which is radiated from another
light in so far as it is viewed as now become an independent light.

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3. 21
The expression ray-image (Germ. Strahlbild) best answers to the
original ; as a ray-image, it is a living image composed of rays
not merely one received and reflected, but it is conceived of as inde
pendent and permanent, it is more than a mere ray, more than
a mere image ; a sun produced from the original light.- We
fully agree therefore with Bleek when following Chrysostom and
Theophylact, he finds the best interpretation of diravyao-fia in
the expression of the Nicene creed $w? iic $ojto?, but we differ
from him when he thinks that this interpretation is sufficiently
rendered by the German word " Strahl" — " ray."
The original light from which the manifested ray-image has
proceeded, is denoted by the word B6%a (scil. avrov, Oeoii). Many
commentators, as Tholuck, wrongly interpret this of the Sche-
kinah, that cloud of light under the Old Testament dispensation
in which God revealed His presence and glory in a manner
perceptible to the outward sense to Moses, then to the High
Priest in the holy of holies, and last of all to the shepherds, Luke
ii. 9. This would be impossible if for no other reason than this,
that, as the original light was then a light perceptible to the
sense, much more must the drravyao-pia proceeding from it be a
brightness apparent to the bodily eye. But, moreover, accord
ing to this explanation, the Son, the absolute, adequate, personal
revelation of the Father would be degraded beneath the Old
Testament imperfect, typical, form of the Divine manifestation,
seeing that he would be represented as an diravyao-pta of the
latter, which was not even itself an drravyaapja, but was a mere
reflection. Without doubt, therefore, those are right who under
stand the expression Bb%a in the supersensible meaning in which it
was used by John, and explain it of the eternal essential glory of
the Father, that light inaccessible of which Paul speaks in 1 Tim.
vi. 16, and which God himself is (1 John i. 5.) God's own
eternal unsearchable essence is light throughout, not a /3i)0o?, not
a dark original basis which must needs first develope itself into
brightness, but light clear to itself, and self conscious, and com
prehending in itself the fulness of all possible things, an original
monad — which bears in itself, and calls forth from itself the pos
sibility and reality of all monads, — full of wisdom and love.
This is the original glory of the Father's essence, and this
original glory was manifested to itself in eternity, and to the

22 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
creature in time, inasmuch as it allows to proceed from itself
the Son, a living independent ray-image, in whom all that glory
finds itself again, and reproduces itself in an absolute form,
and in whose existence and manifestation the love, as in his
nature and qualities, the wisdom of the Father represents itself.
This interpretation of the diravyao-pui tt)? oolfT?? is confirmed by
the expression which follows in the second member — ^apaKrnp
tt)? viroo-rdae(o<i. Substantially the same thing is denoted by
vTroo-rao-i<; as by Boga, only regarded from another point of view.
Ao%a signifies the essence of the Father with reference to his
glory in which he represents himself before the eyes of the
suppliant creature ; viroo-raavi denotes this essence as essence and
without regard to its outward manifestation. Originally inroa-
Tacrt? signifies solidity, then reality, being, existence. It is well
known, that the term in its philosophical use acquired an ambi
guity of meaning which led to mistakes in the Arian controversy.
The Alexandrines taking the word in the sense of " subsistence"
described to the Son a proper viroo-rdo-is (an independent existence)
along with the Father, which gave great offence to the Western
Christians, inasmuch as they took the word in the older sense to
mean " essence," and therefore of course could ascribe no other
essence to the Son than to the Father. In the passage before
us viroaraaK is evidently used in the older sense. True, Calvin,
Beza, Salmeron, Gerhard, Calov, Suicer, and others found a
difficulty in the Son's being represented as a mere reflection
of the Father's essence, seeing that he himself participates
in this essence, and were therefore induced to understand vttoo--
Tacrt? rather in the later sense, so that the person of the Son was
designated as an exact image of the person of the Father ; this,
however, on the one hand, would involve the anachronism of
transferring a later speculative theological terminology to the
apostolical times, to which the designation of the Father, Son, and
Spirit as three imoardaeK was as yet so unknown that the
.author could not possibly have used the word in the sense of
"person" without being unintelligible to his readers; on the
other hand the whole difficulty which has given rise to this
false meaning rests on an unsound interpretation of the word
¦^apa/crr'/p. Xapatcrrjp does not any more than diravyacrp.a denote a mere

i. 1—3. 23
reflection, a copy. Derived from ^apdcro-co it denotes not, as
Wahl and Bretschneider assert, " an instrument for engraving,"
a style or chisel, but the mark made by a stamp, the features
carved on the stone, or the gem, or the seal-ring. It thus comes
to signify metaphorically, the features of a countenance, the fea
tures of character, — and, thirdly and finally, in a weakened
signification, it is also used for a " characteristic mark," a token
by which anything is known (like rwroi) (thus we speak of
the character of a species of plants.) But xaPalCTVP never
denotes the copy of one body left by a seal or signet on another,
it never signifies the image or the copy of the features of a
countenance ; Lucien speaks rather of ei/coves r&v dvnp,6p(pa>v
XapaKrrjpwv (de Amor. p. 1061). The third of the above signi
fications is evidently not suitable here ; the Son can in no
intelligible sense be called a distinguishing mark or sign of tbe
nature of God ; not less unsuitable is the second, viz., stamp in
the sense of expression, characteristic quality, which, besides
being a figurative and abstract signification, is inadmissible
partly, because the Son cannot possibly be merely a quality
of the Father, and partly because the parallelism with airav-
yaap,a requires a concrete term. We must therefore take
yapaicrr\p as meaning stamp in the sense of a form cut out or
engraven. As it belongs to the Sotja to concentrate and reproduce
itself in a form composed of rays, a sun, so it is proper to the ovaia
or virbaraat,<s to stamp itself out (or according to the ancient
mode of viewing it : to engrave) in a manifest form or figure.
This form or figure is not, however, to be viewed as a copy (as if
the vTTocrracns itself had already a form which was now copied
in a second form) but as an immediate and substantial rendering
visible and corporeal, of the inroarao-is. The idea is there
fore substantially the same as that which is expressed in the
words drravyaapta tt}? So|-tt?.
If it be asked, who is the o? to whom these appositions
belong, whether the Logos qua eternally pre-existent, or the
Logos qua incarnate in time, it follows from what has been
already remarked on the relation of the third verse to the second,
that in general they belong more properly to the former. By
means of the &v is represented the permanent nature not the
temporal acting of the Son. This, however, must not be so

24 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
regarded, as if that eternal relation of ihe Son to the Father had
been altered by his coming into the sphere of time. Even when
he walked in lowliness on the earth, as Zuingle has already
remarked, he could speak of himself as " the Son who is in
heaven" (John iii. 13).1 Even when he had exchanged the
form of the world-governing world-embracing eternity, for the
form of life in the world, and under earthly historical relations,
he was in the kernel of his being still ever one with the Father,
still the brightness of his glory and the stamp of his nature, only
that he now revealed this nature more in historically human
relations, so to speak, as practical love and holiness and wisdom.
Thus also the second apposition explains itself: <pepmv re ra
irdvra ra> prjp,ari tt)? Bvvdp,ea><; avrov. First of all, it is
evident, that by prjp.a cannot be meant, as the Socinians- ex
plain it, the preaching of the gospel, but only the creative
Omnipotent word which lies at the foundation of the world's
existence ; then, that tfcepav, in like manner as diravyao-pba and
XapaKrrjp is to be rendered not abstractly, but concretely (susti-
nere, comp. Num. xi. 4 ; Is. ix. 6) ; finally that avrov applies
in a reflexive sense to the Son, and not to the Father.2 The
meaning then is, that the Son sustains the universe by the
1 This, of course, again is not so to be viewed, as if the Son of God
had remained in heaven as a part or portion of Christ, and taken part
in the world-governing omniscience and omnipotence, while the human
nature as another part upon earth was without omnipotence and omni
science. This would land us in a more than Nestorian separation of
the person of Christ into two persons. But the eternal Son of God,
entering into the category of time and the creature, emptied himself
during the period of his humiliation, of the pop(j>r) 6eov, i.e. the partici
pation in the government of the world and the world -governing
omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, and manifested his divine
attributes and powers in temporal human form, in the form of parti
cular miracles. But his oneness of being with the Father, although
assuming another form, remained unaltered.
2 As the older manuscripts have no spiritus, airoO also might be written
without thereby changing the reading as Calov thought " with godless
temerity." But Bleek has shown, that in the hellenistic literature airov
only stands where in the first person ifxavrov would stand, i.e. where an
emphasis lies on the "self;" on the other hand, that airoi stands
where in the first person ipov would stand. T<5 fa/tan tt)s dwdpews
alroi would have to be translated " with the word of his own power "
There is no occasion for this emphasis here. And just as little occa
sion is there for departing from the reflexive signification of airoi here
the only natural one,

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1 — 3. 25
omnipotent word of his power. Here too, it is the eternal relation
of the son qua eternal to the universe that is spoken of, that
relation, the ground of which was given in the words of verse 2 Be'
ov Kal iirolrjcre toii? almvai. Only it must not be forgotten here
also, that this eternal relation of the Son to the universe was not
in the least altered by this,— that the Son becoming man was the
sustainer of the world in another sense, namely, the centre of the
world's history, and the redeemer of humanity and reconciler of
heaven and earth.
The subject of the sentence denoted by o? (wo?) is therefore
neither the Logos qua eternal exclusive of his incarnation, much
less is it the incarnate as such ; but the subject is Jesus Christ
the incarnate, in so far as he is the eternal Son of God, who, as the
Logos, has an eternal being with the Father, and whose doings
in time could therefore form the centre-point and the angle of all
that is done in time.
This action in time of him who is the eternal ray-image and
exact stamp of the Divine nature, is now described in the pre
dicate ofthe sentence, in the words KaOapiapbv iroirio-dpbevos r&v
dp.apria>v} eKaQiaev iv Bejfta tt)? p,eyaXmavvr]<; iv v'^nrXot?. The
genitive r&v dp,apriS>v which we cannot well translate otherwise
than "purification from sins" is explained by this, that in the Greek
it can also be said ai dptaprlat, KaQapvCpvrat. KaOapl^etv corres
ponds to the Hebrew -^ntflj an<^ finds an intelligible explanation in
the significance which belonged to the Levitical purification in the
Old Testament cultus. Those, therefore, would greatly err,
who should understand Ka6apit/eiv of moral improvement, and
so interpret Ka6apicrp,bv iroietv as if the author meant to represent
Christ here as a teacher of virtue, who sought by word and
example the improvement of men. And even those might be
said to be in error who explain Ka0apto-p.6<: of the taking away
of guilt by atonement, but do this only on account of passages
which occur further on in the epistle, — as if the idea of the biblical
Ka8apicrp,6$ were not already sufficient to confirm this the only
time explanation. The entire law of purification, as it was given
by God to Moses, rested on the presupposition that man, as sin
ful and laden with guilt, was not capable of entering into
immediate contact with the holy God. The mediation between

2& THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
man and God, who was present in the holiest of all, and in the
holiest of all separated from the people, appeared in three things ;
1, in the sacrifices ; 2, in the priesthood ; and 3, in the Levitical
laws of purification. The sacrifices were (typical) acts, or
means of atoning for guilt ; the priests were the instruments for
accomplishing these acts, but were by no means reckoned as more
pure than the rest. Hence they had to bring an offering for
their own sin before they offered for the sins of the people. The
being Levitically clean, finally, was the state which was reached
positively, by sacrifices and ordinances, negatively, by avoiding
Levitical uncleanness, the state in which the people were rendered
qualified for entering into converse with God (through the
priests) "without death" (comp. Deut. v. 26) ; the result, there
fore, of observances performed, and the presupposed condition of
faith and worship. The sacrifices were what purified; the
purification was the taking away of guilt. This is most clearly
set forth in the law respecting the great festival of atonement
(Lev. xvi.) There we find these three principal elements in the
closest reciprocal relation. Firstly, the sacrifice must be prepared
(ver. 1 — 10), then the high priest must offer for his own sins
(ver. 11 — 14); finally, he must "slay the sin-offering of the
people" (ver. 15), and sprinkle the mercy-seat and the whole
sanctuary with its blood, and " purify it from the uncleanness of
the children of Israel" (ver. 19), and then, lay the sins of the
people symbolically on the head of a second beast of sacrifice and
drive it laden with the curse into the wilderness (ver. 20 — 2§.)
For, — ver. 30 — " on that day your atonement is made that ye
may be cleansed; from all your sins before the Lord are ye
cleansed." The purification in the biblical sense, consists in the
atonement, the gracious covering (-(33, ver. 30) of guilt. (In
like manner, were those who had become Levitically unclean, for
example the lepers Lev. xiv., cleansed by atoning sacrifices.)
An Israelitish or Jewish-Christian reader, therefore, would never
associate with the expression KaOaptapibv rroteiv what is wont to
be called " moral improvement," which, so long as it grows not
on the living soil of a heart reconciled to God, is empty self-
delusion and a mere outward avoiding of glaring faults ; but the
Ka6apt.o-p,6s; which Christ has provided, could in the mind of the

THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3. 27
author and his readers be understood only of that gracious atone
ment for the whole guilt ofthe whole human race, which Christ,
our Lord and Saviour, has accomplished through his sinless
sufferings and death, and from which flows all power of recipro
cal love, all love to him our heavenly pattern, and all hatred
towards sin on account of which he had to die. It is easy to
repeat these words of the scriptural author with the mouth; but
he alone can say yea and amen to them with the heart, who
with the eye of true self-knowledge has looked down into the
darkest depths of his natural, and by numberless actual sins ag
gravated, corruption, and who despairing of all help in himself,
stretches forth his hand to receive the offer of salvation from
heaven. For his faithful obedience unto death on the cross the incar
nate was crowned, inasmuch as, without his having to give up
the form of existence which he then had, — the human nature,
therefore as man and continuing to be man — he was exalted to
a participation in the divine government of the world. This
participation is expressed by the words sitting at the right hand of
God. Never, and nowhere, does the Holy Scripture apply this
expression to denote that form of world-government which the
Logos exercised as eternally pre-existent ; the sitting at the right
hand of God rather denotes everywhere, only that participation
in the divine majesty, dominion, and glory, to which the Messiah
was exalted after his work was finished, therefore in time, and
which is consequently exercised by him as the glorified Son of
Man under the category of time. Already in Psalm ex. 1, where
the expression for the first time occurs, it applies to the future,
the second David, at a future time to be exalted.
The expression finds its explanation in the old oriental practice,
according to which the king's son, who icas himself clothed with
royal authority, had the liberty of sitting on the king's throne,
at his right hand. This signification lies at the foundation of the
figure already in Psalm ex. ; that Jehovah is there represented as
contending in behalf of the Son, while the Son rests himself, has
nothing to do with the figure as such, and is not inherent in the
expression " to sit at the right hand of God" as such, (although
of course that feature in Psalm ex. also finds its. counterpart in
the exalted Christ.)

28 THE EXORDIUM, I. 1  3.
That explanation which arose amid the tumult of confessional
controversy rests on an entire misapprehension of the figurative
expression, namely, that as God is everywhere, the right hand
of God is also everywhere ; to sit at the right hand of God means
therefore to be everywhere present. This interpretation is quite
as mistaken as if one were to understand by Begid 6eov, a parti
cular place where God sits on a throne (a mistake which Luther
falsely attributed to Oecolompadius.) In the expression iKaOiae
iv Be%ia tt}? p,eya\(x>o-vvns there lies solely the idea of participation
in the divine dominion, and majesty (peyaXwavvv, majestas
denotes here God himself), without any local reference whatever.
On the contrary, the expression iv if\|rriXot? that is added,
contains a distinct determination of locality ; whether we connect
it with the verb i/cddto-ev, or (which is better, as, otherwise, iv iyfr.
would have to stand before iv Belief) with the noun p^eyaXcoavvr).
'Ev VTJrvXoK is the Hebrew Q^jifl, equivalent to Qtft^g,, But
the " heaven" never in the holy Scriptures denotes the absence of
space or omnipresence (see on this my scientific crit. of the ev. his
tory, 2 ed. p. 601 s.), — it always denotes either the firmament, or
that sphere ofthe created world in time and space where the union
of God with the personal creature is not disturbed by sin, where no
death reigns, where the glorification of the body does not need
to be looked forward to as something future. Into that sphere
lias the first-fruits of risen and glorified humanity entered, as
into a place, with a visible glorified body to come again from
thence in a visible manner.
Thus is described the inheritance (ver. 2) which the incarnate
Son has received, and the author, after these introductory words
in which he lays the foundation, now passes to the first principal
inference which follows from them ; namely, that that Son, the
organ of the New Testament revelation, is superior to the angels,
the organs of the Old Testament revelation. The carrying out of
this inference forms the first part of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
chap. i. 4 — ii. 18.

( ->lJ )

PART FIRST.

(Chap. i. 4— ii. 18.)
THE SON AND THE ANGELS.
We encounter here the first instance of a phenomenon peculiar
to the Epistle to the Hebrews, namely, that the announcement of
a new theme is closely interwoven with the end of the last period
of a foregoing part. The author passes forthwith from that which
he has brought to a conclusion, to a new idea flowing from it,
with which an entirely new perspective opens itself out. It
follows prima facie and in general from the inheritance of the Son
described in ver. 3, that the Son must be higher than the angels.
This then opens up a new theme, which is, to show that it is and
must be so, and that this superiority of the Son to the angels
will admit of being demonstrated in particulars. But this theme
at which the author has arrived is a principal one, and one to
which he has purposely come. It possesses in his view not merely
the importance of a collateral idea, but of one with which, from
regard to the practical aim of his epistle, he has especially to
concern himself.
It is only from a complete misapprehension of the phenomenon *
to which we have referred, and which recurs in chap. ii. 5, iii. 2,
iv. 3 — 4 and 14, &c, that we can explain why Bleek should deny,
in opposition to De Wette, that a new section begins at ver. 4,
and why Tholuck should understand ver. 4 as a " collateral idea,"
which, however, the author would specially impress upon his
readers. Even in relation to ver. 3, ver. 4 is not a " collateral
idea," but rather a conclusion to which the author has directed

30 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — II. 18.
his course in ver. 1 — 3. But why was it of so much importance
to him to carry out the comparison of the Son with the angels %
Tholuck is certainly right when he says, that his object could not
be to combat a party like that at Colosse who occupied themselves
with the worship of angels, for the author, who usually draws his
practical applications very closely, and, in order to do so, breaks
without hesitation the connection of the theoretical reasoning,
gives no admonition whatever against the worship of angels.
The only practical inference which he draws is in chap. ii. 2 —
that the word spoken by the Son is still more holy than the law
which was given by angels. — Bleek is therefore of opinion, that
the belief of the Israelites in the co-operation of the angels in the
giving of the Sinaitic law, led the author to speak of angels ; but
thus outwardly apprehended, this serves as little for explanation
as the strange remark that the thought of God's throne reminded
the author of the angels who are around his throne.
The true motive of the author lies deeper. The entire Old
Testament is related to the New as the angels are related to the Son ;
this is his (first) principal idea, an idea of wondrous depth, which
throws a surprising light on the whole doctrine of angels. In
the old covenant, mankind, and as part thereof also Israel, is
represented as far separated from the holy God by sin, and the
angels stand as mediators between them. The mediation in the
Old Testament is a double one, a chain consisting of two mem
bers, of Moses, and the angel of the Lord. There stands a man
who, by his vocation, by his position, by his commission, is raised
above other men with whom he stands on the same level as a
sinner, and brought nearer to God, yet without being nearer to
the divine nature or partaking in it. Here stands the form of
an angel, in which God reveals himself to his people, brings
himself nearer to the people's capacity of apprehension, becomes
like to men yet without becoming man. God and man certainly
approach nearer to each other; a man is commissioned and
qualified to hear the words of God ; God appears in a form in
which men can see him, but there is as yet no real union of God
with man. But in the Son, God and man have become personally
one, they have not merely approached outwardly near to each
other. God has here not merely accommodated himself to man's
capacity of apprehension in an angelophany, a theophany, but he

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  II. 18. 31
has personally revealed the fulness of his being in the man Jesus,
inasmuch as that drravyaap,a of his glory was man. And in the
person of this incarnate one, not merely a member of humanity
has come near to God, but as he who was born of a virgin is
himself eternal God, in him as first-fruits of the new humanity
has mankind been exalted to the inheritance of all things.
It was necessary that the author should show how the two
mediators of the Old Testament, the angel of the covenant and
Moses, find their higher unity in Christ. To show this of the
angel of the covenant is the problem of the first part, to show it
of Moses, that of the second part (comp. chap. iii. — iv. chiefly
chap. iii. ver. 3 : for this man was thought worthy of more glory
than Moses.)
The question may still be asked, however, why the author
speaks of the angels in the plural, why he does not place the
individual angel of the Lord side by side with the individual
Moses ? The answer is very simple; because the angel of the Lord
was not a particular individual from among the angels. He was
not a person distinct from God, not one of the number of created
angels whom God used only as an instrument; but the angel of the
Lord (Vi '"T^T'Id) was God himself as he appeared in the form of
an angel.1 (Comp. chiefly Jud. xiii. ver. 21 with ver. 22.) The
author speaks of angels, therefore, because it was not a certain
individual angel who was to be placed by the side of Moses as
the second member in the chain of mediation, but because, when
God would manifest himself to Moses and to the high priests, he
borrowed the form and figure of his appearance from the sphere
of the angels, of those angels whom he also usually employed
when it was necessary under the old dispensation to make Divine
revelations manifest to the eyes of men.
The comparison of the Son with the angels, divides itself again
1 The theocratical y"S "rfc^D *^e Jenovan wno was enthroned above
the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant, is not to be confounded with
the angel Michael (Dan. x. 13), who, after the temple and ark of the
covenant had ceased to exist, and the nation of Israel was scattered
among other nations, was chosen of God to be the guardian angel of
this people. This angel was certainly distinguished from God and his
Son (according to fiev. xii. 7) ; was a creature, one of the created
angels.

32 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
into two sections, which are also outwardly separated from each
other by a practical part inserted between them. In the first of
these sections the author shows, that the Son is superior to the
angels already in virtue of his eternal existence as the Son of
God (chap. i. 4—14, upon which is engrafted in chap. ii. 1—4
the practical suggestion, that the New Testament revelation is
still holier than that of the Old Testament) ; in the second he
shows, that in the Son man also has been exalted above the
angels (chap. ii. 5 — 18.)

SECTION FIRST.
(Chap. i. 4—14.)
THE SON IS IN HIMSELF SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS.
Ver. 4. In the words Kpeirrmv yevop,evo<s rmv dyyeXav lies, as
has been already observed, the theme of the whole part, while in
the words oaco Bia<popmrepov, &c, the special theme of the first
section is expressed. The participle Kpeirrmv yevoruevo<; stands
in apposition with the subject of ver. 3 o? i.e. wo?. The subject
of whom it is affirmed that he is superior to the angels, is there
fore not the Logos as pre-existent but still the incarnate Son of
God as the organ of the New Testament revelation ; this appears
partly, from the context and the train of thought, inasmuch as it
was the business of the author to demonstrate the pre-eminence
of the new dispensation over the old, partly, from the yevop,evo<;
" become" (by no means = &v), partly, from the KeKknpo-
vop,r)icev. The argument for the superior dignity of the organ of the
New Testament revelation is derived from this — that God already
under th.e old dispensation assigned to the future Messiah whom
he there promised, a name which plainly enough declared, that
this promised future Messiah should be at the same time the
eternal Son of the same nature with the Father. In this light
and from this point of view, then, are to be understood also the

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 33
particular proofs adduced from the Old Testament ver. 5 — 14,
and so understood they present no difficulty. They can only
then appear difficult and obscure when it is supposed that the
author meant them to prove, that a dignity superior to the angels
was ascribed in the Old Testament either to the Logos as such,
or to the historical individual Jesus as such. Nothing of this,
however, is said even in the remotest degree. The author lays
down the thesis that the Son in his quality as organ of the New
Testament revelation is exalted above the angels, and in proof of
this he appeals to the fact, that the Old Testament ascribes to
the Messiah this dignity, namely his being the Son of God in a
manner which is not affirmed of the angels. As a middle member
between that thesis and this proof, nothing farther needs to be
supplied than the presupposition that the vl6<s ver. 1 — 3 is iden
tical with ihe Messiah promised in the Old Testament. But that
the readers of the Epistle did presuppose this, that by the wo?
ver. 1 — 3 in whom God has revealed himself " at the end of this
time " (consequently in the " Messianic time ;" see above) they
understood Jesus Christ, and again that they held Christ to be
the Messiah, will surely not require to be proven here.
Kpeirrmv — the author uses the same expression, in itself quite
relative and indefinite, also in the analogous comparisons chap. vii.
19 and 22, viii. 6 and ix. 23, x. 34, &c. The Son is superior
to the angels, because (in as far as) " he has obtained as an inhe
ritance a more distinguished name than they." On the idea of
the inheritance see the remarks on ver. 2. The act of the KKrjpo-
vop,eiv is one performed in time ; nothing is said of the Logos as
eternally pre-existent. But neither is it anything that took place
in the time of Jesus that is spoken of; the author does not refer
to those events recorded in Matth. iii. 17, xvii. 5, in which the
voice of the Father from heaven to Jesus said : This is my
beloved Son. The author could not in consistency with his plan
refer to these events ; for his object was to prove his particular
theses and doctrines from the records of the Old Testament
itself, for the "sake of his readers, who were afraid of doing what
might involve a separation from the writings and the ordinances
of the old holy covenant of God with the people of Israel.
Accordingly, his object here is to show, that already in the
Messianic prophecies the Messiah was represented not as a mere
c

34 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
man, but received a name such as was given to no angel, a name
which indicates an altogether exclusive and essential relation of
oneness with God. The perfect KeKXr)pov6p,r]Kev fointstothetime of
the Old Testament prophecy.
"Oam Bta<popoyrepov trap avroi><; KeKXepovopvrjKev ovop.a. It is
evident that Svofia here, where the author treats (ver. 5 ss.)
precisely of the name v'w<s, is not (with Beza, Calov, and others)
to be translated by " dignity." — Uapd c. Ace. instead of the
genitive, is no Hebraism, but a genuine Greek construction,
formed to avoid unsuitable applications of the genitive (such as
would occur here.) Atacpopmrepov, not more excellent, higher,
but more distinguished, more singular. Critics in their wisdom
have indeed doubted the accuracy pf the fact here stated, affirming
that the name " sons of God " is given not merely to men —
Ps. lxxxix. 27 ; 2 Sam. vii. 14— but also precisely to angels — Job
i. 6, ii. 1; xxxviii. 6 ; Dan. iii. 25.1 Those make shortest work
of it, who deny to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews
a thorough acquaintance with the Bible ; Bleek deals more
modestly, when he supposes that the author was not versed
at least in the Hebrew original, and explains his overlooking
those passages by the circumstance, that the LXX., which he
made use of exclusively in his citations, and the knowledge and
use of which he presupposes in his readers, who were acquainted
with Aramaic, but not with Hebrew — has in those passages
dyyeXot Qeov in place of QirT?N ^l- This would indeed
ward off the moral charge of carelessness and inconsiderateness
from the author's person, but not that of falseness and ground
lessness from his reasoning, On a more thorough and impartial
investigation, however, it will appear here again, how much the
foolishness of the Scriptures, and of their writers enlightened by
the holy spirit, is superior to the pretended wisdom of the children
of men. If, in these days, a preacher were to say in a sermon,
or in a book designed for edification, that Christ receives in the

1 The passages Gen. vi. 2, where it is the descendants of Seth that
are spoken of and alone can be spoken of (comp. my " "Weltanschauung
der Bibel und Naturwissenschaft " in the " Zukunft der Kirche," 1847"
p. 369 s.) and Ps. xxix. and lxxxix. where Qi^ i^ are spoken of'
have no connection at all with this subject.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 35
New Testament a name which is applied exclusively to him, for
to whom of all that are born of woman has the Father said :
This is my Son ? — would any one have a right to object to such
a preacher, that he must be unacquainted with those passages of
the New Testament in which Christians are called sons of God,
and besides that he must be ignorant of the passage Heb. ii. 10,
where the author speaks of "many sons of God ?" Is it not then
quite a different thing to apply a common name in the plural
to a class, from what it is to apply the same as an individual
name in the singular to an individual. Even where the New
Testament speaks of vloi<; deoii instead of reKvoK Oeoii, as in that
very passage Heb. ii. 10, even there this difference still obtains,
as no one assuredly will deny. And in like manner our author,
in reference to the Old Testament, would be quite right, even if
there were no other difference (which is not the case) than that
between the plural as applied to the class, and the singular as
applied to the individual. He himself, indeed, in ver. 5, makes
the distinction between the name of Christ and that of the
angels to consist in this — that God has said to no individual
among the angels : " Thou art my Son ; I have begotten thee."
It makes already even an essential difference, whether the idea of
son comes to its full manifestation in an individual, or in a class.
— As, however, in the New Testament, the difference between
the predicates " Son of God" and " children of God," is not
merely one of number, but as, in addition to this, there is a
qualitative difference in the kind of designation, so is it also in the
Old Testament. When Jehovah in Ps. ii. 2 and 7, declares
his anointed to be his son whom he has begotten, this is some
thing different from what is said, when the angels as a class
are called sons of the Elohim, who has created them. Nay,
this difference is, in respect of the expression, even greater and
more marked than that in the New Testament between n/o? and
rmvov. The angels are called sons of God in so far as God is
the Elohim, the all-governing Creator of all things, and they
have come forth from his creating hand, and have lost by no fall
this their primitive relation to God as his children ;x the Mes-
1 In Job ii. 2 Satan is not reckoned among the " children of God ;''
but distinguished from them. That he should come Q^j-Q (locally) is
T I
something extraordinarv. C 2

36 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
siah, on the other hand, is called the Son of God, in so far as
God is Jehovah the free, self-sufficient one, proceeding from
himself, and independent of all creatures.1 In reality then, the
Son has received a Biacpopmrepov ovopa rrapa rovs ayyeXov;,
and the form of ver. 5, for to whom, &c, shows plainly enough,
that the author was clearly conscious of that difference. Bleek's
view is correct, liowever, so far, that the author would feel less
concern in omitting all express reference to the passages in Job
and Daniel, as the readers in their Septuagint could not be
misled by those passages.
At ver. 5 then, begins the proof that the Old Testament already
assigns to the future Messiah a name, such as is never given to
an angel. We shall without prejudice explain these particular
passages in their original connection, from which it will appear,
whether our author has invested them with a meaning which they
do not bear.
Tivt, yap eliri rrore rmv dyyeXmv — at elire is to be supplied
from ver. 1 #eo? as the subject. IToTe does not serve to strengthen
the rivi (Kuinoel, Bretschneider, Wahl) but is independent,
signifying " at any time," and thus forms a marked antithesis
with rrdXiv. This Kal rrdXw is to be extended in the following
way (Bleek and others) : Kal rivt rmv dyyeXmv rrdXiv ehre ; " to
which of the angels has he at any time said : Thou art my Son ?
and to which has he again said : I will be to him a Father."2
This contains clearly the two ideas : God has used such expres
sions to an angel not even a single time ; but to the Son not merely
once but again and again.
The words cited are to be found in Ps. ii. 7. Not much that
is really of importance depends on the usual question, whether
this Psalm contains a direct prophecy of the Messiah, or an
indirect one, or none at all. Let us enquire chiefly, who was its
author, when it was written, and what occasioned it. Assuredly,
this sublime lyrical effusion had a historical occasion, which
i See this correct interpretation of the -ti^sa ^ttisj *Ti"is» i'1
Drechsler : Einheit und Aechtheit der Genesis'p. 10, with which is to be
compared my treatise ueber das Alter des Jehovahnamens in Niedner's
Zeitschr. fiir hist. Theol. 1849 p. 506.
2 It would be much harsher to extend the phrase thus: km w<SXu-
epmrSt- tivl tq>v ayy€/\cov ei7rf.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 37
affords the explanation of it in its subjective human aspect. For,
let it be ever so prophetic, it is still essentially not a fc^ft, not a
iTirt1 DW» i* ^oes n°t begin with j-fljfi "iftN Ni> but is apsalm
an hymn, an effusion of religious poetry, which has beneath it a
mrP 0N2 as tne basis on which it moves, and to which pointed
reference is made in the 6th verse miTi-pHr We are therefore
justified in seeking a humano-historical occasion for the psalm.
It cannot then have been written before the time of David, since
the hill of Zion is spoken of as the royal seat ; least of all in the
time of Solomon (as Bleek would have it), since, according to 1
Kings v. ; 1 Chron. xxii, Solomon reigned in peace, and in his
time there is not the slightest trace of such a violent insurrection
of rebellious nations as is described Ps. ii. 1 ss. After the divi
sion of the kingdom, there was under Uzziah a subjugation of
the neighbouring heathen nations, but only in a very partial
degree, and the revolt of these heathen had become something so
common, that it would scarcely have so powerfully moved the
soul of a poet, — besides, in this case, we should have expected
to find among the hoped-for blessings of the future some mention
ofthe re-union with the northern kingdom. There remains, there
fore, no other time in which the Psalm can well have been
written, but that of David. Against this ver. 6 has been adduced,
as not properly applicable to the anointing of David, seeing that
David was anointed as a boy at Bethlehem. But supposing that
ver. 6 applies to the person of David (which would first require
to be investigated^), the object of the words "nyyp-^j-f VfS"^
would certainly not be to give a dry, outward, prosaic determi
nation of locality — of the place of the anointing. The poet
would rather denote the whole wondrous series of divine acts by
which the shepherd was exalted from 'his anointing by Samuel
onwards, guarded amid the many dangers to which his life was
exposed, until at length he came to be acknowledged by all the
twelve tribes, and was brought to the summit of his dominion in
the residence which he took by conquest, and which he founded
— I say the poet would comprehend this whole series of divine
acts in a poetical unity, and as we would denote the same thing
by the one symbolical expression : God has exalted him to the
throne of Zion, so the poet denotes it by the symbolical expression
entirely similar : " God has anointed him to be King in Zion."

38 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
It is not said that Samuel anointed him, but that God anointed
him. This interpretation would be all the more unobjectionable,
that there is nothing to hinder our translating ^ by " over,"
and taking the words Viijj-^v to denote the term, ad quem : God
has anointed him (to be King) over Zion. Still, as already
observed, we can by no means regard it as decided that ver. 6
speaks of the person of David. And thus every motive for
placing the psalm in another time than that of David falls to the
ground. Precisely in David's life-time we find a state of things which
remarkably corresponds with that described in the psalm. We
read in 2 Sam. viii. that Hadadezer the King of Zobah rebelled
against David, who subdued him, and that the Syrians of Da
mascus hastened to his assistance with a mighty host, of which
David alone took 21,700 prisoners. Shortly before this, David
had also put down rebellions on the part of the Philistines,
Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Amalekites, and so there
was then a time when almost the whole heathen world known to
the Israelites had risen up in hostility against Israel and Israel's
King (and consequently, according to the views of the ancient
heathen, against Israel's God — for it was believed that with the
people their gods were vanquished.) After David's victory,
Thoi, King of Hamath, sent to him presents in token of homage,
so that there is not wanting an occasion also for what is said in vers.
10 — 12. — But in vers. 7 and 12 we find a statement which more
than anything else confirms us in the view that the second psalm
was written at that time (certainly after the victory was completed),
and, moreover, that no one but David himself sung this hymn of
thanksgiving and hope. The poet rests his firm hope upon this
— that God has said to him : " thou art my son." A word to
this eff'ect had been spoken to David in the charge which he
received from God by Nathan the prophet, shortly before the
Syrian war. When he wished to build God a temple, Nathan
disclosed to him that he should not build God a temple, but his
posterity (y-ft as a collective) ; yea, God will build it an house,
and establish its throne for ever ; God will be its Father, and it
¦will be his Son. Now we know certainly (from 1 Kings viii. 17
ss.), that Solomon applied that prophecy to himself in such a way
that he undertook the building ofthe temple, and we must even

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14. 39
say that in this he did perfectly right ; for if the " posterity of j
David" was to build a temple for God, there was no reason why [
the first member of that posterity should not immediately put his
hand to the work. Only, it must not be forgotten, that Solomon
himself by no means thought that the prophecy of Nathan as yet
found its complete fulfilment in his erection of the temple. He
says this most distinctly in 1 Kings viii. 26 — 27. He considers
it as a benefit still to be prayed for, that those words of Nathan
to David should be verified, for his temple is as yet not a house
in which God may truly dwell. Not less clearly was David
conscious of this, that Nathan's word would first obtain its full
accomplishment " in the distant future" (,7irnJ2~>)j " ln a man
who is the Lord, Jehovah himself (2 Sam. vii. 19)1, or, as it is
explained in Chron. xvii. 17, " in a man who is exalted up to
Jehovah." On this promise so well understood, David builds \
the hope which he expresses in Ps. ii. We know now the time,
the occasion, and the author of the second psalm. And it is only
now that we have the necessary preparation for enquiring into
its contents. One might feel tempted to refer the contents of
the psalm (as Bleek does) to the earthly historical king (to
David according to our view, to Solomon according to Bleek's.)
Thus David would compose the psalm sometime during the
insurrection of the Syrians, — in ver. 1 — 3 he describes the raging
of the heathen against Jehovah, and against himself, the anointed
of Jehovah, — then, in ver. 4, he expresses the certain hope that
God will laugh at his enemies and utterly destroy them, and in
ver. 6 he confirms this hope, by calling to mind the covenant-
faithfulness of God, who has helped him hitherto, and has raised
him to be King over Zion. But in ver. 7 there comes an obstacle
by which this interpretation is entirely overturned. David
appeals in ver.- 7 to this — that God has said to him ; " Thou art
my son" — has said to him : he will give him the ends of the earth
for a possession. When had ever such a promise been given to
David ? It is expressly said in 2 Sam. vii. 12, that David shall
not build an house to the Lord, but shall sleep with his fathers ;
not to him, but to his seed after him, will God establish the king-
1 If "A lyifcA, were not in apposition to QTfr*,-rmri> but vocative,
the latter expression could have no possible meaning.

40 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
dom for ever and be their Father. It is quite clear then, that
David in the second psalm speaks in the name of his seed after
him, that he adoringly looks forward to the fulfilment of that
glorious hope in the distant future, 2 Sam. vii. 19 : it is clear that
the insurrection of the Syrians forms merely the occasion, but not
the object and import of the second psalm.
The second psalm presents to us not an historical but an ideal
picture. After the general insurrection of the southern and
northern nations bordering on Israel had been quelled, and David
had begun to reflect on this event, and to compare it with
Nathan's prophecy, there opened up before him a grand prospect
stretching into the future ; what had befallen him appears as a
type, as a typical instance of a great ideal law which would again
and again repeat itself, until it found its perfect manifestation in
the time of the " seed after him," his view of which seed had
already in the prayer 2 Sam. vii. 19 concentrated itself into the
concrete form of " a man who is to be exalted up to Jehovah."
For, apart from the fundamental law of all poetical intuition,
according to which what is general (as in the case before us " the
posterity") individualizes itself in the eye of the poet, it could not
remain hid even from that reflection which is divested of all
poetry, that the fulness ofthe prophecies given in 2 Sam. 7 must
find their final accomplishment in a concrete descendant. If, in
opposition to David, " who was to sleep with his fathers," the
royal dominion was to be established for ever in the house of
David or the seed of David (2 Sam. vii. 16), this certainly could
not be accomplished thus — that his descendants, one after the
other, forever should also " sleep with their fathers ;" but the one
part of the fulfilment must consist in this, that God should show a
fatherly forbearance towards the sins of the particular descendants
(2 Sam. vii. 14), the other part certainly in this, that at length
an individual would come, in whom the endlessness of the domi
nion, and the absoluteness of the relation' of son, should find
adequate manifestation. Now, we know, as has been already
observed, from 2 Sam. vii. 19, and 1 Chron. xvii. 17 (the pas
sage comes of course from the royal annals which form the basis
of both books) that David really understood that prophecy in this
and in no other sense, and Ps. ii. 7 compels us to refer the psalm
to an individual who was the seed uar e%oyf)v promised to David.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 41
As the heathen had assembled against him to throw off his
yoke, so, transferring himself in spirit to future times, he sees
how the nations of the earth (the representation is here pur
posely general, and nothing is said of the Syrians) would also
rise up against the future perfect King, and that out of hatred
to the living holy God who has anointed him. But, in like
manner, he sees also already, how the living God will deride
the folly of the children of men. God himself speaks in ma
jestic calmness the simple word : " I have anointed my King
upon Zion." (It is quite evident that this is not spoken of David,
but of that seed after him.) Now David hears that future King
himself speak words of holy confidence ; he hears him say, that
he will often confess and freely proclaim that the Lord has
declared him to be his son, that the Lord has anointed him.
(His real being he derives not by his carnal descent from David,
but by the word of the promise of Nathan to David — he is begot
ten by the word of God. In the phrase " this day," it is evident
that the royal singer sees in ideal vision his own time when he re
ceived the promise, blended with the future time, that of the perfect
seed, and thus the " this day5' forms a direct antithesis with the
times in which David was begetting, or had begotton corporeal
descendants.)— Further, David hears in verse 8 the seed remind
ing God of his promises (2 Sam. vii.), in verse 9 he hears God
answering in accordance with these promises ; and finally, in
verse 10 — 12, David concludes in his own name with an admo
nition to the kings of the nations to be in subjection to that
promised " son ;" soon the time shall come when he shall execute
judgment on the heathen.
In the prophecy of Nathan, the prayer of David connected
with it, and the second psalm, there lies before us the germ ofthe
whole Messianic prophecy. In the second psalm, it appears still
in the form of lyrical elevation, and it is more than probable,
that the meaning of that first grand presentment remained a
mystery undisclosed to the majority of David's contemporaries,
and the generations immediately following, just as, at a later
period, the prophecies of the divinity of the Messiah (Mic. v. 1,
and Is. ix. 6) were locked up from the great mass ofthe Jewish
people.) Still, the consciousness of the importance of Nathan's
prophecy never vanished (1 Kings xv. 4; 2 Kings viii. 19, &c.)

42 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
But when, after the separation of the kingdoms, outward and
inward decay increased more and more, and God by his pro
phets (first of all by Amos and Hosea) gave intimation of the
coming exile, he then also again put into the mouth of the pro
phets the promise, that after the exile there should come a j-jq^
-f\1 born in a low estate, brought like the first David from the
sheep-folds -of Bethlehem, not from kings' palaces (Mic. iv. — v.),
a branch springing from the roots of the hewn stock of the house
of David (Is. xi.), an Immanuel born of the lowly maid of the
house of David (Is. 7) ; — and of the substantial identity of this
branch with the "son," Ps. ii. and the "seed," 2 Sam. vii. on the
one hand, and the Messiah on the other, there can no reasonable
doubt be entertained.
Our author — who, in connecting the passage 2 Sam. vii. 14
with the second psalm, makes it sufficiently evident that he had
interpreted and understood the psalm in connection with the
prophecy of Nathan — simply calls to mind the fact, that in the
very first commencement of the Messianic prophecy1 there is
ascribed to the Messiah a relation of Sonship to God, such as is
never applied, even approximately, to any one of the angels. A
relation of such a kind, that the Messiah derives his real being
not from David but from God.
For this was, as we saw, the import ofthe words to-day I have
begotten thee. We shall therefore not have to inquire long in
what sense the author of our epistle understood the arjp.epov.
In no other than the only natural sense. It denotes neither
the eternal present, nor the time of the incarnation of Jesus, nor
that of his resurrection, ascension, &c, but the time of that pro
mise which was given by Nathan, in opposition to the (later)
time when David begat Solomon (2 Sam. xii. 24.) It all hinges
upon this — that the wo? does not derive his real being from
David. The second citation 2 Sam. vii. 14 has received its explanation
in what has been said above.

1 The idea ofthe Messianic prophecy we understand here, of course
in the narrower sense, as the prediction of a definite, royal, descendant
of David. In the wider sense, Gen. iii. 15; and Deut. xviii. 15 are
also Messianic prophecies.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 43
Ver. 6. The proofs of the assertion that the Son has received
a higher name than the angels are, in truth, closed with the two
citations in ver. 5. In ver. 6 ss. there follow certain other
arguments, in which also the superiority of the Son over the
angels appears, although not precisely that which consists in the
name. The sixth verse is unquestionably one of the most diffi
cult in the whole epistle. With regard to the construction,
rrdXiv seems, according to the position of the words, to belong to
elo-aydyn; still, there is no difficulty in deciding, and by the
consent of the best interpreters (Peschito, Erasm., Luth., Cal.
Beza, Capellus, Grot., Limb., Hammond, Bengel, Wolf, Carpz.,
Kuin., Bleek, and others), it has been substantially determined,
that according to the sense it can belong only to Xeyei, parallel to
the irdXtv (ewre) ver. 5 ; consequently, that we have here an easily
exphcable hyperbaton. It cannot be " a second bringing in of
the first-born into the world " that is here spoken of, as Olshausen
rightly observes, seeing that nothing has been said of a first.
And thus, from the outset, we are spared the fruitless trouble of
deciding whether the " two bringings in " are to be understood
of the eternal generation and the incarnation, or of the incarna
tion and the resurrection, or finally of the resurrection and the
second coming.
What, however, is meant generally by the elcrdyeiv et? t. oIk. can
only be determined by looking more particularly at the citation
itself and the meaning of it.
The words Kal TrpocT/cvvrjcrdrmcrav avrrn rrdvre'i ayyeXoi 6eov
are to be found verbatim in the LXX. cod. Vat. Deut. xxxii. 43.
The cod. Alex, has •n-az'Te? viol rov 6eov, and for this in a sub
sequent place ayyeXoi where the cod. Vat. has viol; but the
Vatican reading is here, as it almost always is, the older and the
more genuine, and is confirmed by the citation before us.
It has indeed been maintained (Pattr., Kuinoel, &c.) that
this citation cannot be taken from Deut. -xxxii., but is derived
from Ps. xcvii. 7, where we find the words irpoaKW^crare avrm
rrdvres ol ayyeXoi deov. But those who have adopted this view
have been driven to it by the circumstance, that in Deut. xxxii.
the words in question are not to be found in the Masor. text of
the Hebrew original. How could the author, it was thought,
appeal to a passage which was a mere spurious addition by the

44 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — II. 18.
Alexandrine translators 1 But as it is evident, notwithstanding,
that he follows, in respect of form, the passage in the LXX. Deut.
xxxii., and deviates from Ps. xcvii., it was found necessary to
have recourse to the subsidiary hypotheses, a, that the author has
had both passages in his memory, b, that he was conscious of the
spuriousness of the passage in Deut. xxxii., c, that he therefore
intended to cite the other passage, d, but, notwithstanding, inten
tionally or unintentionally borrowed the form of the words from
Deut. xxxii.
The artificial nature of the operation here presupposed, almost
bordering upon the ludicrous, would of itself suffice for the refu
tation of this view. In addition to this, however, it enables us
to escape from Scylla only to fall into Charybdis. For, if the
words in Deut. owe their existence to a spurious addition, the
words in Ps. xcvii. owe theirs to a manifestly false translation.
The Hebrew original runs thus — ^3 iV'linnttJn DTtVn? an(^
in the context, it is not the angels that are spoken of, but the
false gods of the heathen, who will yet be constrained to bow
before Jehovah. Nor is anything said there of a " bringing in
of the first-born into the world ;" the subject is simply and solely
the sovereignty of Jehovah, before which the idols shall be
destroyed. And, even in the (spurious) superscription which the
psalm bears in the LXX. : Tm AavlB, ore 1) yi) airov KaOicrrarai,
not a word is to be found either about the oiKovpivn or the
bringing in of a son into it.
While it is thus impossible to find in the verse before us a
citation from Ps. xcvii. 7, all becomes right when we consider
the citation as taken from Deut. xxxii. 43. For, with respect,
first of all, to the absence of the words in the Masoretic text we
must with all our deference to this text as resting on ancient and
strong tradition, never forget that we have in the LXX., parti
cularly in the Pentateuch, an equally ancient recension of the
Hebrew text. That the Seventy did not fabricate these words
but found them in their original, is also Bleek's view. We have
here, therefore, not a genuine text opposed to a spurious addition,
but a reading opposed to a reading. And, moreover, in the 6th
verse, according to the proper sense of the words cited, all mainly
depended upon this, that in accordance with the general religious
consciousness and understood phraseology, the angels should be

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4—14. 45
represented as having merely the position of worshipping spec
tators, when the setting up of the Messiah's Idngdom is spoken
of. We will farther explain and justify this assertion. The
determination of the time here referred to orav Be, &c, one might
be tempted to explain from the circumstance, that when Moses
sang that song, Israel who, in Hos. xi. 1, is called the first-born
of God, was just about to enter as a people among the nations of
the earth. This explanation would at least be incomparably
better than that according to which it is the entrance of the Logos
from eternity into time that is mentioned. There is no mention
here of the /eooyxo?, but of the olKovp,evq, the sphere of the earth
as inhabited by the nations.
But as avrm must plainly be referred to the same person that
is called rrpmroroKOs, while avrcp again refers in the passage
cited, not to the then Mosaic nor to the post Mosaico-Messianic
Israel, nor to the ideal Israel, but to Jehovah who will help his
people, it follows, that the author also, in the word rrpmroroKos,
cannot have had in his mind either the real or ideal Israel, or the
Messiah as such, and we shall therefore have to look out for
another explanation of the eladyeiv.
We must first however ascertain more particularly the meaning
ofthe passage Deut. xxxii. 43. Moses in vers. 15 — 18 rebukes
the sins of Israel at that period, those numerous manifestations
of the obduracy of their hearts which the people gave, in spite
of the mighty acts of God which they had witnessed. In vers.
19 — 35 he threatens them with terrible punitive judgments in
the future, should they persist in these sins, in this obduracy.
The punishment threatened is concentrated in this, that if the
people should continue to be ungrateful for their redemption
from the Egyptian bondage, God would at length take back from
them the freedom which he had given them, and leave them to
fall anew into a still more terrible bondage among a heathen
people. We know that this was fulfilled, and how. We know
how, from the time of Joshua to that of David, God conducted
the people to the pinnacle of prosperity ; how, from David to
Zedekiah, he let them fall into all the depths of hapless degene
racy ; how, in spite of prosperity and adversity, the people of
Israel sank deeper and deeper into corruption, until, at length;
God caused to be fulfilled the threatening first uttered by Moses,

46 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
and afterwards repeated by Amos, Hosea, Micah, &c, and let
the people fall into bondage to the heathen nations, the Babylo
nians, Persians, Macedonians, Syrians, Egyptians, and Romans.
But Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, &c, were not the first who
predicted a re-deliverance from this affliction, for Moses had
already foretold, Deut. xxxii. 36 — 42, that God would have
compassion on those who were humbled and converted by those
chastisements ; then should it be known that it is he alone who
can help and save. Moses prophesies, then, in vers. 36 — 42 of the
same re-deliverance which has been more specially described by the
later prophets, as the deliverance through the Messiah, consequently,
as the Messianic salvation. Now here, in ver. 42, it is said
(according to the reading maintained in the LXX.) : the angels
shall worship the Lord, i.e. Jehovah the Saviour. This Jehovah,
the Saviour, appears indeed in the mouth of Moses to be quite
identical with Jehovah generally, with God, but the Christian
readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews knew already and acknow
ledged, that the Jehovah who should arise and come forth in the
Messianic time for the salvation of his people is God the Son,
the Incarnate. Two things must not be forgotten if we would
rightly apprehend the meaning and the argument of the verse
before us — first, that the author simply testifies to the Godhead
of Christ, ver. 2, 3, as a thing already known to his readers
through the apostolic preaching, and acknowledged by them,
without deeming it necessary to adduce proofs for this doctrine ;
secondly, that for this very reason (as well as on account of the
whole train of thought, ver. 4, ss.) the aim of ver. 6 is not to
prove that the Messiah is the Son of God, but that the Messiah,
who is known to be identical with the Son of God, is, even in the
Old Testament dispensation, placed higher than the angels. For,
it was on this point that the readers needed to be instructed!
They had no doubts about the Messiahship of Jesus and the
divinity ofthe Messiah, but this whole Messianic revelation was
still in their eyes but an appendix to the Mosaic revelation, given
only on account of Moses and Israel, only a blossoming branch
of the religion of Israel. They had yet to be brought to know,
that the divinity of him who was the organ of the New Testa
ment revelation necessarily involves his infinite elevation above
the organs of the Old Testament, that the old dispensation was

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14. 47
ended on account of the new, and that this new dispensation was
on account of all mankind, not on account of the old. This they
had yet to be taught,' and this is precisely what is designed to be
proved on these verses, the proof being drawn from the divinity
of Christ, already acknowledged by the readers.
In ver. 5 the author has shown that the Messiah even when he
is prophesied of as David's Son, is said to be the Son of God in a
sense in which it is said of no angel. In ver. 6 he shows, that a
place above the angels is assigned to the Messiah moreover, when
he is represented as Jehovah the Saviour himself. When the
Messianic salvation is described, the angels receive only the
place of worshipping spectators ; organs of this salvation they
are not.
The elcrdyew tov rrpmroroKov, &c, will now explain itself. The
writer evidently means to express the idea, that these words are
connected with a passage which speaks of the entrance of Jehovah
the Saviour into the world, hence, of the entrance of the Son into
the world. He says, designedly, not wo?, which would denote
the incarnate, but irpmroroKos, which, hke the pavoyevrj? of
John, denotes the eternal Son of the Father, the irpmro-
toko? 7ra<7T7? Kriaems (Col. i. 15). The orav serves now, of
course, to determine not the time in which, but the time of
which Moses spake in Deut. xxxii. 43. The idea with all its
modifications would have to be expressed thus : " But again he
says of ihe time when he shall introduce the first born into the
sphere of the earth," &c. He calls it the sphere of ihe earth, not
the world, because the Redeemer appears in Deut. xxxii. 42
specially as the finisher of the exile, as he who should offer to
his people a national restitution among the nations of the oIkov-
ptevrj. He has in reality also offered this to his people ; his
disciples after him too did the same (Acts iii. 20, Kaipol dva-
¦dri^em? breathing times from the yoke) ; but as Israel remained
obdurate, they lost the offered deliverance, and remain deprived of
it until they shall turn to the Lord after the fulness ofthe Gentiles
is come into the church (Rom. xi. 23, ss.)
In vers. 7 — 9 a third argument follows. A statement concern
ing the angels is here opposed to one concerning the Son. The
following is what is implied generally in the opposition. The
angels, the mediators of the old covenant, stood in a very out-

48 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
ward relation to the salvation that was to be wrought out ; they
had not to work out that salvation, but only to bear witness of
it ; they stood in the closest relation to nature, and the appearances
of nature, chiefly those of a terrible kind. These appearances
of nature had only a preparatory and pedagogical aim ; the Son,
on the contrary, stands in the closest relation to the inner moral
life. God employed angels to impress with fear a rude unsus
ceptible people by means of miracles ; the Son has founded a
kingdom of righteousness consisting of those who become partakers
of his nature in free and joyous love. — The author, accordingly,
devotes himself more and more to a comparison of the inner
nature of the old and the new covenant.
The seventh verse presents again a peculiar difficulty. So
much indeed is evident, that the 77730? is to be rendered not " to"
but "respecting," in "reference to;" for the words here cited,
Ps. civ. 4, do not in themselves form an address directed to the
angels. It is doubtful whether the Sept., which is here cited
word for word, has correctly rendered the sense of the original
Hebrew. In the 104th Psalm the greatness of God in nature is
described. In ver. 2 it is said : God makes use of the light as a
garment, of the heaven as a tent, ver. 3, of. the clouds as a
chariot, &c. In the words which immediately follow j-fljto
rfim"l VIDNSft tne subject must be jy\Tm and the predicate
YON^Q> he makes the winds his messengers, flames of fire his
servants, he employs the winds and the flames as his servants,
just as he makes use of the clouds as his chariot. — But does the
Greek translation give the same sense? This is impossible,
even grammatically, for then the words would have to run thus :
6 iroimv ayyeXovf avrov ra rrvevp,ara, &c. But the article is at
dyyiXov; and not at irvevp,ara. In spite of the rules of the lan
guage Calvin, Beza,Bucer, Grotius, Limborch, Michaelis, Knapp,
and others have so rendered the Greek words as to make them
correspond with the Hebrew.1 But then these words them
selves would not be suitable to our context. For, in the statement
that God employs the winds as his messengers, nothing is
1 The strange interpretation given by Bengel and Meyer— God makes
his angels out of wind, out of a fine but still material substance while
the Son is immaterial and uncreated -needs no refutation

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14. 49
expressed respecting the nature and rank of the angels, but only
respecting the use of the winds. But, as we have already
observed, the rules of the language render every doubt here
superfluous. The Greek words can be rendered in no other way
than this : " who maketh his angels winds and his ministers aflame
of fire." Here, then, is another instance in which the writer appeals to
a statement in the Sept. which owes its existence to an incor
rect and inaccurate rendering. (So also Olshausen.) The
attempt of Calvin, Beza, and others, to make the Greek words
correspond with the Hebrew original in spite of the rules of
grammar, is, as we have seen, vain and inadmissible ; but equally
so is, on the other hand, the attempt of Luther, Calov, Storr,
Tholuck, and others, who would interpret the Hebrew original,
in spite of the context of the psalm, according to the ren
dering of the Sept. Wherefore have recourse to such arts ?
Would any one in the present day take it amiss if a preacher
were to give an excellent sermon on the verse, " The heart of
man is a perverse and fearful thing I"1 And yet this verse will
in vain be sought in the original text ; the Hebrew words have
quite another meaning. But though the idea is not to be found
in that particular place of the original text of the Bible, it is still
not the less biblical ; and the same holds good of the idea in the
citation before us. Throughout the New Testament (for example
Rom. viii. 38 ; 1 Pet. iii. 22), the angels, at least a class of them,
are regarded as Bvvdp,ei<; of God, i.e. as personal creatures fur
nished with peculiar powers, through whom God works wonders
in the kingdom of nature, and whom he accordingly " makes to
be storm-winds and flames of fire," in as far as he lets them, so
to speak, incorporate themselves with these elements and opera
tions of nature. It is a truth declared in the Holy Scriptures of
great speculative importance, that the miracles of nature, for ex
ample the lightnings and trumpet sounds on Sinai, are not wrought
immediately and directly by God the Governor of the world, but
are called forth at his will by exalted creatures specially qualified
for this work. This position the angels hold ; they are there to
work terrible wonders in the sphere of nature before the eyes of
a yet uncultivated people. The writer found this idea expressed
i [The above is a translation of Luther's version of Jer. xvii. 9.]
D

50 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
shortly and tersely in that passage of the Sept., and he was quite
as entitled to appeal to it in addressing his readers who made use
of the Sept. as we are, in presence of a congregation using
Luther's translation ofthe Bible, to appeal to that expression
about the perverseness and tearfulness of the heart of man.
In the eighth verse 7Tjoo? is, of course, to be taken in the same
sense as in ver. 7, not as marking an address but as signifying
" in reference to." It can therefore not be inferred at least from
the preposition 7rpo?, that the author regarded the passage in
Ps. xiv. 7, 8 as a direct address to the Son of God. The words
are spoken in reference to the Son of God. In how far they are
so will be ascertained from a consideration of the passage in its
original connection.
The 45th Psalm is a carmen epithalamium on the marriage
of a king with the daughter of a foreign king, as appears from
verses 10 — 12, and, according to ver. 2, the song is presented
to the king by one of his subjects. There is not the slightest
occasion for considering the psalm as a direct prophecy of Christ.
And as the superscription plainly designates the psalm a song of
songs, JTT'T-'Vttj; it is in all probability one of an ancient origin,
and not belonging to the period after the exile, when already men
had begun to discover more in the psalms than such human
relations. The superscription ascribes the psalm to Korah, the
contemporary of David and of Solomon. But, apart even
from this superscription, the psalm suits no other king so well as
Solomon. That hope which we found expressed by David (2
Sam. vii. and Ps. ii.) of an everlasting confirmation of his throne,
recurs here, ver. 7 ; the king who is the subject of this song, is
described as very rich ; he has, according to ver. 9, ivory palaces,
as Solomon had, 2 Kings vii. ; he has gold of Ophir (ver. 10)
as Solomon (1 Kings ix. 28) ; the daughter of Tyre, i.e. — accord
ing to the analogy of daughter of Zion, — the city of Tyre1
congratulates him (ver. 13), and Solomon stood in close alliance
with Tyre (1 Kings vii. ;) the choice, too, of a foreign king's
daughter not only occurred in the case of Solomon (comp. the
song of songs) — this might be the case also with later kings—
but in Solomon such a choice might as yet be justified, while, at
1 Hitzig indeed understands the princess Jezebel as meant by the
daughter of Tyre ; she, however, was from Sidon.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 51
a later period, a song celebrating a marriage so contrary to the
law would scarcely have received a place among the collection
of sacred songs. Already was the voice of prophecy lifted in all
its majesty against Jezebel ; and a powerful tribunate was formed
in the cause of the theocracy against Amaziah (1 Kings xiv. 19,
ss.) and later kings. — Some indeed find in ver. 17 a feature
which does not answer to Solomon. The words " instead of thy
fathers shall be thy sons" (i.e. these shall richly compensate for
thy departed ancestors) are said not to be applicable to Solomon,
as he had only a single ancestor who bore the crown. We might
therefore be tempted to explain ver. 17, " thy sons shall com
pensate the want of ancestors ;" but it is not probable that the
poet should have referred to this want. Indeed there is no need of
having recourse to any such shifts. Solomon had in reality no want
of ancestors ; andalthough only. the last of these had borne acrown,
this involved, according to the ideas then entertained, no defect of
honour ; nay, we find already from the book of Ruth, which was
written with a view to exalt the house of David, how readily the
real ancestors of David and Solomon were acknowledged as such,
although they lived in a humble station. The poet could there
fore with all propriety express the idea, that the glory of the
ancestors of Solomon would be equalled and even surpassed by
that of his posterity.
How now are the Hebrew words Ps. xiv. 7, s. to be translated ?
From ver. 3 to ver. 10 Solomon is addressed throughout, from ver.
11 onwards his bride is addressed. There is then in the outset no
occasion for viewing the words, thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and
ever, as an interposed ejaculatory prayer to God. How unsuitable
would it have been, if the poet had placed the everlasting throne
of God in opposition to the throne of David as not everlasting !
Further, it is also evident, that we are not at liberty with Gese
nius and Olshausen to translate the words by " thy divine throne."
Even if the words were ^iJ-j'^N ND5 (according to the anaolgy of
,gj— ^_^-|)5that rendering would still be unnatural, and the other,
" the throne of thy God," would be more proper. The words *rND3
q,,_jL,^ however, cannot signify, even grammatically considered,
" thy divine throne" (this would require oij-tSn NM "JNM)* but
onlv " thy throne, O God." An instance, indeed, seems to
J " 2d

52 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
occur in Lev. xxvi. 42 (according to Gesenius' explanation),
where the genitive is immediately joined to the noun with the
suffix (^DTP Tl'Hi-.nN my covenant of Jacob) ; but there
mpy 1S evidently not the genitive of quality, but the adverbial
accusative of relation, and the relation of a covenant made by
God with Jacob is evidently a different one from that of a throne
of divine majesty belonging to aking ; so that that passage does not
afford the least analogy for the one before us. But granting
that there were such an anlaogy in a grammatical point of view,
it is still contrary to the sense and spirit of the Hebrew language
to use Qipi^N as a genitive of quality, and to flatten and degrade
the idea of God or of divinity in a heathenish style to the idea
of creature-majesty. Modern pantheism, indeed, speaks of a
divine locality, or of a " divine" opera ; heathenish insipidities of
this kind were foreign to the purity of the Israelitish mono
theism. On the other hand, it was not foreign to the Israelitish mode
of conception and expression, to denote persons who stood as the
agents and representatives of God by the word ?'\-f7N (smg-)
or ?>*n^Nn (plur0 — not5 however, by Qinb^n sing- — compare
Psalm lxxxix. 27, lxxiii. 15, &c. They were thus denoted, not be
cause they were regarded as creatures equal with God, but because,
in their relation to those who were subject to them, they were
clothed with Divine authority. This might, with perfect propriety,
be said of the " seed of David" — Solomon— especially at the
time when reference is made to that prophecy of Nathan, that
the throne of David should be established for ever and ever.
The Psalmist after those words thus goes on : "A sceptre of
righteousness (evOvrn*; = -fi^O in the Sept. frequently) is the
sceptre of thy dominion; thou hast loved righteousness and hated
iniquity. Therefore has thy God, O God, anointed thee with oil
of joy more than thine associates." By the " associates " cannot
be meant those holding office about the king's court ; for, that
the king is exalted in prosperity and glory above the officers of
his court is true, and has ever been true not merely of righteous,
but of all kings, the unrighteous as well, and could not therefore
with any reason be represented as a special blessing consequent
on the righteousness of Solomon. Least of all can the fieroxoi?

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 53
be explained, with Olshausen and others, of the angels ; to these
neither the Psalmist nor our author can have referred in this
word ; we shall soon see that the point of comparison between
the Messiah and the angels lies in quite another part of the
citation. The associates are evidently his associates in royal
dignity — other kings ; and the Psalniist says, that on account of
his righteousness Solomon has received more joy, prosperity, and
glory, than any other king of the earth. The anointing with
oil of joy is not to be understood of the anointing to the office of
king or prophet, or even of the anointing with the Holy Ghost
in general, but the figurative expression is derived from the well-
known custom of anointing the head at festivals (Deut. xxviii.
40 ; Psalm xxiii. 5, xcii. 11 ; Matth. vi. 17), and " to be anointed
with oil of joy" is equivalent to being blessed with joy and pros
perity. — That Qij-pN ln tne eighth verse is again vocative follows,
not merely from the analogy of the seventh verse, but is evident
of itself, and serves rather for the further confirmation of the
correct rendering of ver. 7. It is impossible that ^n^N can De
in apposition with Q^pj/N > even in a vocative address such a
construction would be foreign to the spirit of the Hebrew diction ;
besides, here in the nominative or subject such a redundance
would be all the more intolerable, as the emphasis which it
involves is altogether without occasion or aim. The LXX. have
therefore rightly understood Qi|-j^fc$ as the vocative and 'iij-j^N
as the subject. That QipjzM has no article is explained by this,
that it is not an address to God, the one, definite, well-known,
but an address to a man.
The repeated address qi^^ 'applied to Solomon close beside
the designation of Jehovah as o^n^N ls certainly highly signi
ficant. The poet addresses him thus not out of flattery, but
under the influence of the theocratic feeling that the dominion of
God over Israel finds its manifestation in the dominion of the
anointed of God over Israel. This involves the idea that the
theocratic king is the fulfiller of the will of God in Israel.
How then does our author apply this passage ? He does not
say that these words of the psalm are in the sense of their author
an address to Christ (comp. the remark on 7rpd?), but that
they are spoken of Christ, are applicable to him. That

54 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. I. 4—14.
exalted dignity and rank was ascribed to Solomon because, and
in so far as his sceptre was a sceptre of righteousness, because,
and in so far as he loved righteousness and made the will of God
his will. The Psalmist contemplates Solomon then as the ideal
of a theocratic king, such as was conceived in 2 Sam. vii. and
farther delineated in hope, Psalm ii. In as far as Solomon in
reality made the will of God his will, in so far might he be
accounted the seed promised to David, in so far might the
predicate qi;-^n De assigned to him. It is quite possible and
comprehensible, that in the first years of his reign it was believed
that the prophecy of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii., and the hope of David,
Psalm ii., 2 Sam. vii., found their fulfilment in Solomon, while
the words of David were forgotten that the Lord spake " of the
distant future." (It was thought, too, in the time of Constantine,
that the reign of the thousand years had commenced !) But it
soon appeared how mistaken this belief was, how far Solomon
departed from a faithful fulfilment ofthe will of God. Although,
however, that psalm — as a hymn on Solomon— was shown to
have proceeded from human error, it did not, therefore, and in
the same degree, cease to be prophetical, but it then first became
a prophecy. It became apparent that the ideals delineated in
that psalm under the guidance of the Holy Spirit would first be
realized in the future. The ideal of the righteous king who
absolutely fulfils the will of God, and to whom, therefore, the
predicate Qin^N truly belongs, and whose dominion is to have
an everlasting continuance, is only very imperfectly fulfilled in
Solomon, is first perfectly fulfilled in Christ. Thus those
words cited from the psalm are spoken respecting the Son. In
the sense of their human author they are neither a direct nor an
indirect prophecy of Christ, but the object of which they treat,
Solomon, was a real, a living prophecy of Christ, a type and pre-
figuration, and, in as far as those words represent Solomon in
his typico-ideal not in his human-imperfect character, they are
certainly in the sense of the Holy Spirit a prophecy pointing to
our Saviour.
Inquire we now finally, how far we have in that declaration
of the Psalmist a proof of the superiority of the Messiah over the
angels. Three things are declared of the ideal of a thecoratic
king — consequently ofthe Messiah ; a, he is QVY7N; his authority

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 55
is the authority of God himself ; b, his dominion is endless ; c,
both are true because he perfectly fulfils the will of God. The
perfect theocratical king — therefore Christ (which required no
proofs for the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews) — stands in
this threefold relation above the angels. He is the absolute
revelation of God and therefore himself God ; the angels are only
servants. He is King of an imperishable kingdom ; the angels
execute only periodical commands ; he rules in a moral way as
founder of a kingdom of righteousness, and his whole dignity as
Messiah is founded directly on his moral and spiritual relation to
man; the angels are only mediators of outward appearances of
nature, by which a rude, unsusceptible people are to be trained for
higher things.
Ver. 10 — 12. As ver. 8 s. is connected with ver. 7 by the words
Trpo? rbv vlbv, so is ver. 10 still more closely connected with ver.
8 s. by a mere Kal, and indeed we shall soon see, that the two
members ver. 8 — 9 and ver. 10 — 12 taken together, form the
antithetical member to ver. 7.
Here also we will first consider the passage quoted (Ps. cii.
26 — 28) in its original meaning and connexion. The words in
themselves have no difficulty ; the Sept. has rightly rendered
them, and the author follows the Sept. ; the meaning of the words
too is clear. But the question again recurs, how far these words,
evidently spoken of God, can afford any proof of the superiority
of the Son over the angels. The supposition that the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews by mistake, i.e. from complete
ignorance of the context from which he took the passage,
considered those words as an address directed to Christ, is too
awkward to find any acceptance with us. The author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews can scarcely be conceived of as so
senseless, that, without any occasion, he should use words which
apply to God as if they applied to the incarnate Son of God. So
coarse a mistake would certainly not have escaped detection ; for
it is not to be forgotten that his readers were also in a certain
sense his opponents, and would scarcely have allowed themselves
to be drawn away from their deep-rooted prejudice in favour of the
old covenant and the Old Testament Israel, by bad and untenable
arguments. That supposition is all the more improbable when
it is considered^ that the author has evidently quoted all these

36 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
passages not from memory, but has carefully copied them from
the LXX., so that he could not possibly be ignorant of their
original context. In general, however, it is a very superficial
and shallow view that would lead us all at once to consider the
use of Old Testament passages in the New Testament as parallel
with the exegetico-dogmatic method of argumentation pursued
by the Rabbins. The apostles and apostolical men have,
indeed, exhibited in their epistles such a freedom from the spirit
of Jewish tradition, such an originality and youthful vigour of
new life, such a fineness and depth of psychological and historical
intuition, and the whole system of Christianity in its freshness
and originality stands in such contrast to the old insipid anti-
Messianic Judaism, and appears so thoroughly a new structure
from the foundation resting on the depths of Old Testament
revelation, and not a mere enlargement of the Pharisaico-Rabbi-
nical pseudo-Judaism, that it were indeed wonderful, if the same
apostolical men had in their interpretation of Old Testament
passages held themselves dependent on the Jewish exegesis and
hermeneutical method. In reality, however, the apostolical
exegesis of the Old Testament stands in directest opposition to
the Jewish- Rabbinical, so that one can scarcely imagine a more
complete and diametrical difference. In the Rabbinical inter
pretation it is always single words — studiously separated from the
context— from which inferences, arbitrary, of course, are drawn.
The Rabbins affirm, for example, that when a man lies three
days in the grave, his entrails are torn from his body and cast in
the face of the dead ; for it is written in Mai. ii. 3, " I will also
cast the filth of your festivals in your face." (Sepher joreh
chattaim, num. 66.) Nay, the later Rabbinism, as a direct
result of this arbitrary procedure, went the length of drawing
inferences even from single letters. They taught, for example,
the transmigration of the soul, and that the souls of men ever
continue to live in men ; thus the life of Cain passed into Jethro,
his spirit into Korah, his soul into the Egyptians (Ex. ii. 12 ss.),
for it is written Gen. iv. 24 <pp opi, and i, p, and ^ are
the first letters of Jethro, Korah and V£}ft, (Jalkut rubeni,
num. 9.) The genuine pharisaical principle which forms the
basis of all this, is, that the letter as such is what is most significant.
The New Testament writers, on the contrary — as we have seen

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14. 57
in reference to Heb. i. 6 — 9, and as we shall see more and more
as we proceed with the epistle — drew all their arguments from
the spirit of the passages considered in their connection. Nothing
at all is inferred from the mere letters of the passages quoted.
In Ps. xiv. there is not a syllable about angels. When the
author, notwithstanding, has adduced that passage as a proof
that the Messiah is superior to the angels, he has, as we have
seen, necessarily reckoned on a rational consideration of the
passage on the part of his readers, and a reflective logical compa
rison of the passage with that in Ps. civ. 4, and the force of the
argument proceeds only from such a judicious interpretation and
attentive examination of the ideas and references objectively
contained in both passages.
The procedure which he uniformly follows is not that of
collecting passages in which the words " Son" and " angel" occur,
and arbitrarily interpreting them — thus the Rabbins would have
done — but of adducing the weightiest passages in which the
Messianic salvation is prophesied of (substantially, although not
at all under the name " Messianic"), and from these developing
the idea of this salvation. Thus in vers. 7 — 12 the simple and
fundamental idea which he wants to show is, that while the
angels are employed by God as ministering in temporary appear
ances of nature, the Messianic salvation, on the contrary, is ever
represented, a, as the lifting up of the man, the theocratical
king, immediately to God; b, as the immediate saving act of
God himself, i.e. in one word ; c, as an immediate relation of
God to men without the intervention of mediation by angels.
He finds this idea of the Messianic salvation in those expressions
of the Psalms, but not dry outward statements respecting the
person of Christ.
In ver. 8 — 9 the important truth was stated, that the true
theocratical king, when his dignity is described, receives not the
predicate " angel," but the predicate Q^f-j^N. He enters without
the mediation of an angel, a Y% "rfr^ft, lnt° immediate unity
with God himself. Have we then in ver. 8: — 10 a descrip
tion of the saving work of a man who is one with God, we are
therefore entitled to expect that in ver. 10 — 12 a passage will be
adduced as a counterpart, in which the Messianic salvation is
described as an immediate act of God to man, without the inter-

58 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
position of angels. For this is the difference between the Mosaic
economy of the law and the Messianic economy of the gospel : a,
in the economy of the law the man, Moses, is God's servant, and
enters as yet into no immediate contact with God himself, but
only with a form of the divine manifestation in the "/S 'r^ft ;
in the Messianic economy, on the contrary, the theocratic king
is himself Qipi^^ in an immediate relation of oneness with God,
while nothing is said of the mediation of angels ; b, in the Mosaic
economy, God works upon men through angels ; in the Messianic,
God works immediately and directly on men without the need of
angels. This latter idea, as has been already said, we must
expect to find proved by a quotation in vers. 10 — 12.
Let us look now at the psalm. It is a song of complaint n^Q.Tb
^V v anc^ according to ver. 4 written during the exile ; and it is
evident from ver. 14 (thou shalt arise and have mercy upon
Zion), that the author bewails not the sorrows of an individual
but the misfortune of his people, although he represents this
in an individualized lyrical form as his own affliction. After
having pourtrayed in vers. 2 — 12 his own wretched condition, i.e.
the condition of the Israelite and the Israelites, he appeals in
ver. 13 to the immutability and eternity of God. It is self-evident
that it is not the eternity as a metaphysical attribute of God, nor
his unchangeableness as the immaterial Spirit that is spoken of,
but the unchangeableness of Jehovah in his acts, in his relation
to Israel, in a word the divine covenant-faithfulness. Upon this
he grounds the inference ver. 14, that God shall again have
mercy upon Zion, then will the heathen and their kings fear him
(ver. 15), and men will speak of the saving work of God to
coming generations (ver. 19), that God, namely, has looked down
from heaven and heard the cry of the prisoners (vers. 2  21.) It
is, then, the deliverance from the captivity that is here spoken of
consequently the Messianic time. The prophets before the exile
had represented the Messiah as the deliverer from the exile. Not
till towards the end of the exile was it revealed to Daniel that
the Messiah should come not immediately after the seventy years
of the exile foretold by Jeremiah in the strict sense, but after
seventy years of weeks ; i.e. just that the state of being under
the yoke of the heathen, which is substantially a state of exile

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14. 59
would, even after the local return to Canaan, stretch over a
period of seventy years of weeks. The 102d Psalm does not yet
discover the difference between a state of exile in the stricter,
a,nd in the wider sense ; the Psalmist simply prays for the
speedy arrival of the promised time of the redemption and
the salvation, that salvation which, when it actually appeared,
Luke i. 68, was denoted literally in the same way in which it
had been denoted in Ps. cii. 20 as " as God's looking down
upon his people."
At the conclusion of the psalm the prayer is again concisely
expressed in the words, " Take me not away in the midst of my
• days (ere I have witnessed the deliverance of the people), thy
years are to all generations." Here too the prayer for deliverance
is enforced by the thought of God's unchangeableness, which
implies here, besides the idea of the covenant-faithfulness of God,
also that of his greatness. Upon this follow the words : " Thou
hast in the beginning (?"vjtp, Kaf «p%a?) laid the foundations
of the earth, the heaven also is the work of thy hands. They
shall perish, thou shalt remain," &c. The fundamental idea
there then is, that the hope of the promised Messianic deliverance
rests upon God alone and not on any kind of creature-help.
Emphasis is expressly laid on the fact that the heavens also and
celestial beings are subject to time and to change, and that upon
them the hope of the Messianic salvation cannot rest.
Thus do we find here, in reality, the precise idea expressed
which we were led to expect. Ver. 8 s. : the Messianic salva
tion, in so far as it appears as the act of a man, an anointed one,
" the seed of David," is already accordmg to the prophecies of
the Old Testament far superior to angel-revelations, is imme
diately divine, eternal, everlasting. Vers. 10 — 12 : the Messianic
salvation, in so far as it appears as the act of God, is already
according to the expectation ofthe Old Testament an immediate
act of God alone, of which no creature, no celestial creature even,
is capable.Thus the Son, as in vers. 8 — 9, so in hke manner in vers. 10 — 12,
appears in a threefold opposition to the angels, ver. 7. a, The
Messianic redemption is an act of ihe everlasting faithfulness of
God himself, not of a creature, b, It is everlasting, not mutable.

60 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
c, It is founded on a moral relation of God to men, on the faithful
ness of God, not on a relation to nature.
In conclusion then we see, that vers. 8 — 9 and vers. 10 — 12 are
the two members parallel to each other, which taken together
form the complete antithesis to ver. 7.
Ver. 13 forms the key-stone of the whole argument. Let us
look back for a moment on the course of the reasoning. The
New Testament revelation of God in the Son was opposed to that
of the Old Testament as the absolute to the relative, ver. 4, and
the absoluteness ofthe former derived, 1, from the name Son which
is assigned in the Old Testament to the promised Messiah, but
to none among the angels, ver. 5 ; 2, from this, that where the
(Messianic) saving work of God, i.e. of the irpmroTOKOs is pro
phesied of, merely the place of worshipping spectators belongs to
the angels, ver. 6 ; 3, ver. 7 — 12, from the immediateness of
the union of God with men in the Messianic salvation, from its
everlasting duration and its spiritual nature, inasmuch as it rests
on the reciprocal relation of human righteousness, vers. 8 — 9, and
divine faithfulness, vers. 10 — 12. — It had been shown in ver.
8 — 9, as well as in ver. 10 — 12, that an immediate elevation of
man to God, and an immediate act of grace on the part of God
towards man, without the interposition of angels, were already
laid down in the Old Testament as the fundamental character
istics of the Messianic salvation. This immediateness is now in
ver. 13 still farther confirmed by a crowning passage from the
Old Testament in which it is most clearly expressed. The
Messias, it is said, shall sit upon God's throne, and take part in
the divine dominion. Nowhere is this represented as belonging
to an angel.
The quotation is from Ps. ex. 1. Bleek cannot allow this
psalm to be taken as prophetical of the Messiah, because the
hope of a personal Messiah was foreign to the time of David.
This objection needs no refutation after what has been said at
ver. 5. Tholuck also (Hebraerbr. Beilage i. p. 10) has rightly
directed attention to 2 Sam. xxiii. 1 ss. — that saying of David
in which he expresses so definite a hope of a definite posterity
who should fulfil Nathan's prophecy, 2 Sam. vii. That we have,
in Ps. ex., also an expression of that hope grounded on 2 Sam. vii.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4 — 14. 61
should no longer be doubted. We by no means need to appeal
to the declaration of Christ, Matth. xxii. 42 ss. ; even if we were
able, without doing violence to a sound understanding, to agree
with those who regard that declaration not as Christ's real
opinion, but as intended by him half in jest merely to lead the
Pharisees into an inextricable difficulty — even if we were at
liberty to adopt such a view, the composition ofthe 110th Psalm
by David, and its Messianic signification, would still stand fast of
itself. The remarkable representation of a sacerdotal king like
to Melchisedek, which we find in this psalm, will not at all suit
a time subsequent to that of David. The later kings stood partly in
hostile relation to the priesthood, cultus, theocracy, and worship
of Jehovah, partly, even when they stood in a peaceful and
friendly relation to these as in the case of Hezekiah and Josiah,
they showed this precisely by not invading the rights and offices
of the priests ; the attempt of the otherwise pious Uzziah to com
bine the priestly functions with the kingly was punished by God
himself with the infliction of the disease of leprosy. In such a
period, such a psalm, with the representation which it gives of
a priest-king, could not have been composed. To unite the
priestly with the kingly dignity was at that time as little to the
praise of a king, as it is now to the praise of the emperor Henry
IV. as an emperor, that he invested bishops and popes. As
this, on the contrary, was a commendation under Charles the
Great, and even under Henry III., so also was that a ground
of praise in the time of David, of David the protector of the high
priesthood against Saul, the man after God's heart, in opposition
to whom the priests had no occasion for watching over and
defending their rights, because they had no reason to dread any
malicious invasion of these from the despotism of the king.
We must therefore seek for the date of the psalm in the time of
David. — With respect to its contents, modern critics have held
the psalm to be a hymn upon David sung by one of his subjects.
The first words correspond with this explanation : the Lord
(God) said unto my lord (the king.) But the words immediately
following, in which God is represented as having spoken, will not
apply to David. It is easy to comprehend how Solomon should
receive the predicate Qin^^ as the theocratic ruler, especially
when he is contemplated as the ideal seed of David, and fulfiller of

62 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS I. 4  14.
the will of God. But it cannot be comprehended how an Israelite
should have spoken of David's sitting upon God's throne ; for the
throne of God was, as we learn from Ps. xi. 4, xxxiii. 14, &c,
in the heaven ;x a sitting upon God's throne was not applicable
to David even by the boldest hyperbole, still less would ver. 4 be
suitable to David, in which Jehovah is represented as having
sworn to the king — the same who is spoken of in ver. 1 — that he
shall be a priest and king at the same time, and that for ever
Q^^^). When had ever such a thing been promised to David %
Bleek thinks there is no trace of the psalm's referring to the
future ; but do not ver. 1 (the Lord said) and ver. 4 (the Lord
hath sworn and will not repent), refer plainly enough to a. prophecy
that had been given and was still unfulfilled (?j-j^ tfh} fut.) ? It is
possible, indeed, that a prophecy referring to David's own future
destinies might be meant; but it will be difficult to find any
prophecy of such an import in reference to David. Nowhere
else must we look for the i'S q^} mentioned in Ps. ex. than in
that very prophecy of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii. with which we
are now so familiar, and there it is said, twice in succes
sion, not of David, but in express contradistinction to him,
of his seed : •inp^OErriN "•nfrprTl ^er. 12, and efoj>--r}>,
¦irO^EE NpS-,nN VVjU'to'V David shall indeed die, but his seed
shall reign for ever. There, too, we find the words Q^W-*™ of
Ps. ex. 4. And we have already seen at ver. 5 of our chapter,
that although Nathan had spoken of the seed collectively, David
might yet expect, and did expect, the fulfilment of this promise
in no other way than in a definite individual of his posterity.
(With this the objection of Bleek falls of itself to the ground 
that the idea of a personal Messiah was unknown in the time of
David). What remains of Ps. ex. 4 finds its explanation also in
2 Sam. 7. Nathan had revealed to David that he was not
appointed to build the Lord an house ; he was appointed merely
to reign ; but his seed after him was to build an house to the
Lord, and the Lord would build an house for it. If now the
1 The mercy-lid over the ark of the covenant which shut out the
accusing testimony (the ten commandments), from the view of God is
indeed in Luther's translation, but now here in the original, designated as
a seat or throne of God.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1 — 4. 63
seed of David was to do in a higher and more excellent degree
that which in a less degree the builders of the tabernacle had
done, this might properly be considered as a uniting of priestly-
ecclesiastical with civil functions, and might be represented in
the language of lyrical poetry as a government " after the order
of Melchesedec." But if the seed of David is to have an house
built for him by the Lord himself, and is to reign for ever and
ever, he is thereby exalted to God's own throne ; God has built
for him his house and his throne, he has built God's house ; the
dominion of both is thus endless and unlimited, and becomes
accordingly one and the same.
But while it is impossible that David can be the object of the
psalm, he can be, and is, its author. For, from what other
individual of the time of David are we at liberty to expect such
an unfolding of the Messianic hope, than from that king who
gave utterance to the prayer with which we are already familiar
in 2 Sam. vii. 18 — 29 and chap. xxhi. 1 ss.?
This passage from the Psalms, then, is cited by our author.
No angel, but a man, is chosen to an immediate unity of domi
nion with God, to absolute rule over all enemies, over the whole
world. The angels, on the contrary, as the author says in ver.
14, by way of recapitulation, and looking back to ver. 7, are minis
tering spirits XeirovpyiKa irvevpara ; they exist only on account
of those who are appointed to be " heirs of salvation." It is not
the angels that are called into a relation of oneness with God, but
man. In this antithesis, the whole train of thought finds its
conclusion.

A PRACTICAL intermediate part.
Chap. ii. 1 — 4.
In ch. ii. 1 — 4 the author immediately adds a practical appli
cation of the foregoing. All the more carefully must we hold
fast the New Testament doctrine. ZlepiWa)? is a familar expres
sion, especially with the apostle Paul. Why the comparative
is used here appears from the train of thought, which is as
follows (as is plain also from ver. 2 and 3.) Apparently, the
authority of the Mosaic law is higher than that of the gospel ;

64 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1  4.
for there God revealed himself by angels, here by a man. But
it follows from what has been said, that the New Testament
revelation, far from having less authority on that account, pos
sesses rather an authority by so much the greater, that it was
not given through the mediation of angels, but is immediate,
consequently; that greater heed must be given, not to esteem it
lightly. Mtfirore irapappvmpAv, A.D. and other manuscripts read
rrapapvS>p<ev, which, however, is not a different reading, nor an
error in the writing (Tholuck), nor a poetical form, but, as Sturz
(de dial. Maced. et Alex.) already perceived, and Thiersch
(de Pent. vers. Alex. p. 85) has since further proven, nothing
more than an Alexandrian orthography. The form 7rapappvmp,ev
cannot be the conj. pres. act. of irapappvem, as this verb nowhere
occurs, but is supplied by the grammarians for the explanation of
certain forms. We have here simply the conj. aor. sec. pass, of
irapappemto flow by, — lest we unconsciously slide past (comp. Sept.
Prov. iii. 21). Some supply rd aKovtrOevra, in which case it
would signify — " that we forget not the things we have heard," but
this gives an almost tautological idea. When others supply rrjv
amrriplav in the sense of " everlasting happiness," something
heterogeneous is thereby introduced into the words. The best
way certainly is to supply rmv aKovoQevrmv ; " that we may not
even yet entirely fall away from the doctrine we have heard."
For this was the specific danger that threatened them. Who
ever of those Jewish Christians should once treat what specifically
belonged to the New Testament as a secondary thing, to which
he needed not to give such anxious heed as to its connexion
with the Mosaic ordinances and law, might come unconsciously
and imperceptibly to lose entirely his Christian knowledge and
love for the Gospel. (Similarly De Wette, Bleek, Tholuck.)
Ver. 2 — 3. The idea already implied in the first verse,  that
the gospel because given to men by Jesus possesses all the hi o-her and
holier claims, is now further unfolded as the ground of what is
said in ver. 1. El introduces an argument e concessis ; that the
law is jBefiaio? (i.e. has a. fully attested divine authority) was
undisputed on the part of the readers. This authority, however,
rested substantially on the fact, that the law was promulgated by
angels. The question presents itself, whence arose this view of
the co-operation of angels in the giving of the law from Mount

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IT. 1  4. 65
Sinai. Among the more recent theologians the opinion is pretty
prevalent, that this was a belief entertained by the Jews in the
time of Christ, a rabbinical notion, of which Stephen (Acts vii.
53), Paul (Gal. iii. 19), and the author of this epistle availed
themselves for their respective objects. If it should be granted
that it was nothing more than a notion belonging to that time, it
would not therefore follow that it was superstitious ; on the con
trary, there lay beneath it a profound truth. Moses did not
make the law but received it ; the voice which spake the ten words,
Ex. xx., the finger which wrote them, could not, however, be
immediately ascribed to God; it was rightly conjectured that
those appearances were brought about by the agency of exalted
creatures, and that forms of revelation so external do not corres
pond with the eternal and invisible nature of God. And that is
precisely what our author means to urge, namely, that the
revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is one which is
absolutely adequate ; that, however, which consists in the mere
utterance of a law is not adequate. The whole reasoning,
therefore, would rest on a profound truth, even if that view
respecting the co-operation of angels on Mount Sinai were a mere
rabbinical theologumenon.
But it is not a mere theologumenon ; it has a real foundation
in the statements of God's word, of the old Testament. We
will not, indeed, and are not warranted to refer here to the ^r^Vft
i i ; for although it is always of importance to bear in mind that
God, in the time of Moses, chose for the form in which he
appeared that of the angelic species, still, the angel of the Lord
was no individual created angel ; least of all would this explain
the use of the plural in the passage before us — oY dyyeXmv. We
would rather refer — in as far as regards, in general, the origin of
the doctrine of angels before the exile — to the passage in Joel
iv. 11 (at the final judgment the Gentiles shall assemble together ;
" there God lets his mighty ones come down") compared with 2
Kings xix. 35 (" the angel of the Lord came down and smote
the camp of the Assyrians.") With reference, however, to the
special co-agency of angels on Sinai, we would appeal, with
Olshausen, to the two passages Deut. xxxiii. 2 s. : Psalm lxviii.
18. In the first passage, in the song of Moses, it is said : God
shined forth from Mount Paran, he came with ten thousand of holy

66 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1  4.
ones. The form i-yQl"! is stat. constr. plur. of n^l"} mynas >
tthp-nGTV therefore, means multitudes or hosts of holy ones.
It is then said in ver. 3 : Yea he loveth the tribes ; all his holy
ones are at thy hand; they sit at thy feet; he receives thy words.
Those who sit are evidently the Israelites who sit at the foot of
the mount, as it were at God's feet ; the subject to receives can
be no other than Moses. There is thus an antithesis between the
" they" and the " he." But this antithesis cannot be that which
results from placing emphasis on the rjpn> f°r then ^^MT must
have stood before Nto\ ^ut' as ta*s is not ^e case' Dill can
only be used in opposition to the foregoing ?iftj-jp, so that these
- t t:
holy ones are plainly distinguished from the Israelites as different
persons. It may also be supposed on other and independent
grounds, that the Israelites are not meant by these " holy ones."
In the first place, the former are never by Moses either described
as holy ones or designated by that epithet ; in the chapter imme
diately preceding (chap, xxxii.), he speaks much of their un-
holiness and obduracy. But in the second place, if by these holy
ones the Israelites are to be understood as meant, then must we
give to *7-j^ the signification " in thy protecting hand," " in thv
protection," a signification which this expression had not yet
obtained in the time of Moses. Finally, the idea as a whole —
that God protects the Israelites, and bears them, as it were, in
his hands — would be altogether out of place in this description of
the giving of the law from Sinai. Four distinct and independent
reasons, then, compel us to render the words : " all his holy ones
stand at thy hand (at this side, near thee), and to explain this of
the hosts of angels standing near to God. In the same way must
we explain the "multitudes of saints" spoken of in ver. 2. The
Alexandrian translator must also have perceived that angels were
spoken of here ; he has, in true Alexandrian fashion, put into the
text the correct interpretation of ^-jp ]-£D")> by substituting the
words e« Be&mv avrov ayyeXoi p.ef avrov in place of a translation
ofthe to him obscure words *$£} Hi tt)N ver- 2.
The other passage to which we would refer, and which serves
to confirm our explanation ofthe foregoing, is Ps. lxviii.l|!. The
68th Psalm belongs to the time of Solomon ; not to an earlier

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1  4. 67
period, since in ver. 30 mention is made of the temple in Jeru
salem ; nor to a later, as in ver. 28 the princes of Naphtali and
Zebulon appear with presents before the King, which could not
possibly have taken place after the separation of the two kingdoms ;
chiefly is ver." 82 applicable to Solomon, where mention is made
of the Egyptian and Ethiopian ambassadors bringing gifts, and
also ver. Kf> where it is said that God from this time forth for
ever has made hjs dwelling place " on the hill." — In this psalm
we read ver. 18 : " the chariots of God are twenty thousand,
many thousands ; the Lord is with them on Sinai in the holy
place." — The author of our epistle, therefore, was fully justified
by what he read in the Old Testament in calling the law a word
spoken by angels.
This word was Peftaios (see above), and every 7rapa/3acrt?
(positive transgression), nay, even every rrapaKotj (negative
omission) received its just recompense. To designate the recom
pense, the author, who evidently aims at elegance of style, uses
the more select, more rare, and sonorous word p,io-0a-7roSocria. —
If this held good already of the law, — how shall we escape
(namely, the just recompense) "if we neglect so great crmrripia,
which is confirmed to us by those who heard it as one which, at
the first, was spoken by the Lord f A twofold antithesis to the
law is here specified. First, the law was a mere word (X070?)
which, indeed, laid commands upon men, but imparted no
strength or inclination for their fulfilment, the gospel, on the
contrary, is a salvation, a redemption, an act. (Some would,
most unhappily, and without any occasion given in the text, but
rather destroying the beauty of the idea, explain a-mrnpia by
X070? tt}? creuTTipta? with an arbitrary reference to Acts xiii. 26.)
Secondly, the salvation has been revealed and preached to men,
directly and from first hand, by the Lord himself, not from second
hand by the angels. This is implied in the words dpyyvXafiovo-a, &c.
QApxhv Xapifidveiv used by later Greek writers instead ofthe clas
sical apxeo~0ai.) The beginning cannot, of course, be understood
here as forming an antithesis to the continuance ; as if the two
acts dpyr)v Xaf3ovo-a XaXeladai and iftefiaimdt) were co-ordinated,
and the sentence to be resolved thus dp^r/v eXafie XaXeicrffai Kal
i@ej3aico&7), in which case the idea would be — that the salvation
was. at first spoken by the Lord himself, but afterwards had been
E 2

68 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1  4.
delivered to us as sure by those who heard it. Where then
would be the difference between the salvation and the law ? The
law, too, was at first given by God, and then brought by angels
to men. The author of our epistle, however, lays no emphasis
on the fact, that the salvation was given from God virb tov 6eov,
but that it was brought to men from the very first by (Bid) the
Lord, consequently, not first by intermediate persons. 'E/3e/3aim6r],
is therefore, of course, not co-ordinate with apxyv Xa^ovaa
XaXeicrdai, but Xaftoilcra depends on ifiefiaimdn. That the safoa-
tion was revealed directly by the Lord is what has been delivered
to us by the aKovaavre^ the ear (and eye) witnesses as a cer
tainty, and consequently, as a divine authentication of the
amrvpia. Some have found in vers. 1 — 3 a proof, that the epistle to the
Hebrews could in no case have been written by the apostle
Paul. (Euthal., Luth., Calv., &c.) For Paul, far from exclud
ing himself from the number of eye-witnesses, rather lays all
weight on the fact, that he had seen the (risen) Lord himself, 1
Cor. xv. ; Gal. i. This argument is, however, without force ;
other grounds there may be against the Pauline origin of the
epistle, but in these verses there is none. It is one thing to have
once seen the risen Lord, it is another thing to be an ear-witness
of the salvation spoken by Christ, i.e. of the entire revelation of
God in Christ. (Comp. Acts i. 21.) The same Paul, who in
writing to the Corinthians who doubted of the resurrection, or
to the Galatians who disputed his apostolic mission, appeals to
the former fact, must yet have acknowledged that he was not an
eye-witness ofthe salvation in the latter sense. Moreover, the
1 plur. in ver 1 is not communicative, but merely insinuatory.
Ver. 4. It is quite consistent with the practical aim which our
author never loses sight of, that he attaches only a subordinate
value to the confirmation of the Gospel by miracles. He says
— avveTTip,aprvpovvTo<i. Maprvpeiv means to bear witness of a
thing which is still under question, doubtful, — iirip,aprvpeiv to
testify of a thing already established, — o-vverriptaprvpeiv to give an
additional testimony to a thing in. itself certain, and confirmed
by proofs from other sources. This implies that the salvation in
Christ does not properly stand in nee<J of confirmation by mi
racles, but bears already in itself the testimony of its truth. And

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 1  4. 69
indeed, it will never happen, that a heart which is inwardly far
from the truth of the Gospel, which is wanting in repentance
and self-knowledge, the spiritual hunger and thirst, will be, so to
speak, forced into an acknowledgment of the truth of this Gospel
by an appeal to the miracles which accompany it. On the
contrary, to such hearts the miracles are rather rrpoaKoppiara,
" that with seeing eyes they see not, and with hearing ears they
hear not." Only the heart which has first experienced in itself the
miracle of regeneration, of creative renewal, is capable of the
humility wliich believes, even where it does not comprehend. For
this very reason, however, the miracles are not something non
essential ; but, as in the time of Christ, so still, they serve the
end of being boundary stones between faith and unbelief, signs
of God for the believing spirit, intimating that he is a living
God, who stands above, not beneath his works, chiefly as the
distributor of life and the Saviour, above that nature which is
fallen by sin, and is subject to death, (in which view the resur
rection of Christ, the first-fruits forms the centre point of all
miracles), — and signs of faith which, in miracles, learns and
exercises humility. — It is, moreover, worthy of observation, that
this very passage which ascribes to miracles the humble function
implied in the word crvveiriptapTvpeiv, furnishes a principal proof
ofthe historical reality of the miracles, and, with this, of the
supernatural character of Christianity in general. A man who
wrote before the year 70, speaks of miracles, even where he does
not give them a high place, as of well-known and undisputed
facts !
Miracles may be regarded in a fourfold aspect, first, with
respect to their design as ar)p.eia (pf)^), signs, miraculous testi
monies in behalf of any truth ; secondly, with respect to their
nature as repara (j-iQ'ift), i.e., supernatural acts ; thirdly, with
respect to their origin as Bvvdp,ei<;, because wrought by higher
powers ; and finally, in their specifically Christian aspect as irvev-
/mito? 07101; p,epiap,oi, as exercised by those who, according to the
will and wise distribution of God, are endowed with the parti
cular gifts of miracles (comp. 1 Cor. xii. 11.)

70 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
SECTION SECOND.
(Chap. ii. 5—18.)
IN THE SON MAN IS RAISED ABOVE THE ANGELS.
In the first section it was shown, that already the Old Tes
tament points to a future absolute revelation of God to man, a
revelation through a Mediator, by whom man should enter into
immediate contact with God and God with man, and that this
predicted revelation of God is, even in the Old Testament, placed
higher than that which was given through the mediation of angels.
It was therefore the dignity of the Son as such, his person and
office, that was first spoken of.
In the second section, on which we now enter, the one idea
already implicitly contained in the first section (i. 8 — 9), namely,
that in the Son, man is immediately exalted to a union with God
such as belongs not to the angels, is taken up and independently
carried out. Here again, the 5th verse, which contains the new
theme, is connected by means of the conjunction ydp with the
concluding words of the foregoing section. The new idea — that
the divine dominion over the future kingdom is ascribed not to
the angels but to the son of man, follows quite naturally upon
the exhortation in ver. 1 — 4 as a new proof, but at the same time
comes into co-ordination with the whole of the first section, chap.
i. 5 — -14 ; the first section was the one foundation upon which
the exhortation, chap. ii. 1 — 4, is made to rest; chap. ii. 5,
together with its further development in ver. 6 — 18, forms the
other foundation. — Thus the author, with great beauty of style,
bridges over the space between the concluding words of the first
section and the announcement of the new theme, just as we
observed before in chap. i. 4.
Before, however, proceeding to follow out exegetically this new
theme, it may not be without advantage to view somewhat more
closely the ground-idea of the new section in itself, and to make
ourselves familiar with it. That not merely the Son as the
eternal only begotten of the Father or the first-born (irpmro-
toko?) of every creature is higher than the angels, but that man
also as such is called (of course in Christ) to a much more imme-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 71
diate union with God than belongs to angels, and that therefore
man, as regards his proper destination, is higher than the angels,
— this is a statement which at first sight will appear surprising,
as we are generally wont to regard the angels as superior beings.
And, indeed, it is not without reason that we do so. For,
according to the statements of the Holy Scripture, the angels
are endowed with higher and less limited gifts and powers, and
although as creatures they cannot be conceived of as unlimited
by space, and consequently, as incorporeal, still they have an
unspealiably freer and less circumscribed relation to space and to
matter than men have in their present state. They clothe them
selves with visible matter and put off this garment again ; they
transfer themselves to wheresoever they please, they are not
bound to a body of clay, and as they are without sexual distinc
tion (Matt. xxii. 30) there exists among them neither any
development of the individual from childhood through the
various steps of age, nor of the race, through successive genera
tions. The entire species has come from the creative hand of God
complete in all its individuals, complete as the diamond which
sparkles with perpetual and unchanging lustre. — How now, shall
we reconcile it with this, that our author should place above the
angels poor weak man, hemmed in by space and a gross body,
developing himself upon the basis of animal sexuality 1 Just in
the same way as we can reconcile it with the weakness and
meanness of the rose-bush, that there is in it, notwithstanding, a
more excellent life than in the diamond. The enamel of the rose
when it has reached its bloom is something far superior to the
glitter of the diamond. So also will man, when he reaches the
bloom of his glorified life, unspeakably excel the angels in glory.
Man's superiority lies just in his capability of development.
When the diamond is once disturbed by the ray of a burning
reflector it is irrecoverably gone ; so are the angels, once fallen,
for ever lost, according to the doctrine of Scripture. The rose
can with difficulty be hurt, and even from its root it will still
send forth new life ; so was man rendered capable even by sin (the
possibility of which, though not its actual entrance, was neces
sary in consequence of his freedom) of entering into full spiritual
life-fellowship with God, through the help of the Saviour
entering into him, nay, capable of receiving the person of the

72 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
redeeming Son of God as a member into his race. Hence also,
it is the planet-system that has been assigned to man as the
habitation and the theatre of that absolute revelation of God in
Christ, — the planet-system, in which the antithesis between the
fixed-star-like, or angel-like independent sun and the animal-like
dependent moon finds its genuine human reconcilement in the
planets, and most completely in the earth — while the angels, as
the " hosts of heaven," have their dwelling place in the fixed
stars, where there is no opposition between illuminating and
illuminated bodies, where planets do not revolve round suns, but
fixed stars around fixed stars.1
In ver. 5 the ground-idea is first of all expressed in a nega
tive form. The oiKovp,evn r) p.iXXovo-a, the future terrestrial
globe, i.e. the future kingdom (comp. Isa. lxvi. 22) j^n OTiyil
is nowhere represented in the Old Testament as ruled over by
angels. The positive antithesis to this follows in vers. 6, 7 in the
form of a citation which plainly enough implies the statement,
that man rather is appointed to the dominion over " all things."
Ver. 6, 7. The citation is taken from Ps. viii. 5 — 7; the
passage is quoted according to the Sept., with this exception,
that the words koI KOTeo'TTTcra? avrbv iirl ra epya rmv ^eipmv
crov, which are not found in the original Hebrew but are
added in the LXX., are omitted by our author. The manner
in which he introduces the quotation Biepuprvparo Be ttov tr
Xeymv appears at first sight strange, but in nowise implies that
the writer (as Koppe, Dindorch, Schulz thought) did not know
where the citation was to be found.2 For we find a similar
indefiniteness also in chap. iv. 4, where the words cited (" God
rested on the seventh day") are of such a kind that it was impos
sible the author could be ignorant of where they originally
stand. That he knew this, too, in the case before us, is evident
from the exactness with which he cites according to the Sept. ;
while at the same time he omits those words of the Sept. which
i See this view further developed and vindicated in my essay " Die
"Weltanschauung der Bibel und die Naturwissenchaft " in the journal
" Die Zukunft der Kirche," principally in p. 31 ss. and p. 55 ss.
2 Still less, of course, does it imply, that he meant to throw doubt on
David's being the author ofthe psalm, and to represent its author as an
unknown person, — as Grotius thought.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 73
do not belong to the original. IIov Tt? is therefore a mere arbi
trary mode of expression (which was peculiar also to Philo, comp.
Bleek on this passage) ; the author forbears to specify the place of
the citation, just because he takes it for granted that it was quite
well known. In the same way might a writer or speaker in our
own time say — "one has said: Here I stand I can do nothing else."
With respect to the quotation itself it presents two difficulties ;
a, the words 7rap' 0776X011? evidently appear to belong to those
words of the citation from which the author draws his inferences,
comp. ver. 5. His object is to prove from the passage in the
psalms, that man was indeed made lower than the angels, but
only for a time, not for ever ; rather, that precisely to man, and
not to the angels, is the dominion over the oiKovp,evm tj pieXXovcra
ascribed. But those very words trap' dyyiXovs have no founda
tion in the original Hebrew, the words there are j^ft VnDnffl
DVT 7NJ2. b, The words f&payi ti are evidently understood
by the writer, ver. 9, in the sense of time as meaning " a short
time." " We see Jesus who was for a short time made lower
than the angels crowned." To take /3po%u ri there in the sense
of degree would yield no sense whatever. Consequently the
author has also in ver. 7, in this citation, understood {ipayy rt in
the sense of time. But ^yft in the Hebrew, and fipayy ri in the
Sept., according to the opinion of its authors, are to be under
stood in the sense of degree ; this at least is the most prevalent
opinion among more recent critics (also that of Olshausen.) The
only thing then that remains for us is here again to give the
psalm itself our direct and unprejudiced consideration. Whether
or not the psalm was written by David is here a matter of perfect
indifference ; reasons, however, will appear occasionally and
unsought for, to warrant our ascribing its authorship to him.
Let us consider, first of all, the psalm itself.
" Jehovah, our Lord, how mighty is thy name upon the whole
earth, thou whose honour is praised1 above the heaven." Here,
1 XSlT\ cannot De imperf. which in a relative clause would be alto
gether without sense. If we derive it from <ift* then it must be the 3
sing, praet. with ;-j fin. (comp. ver. 7 «-j]^qj instead of jrfty) and apoco-
pated » In this case -^^ must point back to W^QJ. " ^hy name,

74 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
already, there is an evident antithesis between earth and heaven.
The God, whose majesty is praised above in all heavens, disdains
not to acquire for himself also on the poor small earth a glorious
mighty name by the acts of his covenant-faithfulness (as the Lord,
our Lord.) Ver. 2, " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
hast thou established a power for thee, because of thine adversaries,
to subdue the enemy, the avenger." It is not easy to say what
the poet had in his mind here. At first sight we might be
tempted to imagine a reference to some special case, in which a
hostile warrior had, by the weeping and hsping of a child, been
moved to pity towards its parents. But a definite case of this
kind which the readers of the psalm might have been able to call
to mind without farther description, does not occur in all the Old
Testament ; nor is it the enemies of a man but the enemies of
God that are spoken of ; and, besides, the subsequent part of the
psalm treats solely of the high position which God hath assigned
to man as such. We must, therefore, find in ver. 2 a reference
of a more universal kind. God has on account of his enemies,
for their subjugation, provided a power, and that out of the mouth
of weak sucklings ! By the enemies of God we must understand
the whole power opposed to God on the earth, the kingdom of
darkness, the kingdom of the serpent ; by the power which God
hath provided we are to understand the whole of those prepara
tions which God hath made or promised to make for overcoming
the darkness. What are the preparations of this kind with which
we are made acquainted in the Old Testament? Has God,
perhaps, promised that he will at one time send hosts of angels
who shall trample on the serpent's head ? No ; when his object
is to chastise sinful men, he places a cherub with a flaming sword
before the closed gate of paradise ; but when the future redemp
tion from the bondage, of the serpent, from death, is spoken of, then
which has made thy glory above the heaven.' This, however, is a very
forced idea. The simplest way is to point the word thus pj^fi (as Pual of
pjjfl Jud. v. 1 1, xi. 40, which corresponds well enough with the inr/pOi)
of the LXX.), or, if it be thought preferable, to point j-,^ in the sense
habitare, from which pfoft " dwellings" is derived. ^But the latter
root did not belong to the Hebrew till after the captivity, while -t*n
celebrare is a primitive poetical expression.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS it. 5  18. 75
no mention is made of an angel, but the seed of the woman is to
bring the salvation, hence, though erroneously and hastily, she
fixes her hope on the boy that first comes from her womb, she has
now a man child, and thinks that with the seed of the woman
she has at the same time recovered the possession of the God
whom she had lost (left behind in paradise.) And from this
time forth, all hope of salvation was turned towards the birth of
the heirs of the theocratic blessing, and on the preservation and
protection of these first-born. The original promise of the seed
of the woman separates itself into many branches ; when a son is
born to Lamech he calls him Noah, for he hopes that he will
bring comfort to men in their trouble and labour upon the earth
which God has cursed (Gen. v. 29) ; all the hope of Abraham
is turned towards the birth of Isaac and the preservation of his
life, Isaac's hope rests upon Jacob ; the whole prospect of future
salvation always rests on such weak beings ; upon the child
which slumbers in a basket among the sedges of the Nile, rested
the salvation of Israel ; and, moreover, David's entire faith
rested on the seed, which was to be the Son of God, and was to
reign for ever with God. (Comp. Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erful-
lung. part i. p. 195.) This psalm then certainly suits no author
better than David. The same royal singer, who in Psalm ii.
and ex. admired the divine majesty of the seed promised to
him, is, in Psalm viii., . lost in adoring wonder that God has
selected a lowly son of man as the instrument of his divine
conquests. Sucklings, weak children, are the threads on which the hope
of Israel hangs. (How natural was it for the reflective reader
already here to carry out the antithesis ; God has not told his
people to direct the eye of their hope to the appearances of angels,
and to hosts of angels.)
The 4th verse of the 8th Psalm contains nothing that might
serve to confirm what is said in ver. 3 ; that the poet considers
the heaven as the work of God, can be no reason or proof that
God has chosen children to be the instruments of his power.
We are therefore not entitled to give to 13 the argumentative
signification " for," but must render it as a syntactic particle by
"when," so that ver. 4 forms an antecedent clause to ver. 5.
" When I look upon thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the

76 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
moon and the stars which thou hast prepared ; what (I must
then exclaim) is man that thou are mindful of him, and the son
of man that thou visitest him." To translate the words
U)13M"fT1D " now excellent is man," as Bohme and Kuinoel do,
is forbidden by the sense of tffify which, as is well known, always
designates man on the side of his weakness and frailty. The
whole passage is evidently rather an exclamation of adoring
wonder, that God, this mighty ruler of all heavens, should let
himself down to poor weak man, the suckling, and should give
him so high a rank. The words \£"i3N~n?D then, express the
contrast between the weakness of man and his high destination,
— not, however, the result of the latter. The antithesis vaguely
and generally implied hi ver. 2 — that He who is enthroned in
the heavens disdains not the earth as the scene of his majesty — is
thus rendered more definite in ver. 3 — 5.
But the promised glory is at first only promised ; it lies still in
the future ; that it may soon be realized is the hope which the
Psalmist expresses in the 6th verse of the Psalm : !|j"y"lDrWl
D^n /WO t25?Q> " thou hast made him to want a little of God."
"IDP? signifies " to want," in Piel, " to cause to want," so in
Eccles. iv. 8, " I cause my soul to want good." The rendering :
" Thou hast made him a little less than God" is therefore, to say
the least, arbitrary ; nor does it suit the context, in which all
emphasis is rather laid upon this, that man, who is not " a little"
but infinitely inferior to God, is, notwithstanding, appointed to
share with God in the dominion over the world. We are
therefore to understand ^ n°t in the comparative, but (as in
Eccles. iv. 8) in the privative sense, and ^q not as significant
of degree, but of time. For a little while must man be deprived
of God — not God qua Jehovah, for it is purposely not "-[ipto? but
God qua Elohim, i.e. the contemplation and enjoyment of the
visible nearness of God in his glory as the Creator ; but the time
comes when he shall be crowned with glory and honour, and
shall reign over all the creatures of God (ver. 6 — 9.) Thus does
God make his name glorious on the earth (ver. 10.)
The second difficulty in regard to ^payi n now disappears of
itself. We see that ^Jflj ls to be taken in the sense of time. But

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 77
the first difficulty, too — namely, that trap' dyyeXov; is not found in
the original Hebrew, is now easily removed. If we suppose this
irap' dyyiXovs to be also not in the Greek text, the force of the
argument drawn from the citation remains still quite the same.
The psalm contains the idea, that God who rules over all
heavens has made the salvation to rest precisely on weak sons of
men, and has destined the sons of men to be the future lords of his
kingdom. If also the antithesis be not expressly stated, that it is
not angels who are the promised saviours and rulers, it is still
clearly enough implied in the train of thought which is pursued.
The LXX. have actually put this antithesis into the text,
although not in the clearest manner ; the writer of our epistle,
who always cites from the LXX., could do the same with all the
more safety that the whole argumentative force of the passage
depends not at all upon those words which owe their existence to
an inaccurate rendering of the original. Nay, he might do this
with all the more reason, seeing that the translation irap' dyye-
Xovs, although inaccurate, is yet by no means without occasion.
The LXX. were induced to adopt it because the Hebrew does
not say : " Thou (Jehovah) hast caused him to want TJiee for a
short time," but "Thou (Jehovah) hast caused him to want
Elohim." They thought that Q1J-J7N must denote a subject
different from Jehovah (or a plurality of such.) And there is
something true in this, if we are not justified in at once
understanding Q^j-j^N of the angels. Without doubt, however,
QVT7N denotes God in a different point of view from jf!!"P\ He
is called Jehovah as the personal, living, free-willing, and hence,
chiefly, as the faithful covenant-God ; Elohim, on the other hand,
as the adored, all-governing, Creator and Lord of the worlds, in
his creative majesty. The Psalmist, therefore, would not, and
could not, say : Jehovah, thou hast caused man to want Thee ;
since God qua Jehovah has never withdrawn himself from men.
But he might truly say : Jehovah, thou hast made man to want
the godhead — the contemplation of and intercourse with the
world-governing godhead in its glory. The idea which the
LXX. have substituted for this : " Thou hast made him lower
than the angels," evidently agrees with it substantially ; for this
is substantially wherein the superiority ofthe inhabitants of heaven
consists, that as they serenely fulfil the will of God, so they enjoy

78 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
the undisturbed vision of God, and intercourse with him. The
gist of the argument, however, rests, as we have said, not on 7rop'
dyyeXov? ; on the contrary, there follows in ver. 8 still another
inference such as does not presuppose any express mention of
angels at all in vers. 6 — 7.
Ver. 8. The words and meaning are clear. When the author
draws the inference from the fact of all things having been (in
the way of promise) made subject to man, that nothing can be
excepted — he, thereby, suggests to every thinking and attentive
reader the special application, that the angels also will then be
subject to man.
Here this train of thought concludes. With the words vvv Be,
which must be regarded as belonging to ver. 9, an entirely new
train of thought begins, the design of which is to show, in how
far man has been already invested with the glory and elevation
above the angels ascribed to him in Ps. viii., and in how far he
has still to expect this. At present, indeed, man as such, i.e.
humanity, has not yet attained to that elevation. Still, in the
person of Jesus, who (although the Son of God, and already in
himself higher than the angels, according to chap. i. yet) by his
incarnation has been made lower than the angels hke to us, a
first-fruits of humanity is raised above the angels. But he is
raised only to draw all the rest after him ; for it was necessary
that he should suffer, just in order that as a captain he might
make many sons partakers of his glory.
How then was it possible, that such a commentator as Bleek
should so entirely mistake and misunderstand a train of thought
so clear throughout! He acknowledges (in p. 259) that "it
seems as if the person whom we are to understand as meant by
that man, ver. 6 s., were first designated in ver. 9," and vet denies
that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has used the dvQpm-
7ro? in ver. 6 in the general collective sense ! But, in truth, the
opportunity was too tempting of fastening upon our author, here
again, a grossly Rabbinical misunderstanding of a psalm. True,
the writer says not a single word of the Messiah in vers. 6  7,
but places in opposition to the species angels to whom the oik. r\
piiXX. is not to be made subject, the species sons of man to whom
(according to Ps. viii. and Heb. ii. 10) it is to be made subject,
and " it seems" as if the relation of Jesus to this general

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 79
prophecy were first spoken of in ver. 9 — and yet, the author
must have taken the eighth Psalm, which is not Messianic,
for a Messianic Psalm ! True, the expression \yi3^-n?2 cannot,
as Bleek himself acknowledges, be understood with Kuinoel
as pointing to the glory, but only as pointing to the weakness
and frailty of man, and m^-El as parallel with ^^^ can only
denote the " son of man" in his impotency — and yet, the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot possibly have had under
standing enough to find out this simple sense ; but although " it
seems" that he first speaks of Christ in ver. 9, he must yet
necessarily have meant the Messiah by the pregnant term wo?
dvQpmrrov — however different this expression is from 6 wo? tou
dvBpmirov. True, what is said in ver. 8 — 10, as we shall after
wards see, is altogether inconsistent with this supposition which
has nothing to rest upon, and Bleek is there driven to an
extremely forced interpretation ofthe sense ; but yet/ the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews must bear the charge of a
Rabbinico-Messianic explanation of the Psalms, which owes its
existence solely to modern mistrust of the writers of the Bible.
What ground, then, can there be for departing from the simple
interpretation of the words as they stand? Indeed, had the
author said, " Not to the angels has he made the future kingdom
subject but to the Son ; for one testifies," &c. — then, Bleek might
be right. But the author has in chap. ii. entirely relinquished
the comparison of the angels with the Son as such, and purposely
shows, from ver. 5 to ver. 18, that not merely the Son, as first
born and Messiah, but that in him humanity as such is exalted
above the angels, and that therefore it was necessary that the
Son of God should become a member of humanity (vers. 16 — 18.)
— We remain therefore firm and unshaken in the view, that, in
vers. 6 — 8, not merely in the sense of the Psalmist, but also in
the sense of our author, it is man or humanity that is spoken of
and by no means the Messiah.
In vers. 9, 10 there follows a new chain of thought consisting of
three links, a, Man as a whole is at present not yet exalted
above the angels, b, The man Jesus is, however, already exalted,
and he is exalted, c, as leader of the rest of humanity, for which
he has secured by his sufferings the possibility of a like exalta
tion.

80 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
The first of these points needs no farther explanation either
grammatically or otherwise. The second, on the contrary,
already with respect to the construction, requires a more par
ticular consideration. Three constructions are possible. The
first and most natural is to take 'Inaovv as object, i)XaTTw-
p,kvov as adjectival attribute of 'Iwaovv, and iare<pavmp,evov
as predicate to the object. Man is not yet exalted ; but we
see Jesus who, indeed (although as first-born already higher
than the angels, yet through his incarnation) was for a time
made lower than the angels, already, on account of his sufferings
unto death, crowned with glory and honour. By the being
crowned is meant, of course, nothing else than the having all
things subject to him ; he who is crowned is thereby set up as
ruler. And the glory and honour with wliich Jesus has been
crowned is just that in virtue of which, since his ascension, he
now, not merely as the Son of God, but rather also as the exalted
son of man, excels the angels, and is the object of their adoration.
In Phil. h. 5 — 10 we have the best commentary on the passage
before us. Before him who once humbled himself to the death
of the cross every knee now bows, those who are in heaven and
on earth, and he bears a name which is above all names.
The adjectival attribute, however, ^Xarrmpevov fipayy ti, was
evidently necessary, because the author would make it plain that
he speaks here not of that glory and honour which Christ enjoyed
before his incarnation, as the first-born (chap, i.), but of the
honour which the incarnate, after having been humbled to the
condition of men, made subject to misery and death, has received
as the reward of his suffering unto death. Hence he designates
Jesus expressly, as him who like us was for a time made lower
than the angels.
The words Bid to Trddrj^ia (as Olshausen also rightly observes)
cannot with.Beza and Jac. Capellus be made grammatically
dependent on i)XaTrmp,evov, but only on iare(pavmp,evov. The
question, however, why eo-re<pavmp.evov does not stand as anti
thetical to t}Xott. before Bid to 7rd6r)p,a finds its answer in the
simple remark, that the emphasis here does not rest on the
antithesis between the humiliation and the exaltation, but on
that between the not yet exalted man and the already exalted
Jesus. 'E<rTe<pavmpi. is therefore antithetical with ovrrm ....

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 81
viroreTaypieva, and must like vrroreraypieva be placed at the
end. Bleek, who construes the sentence in the same way, finds
himself now in vers. 9, 10 involved in an evident perplexity,
owing to his erroneous interpretation of vers. 6, 7. He must
admit that mention is first made of the person of Jesus Christ in
ver. 9, and yet, according to his opinion, mention was already
made in vers. 6 — 8 of 6 wo? rod dvOpmirov. There remains for
him, then, no other way of escaping from this difficulty, but that
of explaining vers. 6 — 8 of the Messiah as promised, vers. 9, 10
of Jesus as the fulfiller of that prophecy. The following is the
meaning which he assigns to the verses before us : According to
the promise, all things are to be made subject to the Messiah ; all
things are, however, not yet made subject to the Messiah actually
come, to Jesus, (he has still enemies and unbelievers on the earth.)
This seeming objection to the Messiahship of Jesus the author
now seeks to remove by saying, that Jesus, although not yet
exalted over all, is still in the meanwhile crowned. — Here, in the
first place, the respected theologian contradicts himself when he
finds the historical person Jesus mentioned in the sentence vvv
Be, and not first in the sentence rbv Be rfKarr. (see his own inter
pretation p. 260), and when he finds an antithesis between the
avrm in the sentence vvv Be and the foregoing avrm, which can
only be found between the vvv Be ... . avrm and the rbv Be
'Irjaovv. In the second place, he completely loses sight of the
author's train of thought, which has nothing to do with the
question whether or not upon earth, among men, all have already
subjected themselves to Christ, but is solely occupied with the
question, whether the dvOpmiros (whoever this may be) is still
lower than the angels or has already been exalted above the
angels. In the third place, he takes for granted that there is an
antithesis between the inrordao-eiv avrm rd rrdvra and the
arefyavovv rbv 'Ino-ovv, of which there is not the slightest indica
tion in the words.1 In the fourth place, we must expect to find
as the conclusion, the assurance that to Jesus who is already
1 The idea which Bleef finds in this passage must have been expressed
in Greek thus : — Kal t£> p,ev 'hjo-ov o3wa> opcapev ra irairra vrroTenaypiva.
BXeTrofiev 8e avrbv io-Te(pava>pcvov yo€» 8d|# Ka\ Tipfi, xal oibafuv ort a i/p^aro
6 &€OS ravra Kai TeAeH&trei.
F

82 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18.
crowned, all things shall at some future time be also actually made
subject. Instead of this, we find the conclusion, that in Jesus
and through him, many also of the rest of men shall attain to a
participation in that glory and honour ; proving most clearly that
the author in vers. 6 — 8 had in view not the- Messiah, but man
as such.
Other commentators differ from our explanation even in the
construction. Some take rbv Be rp\arT. as object and 'Inaoiiv
in apposition to it. "But we see him who was for a little
made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned," &c. Every
one must see how forced this is as a construction. But besides
this, the meaning which it yields would only be suitable, if by
the avOpmiros in vers. 6 — 8 might be understood the Messiah.
But, even in this case, a contradiction would arise, namely, with
ver. 8, in which the avrm must also be understood of the Messiah.
Thus something would be affirmed of the Messiah in ver. 9 which
is denied of him in ver. 8. A third construction (Tholuck and
others) makes ijXarr. the object, 'Iijaovv the predicate, and
io-retf). apposition to the predicate. " We see man made for a little
while lower than the angels in Jesus who has been crowned."1
The whole passage would, according to this, be an answer to the
question where and in whose person are we to find that humanity
which is spoken of in vers. 6 — 8. But this interpretation is
impossible even in a grammatical point of view ; the words in
order to have this meaning must run thus : 'Iwaovv rbv Bid, &c.
In general, however, the Greek would not express by a mere
placing together of two accusatives such a formally declared
judgment, in which by the predicate is expressed not the contents,
but the compass of the idea contained in the subject, in which an
answer is given not to the question what ? but to the question
who ? We should rather have expected the following : rbv Be . . .
rjXarrmpevov (SXeiropev on 'Itto-oi)? iari 6 Bid &c. or rbv Be ... .
fjXaTT. fiXeiropev 'Iwaovv elvai. But also, with respect to the sense
thus obtained, the justest doubts may be entertained. The proposi-
1 Similarly Olshausen : " We acknowledge Jesus who is crowned with
honour and glory to be that one who was made a little lower than the
angels." This must have been expressed thus : 'irjo-ovv rbv &a k\.
ecrrsffiavtaiievov.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 83
tion in ver. 8, that man has not yet entered on the glory promised
to him, would thus in ver. 9 be not limited but reversed. For, if
by that man who ivas made for a little lower than the angels spoken
of from ver. 6 to ver. 8, we are, according to Tholuck's explana
tion of ver. 9, to understand none other than Jesus, and according
to ver. 9 Jesus is already exalted, then it cannot be said in ver.
8 that man has not yet been exalted.
Thus the simple explanation given above is confirmed on all
sides. —
The author passes to the third link in the chain of thought in
the words : oirms %o>pt? Oeov virep rravrbs yevo-rjrat, Oavdrov.
There are two points to be determined here, the one pertaining
to the reading, the other to the connexion of oVo)? with what
goes before. — The reading wavers between %aptT( Oeov and %<»pk
Oeov. Theodoret, Theodorus of Mopsuestia, and the Nestorians
read %ojpt?. And Marius Mercator, Theophylact, and CEcume-
neus put forth the charge that this reading owed its existence
entirely at first to the invention of the Nestorians. Occasion
was doubtless given for this charge, by the manner in which the
Nestorians availed themselves of this reading in their doc
trinal controversies with the Catholics. They understood %wpi?
Oeov as more exactly determining the subject contained in
yevarjrai, and thus obtained the rather strange sense : Jesus has
tasted of death without his Godhead, i. e. the divine part in him
remained unaffected by his death. But, however convenient this
reading might be to those excellent critics, it by no means owes
its origin to the Nestorians. First, because the words %o>pt? Oeov
\nrep rravro'i explained without prejudice and without artifice,
can yield no sense favourable to the Nestorians ; secondly,
because two hundred years before Nestorius, the reading %a>pt?
Oeov was known to the ancient Church Father Origines. And
not merely known ! For he mentions the reading which stands
opposed to it as one to be found " in several manuscripts " (ev
Tieriv dvnypdcpois.) In his time then, the majority of the manu
scripts had the reading %t»pt?. When, therefore, at a later
period, Jerome says, vice versa, of the reading absque Deo, that
it occurs only in quibusdam exemplaribus, very little weight is
to be attached to this, partly, because the most eminent Latin
Fathers, Ambrose, Fulgentius, Vigilius and others, adopted the
r 2

fS4 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
reading absque, partly, because it is not difficult to understand
how the more flat and easy reading %dpni should have come
gradually to be preferred to the more difficult, and, on doctrinal
grounds, suspected %tup/?. This satisfactorily explains how it
should happen, that on to the 6th century to which our oldestMSS.
extend, the ancient reading %a>pt? was almost entirely suppressed;
hence it has been preserved only in the single cod. num. 53, in a
scholium to cod. 67, in a cod. of the Peschito, and in the
Patristic citations before referred to.
The same course was pursued in regard to the reading %wpt?
as has recently been pursued by Bleek ; it was rejected on
internal grounds, and because it yielded no proper sense. But
this very circumstance is a guarantee for its genuineness. The
reading %apiTt is certainly clear as water, most easily understood,
and — most futile, nay unsuitable. Christ has, by the grace of
God, tasted death for all. That not merely the giving up to
death together with its results, but that even the tasting of death
should be traced to the grace of God, has something startling in
it. Still, it might be said, that xapLTl @e°v refers only strictly to
the words inrep rravTos. And this is certainly worthy of being
listened to. But still, the meanmg thus attained remains futile,
inasmuch as there was no necessity or occasion whatever to
mention in this context, in which the subject treated of is the
exaltation of man above the angels, that Christ was given up
through the grace of God ; at least %dpiri Oeov might be thrown
out of the text without producing any perceptible defect in the
train of thought. The reading, certainly, is easy, especially in
comparison with the other, from which even Bleek could extract
no suitable sense ;x nay, it lay quite at the hand of every copier
who thought for a moment of how the offensive ^copi? might be
suitably recast.
The reading %copt? Oeov is the more difficult, more significant,
more suitable. Certainly, if with Paulus in Heidelberg we
explain %o>pi? Oeov " forsaken of God," an idea arises which is
out of place here. But is it not evident, that %«pt? Oeov is
rather to be taken along with virep Travros ? True, Bleek thinks
1 Olshausen also thinks that if the reading xap'ls be adopted, nothing
remains but to render the words « in his state of being forsaken by
God,"

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 85
that 7ra? denotes here merely the human race, and that the
author consequently cannot have intended to say that Christ has
tasted death for every being in heaven and on earth with the
single exception of God; but he intends merely to say, that
Christ has tasted death for men. But if the author intended to
make this latter statement, why then did he not write v-nep rrdvrmv
or xnrep rrdvrmv rmv dvOpmntmv ? Why did he rather choose the
enumerative singular " for every one V (It is self-evident that
ttoi/to? is not neuter, and cannot be translated by universe.) —
We find the best commentary on this passage in ver. 8 and in 1
Cor. xv. 27. In the latter passage we meet quite a similar
thought, quite a similar limitation to that which hes here in ^tspt?
Oeov. At the resurrection, writes the apostle Paul in that
passage, all things shall be put under the feet of Jesus, rravra
yap inreraffev vrrb robs 7r6So? avrov (a reference to Ps. viii., just
as in the 8th verse of our epistle.) "Orav Be eiirn, he continues,
on rrdvra vrroTeraKrai, BfjXov on iKrbs tov virord^avro<; avrm to
rrdvra. There was occasion for the same restriction in our
passage. In ver. 8 the writer had laid emphasis on that very
rrdvra in Ps. viii., and thence proven, that absolutely all things,
the angels as well, should be made subject to man. In a way
quite analogous to this, he will now in ver. 9 show, that Christ
by his death has reconciled absolutely all things, heaven and earth.
The same is said in Eph. i. 10, — i.e. that side by side with this
capital and central fact in the human sphere, no other analogous
acts of God in the sphere of the angels can be placed ; that,
rather, all creatures, the angels likewise, participated in the blessed
fruits of the death of Jesus. And this he expresses first, by
again saying inrep iravros, and then, inasmuch as he limits
this 7raz/To? merely in reference to God, shows, that the rravros
refers to everything except God, consequently also to the angels.
Christ has tasted death for every one, God himself alone excepted.
It is quite evident, then, that the preposition virip in this
context does not denote the vicarious satisfaction ; for Christ has
made this only for sinners, for men and not for angels. 'Trrep
is here therefore to be rendered not " in the place of, instead of,"
but " for, in behalf of." The angels also, although they need no
atonement, have yet likewise enjoyed in their way the blessed
fruits of the death of Jesus. If, in general, their happiness

86 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
consists in the adoring contemplation of the majesty and love of
God, then the contemplation of this most wonderful act of self-
sacrificing love must form the consummation of their bliss (comp.
1 Pet. i. 12.) And if there is joy among the angels over every
sinner that repents, then the death of Jesus, by which the way
to repentance and conversion has been opened up for all sinners,
must have been the fountain of a sea of joy to the angels.
The second question to which we now pass is how the particle
oirms is to be explained and construed. First of all, it is most
natural to take oVo)? as dependent on earecpavmpLevov ; but this
seems to give an idea which has no proper meaning. The
crowning and exaltation of Christ took place in order that , he
might suffer death for all. How is this possible, seeing that his
death preceded his exaltation ? The critics have therefore blindly
sought in their own way to escape the difficulty. Some have
assigned to 07r<»? a new signification ; Erasmus, Kuinoel, and
others, the signification of ma-re, Schleusner that of postquam,
which, in a grammatical point of view, is absurd. Others have
had recourse to artificial constructions. Bengel and Bohme, in
a truly reckless manner, are for making ovtim? dependent on
t^Xott. .' Grotius, Carpzov, Storr, and Bleek, on a short clause
to be supplied from the noun irdOvpia : 6 erraOev. But all
these artifices are unnecessary. "Oirms depends actually on
i<Tre<pavmp,ivov, can depend on nothing else, and needs to depend
on nothing else ; for a meaning perfectly good results when only
(with Wetstein) the proper emphasis is given to the %»pl? Oeov
virep iravTos. Christ was exalted that he may have suffered
death for all with the single exception of God. This is certainly
not spoken with logical precision ; thus spoken it would be : that
the death which he has tasted, might be for the benefit of all. This
brevity, however, this condensation of two small clauses into one,
is extremely natural. So, for example, might a teacher say to a
youth who was going out for the first time into the world : " See
that you remember my words and admonitions also when you
are away, that I may not have taken pains with you in vain,"
i.e. that the pains which I have taken with you may not be in
vain. (Olshausen also substantially makes oiravs dependent on
eo-Te<pavmp,evov : "that he might be one who had tasted death
for all.")

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 87
Jesus, then, must be exalted, in order that his death may be
for the benefit of all, of men and angels. So long as he was
only the crucified man Jesus, so long his death was indeed an
objective vicarious death of atonement for guilt not his own, but
it yielded no real fruit either to men or angels. Not till the
incarnate one was exalted and glorified, and crowned King in
heaven, did it become possible for him to send the Holy Spirit,
and thus to effect the appropriation on the part of man of the
salvation which had been objectively wrought out, and therewith
to bring joy to the angels over the conversion of men.
In ver. 10 we have the third link in the chain of thought to
which the clause 6Vgj?, &c, has formed the transition, nay, which
was already implicitly contained in that clause. This part can
therefore be connected with the clause beginning with oirms by
means of an explicative ydp, " namely." Had this transition-
clause been wanting, then we must have expected Be instead of
ydp. (Man has not yet attained to the dominion ; Jesus, how
ever, is already crowned ; but, through him, the rest of mankind
also are to be led to glory.) The author, however, is not so fond
of sharply distinguishing his thoughts from each other, as rather
of making rhetorical transitions from the one to the other.
With respect, now, to the construction of the tenth verse, it is
self-evident, a, that eirpeir'e yap avrm is the governing clause ;
b, that the relative clause Bi ov depends on avroo ; c, that the
subject to eirperre is formed through the infinitive reXeiwcrai ; and
d, that tov dpxnybv depends on reXeimo-ai as its object. The only
doubtful point is, whether the accusative dyayovra, with what
belongs to it, is accusative of the subject to reXeimo-ai (conse
quently, together with reXei&o-ai, forms an ace. c. inf.), or,
whether dyayovra is in apposition to the accusative of the object
dpxvjbv. In ¦ the latter case, the word in apposition would be
placed before its principal word, in order that the latter may
receive all the greater emphasis (just as in ver. 9, the attribute
rjXaTrmp,evov was placed first, and 'Irjaovv followed for the sake
of the emphasis.)
That the ovto? Bi ov, as subject of the verb reXeimaai, is
different from the dpxrjyos as the object of this reXeimo-ai, as also,
that the dpxvyos is Christ, is self-evident ; the outo? Bi ov is,
therefore, God the Father. If now, following the former con-

88 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
struction, we render the words thus (with Olshausen) : " it
became him for whom and through whom are all things, in
bringing many to glory to make the leader of their salvation
perfect through suffering," then God the Father is here the one
to whom the action expressed by the ayeiv belongs, and this
whole clause 7roXXov? wov? et? Bb^av dyayovra receives the place
of a mere accessary limitation, to some extent a conditional
limitation. If God (thus we might explain the idea), if God would
bring many sons to glory, then must he make him whom he
has chosen as their captain, perfect through suffering. The
emphasis rests here on the words Bid TraOt)p,drmv. That the
suffering was necessary is the kernel of the thought, all the rest
serves only for preparation. — If again, following the other con
struction, we render the passage thus : " For it became him for
whom and through whom are all things to make the captain of
their salvation perfect through suffering, as one who should
bring many sons to glory," then, the emphasis here rests evi
dently on 7roXXov? wov? dyayovra and dpxrjyov. It is, however,
precisely one of the pecuharities of our author's style to place
such principal clauses as it were in the periphery of his sentences,
and this of itself would suffice to give the preference to this
second construction. In addition to this, there is the beautiful
parellelism resulting from this construction between the 'Incrovv
placed after, and the dpxvybv, in hke manner, placed after.
Moreover, the two ideas are thus placed antithetically to each
other : at present, Jesus alone is exalted ; but he is exalted as a
leader of others. The train of thought, then, absolutely requires
that the emphasis in ver. 10 should rest upon this — that through
Jesus the rest of mankind also attain to glory, consequently, on
the end and result of the suffering of Jesus — but not on the
means, the suffering itself. And how strong the emphasis which
the author lays upon that result he shows by giving a twofold
expression to the idea that through Jesus many attain to glory,
first, in [the words ttoXXovs wou? dyayovra, and then, in the
word dpxyyos. We are not, therefore, at liberty to sink the
clause iroXXoiis w'ou? dyayovra into a mere accessary limitation,
which, according to the former construction, would be unavoid
able, but must necessarily give the preference to the second
construction. Ver. 10 is connected with ver. 9 as an explana-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 89
tion of it ; there, as we saw, all the stress lay on inrep rravros ;
in ver. 10, too, it must therefore be shown how others also attain
to glory through Jesus. And the same idea is followed out also
in ver. 11. It is shown in ver. 11 how the glory of Christ is
participated in by man, but not why it was necessary that
Christ should suffer in order to procure this glory.
We render the passage accordingly : "It became him for whom
and through whom all things subsist, to make perfect, through
suffering , the captain of their salvation, as one who should bring
many sons unto glory." The idea that Christ could not be a
first fruits of others without suffering, finds its explanation in the
passages John xvi. 7 ; xiv. 2, 3. Upewetv, as also b<pelXeiv,
ver. 17, seems to denote not a fatalistic necessity, but a necessity
lying in the nature of the thing, and therefore in God's own
wise, world-governing will. That the Father is here designated
by oV ou to rrdvTa, which is usually a term of designation for the
Son (Rom. xi. 36 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6 ; e£ ov is generally said of the
Father) is explained partly, by the paronomasia with St ov,
partly by this, — that the Father is here regarded not as the
creator, but as the governor of the world, through, and under,
whose guidance the work of salvation is accomplished.
In vers. 11 — 13, there follows a further train of thought which, .
however, does not stand along with the rest ofthe members in vers.
5 — 8, vers. 9—10, vers. 14, 18, as co-ordinate with them, but as
subordinate to the member in vers. 9, 10 containing, namely, a
mere explanation ofthe idea in ver. 10 (that through the one Son,
others also should become sons.) It is shown in vers. 11 — 13, that
already in the Old Testament it is said, the Messiah shall receive
his subjects into his own relation of sonship with God. First of all,
in ver. 11, the proposition is thetically laid down that the dyidgmv
and the dyia^ofievoi stand in the relation of brethren coining
from one head of a family. With respect now, firstly, to lthe
meaning of the expression dyid^eiv, it denotes here not sanctifi
cation in the special sense, as an effect of faith in the atonement,
and as such different from justification ; but, just as little
does it denote justification as such, as was thought by many
of the old Protestant commentators. The expression aytd^eiv
denotes here, rather, the total change in their relation to God
which takes place in the members of the new covenant, in

90 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
opposition to the relation of the natural man to God. This wide
signification is explained by the sense and usage of the word 0740?.
"Ayios is, in the first place, used in a dogmatico-metaphysical
sense of God. God is holy, because he is in himself the perfect
one, and the fountain of all good, — also of all that is morally good
as corresponding to his own nature. God is further holy, in
relation to personal creatures, i.e., he is righteous ; here dyios
denotes the consistency of the divine dealings towards us with
his nature. In the second place, however, 0740? is used in a
historical sense ofthe creature, and forms in this sense the anti
thesis to all that which by sin has become estranged from God,
separated from God, and morally bad or essentially profane. Those
things are holy, which are withdrawn from the profane natural
life, and devoted to the service of God. Those persons are holy,
who are withdrawn from the sinfully-natural life, and are placed in
a relation of grace and redemption to God. Hence in the Old Tes
tament the Israelites, and in all the apostolical epistles the
Christians, are called 01 dyioi, although they are by no means
already sinless. Only, in the third place, does 0740? come to
denote (and in this case 6'<rto? is rather used) the state of a per
sonal creature who is absolutely free from sin, or who has become
free (1 Pet. i. 16.) — The dytd^eiv in the passage under conside
ration is an instance of the second of these usages, and denotes
the total act by which Christ withdraws his own people from the
natural life of death, and places them in the sphere of a new life
which rests upon his atoning death, has its source in his resur
rection, consists in the appropriation of salvation through
repentance, faith, and renewal of life, and will at one time be
perfected in sinlessness and glorification. — The other and stricter
signification of dyid&iv,. in which it denotes the special renewal
of life proceeding from faith (John xvii. 17 ; comp. Heb. xii. 14)
belongs to the third usage of 0710?.
Who, now, is the eh, the common parent, in relation to whom
the dyid%mv, Christ, and the dyiatypevoi, the subjects of the
Messiah's kingdom, are called brethren, — i.e., who is he whose
sons Christians become through the sanctifier? Hunnius and
Carpzov thought it was Adam ; Bengel, Schmid, and Michaelis
that it was Abraham. All these (as also Olshausen) found,
accordingly, in ver. 11 the idea expressed that the Son of God,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 91
as incarnate, has entered into a relation of brother to men. Then
is ver. 11 an answer to the question, — by what means has Christ
made many to be sons ? Ver. 10 : Christ, as leader, draws many
sons after him, ver. 11 : for he has become man, and there
fore comes from the same common ancestor with those who
are sanctified. — This interpretation is, meanwhile, decidedly
wrong. Not until ver. 14 does the author pass on to show,
that Christ, in order to raise us to a participation in his
sonship with God, must needs take part in our sonship with
Adam. The citations also in ver. 12 prove, as we shall see,
not that it was necessary for the Messiah to become man, but
simply that the Messiah should stand in the spiritual relation of
a brother to the subjects of his kingdom, that he should lift
them up to his relation of oneness with God. Finally, the desig
nation of Christ here as the sanctifier, and the sons as the
sanctified, also shows, that it is not the physical relationship which
we, the sons of Adam, have from our birth onwards with Christ
as the son of Mary, of David, of Abraham, of Adam, that is
here spoken of, but the spiritual relationship into which we enter
with him through our being sanctified. In ver. 11, then, we are
not told by what means Christ raises us to sonship with God
(namely : that for this end it was necessary that he should
become a son of man), but, rather, in this verse it is repeated by
way of explanation that Christ makes us his brethren, and as the
sanctified raises us to sonship with God. Thus, with the ancient
Greek commentators and Tholuck, we must explain the et?1 of
God, the spiritual father as of Christ so also of those who are
descended from Christ. But it is, certainly, to this descent from
Christ, not to the " common origin from God" (Bleek) that the
idea expressed in the e£ eVo? is to be referred, as appears of itself
•from what has been just said.
It still remains to be observed on these words, viewed gram
matically, that 7roWe? along with re — Kal — forms a pleonasm.
For which cause, 8fc. Because the Messiah is destined to enter
into the relation of a brother with the members of his kingdom,
not merely into that of a ruler over them — i.e. to exalt them to a
participation in the sonship — therefore, he is not ashamed already
1 Calvin is for taking hos as the neuter and supplying yivovs. This
is, grammatically, not possible.

92 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18.
in the Old Testament to call his subjects brethren, i.e. therefore
does an analogous relation appear also in the anointed one of the
Old Testament. — It is in this elegant rhetorical manner that
our author connects his proofs from the Old Testament vers.
12, 13 with the thesis ver. 11. .From what is said in ver.
11 it becomes intelligible how, already in the Old Testament,
such passages as Ps. xxii. 23 could occur. There lies therefore, of
course, in these Old Testament passages at the same time, vice
versa, a testimony to the truth of what is said in ver. 11. This is
plainly the aim of the author, to prove by these citations that
even in statements of the Old Testament this relation of brother
to the members of his kingdom, this calling to exalt them to the
place of children, is attributed to the expected Messiah.
The great majority of commentators have not rightly appre
hended the bearing of the 11th verse, and, hence, have not known
what rightly to make of the citations, vers. 12, 13. We say no
thing ofthe insipid view of those who, as soon as they come upon an
Old Testament citation, ignorantly presuppose that the author's
design was to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and
who then imagine they have done something wonderful when they
show that the passage cited contains " no direct prophecy pointing
to Christ." It is nowhere the aim of the author throughout the
entire epistle to prove that Jesus is the Messiah ; this he presup
poses, chap. i. 1 — 3, as an acknowledged fact on the part of his
readers. — Those again may be said relatively to have best appre
hended these citations, who think their design is to prove, that
even, according to the statements of the Old Testament, it was
necessary that the Messiah should become man. We know, indeed,
that according to the plain words of the author in ver. 11 this
also cannot be right. Not that the Messiah, the Son of God,
must of necessity become man, not that the incarnation was the-
means of exalting the rest of men to the place of children, is
what would here be proven from the Old Testament, — this means
is first spoken of at ver. 14, — but that, even in the Old Testa
ment, it was reckoned as a part of the calling of the Messiah, i.e.
the Anointed, the theocratical king, that he should not merely
rule over his subjects from above, but in brotherly ministerial love
lift them up to the same close filial fellowship with God in which
he himself stood as the anointed of God.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 93
On the erroneous supposition that ver.} 2 is intended to prove
the necessity of the incarnation, of the Messiah's becoming a child
of Adam, the three citations have been interpreted in the follow
ing manner. In Ps. xxii. 23 David the king is not ashamed to
remember that his subjects are at the same time his brethren, by
virtue of their physical descent from Adam or Abraham. Now,
as the first David was a type of the second David, there must
also exist in the case of the latter a basis of physical brotherhood
with men. (So also Olshausen.) But, in the first place, David
wrote that psalm not as the king, but as a fugitive from Saul (see
infra) ; and secondly, from the fact that David mentions a phy
sical relation as subsisting between him and his subjects, it
cannot be inferred that this relation belonged essentially to his
character as anointed of the Lord, and must therefore repeat
itself in the second David. With equal justice might it be said,
that because David in the 51st Psalm laments that he was con
ceived in sin, the second David must needs also have been
conceived in sin. — The second passage is supposed to be taken
from Is. viii. 17. Isaiah in his character as a prophet says, that
he puts his trust in God, and therefore retains the consciousness
that although he is a messenger of God to the people of Israel,
he is still at the same time a member of this people, and has to
exercise faith in his own prophecy. Consequently, Christ also,
the absolute prophet, must be a member of humanity to which
he was sent. But it is the manner of all prophets to speak at
the same time as men, and one might perceive in this a trace of
their relative and imperfect character, and be led to an inference
precisely the reverse, namely, that the absolute prophet must
needs have been a prophet in the pure sense of the word, and
not at the same time one of those to whom he was sent. If,
therefore, these citations are to be understood in this sense,
the force of argument which they contain appears feeble indeed.
("On the third citation which, indeed, has been the best under
stood, see below.)
We now come to look at these citations from a quite different
point of view. If our explantion of ver. 11 is right, then the
author intends to prove by the citations in ver. 12 s., not that
the Messiah must needs have taken part in our relation of son-
ship to Adam, but that it belongs to the calling of the Messiah to

94 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
raise the subjects of his kingdom to his own Messianic relation of
sonship to God, to that close union and fellowship of grace with
God in which he stands as the anointed of God. Let us now
see whether the citations in reality prove this.
The first is the passage in Psalm xxii. 23. It is well known
that this psalm was ascribed by tradition to David, and was
regarded as typical by the early Christian Church. From the
place which it occupies in the first book of the Psalms of David
it appears, according to Delitzsch's excellent investigations
(Symbolae ad Psalmos illustrandos), that this psalm was
included in the collection appointed by David himself (comp.
2 Chron. xxiii. 18 with Psalm lxxii. 28.) The situation, too,
which is described in Ps. xxii., under the figure of a circle com
posed of destructive wild beasts and wicked men, applies more
fitly to no one than to David when Saul persecuted him, hunted
him from cave to cave, and from one hiding place to another,
and surrounded on every side the mountain which he frequented.
It is, however, not a mere individual trust in God which David
expresses in the psalm ; he was through Samuel anointed of God
to be king, he had the promise of the throne, and on his faith in
this promise did that confidence rest. When, now, the apostles
find in those sufferings of David and his deliverance out of them,
a type of the sufferings and the resurrection of the second David,
this is not mere caprice on their part, but a thing for which they
have ample warrant. The conflict of Jesus with his enemies
was, throughout, and in the closest manner, parallel to David's
conflict with Saul. There, as here, we see, on the one hand,
the man after God's heart, the anointed of God, who knows that
he, although chosen to attain to glory and to establish his king
dom, will, despised, and alone, receive the exaltation from the
hand of God; there, as here, stands, on the other hand, the
possessor of worldly power, who fears with groundless suspicion
lest the anointed of God should seek to cast him down from his
power with the weapons of rebellion. But to this was to be
added, that this relation was first developed in Jesus in that
absolute purity and perfection which it as yet wanted in David.
David, although he shrunk from laying his hand on Saul, had
yet gathered around him a band of fighting men, Jesus had only
humble fishermen and publicans. Thus the conflict which is

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 95
pourtrayed in Psalm xxii. had reached only a typical, inadequate
development in David ; what David sings in that psalm first
found its full truth in the second David. And when, moreover,
our Lord himself in his anguish on the cross actually acknow
ledged the opening words of the 22d Psalm as containing the
most perfect expression of his situation, how can critics, shutting
their eyes against the light of day, still deny that the psalm
expresses a relation which in itself was aprophecy in act pointing
to Christ ?
The suffering Messiah of the Old Testament, then, in that
psalm expresses the resolution in the midst of his affliction that
if God should save and exalt him — in other words place him on
the promised throne and make him king — he will declare to his
brethren the faithfulness of the Lord, and will also raise them up
to such a knowledge of God, and such an assurance of their
gracious relation to him, as that they too should praise the Lord
with him. He calls his future subjects brethren, not from regard
to their being descended from Abraham in common with him,
which would be two jejune a meaning, but it is the feeling of
royal love that teaches him to regard his future subjects as
brethren, and plants so deep in his heart the care for their salva
tion, for their growth in the knowledge of God. Herein,
evidently, hes the significance of the declaration that David
regards his future royal vocation as a ministerial one, that he
counts it as belonging to his future duties as king, not merely to
rule over his subjects outwardly as a caliph, but as one truly
anointed of God to lead them into that relation of nearness to God
in which he himself stands, and on account of which he, the man
after God's heart, has been anointed to be the Messiah of Israel.
If, now, the first, the* imperfect David, held it as an essential
part of his Messianic calling to love his subjects as brethren in
God, to care for the salvation of their souls, and to lift them up
to his own relation of sonship to God — how could the second, the
perfect, David be inferior to him in this ? No ! the inference
was certainly altogether logical and warranted : — if, already, the
anointed of the Old Testament was not ashamed to regard his
subjects in such a sense as brethren, so much the more will it be
the part of the New Testament Messiah, to raise the- subjects of
the Messianic kingdom of the New Testament Israel to that

96 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
relation of sonship with God in which he stands, and to make
them sons.
The second citation is generally supposed to be taken from
Isaiah viii. 17 ; the third is the passage in Isaiah viii. 18, conse
quently, the immediate continuation of ver. 17. If, however,
the second citation was really from Isaiah viii. 17, it must with
reason appear strange, that our author should by a Kal rrdXiv
separate from each other these two verses wliich, although con
taining two different elements of thought, would still have formed
but one citation (just as in chap i. 8, 9.) This Kal irdXiv com
pels us to look for the second citation in another place than
immediately before the third. Indeed the words ^'j-VW? (LXX.
Kal irerroiOms eaop,ai hf avrm) are to be found not merely in
Psalm viii. 17 but also in 2 Sam. xxii. 3, and, already the older
commentators, and among more recent theologians, Tischendorf,
have recently traced our citation to its original source.
And, indeed, it is only in the connection to be found in 2
Sam. xxii. 3 that the words cited involve the proof which,
according to the context, we must expect to find in them. —
Isaiah, after having, in chap. vii. 1 — 8, chap, viii., communicated
divine revelations concerning the nearer (chap, viii.) and more
remote (chap, vii.) destinies of Judah, begins a hortatory address
on the 9th verse of the 8th chapter, a sermon as it were on the
text given in chap vii. 1 — 8, viii. " Rage ye people, and be
broken in pieces !" he exclaims ; he sees in the spirit one king
dom falling down upon another and one after another destroyed ;
he fears not this, however, Jehovah alone is to be feared, Jehovah
alone is to be trusted in. His people dreads other powers and
trusts in other helpers ; but Isaiah " trusts in the Lord." The
first person sing, (on which our author by means of an iyd, lays
emphasis) stands there merely in opposition to the cotemporaries
of Isaiah, who had set their trust on something earthly. How
now, from the fact that Isaiah was more believing than his fellow-
countrymen, can the inference be drawn that the Messiah shall
exalt his subjects to the relation of brotherhood with himself, and
of sonship with God ? !-
In 2 Sam. 22, on the contrary, we have a song which David
sang when God had preserved him from Saul. Ver. 1 There
David declares that Jehovah had been his shield and had covered

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18. 97
him. (How naturally, according to the ordinary association of
ideas, must our author have been led from the prayer of petition
in Ps. xxii. to the corresponding prayer of thanksgiving in 2
Sam. xxii. !) When, now, David says in this connexion : " I
trust (also farther) in him," the iym here has its antithesis, not
in the unbelievers, but in Jehovah ; the anointed of God in these
words enters into a close union with God ; he expresses the
feeling of the purest sonship to God ; it is God who has anointed
him, in whom he has trusted in the extremity of need, who as a
faithful father has extricated him, in whom he will- henceforth
also rest all his hope. — The subject of Ps. xxii. was David's
relation to his subjects, that of 2 Sam. xxii. is David's relation
to God. We thus see how these two citations are connected
together, supplement each other, and only when taken together
form the entire proof, just as in the first chapter vers. 8, 9 and
vers. 10 — 13 formed the two connected members of one argu
ment. Let it be remembered, that in chap. i. 8, 9 it was shown
that the Messianic salvation must needs come through a human
ruler and not through an angel, and in vers. 10 — 13 that the
Messianic salvation was to be brought about and accomplished
immediately by God and not through angels. Here also, in like
manner, we find two propositions similarly related to each other :
a, the anointed of God must raise his subjects to his own position
of faith and grace, must educate them so that they shall stand in
the same relation to God as he does, and b, the anointed of God
stands in the relation of closest unity with God. Or, more
shortly and precisely : the Messiah makes his subjects to be his
brethren (his fellows in as far as. respects the relation to God) ;
he himself, however, is the child of God. The Ergo is easily
supplied : he makes his subjects to be children of God, viol. —
Here, again, it is not words but ideas on which the force of the
reasoning rests. —
As in chap. i. 6, in addition to the passages cited to prove that
the Son has received a more excellent name than the angels,
other passages are at the same time brought forward which say
nothing more of this name, but in which the description of the
Messianic salvation is continued, so, here also, in the course of
the 13th verse, to the two citations in which it is shown that the
Messiah raises his subjects to the place of brethren and partners

98 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
with him in his sonship,1 a third is added in which nothing
further is said specially on this point, but in which a new inde
pendent proof is adduced of the principal proposition in ver. 10,
that the Messiah makes his people to be children. — The third
citation is taken from Is. viii. 18. Just as it was natural for the
author to pass from the 22d Psalm to the corresponding prayer of
thanksgiving in 2 Sam. xxii., so naturally must the passage 2 Sam.
xxii. 3 have brought to his mind the parallel passage in Is. viii. 17,
and thus led him to Is. viii. 18. We must again carefully consider
this passage in its connexion, in order rightly to understand it.
Ahaz, immediately after his accession to the throne, being
threatened by Ephraim and Syria, despises the offered help of
the Lord (vii. 11 s.), and relies on the help of the Assyrians. The
rebuke is addressed to him ver. 13 ss. : O house of David, why
dost thou offend God ? Behold, O maid (O woman), thou shalt
have yet to conceive (the well-known symbol of an affliction
which is necessary in order to a salvation), and shalt come through
suffering to bear a son whom thou shalt call " God with us " (the
promised second David.) God, then, will bring the self-trusting
house of David by means of afflictions to this — that it will feel as
a woman, as a maid ; then first is it capable of bearing the pro
mised one, when in humility it places itself in a receptive relation
to God.2 For, before the time arrives when the promised one
can as a grown up man bring the Messianic salvation, Judea shall
be laid waste (ver. 15 comp. ver. 22.) An unprecedented cala
mity shall first befall both kingdoms, Ephraim and Judah (ver.
17), before the promised period of glory, and that from the same
Assyrian power on which the foolish Ahaz relied for help (vers.
18 and 20). — After this revelation had been made to Ahaz,
Isaiah receives the command from God to write upon a roll
the symbolical name " haste to the spoil, speed to the prey." He
does this taking two men as witnesses. After this, he begets
a child, when the child is born it is a boy, and he receives
1 Nothing of course is said here of the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ.
To a participation in that eternal Sonship none of the sanctified are
exalted ; they are however exalted to a participation in that Sonship
spoken of in ver. 10, i.e. the Sonship commonly so called.
3 We see then the house of David, purified" by affliction, matured in
the person of the Virgin Mary to a purely womanly receptivity for the
promised salvation.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 99
the command to give to this boy the name " haste to the spoil,
speed to the prey ;" the boy was to be a living witness and pledge,
that the prophecy given to Isaiah nine months before would in
its first part (that Samaria and Damascus should be laid waste
by the Assyrians) be soon fulfilled (ver. 4) ; with like certainty,
also, would the other part be fulfilled, that Judah should be
oppressed by the Euphratean power (which must here still be
regarded as the " Assyrian," as it was first under Hezekiah
revealed to the prophet that Babylon should take the place of
Assyria.) That the prophet, immediately after having written
on the roll, goes in to the prophetess, leaves us to conclude that
he did this according to divine direction. Thus we have here a
series of signs, of which one always points to the other. His
writing on the roll is a sign that a boy should be born to him, to
whom he is to assign that name written on the roll. That the
boy is in reality born, and receives that name, is a sign that
Samaria and Damascus are to be laid waste by the Assyrians ;
the overthrow of Samaria is a sign that the after part of the
threatening also, chap. vii. 17, that concerning Judah, shall be
fulfilled, and with this the coming of the promised Son of David
rendered possible.
The " haste to the spoil, speed to the prey" was, however, not
the first son of Isaiah who bore a symbolical prophetical name.
In chap. vii. 3 it is purposely mentioned that already an older
boy existed with such a name, the " Shearjaschub." The younger
son was a living prophecy of the judgments which were to come
upon Juda, the elder, a living prophecy of the future salvation,
of the conversion in which these judgments were to issue (comp.
Is. x. 21.)
But it is not merely on the existence of these sons who were
prophetic in their names that Isaiah, in his address viii. 18, rests
that trust which bears him up amid all the agitations of the
people, for he goes on to say, " Behold I and the children whom
thou hast given me." In like manner as his trust rests upon his
sons does it rest also upon himself. His sons give him faith and
hope by the names which they bear ; in himself, also, it must be the
name which he has received from his parents, and which appears to
him—- in connection with the. names of his sons — to be significant
and consolatory. He is called " Jehovah's salvation," and, as
G2

100 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
David in his character as the anointed king was a type of the
New Testament king, so is Isaiah, as the anointed prophet and
servant of God, a type of the New Testament Messiah, the
Saviour ; Isaiah is the Saviour of the Old Testament as David
was the Messiah of the Old Testament. That not he alone, how
ever, but that he, together with his sons, forms the type of Christ —
this is important to our author. The sons of Isaiah were certainly
not merely living pledges that the " salvation of Jehovah" would
at one time come after " calamity" and " conversion ;" but the
future salvation was also typified in this father together with his
sons. Certainly, however, there must be added to this the other
element, — that the children of Isaiah in their character as pledges
(personal hving prophecies) were with him received into the
prophetical calling of their father, into the dignity of the prophetical
office ; in other words, that they were not merely children of a
prophet (of a man who was besides a prophet), but prophetical
children, or that their relation to their father as children teas itself
a prophetical relation. And the Isaiah of the New Testament,
the Saviour, the Joshua (pp}?tt?'1 an(^ ^IttyiiT1 ave synonymous),
must not be inferior to him in this : was the one not merely a
prophet in word, neither must the other be so ; did the one beget
children which like their father were prophets, then must the
other also beget children who, like him, stand in a Messianic
union of grace with God.
Thus the three citations do in reality prove exactly what they
ought to prove. It belongs to the calling of the Messiah to raise
others to a participation in his sonship.
Ver. 14 — 18. Our author now passes to a new application of
the idea, closely connected, however, with the third of the
citations which we have just been considering. He had, a, laid
down in ver. 5 the thesis, that the place of ruler in the future
kingdom of God is assigned not to the angels (but to man) ; he
had, b, shown in vers. 6 — 8, that even in the Old Testament this
place is promised to the family of man ; he had, c, observed in
vers. 9, 10, that as yet indeed Jesus alone had been exalted
to the glory, but it is only as the first-fruits and as leader to bring
many sons after him ; and here, by way of appendix, he had in
ver. 11 — 13 called to mind how, already, the Old Testament con
siders it as a part of the Messiah's office, to lift up the members

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 101
of his Idngdom to the same relation of grace and unity in which he
stands to God. Now, however, in ver. 14 he begins to show, that
as means to this end — the exaltation of man to the rank of sons of
God and this glory — it was necessary that the Son of God should
come down to be a son of man, a son of Adam. As in ver. 9, 10
he affirmed, that the (already present, as it were already per
fected) Messiah must needs suffer in order to make others to be
sons, so in vers. 14 — 18 he shows that it was necessary the Son
of God should become man in order to become the Messiah.
The proof of this which he adduces connects itself so naturally
with the third of the preceding citations, that ver. 14 just presents
the same idea as is contained in that citation, only in another
point of view. In ver. 13 the principal thing was to show, that
to the office of the Old Testament l-pjjflj'i belonged not merely
ihe uttering of icords but also the begetting of children; in ver.
14 he lays stress on this — that those children must also be
actually born, in order to be living prophecies ; in ver. 13 he
shows, that the children of Isaiah had part in the prophetical
spiritual calling of their father, in ver. 14, that that participation
was rendered possible by the actual birth of those children. And
that this new application of the passage is warranted, appears
already from the interpretation we have given of it above. The
mere uttering or writing down of i the words " Schearjashub,
Mahershalal-hashbaz " was as yet no sign, no testimony, no
prophetical ratification of the deliverance ; the gracious sign
imparted to the prophet, and through him to the people, was
only then given when God actually sent these children to him,
when they actually came into the world, when they partook of flesh
and blood (for these words contain the antithesis to the mere
giving of the names). It must not, however, be thought that
our author avails himself of this view of the case as containing
properly a proof, that it was necessary the Son of God should be
born as man. He could not mean this, for that case contains no
such proof. For, it is not with the children of Isaiah, but with
the father Isaiah himself, that Jesus is represented as parallel.
He had, however, no such argument in his mind. Even the
67ret does not express properly a causal relation, but serves only
to introduce that parallel which the author himself by adding the
word waparrXTjo-lms " in a similar way " — has denoted as one

102 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18.
which does not hold fully and in every point of view. Indeed, he
makes use of the citation in ver. 13 not as a proof of the idea con
tained in vers. 14 — 18 (he never applies one and the same citation
to prove two different trains of thought), but merely by way of
transition. According to that passage, it was necessary that the
children should be actually born, and we perceive a relation in
some measure analogous to this in Jesus ; he also has assumed
flesh and blood, he, in order to make us partakers in his sonship
to God, has first taken part in our sonship to Adam. This new
thesis is laid down, and it is not proven from Is. viii. 18, but that
citation only served as a transition to it introduced in the elegant
manner peculiar to the author. The proof follows in the sentence
beginning with 'iva, and then in ver. 16. 2dpi; Kal alpui —
designates the human nature in opposition to the incorporeal
uncreated God (comp. Matt. xvi. 17 ; Gal. i. 16) not the body
in opposition to the soul, nor the mortal body in opposition to the
glorified (Grotius, Tholuck) — an antithesis which could not be
urged in this context.
That through death, &c. The author now proceeds to specify
the internal ground upon which the thesis rests. That which
stands in the way of our becoming sons of God, and which must
first be removed, is death, or — as the author here more specially
describes it — the being subject to the kingdom of darkness and
the prince of this kingdom, who has the power of death. This
bondage of death could be removed only by our guilt being
atoned for through the sacrificial death of Christ. In order to
this, however, it was necessary that he should become a member
of that humanity which took its rise from the first Adam.
So much in reference to the train of thought in general.
To come to particulars, Karapyeiv is an expression frequently
used by Paul, but occurring in the New Testament only in
Luke xiii. 7, and in our passage (but also in profane writers.)
It is equivalent to depybv rroielv to render ineffective, to deprive
of efficacy. The author certainly might have expressed his
meaning thus : 'iva Bid rov Oavdrov rbv Odvarov Karapytjarj.
But he has, with good reason, avoided doing so. For Jesus by
his death has not freed us from death, absolutely, and in every
respect ; the death of the body still remains, but its sting has
been taken away; it is no longer a judgment before which

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 103
conscience trembles and which keeps men in incessant fear ; to
the Christian the death of the body is rather only a deliverance
from the " body of this death" (Rom. vii. 24), a final putting off
of the last remnant of the old Adam with which we have still
to contend, in other words, the completion of sanctification, for,
as the Heidelbergh catechism so admirably expresses it in the 42d
question : " Our death is not a payment for our sin, but only a
dying to sin, and an entrance on life eternal." Therefore the
author speaks not of a taking away of death absolutely, but only
of a cessation of the power of death. In the words /cpaTo? tov
Oavdrov the genitive is not the gen. objecti (" power, to kill"),
for Kpdro<s never denotes a mere facultas ; it is the gen. subjecti.
It is the power which death exercises over us, the violence which
it offers to us. The best explanation of this is to be found in
ver. 15, the consideration of which we shall here anticipate.
Christ has delivered those who through fear of death were, i.e.
showed themselves, to be all their life time subject to bondage.
The man who, howeverwell he might ward off repentance and the
knowledge of sin, and by this pretended self-righteousness keep
his conscience at rest, yet, when the thought of death comes
home to him, cannot divest his mind of anxiety, testifies by
this very anxiety — these irrepressible stirrings of conscience in
the prospect of death — that he is guilty, and that as yet he can
lay no claim to freedom from the power of death.
But the author is not satisfied with saying merely that Christ
has rendered ineffectual the power of death ; he goes a step
farther back and says : Christ has rendered ineffective him who
had this power of death over us — the devil — who held this power
as an instrument in his own hands, and made use of it as a means
to vanquish us. The time is now happily gone by when it was
customary to explain away the Satan of whom we read in the
Bible, by changing him into an "evil principle." An "evil
principle" implies in itself nothing less than an absurdity. The
very essence of evil consists in the absence of principle, in a con
tradiction to principle. If the idea of an " evil principle" were
conceivable, then might it also be conceived that God was evil !
But evil is only conceivable as a perverted selfish quality of the
will of the personal creature, to be accounted for by the formal
freedom of this creature ; evil as such has no existence (nullam

104 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18.
habet substantiam), but we give the name of evil to the quality
of that creature-will which, in opposition to God's will, and to
man's own inner nature, refuses to stand in a receptive relation
towards God, and will be its own independent lord, its own God.
(Hence, also, evil is not a mere negation of good, but its direct,
positive opposite.) Now, we learn from the Scriptures that this
evil quality of the will is to be found not merely in the human
race, but also in the sphere of that other class of personal crea
tures, the angels, only with this difference, that because, in the
angels, sin cannot be divided into sins of pride, and sins of the flesh,
which strive against each other, and because it cannot be driven
out of the centre of the soul into a circumference, the crapf,
— the fallen angels are sunk irrecoverably into corruption. The
sinful man is in his corruption half beast and half devil, the fallen
angel is all devil. Farther, it is evident, that as the sinful man
devotes his spiritual and corporeal powers and capacities to the
service of sin, so the fallen angels, subject to the permission of
God, spend the energies with which as creatures they are en
dowed, anjj. employ their greater freedom from the restraints of
body and space, in the service of sin.
Experience fully corresponds to what we learn on this subject
from revelation. It is manifest in the history of the kingdom of
God, that that kingdom has to contend not merely with indivi
dual weakness, or with the wickedness of individual men, but
with great anti-Christian powers (Eph. vi. 12), to which the men
who are engaged in their service are for the most part related
merely as blind instruments. The workman, who lets himself be
persuaded to join in a rebellion through the false representations
of insurrectionary communists, commits knowingly only the sin
of covetousness and of disobedience to the law ; the citizen, who
allows himself to be drawn by the prevailing spirit of the time
into unlawful transactions, commits only the unconscious sin of
folly ; neither the one nor the other has discovered the great plot
against the kingdom of God which they are helping to advance
nay, they are often surprised when they see the fruits which
ripen on the field that has been wrought by them. The blinded
man often aims at the very opposite of that which the prince of
darkness, whose instrument he is, strives and manages to accom
plish by him ; in the hands of that prince of this world, parties

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 105
professedly opposed to him often unwillingly help forward the same
cause, and bring about the same victory. In short, there is actu
ally a providence of evil, only relative, it is true, and in the end
always subject to the absolute providence of God, which, however,
stretches far beyond the conscious aims of its human instruments.
Now, the man who has not attained to freedom in Christ, or
has fallen back from this freedom into the bondage of sin and
death, is not merely a slave of his individual sins and sinful
infirmities, but becomes, at the same time, a slave and tool ofthe
prince of darkness ; he has a price at which he is saleable, and
for which the wicked one gets possession of him. He becomes
a slave of that power which is at once a seducing, a conscience-
accusing, and a corrupting power (corrupting the body as well
as the soul, destroying all happiness, recompensing with poison
and death.) It is the prince of darkness who holds in his hands
the power which death exercises over us ; who employs the power
of spiritual death, of sin, to make man his tool ; who employs the
power of bodily death to spread death and murder and destruc
tion ; who employs the power of guilt to accuse us before God,
and, above all, before ourselves, to rob us of rest, to quench in us
the hope of the possibility of grace ; who insultingly rejoices to see
us condemned before the judgment seat of God. He has, indeed,
(as Anselm of Canterbury has already shown in opposition to a
false theory of his time) no legitimate claim as the seducer to the
possession ofthe seduced; but he exercises a real objective power
over those who, through their own sin, have surrendered them
selves to his power. From him must the Messiah redeem men,
— and he showed that he acknowledged the debt in the manner in
which he removed it. Men seek to redeem themselves, either by
not at all acknowledging the guilt and the necessity of a real
atonement for the sin, but by trifling away and disowning this
last remnant of truth in the sinner — the deposition of an evil
conscience — and thus putting a self-invented idol in the place of
the holy God ; or, they seek to do this by acknowledging, the
necessity of an atonement, but setting themselves at the same
time to effect this atonement by external works which they regard
as meritorious, but which have no foundation to rest on. Christ,
by giving himself up to death, has acknowledged the guilt and
truly atoned for it; he has, in one act, atoned for the sinner and
judged the sin. ¦»

106 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18.
The 15th verse has already been explained above. Something
only remains to be said on the words rovrowi, oaoi. Tovrov<i does
not point backward (as if it were intended to express an antithesis
to o/o/3oXo? ; Christ has taken the power from the devil, but these
— scil. men — he has set free) ; it evidently points forward to oaoi,
and is almost equivalent to " those who." "Oaoi, however, is of
course not to be taken in a restrictive sense, as if it were denied
that all needed this deliverance, but in a comprehensive sense :
" but those who were always subject," = " as many as" quotquot.
"Oaoi is similarly used in Acts xiii. 48. The meaning of that
passage is : of the Jews (who also were ordained of God to the
salvation in Christ) only a small number beheved ; but of the
Gentiles, as many as were ordained to salvation believed, i.e. a
great number.
Ver. 16. To the internal proof derived from the nature of
thing, the author now — in accordance with his former procedure
— adds a proof taken from the Old Testament. But it was not
necessary here that he should cite a particular passage, it was
enough to allude to a generally known fact of the Old Testament.
God has assisted not the angels but the seed of Abraham.1 By
means of an explicative ydp, this idea is added as a further
explanation of the clause beginning with 'iva, &c. The force of
the proof lies precisely in the generality of the idea. On the
part of the human race there is the need of redemption, but also
the capabihty of being redeemed ; the good angels need no
Saviour, the fallen are incapable of being saved (because they
are not merely slaves of sin, but wicked rulers in the kingdom of
death.) But the author, in giving expression to the antithesis
evidently implied in ovk dyyiXovs, shows, that his object in the
16th verse is not merely to prove positively that the Messiah
must of necessity become man, but, returning to the point from
which he set out in ver. 5, that not the angels but man has been
chosen to be exalted through the Messiah to that glory and
honour described in vers. 8 and 10, and from this the inference
1 The Church Fathers and the theologians of the 16th and 17tli
centuries supplied a tpio-iv to the genitive, and rendered thus : " he has
not assumed the nature of angels, but that of the seed of Abraham."
Castellio was the first to oppose this monstrous interpretation ; after
him the Socinians and Arminians. Since 1650 the right interpretation
hns been the general one.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 107
is then indirectly drawn (in ver. 17) that the Son of God must
become man — not angel.
Seed of Abraham denotes in itself not man, but the theocratic
Israel. He, however, who entered into the species, entered at the
same time into the genus to which this species belonged. The
expression here is to be understood in a different sense from that
in which Paul uses it in Gal. iii. Paul in that passage means by
the seed of Abraham not the bodily posterity of Abraham into
which Christ entered by his incarnation, but the spiritual Israel
which is born of Christ and of which he is the leader.
Vers. 17, 18. In the 17th verse the author first states the
amount of what is contained in the argument given in ver. 16.
His object was to prove that the New Testament Messiah must
needs take part in the human nature ; he has appealed in proof of
this to the well known Old Testament fact, that God entered
into a gracious and covenant relation not with the angels but
with the seed of Abraham, consequently that the seed of Abra
ham stands in need of salvation and is capable of receiving
it ; he now repeats the quod erat demonstrandum : there
fore he (the subject is to be brought down from vers. 14, 15)
must be made in all things like to those who (ver. 11 — 13)
are ordained to be exalted through him to be his brethren.
The vis conclusionis depends on the idea which has already
been expressed, ver. 14, in the sentence beginning with 'iva.
The author, however, does not merely close the series of argu
ments begun in vers. 14 — 16, but at the same time makes a tran
sition to a new idea. He repeats the idea already expressed in the
words 'iva Bid rov Oavdrov, &c, ver. 15, but repeats it so as to
open up an entirely new perspective. The idea in ver. 14 s. was
this : Christ must become man in order by his death to free us
from the power of death and the bondage of Satan — in other
words to make atonement for us. Now, however, this idea
appears in the new form : Christ must become man, because only
thus could he execute the office of a High Priest. In showing
that man is exalted through the Son to the place of sons, and
thus made superior to the angels, the author is led to show the
necessity of the incarnation and the atoning sufferings of Christ,
i.e. his office as the Redeemer, the high priestly atoner. In this
office, the type of Christ is not the mpp "JN7!D but the dpxie-

108 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 17, 18.
pevs, and thus the author shows in ver. 17 that the New Testa
ment Messiah is exalted above the j-pj-p *tn^Q and the angels
in genera], conclusively and principally on this account, that he
unites to the office of a messenger of God to men that of a priestly
representative of men before God, to the office of a *Tfc$~>J2 (diroa-
toXo? chap. iii. 1) that of an dpxiepevs.
This idea is most clearly expressed in the additional clause to
7rpo? rbv Oeov. Hitherto, the Messiah of the New Testament was
regarded from that point of view in which like the Old Testa
ment V% bTN7J2 ne was a messenger of God to men ; but this
does not comprehend his whole Messianic office. He is not
merely a more perfect messenger of God to men than the Old
Testament messenger of the covenant ; but he is this, precisely
because he is not merely the perfect apostle, but at the same time
also the perfect high-priestly representative of men in their relation
to God ra rrpos rbv Oeov. This simple explanation is confirmed
by the analogous conjunction of the apostle and high priest, in
the first verse of the next chapter.
'EXerjpmv is not to be understood as an independent predicate
along with apxiepevs as a second predicate, but like rrtarbs
belongs as an adjective to dpxtepevs. (Otherwise marks must
have been placed after dpxiepefc.) Further, these two epithets
do not express a differentia specifica, by which Christ, as the
compassionate and faithful high priest, is to be distinguished from
the Old Testament high priests as unmerciful and unfaithful, —
the author does not, and indeed cannot, enter here on this com
parison which he afterwards draws, and in which he shows that
Christ was superior to Aaron, — but those adjectives are rather
to be understood as simple epitheta necessaria. The idea is this :
every high priest must, on his part, feel compassion toward those
who are represented by him, and on their part again, must enjoy
their confidence ; now, as the New Testament Messiah must
unite with the office of a messenger that of a high priest, he must
also be merciful and faithful, and as this would not be possible if
the high priest were not in all things like to his brethren, so must
he become like to them in all things. Or more concisely expressed :
" He must become like to his brethren in all things — wherefore
he was a merciful and faithful high priest for them, in their
relation to God."

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. 109
And he must be a high priest " in order to make atonement
for the sins of the people." 'IXdaKeaOat comes from tXoo?. The
idea expressed in tXoo? we will explain by the following obser
vations, God is love ; out of love he created the world and its
crown, the personal creature. In this act, his love is one with
his holiness. In creating man such as he is, in forming him so
as that in his inmost nature he is led to love God, and, through
the love of God and holiness, to become happy, and only thus to
be capable of happiness and harmony within himself — in this, God
showed as much his love as his holiness. This might be called
the legislative grace of God (p-fcj and vn.) But after man had
fallen, God did not cease to love him ; he loves him still with
saving grace, Rom. iii. 24. The first act and manifestation of
this saving grace consists, however, in this — that God maintains
unimpaired also in the fallen man that fundamental law of man's
nature, according to which he cannot be happy without holiness,
— does not take conscience from him, in other words, takes hap
piness from him, displays himself as not propitious towards him,
and turns against him his wrath, Rom. i. 18. This is the con
servative, or, which is the same thing, the chastising grace of God.
The second act of that saving grace consists in the sending of his
Son and then his Spirit, — in the saving grace properly so called
(eXeo?, ?)!"> D^TOfl Luke i. 72), and more especially, the
ustifying and sanctifying (juridical and medicinal) grace.
When man does not resist this grace, then it becomes again
possible for God to let man taste his friendship, enjoy his blessed
presence, and to conduct himself again as propitious towards him.
"IXaos then denotes not the internal disposition of God towards
man, but the actual, positive expression and radiation of that feel
ing which first becomes again possible towards the redeemed ;
and iXdaKeaOat means to make it again possible for God to be
'iXaos, i.e. to make a real atonement for real guilt.
In ver. 18 an explanation is given of why the being compas
sionate, and faithful and, with this, the being made like to his
brethren, necessarily belongs to the office of the high priest.
First of all, however, it must be settled how this verse is to be
construed. Erasmus, Bengel, Storr, Kuinoel, Bohme, and
Tholuck take iv m as a simple argumentative particle '" because."

110 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
It is true that it is not a relative limited temptation that is here
spoken of — it is not "in as far as he was tempted, in so far is he
able to save," — as if Christ was tempted only up to a certain
point, and was able to succour only up to a certain point. It is
true also, that it is not the aorist that is here used eiraOev. But
precisely because it is not the aorist, we think that every obstacle
in the way of taking iv m in its proper signification is removed.
It is no historical or special statement that is here made, but one
of a general kind. It is not : " Christ was tempted in certain
points but in others not, and in so far as he was tempted he has
been able to succour ;" but it is, " in so far as he has been tempted
he can help," or, to separate the two ideas which are here con
joined : A high priest can help in so far as he has been tempted,
and so also can Christ, — he therefore must be tempted in all
things, in order to be able to help in all things.
But of those critics who rightly and literally translate iv m,
some have still had recourse to artificial constructions. Casaubon
and others have referred iv a not to rre'paaOeis but to rrhrovQe :
" in that which he has suffered, and suffered as one who was
tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted." Here the
rretpaaOeis becomes an accessary idea, while it evidently stands
parallel with ireipa^op.evois as a principal idea. Bleek takes the
words iv a> T-LrrovOev as a relative clause dependent on rreipaa-
Qek; "as one who was tempted, namely, in the things in which
he had to suffer, he is able to help those who are tempted ;" but
it is difficult to see either what necessity there was for this acces
sary idea in the relative clause, or why the relative clause should
have been placed first, or what is to be made of the ovto?. The
idea which Bleek thus obtains would in Greek be expressed
thus : rretpaaOeh ydp ev m rrhrovOev, Bvvarat, &c.
The only natural construction is that which refers eV a> directly
to ireipaaOeLs, which is placed after precisely for the sake of
emphasis. Quibus in rebus tentatus ipse (est et) passus est, hs
tentatos potest adjurare. The Tretpa%op,evoi<> stands opposite to
the ireipaaQek, and the /3or)0fjvai to the rrewovOev. With
grammatical exactness the sentence would be expressed thus :
" In all things Jesus could help those, who were tempted (in those
things), in which being tempted, he has suffered ;" so that iv m
belongs to rretpaaOek, and iv rovrm to be supplied belongs to

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5 — 18. Ill
Bvvarat. Logically iv $ refers also of course to ireirovOev, and ev
rovrtp also to 7retpa£b/ieVot?, so that the parallelism becomes per
fect. For as Christ was tempted precisely through suffering,
and suffered in the being tempted, so it is evident that he " has
suffered " in the same respects in which he was " tempted." And
again, he who succours one who is tempted, just helps him to
overcome the temptation ; the helping, therefore, refers just to
those things in which the state of being tempted manifests itself.
In this 18th verse we have the deepest internal ground on
which the doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction pf Christ is based.
How true and scriptural soever the dogma is, it cannot be
denied that in the ecclesaistico-scholastic development of it, the
depths of the Scripture doctrine were far from being thoroughly
penetrated. The view taken by the scholastics of the middle
ages and those of the evangelical school, was, for the most part,
merely the juridical. They thought of the multitude of single
human individuals together with the individual Jesus, standing
as it were upon one level before the Judge. Those individuals
have each a debt which they cannot pay ; that individual Jesus
pays the debt for all the others. The inadequacy of this repre
sentation lies not -in the idea ofthe objective substitution as such,
but in this, — that no inquiry is made into the ground of the
possibility of this substitution, that the substitute is viewed merely
as an individual beside individuals, consequently as absolutely
another and different person from them, as this particular indivi
dual. Our author teaches us to look deeper than this, when in
vers. 10 — 18 he closely connects the necessity of the incarnation
with that of the substitutionary high-priestly sufferings ; he
teaches us to regard man not as a mass of indwiduals, but as one
organism, as a tree, so to speak, which has grown out of one
root, out of Adam. In the man Jesus, the pure and ripe fruit
of humanity, so to speak, has stood before God — a fruit, however,
which has not developed itself out of the race of Adam, but was
given to this race, engrafted upon the diseased tree — and thus in
Jesus the organism of man has done all that was required to be
done. But though this fruit did not develope itself out of the
diseased life of the diseased tree, it was yet necessary that it
should grow upon this tree ; by the incarnation of Christ a sound
branch was engrafted on the tree, which, as a branch of the tree

112 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS II. 5  18.
bore blossom and fruit, so that blossom and fruit, although not
products of the life-power of this tree, still in reality belong to it.
But, to speak without metaphor, the proto-adamitic humanity
could not beget a sinless man, but it could receive the Son of God
becoming man and sinless man, so that he as a real member of
this race, partaking in its nature and in the consequences of
death, could bear the fruit, nay could be himself the fruit, which
the race ought to have borne. Accordingly it is manifest that
what is here spoken of is not merely a satisfactio vicaria passiva,
but chiefly a satisfactio vicaria activa, which again forms the basis
of the satisfactio passiva.

( 113 )

PART SECOND

(Chap. iii. — iv.)
THE SON AND MOSES.
From what is said in chap. ii. 17 — 18, the author might have
proceeded forthwith to the comparison of the New Testament
Messiah as the perfect High Priest, with the imperfect High Priest
of the old covenant. But after a brief recapitulation in chap. iii.
1 of what is proved in the preceding, namely, that Christ unites
the office of a high priest with that of a perfect messenger of God
to men, he suddenly breaks off in ver. 2 into a comparison of
Christ with Moses. This is not the result of caprice, but of an
intrinsic necessity.
First, the place held by the organs of the Old Testament
covenant themselves, rendered it necessary that he should pass first
of all to Moses. The instruments employed in the institution ofthe
law were not the n^JD and Aaron, but the 'tnVd and Moses.
Not till the third hne of succession did the permanent office of
the high priest appear. Then secondly, the intrinsic suitableness
of the above arrangement of the principal parts, depends on the
carrying out of the second part itself. The manner in which this
second part is carried out is exactly parallel with the arrange
ment of the first part, so that the author also at the end of the
second part, (iv. 10), recurs again to the idea of the high priest..
And thus, after having been conducted from the two terminal
points to this idea as the central idea of the Messianic office, he
can then proceed — in a third part — to develope this acknow
ledged central idea (chap, v.)
The angel of the covenant appeared in the name of God before
the people of Israel, Moses in the name of Israel before God, the
high priest stood in the name of God (with the name Jehovah
H

1 14 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III.  IV.
on the front of his mitre) before Israel, and in the name of Israel
(with the names of the twelve tribes on the breast-plate) before
God (Ex. xxviii. 9—29, and 36—38.)
Now the New Testament Messiah is, according to chap. i. 2,
superior to the angels, a, because in himself as the Son he is
higher than the angels, and b, because in him also, the whole
human race is exalted above the angels to dominion in the olkov-
pievn pteXXovaa, and this because the Messiah is not merely ffc^E,
but at the same time apxiepevs, not merely the messenger of God
to man, but, at the same time, the atoning priestly representative
of man before God.
With this, now, the second part runs quite parallel. The
fundamental thesis iii. 3 : for this man was counted worthy of
more glory than Moses, is, even in respect of form, evidently
analogous to the fundamental thesis of the first part, i. 4 : being
made so much better than the angels. The New Testament
Messiah is superior to Moses, because, a, as a Son in the house (iii.
6) he is superior to the mere servant of the house (comp. with iii.
5, Oepdvmv, chap, i. 14,XeiTow>7ttfo rrvevpura), and, b, because the
work of conducting Israel to its rest, which Moses had not com
pleted, was first completed by him (chap. iv. 1, ss.) This work
Christ has accomplished, in virtue of his not having been merely
a Moses, a leader and lawgiver, but at the same time an atoning
representative, a high priest (chap. iv. 14, ss.)
But so exact is the parallelism between these two parts even in
minute details, that as the two sections of the first part, so also
those of the second, are separated from each other by an inter
mediate passage of a hortatory kind :
I. THE SON AND THE ANGELS. II. THE SON AND MOSES.
a, The Son of God is, in a, The Son of the house of
himself, superior to the minis- Israel is, in himself, superior
tering spirits of God, i. 5 — 14. to the servant of this house,
iii. 1—6.
(Hortatory passage, ii. 1 — 5.) (Hortatory passage, iii. 7 — 19.)
b, In him man is raised b, In him Israel is conducted
above the angels, ii. 6—16. to its rest, iv. 1 — 13.
For : he was at the same time Therefore he was at the same1
high priest. time high priest, iv. 14 — 16.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — ti. 115
SECTION FIRST.
(Chap. iii. 1—6.)
THE NEW TESTAMENT MESSIAH IS IN HIMSELF, AS SON,
SUPERIOR TO MOSES.
Vers. 1, 2, form the transition. This transition takes the form
of an exhortation. This exhortation, however, is not, as some have
thought, connected by means of the iriaroi, iii. 2, with the idea
expressed in the iriaro'i, ii. 17 ; for in chap. ii. 17 rriaro^ denotes
one who is the object of another's confidence, the " trustworthy,"
while in iii. 2 it denotes active " faithfulness ;" the link of con
nection is rather in the words drroaroXo? and dpxtepew, in which
the substance of the train of thought in chap. i. — ii. is recapitu
lated, in order from this point to proceed further. Karavoeiv
does not mean to lay anything to heart, but to submit anything
to the v6vai<;, to consider, to weigh. The more proximate object
of this verb is 'Irjaovv, which, however, is already provided with
the attribute rbv dtroaroXov Kal dpxiepea tt}? 6p,oXoyla<; r)pLmv.
Its more remote object are the words iriarbv ovra, &c. " Consider
the (this) messenger of God and high priest of our profession
Jesus, (as him) who is faithful in his house to him who appointed
him, as Moses was faithful." The attribute messenger and high
priest, &c, thus serves to recapitulate the attributes which the
readers already knew to belong to Jesus ; the appositional clause
who was faithful, &c, serves to introduce a new attribute which is
now predicated of Jesus, and which is henceforth to be the object
. of their attentive consideration. The imperative Karavoijaare
does not, however, in this context involve an independent practi
cal exhortation which flows -from the theoretical passage chap, ii.,
but a mere charge to the readers now immediately to accompany
the author to a new idea.
But this charge, at the same time, certainly implies the moral
duty of laying permanently to heart what is further to be said.
This is evident from the manner in which it is introduced, holy
brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. On the idea expressed
h 2

116 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6.
by 0710? see chap. ii. 11. The mention of the heavenly calling
entirely corresponds, in the place it occupies here, with the mention
of the so great salvation in chap. ii. 3. The motive to the earnest
consideration and heed which is enjoined, lies in the excellent
and heavenly character, of the object which is to be considered.
By the /eX^crt? is meant the calling explained in chap. ii. 6 — 8
to the dominion in the oiKovptivn pieXXovaa. It is idle to inquire,
whether this calling is designated heavenly because it proceeds
from heaven, or because it calls and conducts to heaven. The
two things are inseparable. A calling which comes forth from
heaven to man, has, eo ipso, for its object and import the relation of
man to heaven. Moreover, what is spoken of here specially is
that call which has come to men through the eternal Son himself,
the incarnate one, who has come from heaven, and which invites
men to become children, fellow heirs with him of the heavenly
inheritance. He who is a partaker of this calling, that is, in
whose ears soever this call has been sounded, is thereby laid under
obligation attentively to consider and give heed to all the elements
of this calling.
Let us now consider more particularly the attribute rbv drrb-
aroXov Kal dpxiepea tt;? bp,oXoyia<, rjpmv. Jesus is called diroa-
roXos, from the analogous relation in which he stands to the
«iS "7N7D as messenger of God to men, dp^tepeu?, from the analogy
between him and the ^"ton ?nb as representative of men before God.
This signification of dirbaroXo'i, following so simply from chap.
i. — ii., would certainly not have been missed, although the author
had written 0775X0? instead. It is, however, easy to see why he
was not at liberty to use dyyeXos. In the Old Testament ^^ft
there lies a double signification, — first, the etymological appellative,
according to which it means messenger, and according to which,
whosoever held the place and office of a messenger of God to
men might be called ^7^7)3 ; and, secondly, the usual Gentile
signification according to which it means angel, and -denotes
only a certain kind or class of beings (viz. the angels). Now it
is true, that these two significations belong also to, the Greek
word 0776X0? (comp. 1 Tim. iii. 16, where 0776X0?, messenger,
is used of the disciples). But after the author had in chap. i. — ii.
used throughout the word 0776X0? in its Gentile sense, to denote
the species angel in opposition to the human species, he could

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6. 117
not well, without causing confusion, apply the same word to
denote the mere, vocation of a messenger of God. After having
in chap. i. — ii. so strongly urged, that Jesus has perfectly and
absolutely fulfilled the calling of a messenger of God, just in
virtue of his not belonging to the species ayyeXoi, it was neces
sary that here, when he again ascribes to Jesus that calling, the
office of a messenger of God, he should choose a word which
expresses only the appellative, and not at the same -time also the
Gentile sense of "r^ft, a word which might without ambiguity
be rendered only by " messenger," and not at the same time by
" angel." For this, no better, and generally speaking no other
word offered itself than dTrooroXo?, formed from the verb
d7roo-TeXXeii', which is so often employed by John (iii. 34 ; v.
36 ; vi. 29 ; x. 36 ; xx. 21), and elsewhere also in the New
Testament (for example Gal. iv. 4), as the technical term for the
sending ofthe Son into the world.
All the difficulties which critics have hitherto found in the
expression drroaroXo?, from their not observing the relation of
chap. i. — ii. to chap. iii. — iv., thus fall of themselves to the ground,
and we are also saved the trouble of considering one by one,
and refuting the many unsuitable explanations of diroaroXo?
that have been given. Some have expressed their surprise that
Jesus should be placed on the same level with his Apostles — but
it is the sending of Christ by the Father that is here spoken of,
not the sending of the twelve by Christ, and consequently, not
the special signification of the word diroaroXo'i as the official
name of the twelve. Others thought that the author should
rather have said irpo<prJTr)<; or Biukovo?, but the analogy of the
office of Jesus to that of the V% ^Tfc^ID could be expressed
neither by 7rpo0jjTn? nor by StaKovos. A third class sought to
explain the idea expressed in drroaroXo? by that of the opLoXoyia,
or (as Olshausen) by that of the KXrjats; a fourth, to which
Bleek belongs, thought that Jesus is called dTroaroXo? on
account of his analogous relation to Moses, &c, &c. Even the
signification " high priest" was contended for by some, because,
in a passage of the Talmud, the high priest is on a single
occasion called *rty j-yv^ Tvh\D •
The genitive tt}? 6p,oXoyia<; fjp,S>v has for its object, simply to

118 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1  6.
distinguish Jesus as the New Testament messenger of God and
high priest, from the Old Testament V% "rfc^D and fl-Jin- He is
the dr. and < px- of our confession. This does not require that
with Thorn. Aquinas, Luther, Calov., Storr, &c, we should
grammatically resolve the genitive into the clause ov SpioXo-
yovpiev. The same sense is obtained without this procedure, if
we take the genitive simply as expressing the idea of " belonging
to." The messenger of God belonging to our confession is there
by also the object of our confession. — The rendering of opuiXoyia
by " covenant," which some have proposed, is contrary to the
grammatical usage.
Let us proceed now to the appositional sentence ver. 2, in
which is specified the new quality and office to which the attentive
consideration of the readers is to be directed, marbv ovra, &c.
Iloieiv here, as in Aots ii. 36, Mar. iii, 14, is used to express
not the calling into existence, but the appointing to an office,
here the office of Messiah, which is represented under the -figure
of the establishment and government of a household. In this
his office Jesus was faithful to him who had called him to this
office. The words ev oXm rm o'iKm avrov are referred by Chrysostom,
Theoph., Bohme, Kuinoel, and De Wette to the words &>? Kal
Mmvarjs, so that no comma is placed after Mmvafj<;, and the
sense is as follows : " Jesus was faithful to him who appointed
him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house." The genitive
avrov can, in this case, be referred either to Moses, or to Jesus,
or (as the majority are of opinion) to God. But this construc
tion appears unnatural, especially when -we compare it with vers.
5 — 6, where the idea is more fully brought out, that as Moses in
his (Moses') house was faithful as a servant, so, in like manner,
was Jesus faithful in his (Jesus') house as a son. We, there
fore, with Calvin, Seb. Schmidt, Paulus, Bleek, and others, place
a comma after Mwuq-t)?, and refer the words iv oXm, &c. to marbv
ovra. " Who is faithful in his house to him who appointed him,
in like manner as Moses was." Logically, the sentence would of
course have to be extended thus ; 'Itjaovs marbs iartv rm
rrofqaavri avrov iv oXm rm o'tKtp avrov, a>? Kal Mmvafj<i marb<; r\v
iv oXm r& oiKtp avrov. — The genitive avrov is already, on account
of the parallel accusative avrbv, not to be referred to God, but to

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6. 119
be taken in the reflexive sense. Christ was faithful in his (Christ's)
house, as Moses in his (Moses' house.) Only, the difference
between the two houses is not yet urged here. All that is meant
to be said is, that each was faithful in the sphere of office assigned
to him. Hence also the genitive is not a gen. possess., according
to which, the house of Christ would be represented as Christ's
property, and the house of Moses as the property of Moses — this
would, indeed, be in contradiction to ver. 5, where it is plainly
said that Moses was not lord but only servant in his house —
but the genitive avrov is (just as in the words ev oXm rq> o'iKm
avrov, ver. 5) merely a genitive of appertainment or locality. " His
house" signifies " the house to which he belonged, in which he
was placed."
What house, or what two houses, are here meant will more
particularly appear in ver. 5 s. In the meantime, the simple
answer will suffice with reference both to Moses and Christ, that
the author had in his mind the ^fcoto1"]"!11^
Ver. 3. As the author in chap. i. 4 introduced the prin
cipal theme of the first part in the form of an appendix, an
apposition, so here, he introduces the principal theme of the
second part in like manner, in the form of an appendix,
namely, an explanation. Tap is not argumentative; for the
statement that Christ excelled Moses in glory, contains no
argument for the statement that he was like him in faithful
ness. Tap is explicative ; it is not, however, the idea in ver.
2 that is explained, but a new motive is adduced for the
exhortation in ver. 1. So much the more must the relation of
Jesus to Moses be considered and laid to heart, as Jesus ex
celled Moses in honour (whom he resembled in faithfulness ver. 2.)
'Hjjlmrai. The subject here is, no more than in chap i., the
Son of God qua pre-existent logos, but here, as there, the Son of
God manifest, incarnate. The author does not set out from the
eternity of Christ, and come down to his incarnation, but sets
out from his historical appearance upon earth, and ascends from
this to his eternal being with the Father (ver. 4.) Here, first
of all, it is predicated of the human historical person of the New
Testament Messiah, Jesus, that he has been counted worthy by
the Father of higher honour than Moses. Wherein this higher
honour consisted, it was not necessary for the author to bring to

120 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1  6.
the remembrance of his readers. This had already been done
implicitly in chap. ii. 9, 10. Moses has not risen again,
Moses has not ascended to heaven, Moses has not been crowned
as leader, and first-fruits in the kingdom of exalted and glorified
humanity ; Moses, in the transfiguration of Christ, rather took a
subordinate place next to Christ. All this was so familiar and
so clear, that the author could feel satisfied in laying down the
proposition, that Christ has been counted worthy of higher
honour than Moses, as one which would be unquestioned by all
his readers. (And what an argument have we in this silence for
the historic truth of the evangelical history !) — But upon ivhat
this elevation to higher honour was founded, the author proceeds to
mention in the words KaO' oaov rrXewva ripJqv e^et rov o'ikov 6
KaraaKevdaas avrov. It is founded on this, that Christ was the
incarnate eternal Son, he by whom are all things, by whom also
the house of Israel, the theocracy, was established. . The train of
thought thus runs exactly parallel with that of chap. i. The train
of thought in the 4th verse of that chapter we found to be this :
Jesus the incarnate, was (after his sufferings) made higher than
the angels, because he is the incarnate eternal Son.
The Kaff oaov is to be explained precisely in the same way as
the similar, ev m ii. 18. The author does not mean to say that
Christ is superior to Moses only in a certain respect, or only in
a certain degree ; he does not mean to deDy that Christ is abso
lutely superior to Moses ; in short, he does not intend to limit
the thesis, Christ has more honour ; but he draws out the three
logical propositions of which the proof of this thesis consists — the
universal or major proposition : " the founder of a household has
more honour than the household founded by him" — the particular
or minor : " Christ was founder of the household to which Moses
belonged as a part or member" — and lastly, the conclusion:
" therefore Christ has more honour than Moses." Or to express
this in one sentence : " Christ has so much the more honour than
Moses, by how much the founder of a household has more
honour than the household founded by him." The KaO' oaov thus
serves merely to compare a particular case with a general principle.
We have, in this explanation — following the Peschito, Chrys.,
Theodoret, Calvin, Beza, Erasmus, Capellus, Bengel, Bleek,
Olshausen, &c. — understood the genitive toO o'ikov as the genitivus

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6. 121
comparativus, and referred it to rrXeiova. The conclusion thus
arrived at may, however, appear unwarranted, as the intermediate
idea, namely, that Moses was a part of the house itself, seems
to be not so easily supplied. Many, indeed, (with the Vulg.^
comp. Luther, Michaelis, Heumann, Semler, Erneste, Paulus)
have appealed to ver. 5, where Moses is spoken of not as part of
the house, but as Oepdrrmv in the house, and have therefore con
strued rod otKou as dependent on the verb exeh an<l rendered
thus : " by how much more honour from the house the founder of
it has," where we must supply : " than the servant in it." But
this supplement is exceedingly harsh, and all the more so, as the
idea that Moses took the place of a servant has not yet come
before us. Besides, it is not even true to say, that Jesus bore
so much honour in, or from the house of Jsrael ; for, from the
house of Israel in which he was placed, he bore nothing but
shame and contempt ; he had his honour not (drrb) rod o'ikov but
avb rod 7rarp6i. But, finally, the text gives not the slightest
occasion for this forced construction. Let it be observed that
the author does not speak of the otKoSop,eiv, but of the KaraaKevd-
getv of a house. The KaraaKevd^eiv, the founding and equipment
of a house, comprehends not merely the setting up of the stones
and beams, but also the entire regulation ofthe household; the oiko-
Sopteiv is an act of the builder, and the ot/ico? oiKoBopiovpt.evo'; is the
aedificium ; on the other hand, the KaraaKevd^eiv is an act ofthe
young husband or householder, who not only builds or causes to
be built an aedificium, but sets up a familia in it, and the ot/eo?
KaraaKeva^bp.evo'i is the household; hence oIko<s here may be
translated " household." But that Moses belonged to the house
hold of God was no far fetched idea, an idea to which the subse
quent designation of Moses as a Oepdrrmv is nowise contradictory,
but which rather confirms and explains it.
Ver. 4. The further explanation which is added in ver. 4 by
a ydp is somewhat strange. It is impossible that the design of
this can be, to bring before the readers the two trivial ideas, that
every house is built by some one, and that God is the creator of
all things. Wherefore such undisputed truisms in this connexion ?
The contents of ver. 4 must evidently rather be fitted in to the
reasoning, and- must form a necessary organic member of the
argument. One would expect a priori to find in ver. 4 the minor-

122 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6.
proposition, that Christ was in reality the founder. And, indeed,
all the more ancient theologians explained the ver. in this sense.
In support of it, the absence of the article at #eo? has been urged,
and #6o? taken as a predicate. The proposition contained in the
words 6 Be ra rrdvra KaraaKevdaas Oeb? (scil. iartv) would
accordingly not be declaratory, but descriptive, not an answer to
the question : who. he is who has founded all things, but an
answer to the question, what he is who has founded all things.
It would be said that Christ who has founded all things is God,
that divinity belongs to him.
But tliere are weighty objections against this interpretation.
What is desiderated as the explanation of ver. 3, is not the
statement that Christ as the founder of all things is God, or an
answer to the question whether he is God or a mere man, but
that Christ is related to the house of Israel as its founder.
Moreover, the substitution of all things in this verse for the
house of Israel, ver. 3, would be a doubly perplexing interruption
to the train of thought. But above all, the words o Be rrdvra
KaraaKevdaa<; viewed as the subject, would, in this context, be an
exceedingly indefinite designation of the person of Jesus, as thus,
between ver. 3 and ver. 4, those necessary middle terms would
be entirely wanting. And, moreover, it would be impossible to
perceive in this case what could be intended by the preceding
statement, every house is founded by some man ; this would only
have meaning on the supposition that the author's intention was
to represent both Moses and Christ as founders of houses, and,
accordingly, to represent only the houses themselves as differing
in honour. This he certainly might have done (for Moses might
quite properly be considered as the founder of the Old Testament
economy) ; this, however, he has not done, but rather has farther
carried out in ver. 5, 6, the . opposition introduced at ver. 4
between Christ as the son of the house, and Moses as the servant.
If, then, we would not bring total confusion into the author's
train of thought, we must depart from that interpretation, and
determine with Olshausen, &c, to understand Oebs as the subject
(the article, it is weU known, is often wanting at 0eo?), and o
rrdvra KaraaKevdaas as the predicate. " He, who has founded
all things, is God."
The old difficulty, however, here recurs, — what these appar-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6. 123
ently trivial statements have to do in this context. Meanwhile,
their purport and significance becomes clear, whenever we under
stand ver. 4 not as an explanation of ver. 3 alone, but of vers. 2, 3
taken together. In ver. 2, the faithfulness of Christ towards him
who had appointed him was spoken of, and then in ver. 3, Christ
was called the KaraaKevdaas rbv o'Ikov. This might appear to
involve a contradiction. It might be asked : how can Christ
have been a faithful curator if he filled the place of a master and
founder ? Now the author shows in ver. 4, that the one does not
exclude the other, that it is true every house has a founder, but
that above all such founders God ever stands, consequently that
Christ, although KaraaKevdaai, was yet in a situation in which
he might exercise faithfulness towards one still superior to him.1
In ver. 5 — 6 there follows a second proof of the thesis laid down
in ver. 3, namely, that Jesus is superior to Moses. It was said
quite generally in ver. 2, that Christ was faithful in his house
(i.e. the house entrusted to him), as also Moses was faithful in his
house (i.e. the house entrusted to him.) Nothing was determined
in ver. 2 as to whether the house entrusted to Christ is identical
with the house entrusted to Moses. There was not a single word
to indicate that two different houses were meant, so that it was
still in ver. 2 left open to the reader to understand one house as
meant, which had been entrusted for administration first to
Moses, and subsequently, to Christ. The sole difference which
as yet, namely at ver. 3, has been spoken of is, that Christ
in the house entrusted to him filled the place of the Karaa
Kevdaai, but Moses that of a part of the familia. And herein
lay the first proof of the greater honour of Jesus. — A second
proof of this is now adduced, namely, a second point of compa
rison or difference, so stated, however, that the first is again
repeated along with it. Now also in ver. 5 — 6, the two houses
themselves are distinctly represented as two different houses ; in
the one house, Moses serves for a testimony of the future revela-

1 Similarly, but less exactly, Bleek : God is indeed the proper Karao--
Kivdo-as, the primus autor, but still the place of a Karao-Kevdo-as belongs
also to Christ. This is inaccurate. What is meant to be said in ver. 4,
is not that a kind of Karao-Keva&iv might be predicated of Christ although
his Father was the Karao-Kevdo-as, but that the being faithful might be
predicated of Christ although he was the Karao-Kevdo-as.

124 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — 6.
tions of God (so that this house itself exists et? ptaprvpiov), the
other house, the house of Christ are we; the other otVo? is a
living house, built of living stones. Thus there is a twofold
difference which appears in ver. 5 — 6 ; to the difference in the
place occupied by the two curators is added the difference in the
dignity of the houses themselves. Moses is Oepdrrmv in the house
committed to his care, and this house is of a typical nature ;
Christ is vio? in the house committed to his care, and this house
is a living house composed of living stones. (Olshausen gives the
train of thought in like manner thus : " Moses is a servant in the
tabernacle, but Christ is lord over the new temple.")
This second proof, taken from the essential nature of the Old
and the New Testament economy, bears the same relation to the
first proof which was drawn from the abstract dignity of the
persons, as (in chap. i. ver. 7 — 12) the proof drawn from the
essential nature of angelic revelations bears to that drawn from
the name angel and Son (ver. 5 — 6.) Here, however, in this
passage, as has been already observed, the first proof is at the
same time recapitulated. The designation of Moses as a servant,
explains in what respect Moses belonged to the house (according
to ver. 3) and formed a part of it (of the familia) ; in the desig
nation of Christ as a son, a son of the house, are comprehended
the two statements in ver. 3 and ver. 4, namely, that Christ in
relation to the house filled the superior place of the founder, but
that nevertheless in relation to God, he occupied the subordinate
place of a faithful fulfiller of the divine commands. Both these
are involved in the idea of the son of the house, — the superiority
over the familia, and the inferiority to the Father as the supreme
lord of the house.
Many commentators, however, have been of opinion, that a
third antithesis between Christ and Moses is indicated in these
two verses, namely, between avrov, ver. 5, and avrov, ver. 6,
Either the second of these words was read avrov, in which case
avrov, ver. 5, as the direct antithesis of avrov, ver. 6, would have
to be rendered by ejus and referred to God, and could not be
taken in a reflexive sense — or else (so Bleek), while the reading
avrov was retained in both places, in the former it was rendered
by ejus, in the latter by suus. The meaning was held to be,
that Moses was a servant in the house of God as a house not his

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — (5. 125
own, but Christ a son in his own house. — First of all, it is evident
that in reality no new idea results from this ; for if Moses was a
servant and Christ the son, it is implied in this that the house in
which Moses exercised his office was not in the same sense his
house, as' the house of Christ was Chrisf s house. The only
question is, whether the author when he wrote avrov, avrov meant,
by means of these two genitives, to express and give emphasis to
this idea which was already apparent without them. We think
this question must be answered decidedly in the negative. Had
the author meant this, he must at least have used the emphatic
eavrov at ver. 6, and not have left the choice of the spiritus asper
or lenis to chance, or the caprice of the reader. But even a
mere eovToO at ver. 6 would not be sufficient for this. At ver.
5 the idea of not his own would necessarily have to be expressed
positively and explicitly, not merely implicitly by an avrov (in
itself, moreover, ambiguous, and capable of being understood
reflexively) ; it must have been said distinctly that Moses was
servant in a house not his own. . Of all this, the author has said
nothing and indicated nothing. But finally, in addition to thisj
that interpretation would involve us in a positive difficulty. If
the author means to say, that Moses acted in God's house as a
house not his own, but Christ in God's house as his own paternal
house, this would imply that the house in which Moses acted is
presupposed as identical with that in which Christ acted. . This,
however, would do away with that second point of difference on
which the author purposely lays special emphasis in ver. 5 — 6.
His design, evidently, is to distinguish the house of Christ " which
we are," as one different from that in which Moses served, et?
piaprvptov rmv XaXndnabpjevmv.
All these considerations lead us to the conclusion, that no such
opposition is intended between avrov, ver. 5, and avrov, ver. 6, as
would represent the house of Moses as one not belonging to him,
ver. 5, and the house of Christ, ver. 6, as his own property. We
understand avrov in both places reflexively and precisely in the
same sense as at ver. 3, the genitive being neither with respect to
Moses or Christ a gen. possessoris, but only a genitive of relation
in both cases. Moses was faithful as a servant in his house,
i.e. in the house the care of which was enjoined upon him, Christ
as a sow in his house, i.e. in. the house the care of which was

126 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS HI. 1  6.
enjoined upon him. The difference in the place occupied by
both is first expressed in the words Oepdrrmv and vto?.
This entirely new idea in ver. 5, 6 is introduced by Kai — p,ev,
and is thus connected with what is said in ver. 2, so as to appear
to be a limitation of what is there said. In ver. 2 it was said that
both Christ and Moses, each in the house committed to his
management, were faithful. In ver. 5, 6 it is shown what differ
ences obtained in respect to this.
The words Oepdrrmv and uto? in which the first difference
(already specified in ver. 3) is repeated, need no further explana
tion than they have already received. On the other hand, we
must consider more particularly those words in which the
new, the second difference, that which obtains between. the
houses, is represented — namely, the words et? piaprvpiov rmv
XaXvOnaopievmv and ox) oIko': iap,ev rjpteu;. AaXn0r)a6p,eva does
not, as some expositors have unaccountably explained it, de
note those revelations which Moses was still further to receive.
This explanation could only have any meaning, if in the context,
mention were made of a certain period in the life of Moses from
which the " still further" was to be reckoned. The word rather
denotes those revelations (on this wide sense of XaXeiv comp.
what is said on chap. i. 1) which God purposed to give after the
time of Moses ; in particular, the revelation in Christ is meant.
The whole office and service of Moses was comprised in laying
down a testimony, which pointed to the necessity of a future,
more perfect, revelation of God. — To what extent was this testi
mony given ? The author himself replies to this in the subsequent
chapters of the epistle. At present, we may be allowed to make
only the following observations. Through Moses God gave his
law, first the ten commandments, and then the laws respecting
the tabernacle and sacrifices. The ten commandments, even in
the Pentateuch itself, bore the name of the testimony (j-ynv)? and
they were to be deposited in the ark of the covenant, in the
presence of God, as a testimony bearing witness before God
against the sins of the people. But that the holy and righteous
anger of God might not be provoked by the sight of the testimony
to visit the people with just punishment, that testimony must be
covered (-^533) before the eye of God ; and for this the golden

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1 — li. 127
mercy-lid (m^) alone was not sufficient, but God's eye must
ever rest on the blood of the propitiatory sacrifices, sprinkled
with which the mercy-lid could then only truly " cover" the sins
of Israel. But the necessity of always from time to time offering
these propitiatory sacrifices anew, testified most clearly that those
animal sacrifices could not take away guilt, and that a future
more perfect priest and sacrifice was necessary. Thus was the
service of Moses, and at the same time also, the house itself
in which Moses ministered — the tabernacle — a testimony of ihe
things that were afterwards to be spoken. In a grammatical
point of view, indeed, the words et? paprvpiov belong, of course,
not to o'Um but to Oepdrrmv. But logically, they are placed so
as to form the antithesis to the words o5 oIkos iapiev t]p.ei<;. If
Moses as lawgiver and builder of the tabernacle served for a
testimony, this implies that the entire tabernacle itself existed for
a testimony. It was not yet the true perfect house in which God
could truly dwell with men, but was a dead, a symbolical, house
in which was represented the relative approximation between God
and the people of Israel which was preliminarily possible, and in
which was testified the necessity of a more perfect revelation and
atonement. Christ's house on the contrary are we. (Comp. Eph. ii.
19 — 22 ; 1 Pet. ii. 5.) — The reading o? otrco? is not warranted
critically, but would yield the same sense. The absence of
the article at oiko? is analogous to the passages Luke x. 29 ; Heb.
xi. 10 ; LXX. Ps. cxliv. 15, and is explained by the uncon
scious style of expression peculiar to the native Hebrew, who
would think the noun sufficiently determined by the accompany
ing genitive. It is quite as unnecessary, therefore, as incorrect
and contrary to the sense, to render the words : " a house of him
are we," as if the author meant to ascribe more than one house
to Christ, one identical with that of Moses (!) and another
besides. No, the one and the only house of Christ is the true,
New Testament Israel, and this is meant to be expressly distin
guished from that house in which Moses served for a testimony
&c. The threefold difference between Christ and Moses, ver. 5, 6,
entirely corresponds in the arrangement of the epistle, to the

128 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1  6.
threefold difference between Christ and the angels, chap. i.
7—12.
The limitation expressed in the words idv irep r-qv rrapprj-
aiav, &c, forms the transition to the exhortation in ver. 7 — 19
(which, again, in the place it occupies, corresponds to that
exhortation, in chap. ii. 1 — 4, which stands between the two sec
tions of the first part, inasmuch as it comes in between the two
sections of the second part). This limitation is not necessary to
the completion of what is said in ver. 5. The house of Christ is
in itself, objectively, and in its very nature — not conditionally
upon our continuing faithful — different from the house of Moses,
as a living house ; it has this superiority unconditioned. But
whether the author can express this in itself unconditional supe
riority under the subjective form : " whose house are we" — whe
ther he must not rather say : " whose house are Christians (to
which class, however, you do not belong" — this depends on
whether the readers of the epistle continue in the confidence and
in the rejoicing of the hope. — Hapfynaia is nothing else than the
rriarK itself in its most direct and most practical expression, mani
festing itself as the inward power of the peace which dwells in
the heart, in circumstances of outward difficulty. While, there
fore, rjSovij denotes rather that felt gladness and joy the experience
ofwhich is awakened within a man bymeans of favourable circum-
stances fromwithout,rrapprjaia is precisely the reverse, and denotes
that joyful boldness which flows from within and is victorious over
unfavourable circumstances ; it is joyfulness felt in situations in
which others would despair ; hence it is the immediate fruit of
the objective peace obtained with God through the atonement.
But why does the author so emphatically require the mainten
ance of this rrapfrnaia ? If we compare the admonitions in chap.
ii. 1 — 4, iii- 7 — 19, vi. 1 ss., &c, we find in them all, earnest
warnings not so much against direct apostasy, as against the neglect
of the doctrine that the institutions of the old covenant have found
their fulfilment in the new covenant and by it are made superfluous.
The readers do not appear to have been already suffering perse
cution, but as likely soon to encounter dangers and persecutions.
Now, in the introduction (to chap. i. 1) we have found it to be
probable, that the Epistle to the Hebrews is not an epistle

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 1  6. 129
properly so called, and was not addressed to a church, but is a
treatise intended for a circle of Jews who were about to pass
over to Christianity, perhaps, according to chap, vi., in part
already baptised, but who were still catechumens, and were now,
through fear of being excommunicated from the temple, and the
temple worship, in dangerof being estranged and turned aside from
their resolution to become Christians, because, namely, they had
not yet accustomed themselves to regard the Old Testament insti
tutions as things that might be dispensed with, and had not yet
been able to convince themselves that they were superfluous.
Hence the author everywhere shows, how all that is peculiar to
the Old Testament is inferior in excellence and in internal signi
ficance to the New Testament revelation in Christ, and is related
to it merely as the imperfect, the typical, is related to the perfect
fulfilment. The same circumstance also accounts for the regular
alternation of purely doctrinal and purely hortatory passages,
such as we find in none of the epistles properly so called. Per
haps also, it would not be too bold in us to explain the words p-expi
TeXou? — which some have most unsuitably referred to the end of
the world, and others, better, to the death of the individual — as
referring rather to the end of the crisis of decision in which the
readers were placed at that time. For, if he only were truly a stone
in the house of God who had held fast his confidence until death,
then none of the living would be at liberty to regard themselves
as such. It occurs to me therefore, that the author intends
rather to say, that the readers would only then have a right to
consider themselves as belonging to the house of Christ when
they had kept the rrappnaia to the conclusion, i.e. until the final
resolution were taken to go over to Christianity.
The second thing in which they are to continue stedfast is the
KavxVria TV'>- iXTriBoi. The Jews also had a Kavxnp-a ; they
boasted of their descent from Abraham (Joh n viii.), of their temple
and priesthood, of their being the chosen people of God, all
palpable and manifest advantages. The poor Christians had
nothing of the kind in which they could glory. Regarded by
the Gentiles as a Jewish sect, by the Jews as apostates from the
people of Israel, forming no state, no people, without rulers,
without a head except one who was crucified, the refuse and off-
scourirlg of the people, they had nothing of which to boast but
1

130 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7  19
the glory which they hoped to receive. Since that period the
same has been substantially true of Christians. Hence, it is
their duty now, as it was then, to hold fast the hope in which
they glory.

INTERMEDIATE PASSAGE OF A HORTATORY KIND.
(Chap. iii. 7—19.)
In vers. 7—19 follows-the exhortation itself, for which we are
prepared by what is said at the end of ver. 6. The particle
Bib closely connects it with ver. 6. Because salvation and
sonship are to be obtained only under the condition mentioned in
ver.t6, therefore must they not be obstinate and disobedient, as
the Scripture says, or the Holy Ghost, through whose impulse it
was that the holy men of God spake. The passage in Ps. xcv.
7 — 11 is here cited according to the Sept. The Sept. has
given substantially the right rendering. In it the two names of
places J-CHQ and TTM2 are rendered by the appellatives rraparriK-
paapJ><; and rreipaafioi not improperly, but rather with happy tact,
as, indeed, these names were not properly nomina propria which
belonged to those places before the time of Moses, but appellative
designations of otherwise unknown localities, and designations
which owed their origin and occasion to the actual occurrence of
a temptation and provocation (comp. Ex. xv. 23, xvii. 7.) The
words ;-j2tij ffjflix are referred by the Massorites (doubtless
with reason) to the 10th verse, *e1|JN> by the LXX. (not so
well, although of course without any substantial alteration of the
sense) to '^i, verse 9. — The meaning of the passage here cited
is evident, and needs no further explanation than is furnished in
Ex. xv. and xvii.
The citation, as has been already observed, is connected gram
matically with the end of the 6th verse by means of Bib, but is
nevertheless so selected as in its entire contents to form an
inference from the whole train of thought ver. 3 — 6. Not merely
from the statement that without holding fast the confidence and
hope no sonship and participation in the Messianic salvation is

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS ill. 7 — 19. 131
possible, but also from this, that Christ is superior to Moses, it
follows, that if obduracy towards the servant was already so
severely punished, all the more earnestly should men beware of
obduracy towards the Son.
The aijpiepov idv, in like manner as the q^ Q1!"!! °^ *he original
text, has the general meaning which our author ascribes to it
(chiefly in ver. 13 in the words KaO' eKaarrjv np.epav, axpts o5 to
aijpiepov KaXeirai.) Even the Psalmist evidently does not indicate
any particular day in the calendar on which the people should
not be obdurate^; still he might presuppose that on the same day On
which he composed the psalm they would hear it ; with him also
— more manifestly even than in the Greek translation — the o^n
qj$ has the more general sense : " the day, when" = " what
day ;" q^ Q^n ^s= DT1!* Gen. ii. 17, iii. 5. The sense .is, that
if any one receives an admonition from God he should camply
with it without delay, and not put off the required obedience till
the morrow.
Ver. 12. It is somewhat inconsistent with the spirit of the
Greek diction, that p\errere here is not connected with ver. 11
by an ovv or Be, and the more surprising in our author, as he
generally studies elegance of style. The difficulty is not helped
by supposing, with Tholuck, that the words of the citation from
aijpt,epov, ver. 7, on to Kardrravalv p,ov, ver. 11, are dependent on
the words Ka0m<; Xeyei rb rrvevpta rb ayiov, and thus making
KaOms the protasis to which an apodosis is to be supplied : ptrj
aKXvpvvrjre. (" Therefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, be not
obdurate," &c. — so be not obdurate.) For a new period begins
again with jSXerrere without any connecting particle, and, more
over, the supplement which is proposed is very forced and
tautological. Much more preferable is the explanation proposed
by Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, Carpzov, Ernesti,
and others, to which Bleek also inclines. These join the whole
citation also with KaOms, so as to form one member which they
regard as the protasis, and do not supply an apodosis, but
consider this as given in ver. 12, " Therefore, as the Holy Ghost
saith, be not obdurate, &c. — so take heed." Meanwhile, it may
reasonably be asked, whether so long a citation attached to the
protasis, which cannot be read in one breath, not to speak of a
12

132 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7  19.
raised breath (as the nature of the protasis requires) — whether
such be not a greater offence against good style than the want of
an ovv or Se in a newly begun sentence. The latter may rather
be explained satisfactorily enough by supposing, that the author
here purposely leaves the smoothly flowing train of thought, and
with intentional liveliness and directness interrupting himself, as
it were, breaks in on the flow of the address by exclaiming :
" Take heed, brethren," &C.1 I hold it, therefore, more natural,
with Schlichting, Capellus, Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Klee, &c, to
understand the citation as dependent, not on Xe^yet but on Bio,
and to explain the words Ka0m<; ... . ayiov, not as a protasis,
but as a parenthesis — " therefore (as the Holy Ghost saith),
harden not your hearts," &c. — and then to begin a new period
with ver. 12.
BXerreiv, in the sense of prospicere, occurs also in Mark viii.
15, xiii. 9. Of what are they to take heed? Of this, that none
amongst them have an evil heart of unbelief. The genitive a7rto--
Tt'a? serves to determine the manner in which, and in how far, the
heart is evil ; the words ev rm drroarrjvai express the manner in
which this unbelief manifests itself. In departing, namely, from
the way of conversion to Christ once entered upon.
In ver. 13 a positive admonition is added by way of warning,
the admonition, namely, that they should daily exercise the rrapd-
KXrjais. This word denotes both the practical application of the
law in admonitory discipline, and that ofthe gospel in quickening,
refreshing comfort. The author, especially at this part of his
exhortation, avails himself of the word arjpepov in the passage
from the Psalms (the sense of which is given above on ver. 7.)
He directs attention to the importance of the daily, ceaseless,
practical application of the Christian doctrine to the heart and
mind. And what avails all speaking and studying, where this
powerful, living purification of the heart through the law and
gospel of God is neglected 1
"Iva prj aKXnpvvdfi, &c. The idea expressed by aKXvpvveiv is
to be explained from the figure involved in the word. The figure
is derived from a circumstance in physical nature, namely, from
i In ver. 15, where the absence of a Se cannot be explained in this
way, Bleek nevertheless admits that a new period begins.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS HI. 7  19. 133
the gradual stiffening of bodies originally soft. Still more
beautiful and striking is the figure involved in tbe corresponding
German expression verstocken ; it is taken from a circumstance
connected with organic life, namely, from the growth of trees,
in which the pliant branch becomes by degrees an unbending
bough or stem, a stock. The stiffened body no longer takes on
any impression, the bough now grown into wood can no longer
be drawn and bent at pleasure. Just as the living plant grows
until it reaches some fixed limit of development, so does the soul
of man, by its ceaseless development of life, form itself into that
fixed state to which it is destined. In itself, and in general,
there is nothing bad in this progressive development of the soul ;
in the season of youth and education a certain germ will and
must shoot forth in the soul, the personal character and destined
life-vocation of the individual will and must form themselves ;
in his twentieth year the man should already be something,
should be not merely a single individual, but one who has become
of such or such a nature or disposition. Nay, the last and
highest step which the Christian takes from the stage of formal
freedom to that freedom of the children of God, in which holiness
has become altogether another nature to him, can be explained
from that general fundamental law of the progressive growth of
the soul. But this growth and development can take place also
in reference to what is evil, and it is this to which the word aKXrj-
pvveiv — as a vox mala non ambigua — is specially applied in the
Holy Scripture. Such a process, by which the soul becomes
firm and unbending, can take place, firstly, in the sphere of the
will, as a wilful obdurateness against particular commandments
of God, as in Pharaoh (Ex. iii. ss), then, in the sphere of the
entire disposition and moral character, as an abandonment to
sins and vices, in which case the man has no longer in himself
any strength to effect a change in himself, but there remains for
him only that salvation which is offered through the quickening
and electrically kindling influence of grace and redemption ; or
finally, a hardening of the heart may exist also in reference to
this offered salvation itself, the obduracy of positive unbelief; this
is its absolute form, in which the last power of the soul to
substantiate itself is exhausted, the last possible step in the
kingdom of freedom is taken, and this is properly the most

134 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7  19.
limited idea expressed by aKXnpiivetv as it appears hi the New
Testament. It is, moreover, a fine proof of divine wisdom that this figure
of hardening is applied only in malem partem, and that nothing
is ever said in Scripture of a aKXnpvveaOai in what is good. For
although that development of the soul, as we have seen, takes
place also in the sphere of the good, it could yet be but very
inadequately expressed by the figure of a hardening, as the good
even when as perfect hohness it implies the impossibility of
sinning, consequently the highest degree of internal fixedness,
still preserves throughout the character of the free, loving will,
and therefore of the highest internal moveableness and movement.
This state of obdurateness is not always reached by one leap,
and through intentional wickedness, but quite as often, nay
oftener, through] dirdrv, i.e. through being deceived and self-
deception. Thus the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by
their foolish, one-sided attachment to the Old Testament forms of
the theocracy — by overvaluing what was relative, and regarding
it as absolute — were in great danger of making complete ship
wreck of faith, and sinking into this miserable state of obduracy.
The remark may here be made, that in our own day an analogous
overvaluing of things in themselves important, but still only
relatively so, as, for example, of differences in confessions, or, it
may be, of the extraordinary gifts of the apostolic time, is possible,
and may possibly lead to the same issue.
This dirdrv, however, is never such as that, under it, the man
is guiltless and purely passive, purely one who is deceived. On
the contrary, our author speaks with good reason of an dirdrv,
ttj? o/ttopTto?, consequently of a being deceived, which implies
guilt on the part of him who is deceived, a self-deception. The
convictions of men are, in general, only apparently determined
by arguments which address the reason alone ; in reality, they
are always substantially determined through the will. Man's
power of perception does not resemble a mirror which must take
up all the rays that fall on it ; it rather resembles the living eye,
which can open and shut itself, turn itself hither and thither ;
which also, on account of its, being a relative light, can let itself
be blinded and dazzled, and rendered incapable of receiving the
light of the sun, the absolute truth... In ver. 14 tbe author

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7 — 19. 135
recurs to the idea contained in the 6th vei'se, in order from it to
pass in ver. 15 to a new element in the practical application of
the passage from the Psalms, cited in vers. 7 — 11, namely, to the
application of the word rrapairiKpaapibs (in vers. 12, 13 he had
chiefly availed himself of the word arffiepov.)
In ver. 14 there is a repetition of the idea, that because the
salvation in Christ is so great, it is of so much the more impor
tance to keep hold of it ; or more exactly, mention is made here,
as in ver. 6, of the greatness of the salvation ; and as in ver. 6,
the condition is here stated under which alone we can be par
takers of it. We are /AeVo^ot Xpiaroij — the meaning of this ex
pression is explained by what was said on chap. ii. 10 — 13 — but
we are so only if we holdfast the beginning of the confidence firm
unto the end. The word virbaraais signifies (comp. i. 3) base,
bottom, foundation, then substance; lastly, also (principally in
the usus linguae of the LXX.), fiducia (the act of resting one's
self on or confiding one's self to anything.) This signification,
also, best suits the passage xi. 1; faith is there described as a
confident trusting in unseen future things which we cannot yet
grasp, but for which we must hope. So also here, it denotes the
confidence of faith. The readers have already a beginning of
this. If, as is commonly supposed, the Epistle to the Hebrews
were an epistle addressed to a circle of churches in Palestine, it
would be impossible to explain how the author should have been
able to say of his readers collectively, that they had a beginning
of faith. For in the churches in Palestine, where indeed were the
congregations of longest standing, there must have been a number
of persons who had reached the maturity of the .Christian life —
individuals who had belonged to the personal circle of Jesus'
disciples, and in reference to whom it would, to say the least,
have been harsh to put it down as questionable whether they
would continue in the faith stedfast to the end. For the idv
irep does not, as et, express a simple objective condition, but
places before us a decision according as either of the two events
shall happen, and thus puts both events seriously in question.
On the other hand, this style of address finds a perfect explana
tion, if, as we have supposed, the Epistle to the Hebrews was
directed to a certain circle of catechumens and neophytes, in
regard to whom it was really a matter of serious question whether

136 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7  19.
they would eventually join themselves to the Christian Church,
or would let themselves be estranged, through fear of being ex
communicated from the temple worship.
Ver. 15. The chief difficulty is in the construction. On
what verb does eV depend, in the words ev rm XiyeaOai ? Chry
sostom, Grotius, Rosenmiiller, and others, have taken vers.
16 — 19 as a parenthesis, and connected eV ra> XiyeaOai- with the
words cpofivOmpev ovv, chap. iv. 1. But in this case we should
expect to find a particle, a Be, or some such, at iv rm XiyeaOai,
although no great weight can be laid upon this, as at ver. 12,
also, the transition particle is wanting. A stronger objection is,
that according to that interpretation, a particle (namely, the oi5v)
at chap. iv. 1 would be too much. (For it cannot be explained
as a resumptive oZv, as it could only be so in the case of the
words iv rm XiyeaOai being again taken up at chap. iv. 1, thus : e'v
rm XiyeaOai ovv tovto <f>ofir)0mp,ev.) But the strongest objection
of all to this mode of construction is, that it would entirely destroy
the train of thought, seeing that in chap. iv. 1 the author, as we
shall soon find, passes from the intermediate hortatory part to an
entirely new didactic section, so that chap. iv. 1 cannot be joined
into one period with chap. iii. 16. Others, as Flacius, Capellus,
Carpzov, Kuinoel, have been of opinion that only the half of
the words cited in ver. 15 are dependent on XiyeaOai, and that
the other half, from /at) aKXrjpvvvre onwards — which clearly
forms a part of the citation — is the principal clause on which the
iv must be made to depend ! (When it is said : " To-day if ye
will hear his voice:" then harden not your hearts.) — Semler,
Morus, Storr, de Wette, Bleek, Olshausen, &c, supply Xirym
before ver. 16. (Seeing that it is said : " To-day, &c," I ask,
who then has hardened himself?) This rendering, also, and the
connection of thought which results from it, no one will affirm to
be natural, besides that in this case, if the author in ver. 15 s.,
passes to a new turn of thought, the Be at ver. 15 could not be
dispensed with. Bengel, Michaelis, Zacharia, and others, ex
plained ver. 14 as a parenthesis, and construed iv rm XiyeaOai
with irapaicaXeire, as if the author meant to prescribe the forms
of words with which they were to admonish one another daily :
" to-day, harden not," &c. Not much better is the connection
with Kardaxmpev proposed by Luther, Calvin, Beza, and Tho-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS HI. 7  19. 137
luck ; they will hold fast the faith most effectually by repeating
to themselves at times the words in Ps. xcv. 7.— It is certainly pre
ferable to all these artificial constructions, to suppose a simple
anacolauthon ; as if the author had begun a new period at ver.
15, but had not finished it, having allowed himself to be inter
rupted by the question rive? yap, &c, and thus led to another
idea. But here, likewise, we stumble at the want of the Se,
which cannot, in the case before us, as at ver. 12, be explained
by the emphasis of the address.
It appears to me the most natural way to take ev rm Xi
yeaOai as dependent on the whole of the 14iA verse, i.e. as
grammatically dependent on peroxoi yeybvap,ev, and to render
" as it is said." We are partakers of Christ if we keep the faith,
inasmuch as it is said, &c. Ver. 15, therefore does not (as accord
ing to the interpretation of Luther, Calvin, &c.) lay down the
manner in wliich we must act in order to keep the faith, but
simply a reason ox proof tnat we must keep the faith, in order to
be partakers of Christ.
This proof is now developed in ver. 16 — 18, and then in ver.
19 the same thesis as we have in ver. 14, only in a negative form
(that the Israehtes on account of their unbelief came not into
the rest), is repeated as a quod erat demonstrandum. The
carrying out of the proof connects itself with the word irapam-
KpaapAs, on to which the author had quoted the passage from the
Psalms at ver. 15. Still, only the first link in the chain of
proof is connected with this word. It forms only the point from
which the writer sets out. Afterwards he deals in like manner
with the other ideas and words of the passage in the Psalms,
chiefly specifying the forty years' murmuring (irpoaoxOt^m from
irpoaoxOim fro.m bxOem, indignari, this again from 6'^tt, a cliff, a
place of breakers, hence bxOeiv, to surge against, to be vehement
against any one), and the words et elaeXevaovrai et? tt)v Kard-
rravaiv p,ov.
The following are the successive steps in the proof. At Marah
(Ex. xv. 23), and at Massah and Meribah (Ex. xvii. 7), certain
sins were committed ; the people had murmured on account of
the want of water; it was not, however, these sins, but— sins
committed at a later period at Kadesh (Num. xiv.) that brought
upon the people the punishment ofthe forty years' wandering in the

138 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS III. 7  19.
wilderness, which the Psalmist poetically connects with those sins
at Marah and Meribah; nor was it at these places, but at
Kadesh, where it is expressly recorded that the entire people, with
the sole exceptions of Joshua and Caleb, murmured and sinned.
Therefore our author finds himself necessitated to form a bridge,
so to speak, from those particular sins mentioned in the passage
in the Psalms, to the general sin of unbelief. He asks therefore
first : "Who1 were they who did provoke God? (Was it those
only who had sinned at Meribah?) Did not all do this who
came out of Egypt by Moses ?" Thus he remembers that that
special act of sin taken by itself, does not find its fit and proper
designation in the word provocation, but the disposition as a whole,
which all Israel everywhere manifested. Hence, secondly, it is
evident, that the Psalmist was justified in connecting the
punishment of the forty years' wandering with the sin of the
" provocation." " But with whom was he angry forty years V
Was it not with them that had sinned f From this it was
to be inferred that all must have sinned. Finally, in the
third place, he must notice the chief and fundamental sin,
that disobedience which refuses to be led in the gracious ways
pointed out by God, that disobedience which is therefore sub
stantially one and the same thing with unbelief; for in Kadesh
nothing was said of a disobedience against the law, but of
the disobedience which — as was well known to all the readers
of the Epistle to the Hebrews — had its source in the unbelief
described in Num. xiv., which led the people to think that, in
spite of God's help, it would not be possible for. them to conquer
the land. Thus the author, in ver. 18, adds the third member of
the proof, and returns again in ver. 19 to the thesis which was
to be proved.
1 It is evident, even from the train of thought, that the true reading
is rives, TiVt, and not (with Oecum., Theoph., Vulg., Luther, Calvin, Gro
tius, &c.) rives rial (" only some.'') Comp. Bleek on this passage, p.
471. ss.) The author could infer only from the universality of sin in
the time of Moses that the Israelites entered not into their rest, and
therefore that the promise still awaited its fulfilment ; he could not have
inferred this from the fact, that " only some" had sinned at that time
and had been punished.
2 Here he shows, by the way, that he was well acquainted with the
original text of the passage. He here connects pjjyj D^JUHN w'tn
D1t?N Just as 's ^one m tne or'g'na'.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 139
In speaking, however, of the entrance into God's rest, the
author has introduced to his readers a new element of which he
further avails himself as the theme of the following didactic sec
tion. It was to be ascribed — he shows in chap. iv. — not merely
to the subjective unbelief of the Israelites, but also to the objective
imperfection of the Old Testament revelation, that Israel could
not enter into the true rest. He then shows, how the highest
fulfilment of the promise of rest still Hes in the future, and is
offered through Christ, and that we have therefore now to be
doubly on our guard against unbelief, as this is now doubly inex
cusable.

SECTION SECOND.
(Chap, iv.)
IN THE SON ISRAEL HAS ENTERED INTO ITS TRUE REST.
This section belongs to those of which, as Tholuck justly
remarks, " few commentators have succeeded in clearly tracing
out the connexion of the ideas." The fault of this, however,
belongs not to the passage, but to the commentators, who have
brought too much their own ideas with them, and have not had
the self-denial simply to surrender themselves to the words ofthe
writer. For example, it has been taken for granted at the very outset
vers. 1 — 3, that the author here proceeds to warn against the
subjective sin of unbelief. It is all one whether the words can
bear this sense or not, — this must be their meaning ! nor does it
alter the case, although what follows in ver. 4 ss. should in no
way be suitable to such a sense.
Ver. 1. In the sentence pvqirore, &c, it is self evident that Tt?
is the subject, So«t) the predicate, vareprjKevai the object to Soktj,
as also that the words elaeXOeiv et? rrjv Kardrravaiv avrov are
dependent on irrayyeX(a<;. Further, it appears pretty clear on a
comparison of chap. ii. 11 with 18, that avrov here is not to be
understood in the reflexive sense, but as pointing back to God,
who was the subject at chap. ii. 17 — 18. The only thing about

140 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
which there can be any question is, upon what the genitive Kara-
Xei7ro/xevTi? iirayyeXia<; depends.
The great majority of commentators understand this genitive,
without more ado, either (so Cramer and Ernesti), as a genitive
of relation dependent on the verb varepvKevai (" that no one
among you appear to remain behind the promise which is still
left," i.e. appear as one who neglects the promise which is still
left, i.e. the fulfilment of it) — a construction which is impossible
owing to the position of the words, and the absence of the
article at irrayyeXlas — or, they take the words KaraXeirropevv'i
iirayyeXia'; as a gen. abs., but still regard this genitive abs. as
dependent on varepvicivai, while" varepvKevai is considered as the
principal idea, and Boktj, which is taken in the sense of videri, as
a pleonastic accessory idea (so Bleek, Olshausen, and the greater
number.) The sense then is : " Let us take heed, that no one
amongst you show himself as one who comes too late, seeing that a
promise is still with us," i.e. that no one amongst jon appear,
in reference to the promise still existing (still to be fulfilled), as
one who comes too late.1 In support of the purely pleonastic use
of BoKeiv which is here supposed, the only authority that can be
adduced is a passage ofthe bombastic Josephus (art. ii. 6 — 10.)
The signification putare, opinari, which BoKeiv usually has (for ex
ample chap. x. 29 ; Acts xxvii. 13), we are assured will not suit
the context here ; as the author evidently intends to warn his
readers not against the thought of being too late, but against the
actual coming short itself.
Meanwhile, this is not so clear and manifest as for example
Bleek himself thinks. Firstofall, apart from the purely pleonastic
use of Soktj in that interpretation, the use of the verb varepeiv
already strikes us as strange. If it is the aim of the author to
warn against trifling away the fulfilment of the promise still left
i.e. the subjective participation in this fulfilment, why does he
select a word for this purpose which in nowise contains the idea
of a subjective trifling away, but of a purely objective being too
1 Still more unsuitably, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Gerhard, de
Wette explain KardK. inayy. by contemta promissione = promissionem
contemnens. KaraXewrai/ might indeed have this meaning (Acts vi. 2),
but in this case, the article could not be omitted before iwayyeXias. The
only natural way of expressing this idea in Greek would be this: prjirori
ns f'| vfi&v KaraKuirav tt)v firayye\iav k\. SoKrj toTeprjKivai.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 141
late ? Whether the readers lived before or after the fulfilment
of the still remaining promise was not a matter depending upon
their choice ; how then could the author admonish them to take
heed, lest they came some time after this promise, which was still
left, was also fulfilled? Did this fulfilment then take place in
one definite moment of time ? — We must therefore take the verb
varepeiv in a very weakened signification, somewhat in the signi
fication of " neglect," and in addition to this suppose a double
figure in iirayyeXias ; in the first place, " promise" must stand for
" fulfilment of the promise," and, secondly, the words " subjective
interest in the fulfiment of the promise" must be supplied at vare
peiv. Take heed — this would be the idea — -seeing that the fulfil
ment of a promise still remains, lest any of you should lose by
delay his interest in this fulfilment, (or should neglect the right
time at which to obtain an interest in it.)
But a second inconvenience now presents itself, namely, the
perfect varepvKevai. 'Tarepeiv already means " to come too
late ;" and why should the perfect be used in a passage where
warning is given against a future coming to late ?
For all these reasons, we agree with the interpretation given
by Schottgen, Baumgarten," Schulz, Wahl, and Bretschneider,
according to which BoKfj receives its proper and natural signifi
cation, which beside the inf. perf. is the only suitable one (as in
Acts xxvii. 13),-while the principal idea is in Sokj), and the gen. abs.
is regarded as dependent on BoKfj. " Let us take heed, therefore,
lest while there is still a promise to be fulfilled, any one of you
should nevertheless imagine that he has come too late" (namely :
that he lives in a time when all promises are long since fulfilled,
and that no further salvation is to be expected, or has any claim
on our earnest endeavours to attain it.) The author says
purposely not pifj Soicmpev ovv, but <j)o^vOmp,ev ovv pujirore Tt?
SoKf) ; he will represent this error not merely as a theoretical one,
but (chap ii. 12) as one that was practically dangerous. This
idea harmonizes exactly with the context. The author here, as
indeed everywhere throughout the epistle, designs to impress
upon his readers the consciousness that the new covenant is not
worse than the old, that Christianity is not something super
fluous, something with which, at any rate, they might dispense
if only they have their beloved Judaism, but that the latter

142 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IA'.
rather has been made dispensable by Christianity. He, there
fore, in ver. 1, and in the beginning of ver. 2, places Christianity
on a level with Judaism, — we too wait for a promise to be ful
filled — then in the second half of ver. 2, he begins to show how
Christianity is even far superior to Judaism.
Ver. 2. The first words are clear. We too, as well as those
who lived in the time of Moses, have received a blessed message,
a promise that we shall be introduced into a promised land of
rest. Nay, we have received this in a higher and better sense
than they. The word which has been given to us is infinitely
better than the word which the Israehtes received by Moses.
In the first place ; the word spoken by Moses could not bring
the hearers to the faith; it remained something external to
them, it proffered a promise indeed, and annexed a condi
tion to it, but it imparted no strength to fulfil this condition
(ver. 2 — 5 comp. ver. 12, 13) ; and secondly, the promise con
tained in that word even in respect of its import, was not the
true and right promise, for it was an earthly rest that was there
proffered, whereas it is a spiritual and eternal rest that is now
promised to us (ver. 6 — 10.)
Let us look, now, at the first of these two arguments which
begins with the words ver. 2. dXX'. ovk dxpeXrjaev, and is after
wards repeated more fully in ver. 12 — 13. It is not to be
wondered at, that a false interpretation of ver. 1 should have
led the majority of commentators into an entire misunderstand
ing also of ver. 2. They conceive that here (as in chap. ii. 16 —
19) it is still the subjective unbelief of the Jews that is adduced
as the reason of their not having attained to the rest, whereas,
in the passage before us, it is rather the objective imperfection of
the Old Testament revelation that is given as the ground of the
imperfect fulfilment of the promises. Only thus, too, can the
connecting particle dXXd be accounted for. In the words Kal ydp
iap,ev, &c, the new covenant is only placed on a level with the
old, and in the purely objective point of view, that in the one,
as in the other, a gracious message is given. The statement now
made, that the word of God in the old covenant did not profit or
was inefficacious, stands in an antithetical relation to that which
precedes it. (Had the writer meant to say, that the Israelites
under the old covenant were unbelieving, as also many under

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 143
the new covenant are inclined to unbehef, he would have used
only the connecting particle Se, or better still Kal — piev.)
But the view which we have given of the train of thought
finds its justification chiefly in the words themselves. The read
ing of these words, however, wavers, and that in three points.
Firstly, in one portion of the codd. the attic form avyKeKp-
apiev .... is found, in the other the later form avyKeKepaapiev . . .;
that the latter is the true reading, while the form owes its origin
to a correction, is self-evident. Secondly, a single cursive manu
script (Griesbach Nro. 71) has aKovaOeiai, instead of aKovaaai ;
and more recent critics, on the authority of the Vulg., have con
jectured a reading aKovap.aai (dat. plur. of aKovapia) ; here
again it is self-evident that the reading aKovaaai, confirmed by
all sources, considered merely as the more difficult, is the genuine
reading ; and we shall soon see that aKovaOeiai, as also the ren
dering of the Vulgate, ex illis quae audierant, owes its origin to
the embarrassment arising from not being able to extract any
suitable sense from the other. The difficulty is greater in the
third point. The Peschito (UoiioJ <ns Zoon L. lk£o ]Xj ^io
rnn\vn .j ,ojctlV) and the Vulgate (sermo auditus non ad-
admixtus fidei ex eis quae audierant) point to the reading avyKeK-
paapiivos, which is found also in Chrysostom, and has been
retained in several cursive MSS. On the other hand, the codd.
ABC D E, the versio Copt., Aeth, Armen, Philoxen, Slav.,
have the accusative plural avyKeKepaapievov? (resp. avyKeKpar-
/x,evou?). Almost all the more recent commentators (with the
exception of Olshausen and Tholuck) consider the latter as
decidedly the true reading, on account of these weighty external
proofs. But the point is not, therefore, to be regarded as sum
marily settled. The fact of the nom. sing, occurring only in the
cursive MSS., while the uncial MSS. have the ace. plur., by no
means proves that the nom. sing, is not the ancient reading.
Let us take into view the authority of the primitive Peschito,
certainly the most ancient source of the New Testament text
which we possess, the circumstance that Jerome, who, with the
utmost care, compared good manuscripts which already in his
time were old, gave the preference to the nom. sing. ; finally,
that Chrysostom read the nom., and we shall have no difficulty
in coming to the conclusion, that the nom. sing, is a reading

144 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
of primitive antiquity, beside which, however, there stood
already in the first centuries another reading, and which was
soon almost entirely supplanted by this other reading.
We have now only to ask which of the two readings is, upon
internal grounds, the more suitable ; and if we find, moreover, that
this internally more suitable reading might, as the more difficult
one, be easily misunderstood, we will then have an explanation
of the early origin and the subsequent general acceptation of the
false reading. The ace. plur. yields the more flat and less suit
able sense ; the nom. sing, yields a finer sense, which, however,
might easily escape recognition on a superficial reading.
If we adopt the reading avyceKepaapivovs, the passage must
then be rendered thus : " The word heard (comp. 1 Thess. ii.
13) did not profit those persons, because they did not unite
themselves in the faith with those who obeyed," — viz., with
Joshua and Caleb. According to this, it would still be the sub
jective unbelief of the contemporaries of Moses that is here blamed
— a view inconsistent with the context. (So Oecum., Photius,
Hammond, Cramer, Matthai.) But as before, at chap. ii. 16 — 19,
no distinction whatever was made between those who believed
not, and Joshua and Caleb who believed, and, in general, no
reference at all was made to these two men, — such an explana
tion of the passage as that just mentioned would be unintelligible
and arbitrary. Besides, it is inadmissible to take aKoveiv in the
particip. aKovaaaiv, in the pregnant signification of " obey,"
which it never has in the Epistle to the Hebrews ; and this is
doubly inadmissible here, where it stands so close beside aKorj.
Others have proposed, moreover, to connect the dat. aKovaaaiv
as the dative of possession in the sense of a genitive with iriarei
(through the faith belonging to the hearers, or becoming them),
which is a grammatical monstrosity. Even Bleek can find no
other way of escape than to conjecture dicovapiaai, and in this
he at least shows from what view the reading aKovaOeiaiv has
originated. The reading avyKeKepaapAvos offers an exceedingly fine and
suitable sense, but one indeed which might easily be overlooked.
The author, in chap, iv., no longer speaks ofthe subjective unbe
lief of Moses' contemporaries, but of the objective imperfection
of the Old Testament institutions. The word which was given

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 145
by Moses to the Israelites — consisting, a, of the promise that
they should come into the earthly rest, and, b, of the law as
the annexed condition — could not be united to the hearers by
faith. (So also Olshausen.) This idea finds its clearest expla
nation in its opposite ver. 12, where, according to the context,
the New Testament word of God is spoken of, and where it is
described as penetrating into the innermost marrow and joints of
the man. The law remained as a cold command external to the
man, the will of God and the will of man were not united;
therefore the Mosaic word of God could not profit. The law,
with its " thou shalt," could never bring about that surrender of
the heart, that disposition and attitude of loving receptivity,
which can be awakened only by the love of Him " who hath
first loved us," and which is called " faith," and leads to a fellow
ship of being and of life with God.
How easily now might this idea have been overlooked, as it
lies not on the surface of the words ! How easily may it have
happened to interpreters and transcribers, in the very earliest
period, as it has to the majority of commentators till the present
day, to fall into the error of supposing that the writer still con
tinues, in chap. iv. 1, 2, to speak of the subjective unbelief of
Moses' contemporaries ! It will not be disputed that the early
origin, and the subsequent wide extension of the false reading
avyKeKepaapievovi, may in this way be fully accounted for. — The
antithesis, therefore, to faith, ver. 2, is not unbelief, but works,
and this antithesis is, in fact, expressed in ver. 3.
Ver. 3. " For we enter into the rest as believers." It is quite
evident that those are wrong who paraphrase the words thus :
" If we do not merely hear, but also believe" 'The mareveiv has
its antithesis in the epyois. It is not a condition equally belonging
to the old and the new covenant that is here described, but the
difference of the condition of the New Testament covenant from
. that of the Old Testament. In the words, as he said, the author
proceeds to show in how far even the Old Testament itself points
to the insufficiency of the law and its works. For this end he
again cites a verse from the 95th Psalm, which he had already
cited in chap. 3 (although with a different object), namely, the
words : " As I have sworn in my wrath : they shall not enter
into my rest." These words, however, in themselves contain
K

146 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
no proof of the statement, that through faith alone we can enter
into the rest of God, but they derive their argumentative force
from the clause which is added : " Although the works were
performed from the creation of the world." It is self-evident
that the works here are antithetically opposed to faith. It is
surprising how all critics should have supposed that the works
of God are here meant, and especially his works of creation.
TevrjOivrmv is understood in the pregnant sense of a part, pass.,
and yiyveaOai, moreover, in the sense of reXeiaOat ; and the
words are thus rendered : " Although the works (of God) were
already completed from the moment of the (finished) creation of
the world" — i.e., in other words : " Although the creation of the
world was already finished from the moment at which it was
finished ! ! " A strange idea ! And when was it that the con
cluding moment of an action came to be denoted by drrb ? Had
this been the meaning of the author, he must have expressed
himself thus : xairoi rmv epymv tt/? koto/3oXt)? Koapiov f/Sv rere-
\eaptivmv. Works which are done drrb «oto/3oXt}? Koaptov, can
be no other than such as are done since the creation of the
world, from the creation of the world onwards.
And, if the above interpretation is ungrammatical, it is no
less irreconcileable with the context and the train of thought.
The meanmg which it yields would be this : Although God al
ready rested, men did not yet rest. But the " although " is
about as suitable in this place as it would be in the sentence :
Although Quintus is already very old, Cestius is still young.
From the fact that God has already completed the creation of
the world, to infer directly, and without any intermediate propo
sition, a warrant for expecting that the Israehtes shall be intro
duced into the rest of God, is about as valid a sequence as,
from the fact that Quintus is old, to infer the expectation that
Cestius also shall be old. The commentators, too, have not
been insensible to this impropriety, and have sought to lessen it
in various ways. Many of the older interpreters gave to Kairot
for a change the signification et quidem — of this nothing further
need be said. Others of more recent date, foUowing Calvin, have
sought to remove the difficulty by ingenious supplements. Tho
luck, for example, supplements the idea in the following terms :
The Israelites were not permitted to enter into the rest ; and yet

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 147
God rested in heaven after the work of creation was finished, so
that an objective resting-place already existed. But what reader
could find all this in the words Kairoi, &c. ? Bleek has shown
most ingenuity in filling up the idea, and if we have rightly
understood him, it is in the following way : God rested from the
creation ; but God's rest is reciprocal in its nature ; then only
does God really rest, when he has completed the work of his
manifestation to the creatures. And, accordingly, it is remarkable
that for God the Sabbath has already begun ; and there are,
nevertheless, creatures who do not keep the Sabbath with him,
nay, who cannot keep it with him. But however true this train
of thought may be in itself, we read nothing of it in the text ;
and no one who reads this chapter, without beginning at the
middle, and coming backward, could possibly have in his mind,
in reading ver. 3, these intermediate ideas about the Sabbath
(which are to be fourtd in ver. 9 s, and in a similar form to that
in which Bleek has given them.) But, in addition to this, no
indication is given, even in what follows, of the antithesis implied
in the words, that God rests indeed from the creation, but that
he has not yet finished the work of the manifestation of himself
to his creatures. We must therefore reject this explanation
also, on account of the context, even although the interpretation
on which it rests had been less untenable in a grammatical point
of view. The true and most simple explanation is to be drawn
from ver. 2. The author had there affirmed ofthe word spoken
by Moses, that it was not mixed or amalgamated with the hearers
by faith, that it remained external and strange to them, and
therefore that it could profit them nothing. He had, in opposi
tion to this, laid it down in ver. 3, that we, the members of the
New Testament Israel, enter into that rest into which the Old
Testament Israel entered not, and that we enter by faith. What
more natural, now, than that the reader should think of the
well-known opposition of faith and works, which indeed had
already been implicitly indicated in ver. 2 ? It was almost an
example of the rule of three : the New Testament word of Christ
is related to faith as the word of Moses, the law, is to — the works.
Only we must guard against limiting the idea expressed in
epya to good works. Of such works, indeed, none were per
formed from the creation of the world. Nay, this is rather
k2

148 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
what the apostle intends to bring out — that as "the works"
were done from the beginning, and yet notwithstanding Israel
did not enter into the rest, these works were none of them good,
but evil, and at least imperfect, works tainted with sin.
In like manner, we must guard against another improper
restriction of epya to the works of the law, fulfilments of the
Mosaic commands. These were, of course, not performed from
the creation of the world, but only after the giving of the law
from Sinai. No ; the author speaks quite generally of the works
of men, of the work of the human race, of all activity, all endea
vours better or worse. The idea is, in general terms, as fol
lows : All that can be comprehended under the term works, has
been performed from the time of the creation of the world on
wards, but has never been sufficient to bring man to the Kara-
ir avai<;, to a state of satisfied rest. The inference from this is,
that an entirely new way of salvation, not that of human doings
and human endeavours, but that of faith in the salvation which
God hath provided, is necessary in order to attain to the rest.
Ver. 4, 5. — This idea is in these verses more fully explained.
The author shows here, that by epya he meant not the works of
God, but the works of men in opposition to those of God. " God,
indeed, rested already on the seventh of the days occupied in
the creation of the world : and still he says of men, they are not
yet capable of entering into his rest." God's works, then, were
finished — internally perfect, and therefore externally complete —
but the works of men were internally imperfect, and hence, ex
ternally there was no mention of a resting of men ; the work and
labour still continued, and could not cease until the result was
arrived at ; the result, however, remained ever unattained.
The first part of this idea is introduced by the words : eiprjKe
ydp rrov irepl tt}? e/3S6/tT7?. On irov compare our remark on
chap. ii. 6. The author here refers beforehand to the eftSbpw],
because he intends afterwards to graft a further idea on this
preliminary mention of it, which he does in ver. 9 s.-
In ver. 6 — 8 the author passes to a new sentiment, a new
point of comparison between the work of Christ and the work
of Moses. The opposition between the work of both is twofold,
just as was that in chap. iii. 2 — 6 between the persons. The first
imperfection in the work of Moses consisted in this (iv. 2 — 5) —

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 149
that his work imparted no power for the fulfilment of it, did not
unite itself to the hearers through faith, and therefore could not
conduct to the promised rest ; the second consists in this — that
the rest itself into which the Israelites could be introduced by
Moses and were actually introduced by Joshua, was only an
earthly, a typical rest, while Christ conducts to a real a substan
tial rest, which in its nature corresponds to the Sabbath rest of
God. But, as in chap. iii. the first point of difference was
repeated in the developement of the second (Moses was a
servant in the typical house, Christ a son in the living house),
so here also, when the author shows the opposition between the
Old and New Testament rest, he repeats at the same time the
first point of difference, that, namely, between the not being
able to enter into the rest, and the being able to enter into
it, nay, he finds in the second the full confirmation of the first.
Ver. 6, 7, form a somewhat complicated period. The protasis
consists of two parts, which depend on the verbs diroXeiirerai
and ovk elafjXOov ; the apodosis consists of the statement, that
God, in the old covenant, indicates by the Psalmist a future
rest. The connecting link between the two is the particle iirei,
since. The words, it remains that some enter into it, are evidently only
a repetition of what is said in ver. 1 (a promise being left of
entering into his rest), and express, therefore, the fundamental
thesis, that the promise of a rest was not fully or really fulfilled
in the entrance of Joshua into Canaan. The second member :
those to whom it was first preached entered not in because of un
belief form, again, only the negative reverse side of the first
member, and who are the persons meant by those to whom it was
first preached is explained in ver. 2, where it is said of the Chris
tians in opposition to the Old Testament Israel : for to us hath
the gospel been preached as well as to them. The Tt've?, therefore,
whose entrance into the rest is still impending, are the Christians,
while those to whom it was first preached are the Jews, and those,
especially, to whom in the time of Moses the gracious call to
enter into the land of rest was addressed. The words through
unbelief serve to remind us at once of the subjective fault of the
Jews mentioned in chap. iii. 16 — 19, and of the objective impo
tency of the law mentioned in chap. iv. 2 — 5.

150 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
The principal question here, however, is, in what logical rela
tion do the protasis and the apodosis stand to each other. The
view generally taken of this relation is, that the apodosis contains
the final conclusion at which the author aims, and which he
wishes to prove, while the protasis contains the proof. The
entire passage is viewed as containing an answer to the question,
why God must needs have defined and mentioned a second day of
rest. The necessitating cause of this was, that the Israehtes were
disobedient the first time. — To this interpretation the words since
they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief
are certainly agreeable, but not the words : seeing it remains
that some enter into it. That at present (in the author's time) a
farther entering into the rest is about to be accomplished, cannot
be the reason why God has, in the time of David, defined a more
distant day of rest. (The most that can be said is, that diroXel-
verai might be related to optfetv as a kind of end or aim.)
We think, however, that the protasis contains the answer to the
question, why it was possible for God to determine a second day
of rest. We may give the sense periphrastically for the sake of
clearness thus : only for this reason could God define a second
day of rest long after the time of Moses, because, namely, as was
said above in ver. 1, 2, the original promise still waits for its
fulfilment, and the Israelites at that time did not in general enter
into the rest. The thing therefore to be proven lies in the pro
tasis, the proof in the apodosis (as if, for example, I wished to
prove that one is a spendthrift and said to him : " because you are
a spendthrift your father has not entrusted you with any money
= if you were not a spendthrift he would not have withdrawn
his credit from you). It is only formally and apparently, that
the protasis contains any reason for the apodosis ; the sinew of
the proof hes in the conclusion drawn backward from the
apodosis to the protasis. Had the author written logically he
would have said : " Only if the case so stands as was said in ver.
1, 2, can we comprehend how God could again define a day of
rest ; but, as he has actually done this, the case must stand so ;
there must still be a rest to be entered into, and Israel at that
time must not have entered the rest." (Quite a similar form of
logical inversion occurs in chap. v. 1, see infra.)
This absolute non-entrance of the Israehtes (ovk elarjXOov) now

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 151
prepares the way for the second point of difference between the
work of Christ and that of Moses. All that was said in chap. iii.
was, that the single generation consisting of Moses' contemporaries
did not come into the rest, but died in the wilderness. There
was still room in that chapter for the supposition, that the follow
ing generation did enter into the rest. But, already in chap. iv. 1,
the author has tacitly presupposed, that even after the time of
Joshua, even now, the fulfilment of that promise of rest is yet at
least in part to be accomplished, and in the 6th verse he speaks
quite unconditionally of an ovk elaeXOeiv on the part of those to
whom it was first preached, while in ver. 8, which is explanatory,
he directly denies disertis verbis that Joshua brought the
Israelites to the rest — denies that the rest into which Joshua
brought the people was the true rest. Thus, in ver. 6, ss., the
Old Testament rest is opposed to that of the New Testament
as the merely typical to the substantial (just as in chap. iii. 5,
the house in which Moses served for a testimony of future
revelations, is opposed to the house of Christ, whose living stones
we are.)
Now this proposition thus modified and thus expanded, that
the Old Testament rest was in general not the true rest, is in
ver. 7 proven from the Old Testament. Only thus can it be
explained, that God could point to a second future day of rest.
And this God has done in the 7th verse of the 95th Psalm (cited
in chap. iii. for a different purpose).
Three questions present themselves here. First, how the
apodosis, ver. 7, is to be construed; secondly, whether the 95th
Psalm is one of David's, and thirdly, whether the passage proves
what the author intends it should prove. With regard to the first of
these questions, the words e'v AavtB .... rrpoelpvrai are a paren
thetical insertion, with which the author interrupts himself after.
he had begun the citation itself, and which, grammatically,
stands in the relation of apposition to the subject involved in bpi£et.
The words puerd roaovrov XP°V0V determine the time of the
Xe7»v, and intimate that God spake thus so long after the time
of Joshua, namely, by the mouth, and therefore in the time, of
David ; and the words KaOm<; rrpoeipvrat likewise connect gram
matically with Xeymv, and indicate to the reader that the words

152 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
here cited had already been cited above in chap. iii. 7, s., and 15.1
As regards the third question, it must be acknowledged that
the argumentative force of the passage is very apparent. The
Psalmist refers back to the time when Israel was called to enter
into its rest, and when Israel neglected this call by its disobedi
ence ; then he exhorts the Israelites, on what day they should
hear the voice of God again, to give a different response, to it
from what they did then, and to obey it without delay (according
to' the Greek translation : if ye again hear his voice to-day, obey
it to-day.) The Psalmist therefore presupposes the possibihty of
Israel's being again placed in an analogous situation to what it
was then, and admonishes it not to forfeit again the entrance
into the offered glory.
And this, too, involves the answer to the second question.
Whether David was the author of the psalm or not, is a question
on which no important result depends ; the 95th psalm is not
like the 2d and 110th, grafted on a special promise made to David,
but contains only the general expectation of future gracious calls
from God, which, if Israel had already been conducted by
Joshua into its absolute rest and satisfaction, would no longer
have been possible. All that needs to be insisted on is, that the
passage in the psalm was written " so long afterwards" (namely
after Moses and Joshua) ; its force of proof lay, not in its anti
quity, but rather in the lateness, of the time when it was written.
In the Old Testament the psalm has no superscription, the Sept.
which was in the hands of the readers of the Epistle to the
Hebrews ascribed it to David, and this comparatively late period
was sufficient for the argument which the author would draw
from it, and therefore he could without hesitation adopt the
statement of the Sept. Critical investigations into the genuine
ness or spuriousness of the superscription which the psalm bears
in the Sept., would certainly have been just as little in place here,
as, in the address of Stephen, Acts vh. 14, an investigation into
the accuracy ofthe number 75. It must not, however, be over-
1 Others take the first o^pepov as the object of \eyav, "inasmuch as in
David he calls it (the day) a to-day." Others, as Calvin, Beza, Grotius,
Bleek, take o-i)pepov as apposition to r/pepav raid, " he defines again a
day, a to-day." This entire treatment of o-i)p.epov is modern.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 153
looked that our author, inasmuch as he says merely " in David"
(= in the book of David, the Psalms) and not by the mouth of
David, shows plainly enough his intention, that no weight at all
should here be made to rest on the person of David. In ver. 8
we have an extension of the proof contained in ver. 7, and, with
this, an -explanation of ver. 7, in the clear and simple state
ment, that such a reference to a future call of God and word of
God would not have been possible, if 'Ivaovs (i.e. in this context
of course Joshua)- had already truly led the Israelites into the
rest. This, however, involves the inference, that Joshua did not
truly lead the Israelites into the rest ; the earthly possession of
the land which was not even completely conquered under Joshua,
which under the Judges was oppressed by heathen kings, which
had in Saul a bad king, in David one who had little rest from
war, in Solomon one who fell from wisdom into folly, and which,
after the death of Solomon, sunk down from its high eminence
of typical glory — that earthly possession of the land such as
was brought about by Joshua, was not yet the true rest of
God. Thus has the writer returned to the thesis contained in
ver. 6 : The Old Testament had . no true rest, and therewith to
the thesis in ver. 1, 2 : We have still to expect the entrance into a
rest, and that the true rest.
This last inference is now drawn in ver. 9. The author,
however, does not here say merely that there is still a koto-
rravat<i, a state of- rest to be looked for, but he denotes this
KardiravaK by the higher name aa/3{3ariap,b<; (a word which
occurs besides only in Plutarch de superstit. 3), as the celebration
of a Sabbath. And thus he carries out here an idea which he
had indicated in ver. 4 ; he carries it out here, after having in
ver. 6 — 8 shown, that the rest into which Joshua led the Israelites
was no true rest. Now, he shows, on the other hand, that the
rest into which the people of God were to be led at a future
time, and therefore by Christ, is true, because it bears the
character of a Sabbatical rest, and thus truly corresponds to
the rest of God, after the work of creation was finished. Here,
therefore, after having suitably prepared the way,«the author first
brings out the idea which the commentators have thrust into
ver. 3, where it could have suggested itself to the mind of no
reader.

154 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
God rested on the seventh day of the creation, because he had
finished his work not merely outwardly, but because his work
was, internally and qualitatively, a finished and perfect work
(ver. 4.) But men could not in Moses', nay, even in Joshua's
time, attain to any rest from their activity, labour, pains, and
exertion (ver. 3), because their work and activity were internally
imperfect, stained with sin. The true rest lies in the future ;
this must be the rest analogous to the rest of God, a holy, a Sab
bath rest ; it must consist in this, that man is able to rest from
his works, in like manner and in the same way, as God did from
his, in other words, that man has finished his work internally,
and can appear before God with the result of his work undented
by sin.
Ver. 10. And this work man has accomplished in the person
of his Saviour and substitute, Jesus Christ. This verse is gene
rally understood as containing a general statement (" he who,
quisquis, enters into his rest, rests from his works"), and it is
supposed that the aorist Karerravaev is used here, by way of
change, instead of the present, or (Bleek), that the aorist is
occasioned by the aorist to be supplied at marrep. But with all
this artifice, nothing more is gained than a statement in great
measure tautological. When we translate the words with gram
matical exactness as they stand (" for he who has entered into
his rest, himself rested in like manner from his works, as God
from his") they yield the finest and the most striking parallel to
the corresponding member in the first principal part of our
epistle at chap. ii. 9. In the second section of the first principal
part the three members of the argument were the following.
1. Man is destined to the dominion over the universe.
But 2. Man is not yet so highly exalted.
But 3. Jesus is already exalted.
Quite analogous to this (with a difference only in the formal
logical connection of the three members) is, what we find in this,
the second section of the second principal part :
1. Man has received the call to enter into his rest.
2. He has not yet been led into this rest by Joshua ; there is
still a rest to be expected.
3. And that a Sabbatical rest, for : Jesus, who is entered into
his rest, rests in a Sabbatical manner as God does.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 155
The statement in ver. lO is therefore not general, but special ;
by the words o ydp elaeXOmv the author meant Jesus, and every
unprejudiced reader must also, on account of the aorist Kare
rravaev understand the verse in the same way. The author does
not expressly add the name Ivaov';, because in ver. 8 this name
was used to designate Joshua. In evident opposition to the
Joshua who could not bring the people to the rest, the author
speaks in ver. 10 of " that one who hath entered into his rest."
(Avrov refers to Oeov, according to the analogy of chap. iii.
11,18.) Jesus has internally finished his works, nay, the works of all
mankind, and therefore has brought them to an external com
pletion. With the Sabbath of the resurrection, on which, after
his work and humiliation was ended, he entered into his state of
exaltation and glory, on which he left the state in which the
soul was separated from the body, the Sheol, and entered into
the life of glorified body ; with this Sabbath began the second
Sabbath of God, the Sabbath of God the Son, as with the future
setting up of a new heavens and a new earth, the Sabbath of
God the Holy Ghost will begin. When, therefore, in accord
ance with the eternally binding command which requires that
after every six days of activity in our earthly calling, one day of
rest should be devoted to the sacred Sabbath activities of our
heavenly calling, Christians everywhere reckon the seven days
not from the creation-Sabbath of God the Father, but from the
creation-Sabbath of God the Son — this mode of reckoning finds
its justification in the passage before us.
Ver. 11. Man has not yet entered into the rest, but Jesus
has entered into the true Sabbath rest ; what, remains, then,
but that we also should seek by him to enter into this aaftfia-
rtapib<;. Thisexhortationfollowsinver.il: Let us strive, there
fore, to enter into that rest, with the accompanying warning not
to let it be with us as with those contemporaries of Moses, who,
because they listened not through unbelief and disobedience to
the gracious call which was then addressed to them, were after
wards held up by the Psalmist as an example of warning to us.
Let us beware, therefore, says the author, lest we neglect the
second more excellent and more powerful call of grace, and lest

156 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
we also should, in our turn, become a sad example of warning
to others. 'TrrbBeiypa, a later Greek word instead of the attic
irapdSetypia. 'Ev vrroSeiyptaTt " as an example," a proleptic use
of the eV, " that we do not tum out to be an example."
Ver. 12. The warning, however, is rendered still more pointed
and impressive by the statement, that the excuse which (accord
ing to ver. 2) the contemporaries of Moses had, no longer remains
for us. The ground of unbelief in their case lay, not merely in
the perverse will of the men, but in part, also, in the objective
impotency of the word brought by Moses, the law, which could
awaken no confidence of faith, no joy, no love, and which could
not open the heart. This extenuating circumstance, however,
does not hold in our case ; in our case, there is nothing weak or
deficient in the word of God ; for the word of God is quick,
powerful, penetrating into the soul ; if we fall into unbehef, the
blame rests with ourselves alone.
By the word of God is therefore clearly to be understood, as
the context shows, the word of the New Testament revelation.
Only, it is not to be supposed that in .the genititive toD Oeov is
expressed the antithesis to the X070? tt}? okot}? of ver. 2. The
genitive rov Oeov forms rather merely the antithesis to the first
person plural arrovSdampiev. " Let us strive to enter into that
rest, for nothing any longer fails on the part of God — the word
of God is powerful.'' Only from the context is it to be inferred
as a thing self-evident, that the author speaks here of the word
of God which we have heard, and not of the law of Moses.
And thus ver. 12 certainly forms a supplementary antithesis
to ver. 2 in respect of the matter (though not in a formally
logical connection.) This deep and fine connection has, how
ever, by all commentators hitherto been overlooked. A portion
of these commentators (many of the Fathers, Clericus, Bertholdt)
have understood 6 X070? in the sense in which it is used by John
of the Son of God as pre-existent, and find in ver. 12 a reason
why we ought to fear — because Christ, who as the pre-existent
X670? punished the Israelites, is so severe ; an explanation which
is not consistent with the usus linguae of the Epistle to the
Hebrews (comp. i. 6, where Christ as pre-existent is denoted
rather by irpmrbroKO^.) Another section of the critics (almost all

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 157
from the Reformation downwards,) understood by the X070? tou
0eoi) the Word of God in respect of its minatory declarations,1 and
find in the verse this sentiment : We must therefore beware of
becoming an example, because the threatening predictions of
God were so surely and powerfully fulfilled. But, according to
this, we should rather expect to find in ver. 12 the words : " for
the word of God is killing and wounding as a sword." Instead
of this, we read of the quickness and penetrating sharpness of the
word, a sharpness penetrating into the innermost joints and
marrow, into the soul and spirit. These predicates form evidently
an antithesis to the words of ver. 2 ptrj avyKeKepaapievos rfj
rriaret toi? dxovaaai.
The predicates, now, according to our interpretation, explain
themselves without great difficulty. The word of God (with
which we have to do in the New Testament), the word of the
revelation of the gospel in Christ, is living, chiefly in opposition
to the stiff, dead law, comp. v Gal. iii. 21. The law is a dead
fixing of the commands of God upon us, — as it stands, so it is.
The gospel is nothing but an embodying of living love itself in
living words, words which immediately take captive the heart.
The law kills because it is itself a dead letter, because it makes
demands which it does not give strength to perform, the gospel is
itself a living breath of love, and therefore it makes ahve, there
fore it works out what it aims at, it is ivepyrjs.
The .nature of its efficacy is now more particularly described
as an innermost penetration of the innermost man, as a genuine
avyKepavvvpui (comp. ver. 2.) It is sharper than every two-edged
sword (St'o-TO/io? that which has two mouths, then that which has
two fore-sides and no back, thus used of a sword : two-edged
comp. Rev. i. 16, ii. 12, LXX., Is. xi. 4, &c.) Not the deadly
efficacy but the penetrating sharpness, is that which is meant to
be set forth. This appears somewhat more clearly in the follow
ing member SiiKvovpievos, &c. " It (the word of God) penetrates
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of the joints and
the marrow." The first question that presents itself here is,
1 Only Grotius says : Convenit hoc omni verbo Dei, sed praecipue
evangelic still without explaining more particularly the connection with
ver. 11.

158 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
whether this language is to be understood as figurative or not ;
i.e. whether in what is here predicated of the X070? r. 0., we are
to understand the language as properly a continuation of the
figure of the sword (so that logically it would have to be extended
thus : it penetrates as a sword which penetrates to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow), or whether we
are to understand a real and literal efficacy of the word of
God as such to be set forth in the words : the word of
God pierces into soul and spirit, into marrow and bone (in
which case only the latter expression would have to be taken
as metonymical, or better still as a proverbial expression).
Now, prima facie, it seems to be decisive against the latter and
in favour of the former interpretation, that according to the
latter, the author would be guilty of the inelegance of passing
from a statement which is proper and definite, viz. that the word
of God penetrates soul and spirit, to one which is vague and
proverbial — that it penetrates marrow and bone. But the former
interpretation also is attended with a difficulty by no means
inconsiderable. Namely : can the figure of a sharp sword be,
generally speaking, represented in the words : the sword pene
trates even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit ? Swords
have to do surely with bodies, not with souls and spirits 1 The
most that can be said for this sense is, that the expression
" separation of soul and spirit" may be understood as something
equivalent to the separation of the body from the soul, and
therefore as a mere designation of bodily death. In this case, we
must either suppose that the expression is to be extended thus :
" to the separation of the soul and the spirit from the body"
(which, however, would destroy the parallelism with the following
member dppimv re Kal ptveXmv, while it cannot be perceived why
the author should have named the spirit together with the
soul, and why he did not rather simply say : •^u^t}? Te Kal am-
/tt«To?.) Or, we must, with Olshausen, have recourse to the
conjecture that the author, under the idea of bodily death, had
in his mind the consummation of a trichotomy, the separation of
the soul from the spirit as well as from the body.
This leads us, however, to a second question, the determination
of which is indispensable, ere we are at liberty to return to the
first. The question'is this : must we understand as connected by t6

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 159
Kai two things closely united with each other by nature, or two things
which have grown up together, between which the sword (or the word
of God as a sword) penetrates, and which it is to separate from
each other f So that the soul should be viewed as having grown
upon the spirit, the dppo<; on the /ti/eXo?, somewhat in the same
way as the bark on the wood, and the sword cuts through between
them somewhat in the same way as a knife separates the bark
from the wood. Or, are we to understand re Kai as connecting
two things lying deep, of which, however, the second lies still
deeper than the first, so that the sword (or the divine word as a
sword) first of all, generally speaking, penetrates to them, and
then, moreover, penetrates through the first to the second ? Thus
the spirit would be viewed as being in somewhat the same relation
to the soul, as the innermost kernel of a fruit is to the core, and
the sword as a knife which cuts into the core, nay, into the
innermost kernel itself. The word piepiapMi is not at all decisive
in favour of the first interpretation ; what is spoken of is a sepa
ration as well of the soul as of the spirit, as well of the joints as
of the marrow, but not a separation of the soul from the spirit, of
the joints from the marrow. This very Te Kai is rather in favour
of the second interpretation.
But a certain solution of the question must be obtained, first
of all, from a closer consideration of the two pairs of things
themselves. Could the author have had before his mind a
separation of the soul from the spirit in general ? In support of
this, reference is made to the biblical trichotomy of body, soul,
and spirit which meets us in 1 Thess. v. 23. There is undoubt
edly a trichotomy in that passage ; but whether by this is to be
understood any such mechanical construction of man out of three
parts or substances ; whether it involves the possibility that the
soul and the spirit can be cut asunder from each other, so that
each may stand by itself, is indeed very much to be questioned.
The Holy Scripture certainly distinguishes the soul from the
body, and the spirit from the body, and the soul from the spirit.
But nowhere does it represent the body as outwardly separable
from the soul. The present body is a ampta yfrvxtKov (1 Cor. xv.
44), and the yjrvxiKbv itvat belongs to its essence. Separated
from the soul, it is no longer " body," but " corpse ;" every atom
in it is qualitatively different as soon as the soul is severed from

160 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
it; the body is throughout a quickened, animated, living, active
material ; the corpse is but a material subject to chemical laws.
Now, as a '' body" separated from the soul is a nonentity, much
less can we conceive of a soul separated from the spirit., The
same yfrvxr) which, by its separation from the body, has changed
it into a corpse, is called as such also rrvevpia (Luke xxiv. 37), a
sure proof that soul and spirit are still more identical than soul
and body. But how are we to explain the circumstance, that in
1 Thess. v. 23, and Heb. iv. 12, soul and spirit are distinguished
from each other ? Soul is the designation of that life-centre of
individuality given by nature, proceeding from natural generation,
and bringing with it from nature (as being a thing not free, but
subject to the influence of nature) certain definite quahties and
dispositions. The irrational animal has also this physical centre
of life. But that of man is, according to his nature, immortal ;
the chief endowment which he has brought along with him is
that of self-consciousness in the higher sense, and with this, the
consciousness of God; thus Ms nature possesses the internal
necessity of developing itself on the basis of individuality given
by nature, to a self-determining personality, to fill itself with an
endless existence. And thus the same centre of life, viewed as
self-conscious, bears the name oi rrvevpia. The rrvevpia is ^jrvxij in
respect of its fundamental quahty derived from nature, the i/tlh^t;
is rrveiifia in respect of its personal development. This then affords
also a complete explanation of the passage in 1 Thess. v. 23.
The whole man, — spirit, soul, and body, is to be preserved
blameless. The keeping blameless of the soul can certainly be
distinguished from that of the spirit, without its being necessary
to infer from this, that the soul is a second substance separable
from the spirit. The body is kept blameless, when it is shielded
from disease and preserved from vicious defilement, the soul,
when it is preserved from insanity (distraction ofthe soul, frenzy),
and pollution through unregulated instincts and passions, the
spirit, when it is protected against error and sin.
We cannot, therefore, speak of a separation of the soul from
the spirit (and with this the possibility falls to the ground of
comprehending the piepiapibi, &c, under the figure of the sword.)
On the other hand, an excellent sense is evolved when we regard
the soul as something lying deep within man, the spirit as lying

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 161
still deeper, and the word of God as penetrating into the soul, and
thence still deeper, even into the spirit. For, the first and more
superficial effect of the gospel is, that it in many ways stirs and
moves the mind, — the complex assemblage of feelings derived
from nature, — it involuntarily seizes the mind, binds and disturbs
it. This stirring and arresting effect on the tyvxv it exercises in
wider circles also among the .unawakened, it exercises this effect
in national churches upon the nation, sinks itself into the heart
as a still slumbering seed-corn, keeps hold of the man although
he may not yet, by any free act of his own, have decided in
favour of the gospel and its reception, and works on in the sphere
of the soul, produces a strange and unaccountable uneasiness, and
again gives comfort like a soft balm ; in all this, it is only the
"ty~vX*l ^ich has experienced its power. Soon, however, it pene
trates still deeper, works no longer merely in the sphere of the
involuntary activities of the soul, where no conscious resistance is
made to it, but penetrates into the watchfully conscious life of
the thoughts, passes from the ivOvpnjaeis to the evvoiai, obtains for
itself a place in the sphere of the conscious will and voluntary
thought, and carries on its plea with the old Adam in the clear
light of day, until the man is driven to a. final decision for or
against the gospel.
The second member dppimv 're Kal p,veXmv serves most fully to
establish the interpretation we have given. With as little reason
can it be said that the dpptoi have grown upon the piveXoi, as the
soul upon the spirit. MveXbs is the marrow, piveXoi are the
pieces of marrow in the cavities of the bones. 'Appio^ literally
joint, can be taken either in the signification of limb or of joint.
The marrow grows neither together with the limbs nor the joints,
but forms the inmost kernel of the limbs, and if we adopt . the
signification limb, we have, here again, two things named which
are concentrically related to each other. It is not meant, there
fore, that the marrow and the limb are severed from each other,
but something is spoken of which cuts not merely into the
members, but through the bones into the innermost marrow.
Or, if we prefer the signification joint, something is spoken of,
which not merely pierces as a common sword into the place of
the cartilaginous joint, end in this way separates, for example,
the under, from the upper part of the arm at the elbow, but
L

162 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
which penetrates also through and through to the marrow
tubes. But what is this something which has this penetrating power ?
The separation of soul and spirit must, as we have seen, be taken
in the proper sense, and referred to the word of God, not, in a
figurative sense, to the sword. Can, then, this separation of
joints and marrow, which is grammatically included with the
foregoing in a single p,eptap,b<;, be referred to anything else than
to the word of God ? And yet can it with any propriety be said
of the word of God, that it cuts into the joints, nay even into the
marrow ? This brings us back to the first question which, as it will
be remembered, was left undetermined. — I do not think we are
warranted in charging the author with an inelegant recurrence
from the thing to the figure ; but the words in question seem
capable of the easiest explanation, by supposing a rhetorical
intermixture of two ideas which are logically to be separated, such
as we have already observed in chap. ii. 18, iii. 3. With logical
precision, the idea would be expressed thus : " The word of God
is still sharper than a sword ; for a sword cuts generally only into
the soft flesh (soft, offering less resistance), but the word of God
cuts not only into the (passive) soul, but even into the (free and
conscious) spirit ; it therefore resembles a sword which pene
trates not merely into the members, but (through the bones) into
the marrow." This chain of ideas the author puts into a more
concise form thus : " The word of God is sharper than every two-
edged sword, inasmuch as it penetrates to the dividing asunder
as well of" spirit as of soul" thus resembling a sword which pierces
even to the separation of the parts), " as well of the marrow as
of the joints."
KpniKo<s ivOvpJ)aemv Kal ivvoimv KapSlas — in these words lies
the explanation of what was meant by the cutting asunder of soul
and spirit. 'EvOvptrjaeK are the natural desires and passions
(not the evil only) which involuntarily and undisturbed find
play in the natural man. The word of the gospel falls into
these like a leavening, a X670? KpiriKb? i.e. not as a «ptTTJ?, a
judge, but as having a critical or separating effect upon them. It
causes a movement, a fermentation, an unavoidable disquiet
among the more unconscious and slumbering impulses and pas
sions ; the man feels himself no longer happy, no longer inno-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 163
cent in the indulgence of inclinations to which he yielded before
with undisturbed pleasure ; he feels himself no longer satisfied
with enjoyments and delights, which before were the ideal after
which he strove. The word of God, however, exercises this
sifting, rebuking, awakening, and comforting power, not merely
on the ivOvpfjaeK, but also on the evvotai (1 Pet. i. 12), the
opinions, the maxims and principles which have been formed on
the basis ofthe natural man, as the result of the conscious and
free exercise of the mind. This power it has, because, as the
word of that grace in the highest manifestation of which the
holiness of God remained altogether unscathed, it both forgives
and judges the same sin in the heart of man, at one and the same
time, and by one and the same act. On the cross of Christ the
guilt has been atoned for, and the sin which brought Christ to
the cross at the same time condemned, and held up as an object
of abhorrence to all who love the propitiator. Thus has this
word of wonder, the wonder of all words, the power to comfort
without seducing into levity, to shake without plunging into
despair. It draws while it rebukes, it sifts while it draws ; the
man cannot set himself free from it who has once heard it ; its
gentleness will not allow- him to cast it from him, and as he holds
it fast he escapes not also from its sifting severity. It has in one
word — a barb. The law of Moses rebukes the deed done ; the
word of the gospel works upon the source whence actions proceed,
the mind, the heart ; it judges before the deed is done not after ;
it is living; its judging consists in making better, in sanctifying
the inner man of the heart, and thus extending its efficacy to
the outward life.
Ver. 13. In these words, in which a power of vision is ascribed
to the word of God (" nothing is hid from its eyes"), we have an
instance of that familiar tropical application of this faculty, which
is wont to be made to any illuminating body, and are by no
means under the necessity of recurring to that unsuitable inter
pretation which explains the word of God of a person. We can
say with perfect propriety : " the sun looks on us, before the sun
everything lies open, nothing is hid from it ; the stars look into
the night" — we can say this without representing the sun and
the stars as personal beings. So here': all things lie open before
the word of the gospel, simply because this word throws its light
l 2

164 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
upon and illuminates all things, even the most secret motions of
the heart.
TpaxnXi^m, to bend the neck, is said, according to the view of
the later critics (since Perizonius), to have received the signifi
cation " to put in the pillory" (because those who were put in
the pillory had their neck bent downwards), and from this came
the signification : to lay open. There is no necessity, however,
for such an explanation. The explanation given by old Greek
scholiasts is the true one : rpaxvXifa, to bend any one's neck
backwards, and thereby to lay bare the throat, hence in general :
to lay bare.
Avrov refers, of course, back to X070?, not to Oeov, by which
the thought would be entirely destroyed. With as little reason
can it be regarded as pointing forwards to 7rpo? ov (in the sense
of meivov), so that we should have Jo translate the words thus :
" all things are open to the eyes of that with which we have to
do," and as if this were to be distinguished from the X070? tou
Oeov ver. 12, as something different. It is self-evident that both
genitives avrov point backwards to 6 X070? tov Oeov.
The relative clause 7rpo? bv fjpiiv b X070? is therefore dependent
on an avrov already sufficiently definite in itself, and does not
serve the purpose of giving a definiteness to avrov, but contains a
new and additional idea. ThatXoyo? does not here again denote the
word of God, but has a different signification from what it has in
ver. 12, is likewise evident. Luther, Schulz, Vater, and others take
it in the signification " speech, address," and Trpo? in the signifi
cation " in reference to," and the whole clause is analogous to
the words in chap. v. 11 Trepi ov (iroXvi) i)piiv 0 Xbyos. They
rendered it, accordingly, thus : " before the eyes of the word of
which we speak" But this additional clause would be altogether
insipid, superfluous, and useless. Others therefore sought to find a
weightier meaning in the words. Following the Peschito Chrys.,
Theophyl., Theodoret, Schmid, Michaelis assigned to the word
X070? the signification, " reckoning," which it has in the phrase
Xoyov drroSiSavai (for example xiii. 17), and rendered : " of which
we have to give account." This sense is not even suitable to the
right explanation of 6 X670? r. 0., nor is it consistent with the
right explanation of ver. 12, in which, as we have seen, it is not

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. , ' >' -..> 165
the judicial threatenings of God's word that are spoken of.
Moreover, this sense will not admit of being justified on gram
matical grounds, as X070? iarl alone cannot stand for X070? otto-
SoTeo? iari. With much more reason, Calvin, Kuinoel, and De
Wette take X070? in the general signification, res, negotium, and
render: "with which we have to do." This explanation is
doubly recommended if we were justified in finding in ver. 12 a
material antithesis to ver. 2, the antithesis, namely, between the
X070? tt}? okot}? which was spoken to the contemporaries of
Moses and could not profit them, and the X070? roi) Oeov ver. 12,
which is living and powerful, and by which, according to the
context, is to be understood the New Testament word of God in
Christ. We have just observed in ver. 12, that this antithesis is
in no way expressed in the words X070? tov Oeov (inasmuch as
the genitive Oeov must be referred to a totally different anti
thesis) ; we see now, however, that the author has by no means
left that antithesis without marked and definite expression. With
intentional emphasis, he places quite at the end (and this very
position gives it a peculiar force ) the relative clause 7rpo? ov f)p2v
6 X070?, " with which we have to do," in which the emphasis must
be laid on the fjptiv. (In the German translation the avrov
must be rendered not by " desjenigen" by only by the possess.
pron. On this, however, no relative can, according to the rules of
the German language, be dependent, so that this relative clause,
even in order rightly to express the emphasis which rests upon
it, must be connected with the subject of the clause in ver. 12.)
Ver. 14 — 16. In the last verses the striking comparison
between the dead, outward, legal word of Moses, which could not
take away the disobedience of the Israelites, nor lead them to the
true rest, and the living penetrating word of the new covenant was
brought to a close. From this now. flows as a direct conse
quence, that we have therefore (ovv) in Christ not merely a
second Moses, that we have in him more than a lawgiver, that
we have in him who has gone for us and before us into the
eternal Sabbath rest of the heavenly sanctuary, a High Priest.
This conclusion of the second section of the second part is, as
we have already observed, on chap. "ii. 17 completely parallel
with the conclusion of the second section of the first part. In
tbe first part it was shown that the Son is superior to the angels ;
2

166 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
a, in his person, because in him the eternal irpmrbroKO<; became
man ; o, in his work, because in him as the first-fruits man is
raised to the dominion over the universe, and over all heavens ;
and, c, this is effected because Christ as the messenger of God
(diroaroXoi) in things pertaining to men, united with this the
office oi high priestly representative of men (dpxiepevs) in things
pertaining to God. In the second part, it has now been shown
that the Son is superior to Moses ; a, in his person, as the Son in
the perfect house to the servant in the typical house ; b, in his
work, because he first opened up the way for man to the true
Sabbatical rest into which he himself entered before ; and from
this it follows, c, that he joined to the office of a second Moses —
a divinely commissioned leader out of captivity — the office of a
high priest. The author having thus been led from these two
different starting-points to the idea of the op^tepei;?, now pro
ceeds to place upon the two first parts which may be viewed as
the pillars of the arch, the third part which forms the key-stone,
chap, vi., vii.
It will appear from what has been said that the particle ovv,
ver. 14, is to be taken in its usual signification, as marking
an inference to be drawn from the foregoing, and as closely
connecting ver. 14 — 16 with ver. 10 — 13. Those err furthest
from the right understanding of the passage, who think (as
Tholuck and Bleek) that the author left his proper theme at chap.
iii. 1, lost himself, so to speak, in a digression which had no
proper connexion with the subject, and that he now takes a sudden
leap back to the path he had left, so that ovv here is to be taken
in a resumptive signification, and as referring to the end of chap.
ii. (" Seeing then that we have, as has before been said, an
high priest," &c.) With more reason it was already perceived
by Calvin, that the author has compared Christ first with the
angels, then (according to his plan) with Moses, and that he now
intends to pass to a third point ; only he failed to perceive that
the idea with which the 14th verse begins, really follows as an
inference from ver. 10 — 13, and thought therefore that ovv must
be taken in the signification atqui ; " now further," which the
word never has, and of which, as has been already said, there
is no need.
Now it is not, of course, to be thought that all the epithets

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV." 167
which are assigned to Christ in ver. 14 — 16, are enumerated
with the view of exhibiting the dissimilarity between Christ and
the Old Testament high priests, and the inferiority ofthe latter ;
for a comparison of this kind between Christ and the Old Testa
ment high priest first begins at the third principal part, which
immediately follows, and is there (chap. v. 1, ss.) expressly
introduced by the general enumeration of the necessary requisites
for the high priesthood (fdr every high priest, &c). Here, on
the other hand, we have simply the inference drawn from ver.
10 — 13, that to Christ belongs in general the high priestly calling
(together with that of a second Moses.) All the epithets that
are here assigned to him have rather the object, therefore, of
showing the similarity between Christ and a high priest, or in
other words, to vindicate the subsumption of Jesus under the
idea of high priest. Ver. 14 — 16 do not at all belong to the
third part, but quite as much to the second as chap. ii. 17, 18 to
the first part ; and Hugo von St Cher showed a much truer and
deeper insight into the meaning and aim of the passage than the
majority of later critics, when he commenced a new chapter with
the words 7ra? yap ap^tepeu?.
'Apxiepia pieyav ; op%tepev? signifies by itself " high priest ;"
pieya<; does not therefore serve to complete the idea of high
priest (as is the case when it stands along with a mere lepevs,
when b lepeix; o piiyas = ^Tijn pl^H is to be rendered by
" the high priest," as for example chap. x. 21), but yueya? has
here the independent force of an attribute. It follows, however,
from what has before been said, that Christ is not here by the
adjective peyas, as by a cliff, specif., placed in opposition to
the Old Testament high priest, as the great high priest to the
small, but that p,eya<; here simply takes the place of an epitheton
naturale (just as in chap. xiii. 20, in the words rbv rroip,eva rmv
rrpoBdrmv rbv pieyav.) In like manner, the words SteXnXvObra robs
ovpavovs, which point back immediately to ver. 11 (comp. however
also chap. vii. 26, ix. 11), serve simply to indicate an act of
Christ wherein he appears analogous to the high priest ; which
also justifies the author in calling him an op^tepeu?. These
words BieXvXvObra, &c, contain therefore a supplementary
explanation of the vis conclusionis indicated by ovv. Because
Christ has gone before as the first-fruits of humanity through the

1 68 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
heavens into the eternal substantial rest, there to prepare a
habitation for us, therefore, and in so far, was his act analogous
not to what was • done by Moses, but rather to the business of
' those high priests who in like manner entered into the earthly
holy of holies. (That the entrance was again also different from
that of the Old Testament high priests is indeed implied in these
words, although it is not here urged. It is rather the difference
between Christ and Moses that is here urged ; all that is here
urged is, that Christ in virtue of his being at the same time also
a high priest, is superior to Moses.)
On the ovpavoi comp. our remarks on chap. i. 3. The ovpa-
voi in the plural, through which Jesus has passed to the right
hand of God, are here the different spheres of the creature, the
atmospheric, the planetary heavens, the heavens of the fixed stars
and the angels. He is gone into the dwelling-place in space of the
absolute, finished, absolutely undisturbed revelation ofthe Father.
Jesus the Son of God, a brief repetition of the idea unfolded
in chap, ii., that in the person of the incarnate irpmrbroKO^, who
as incarnate is called the Son of God, man is exalted to the right
hand of God.
Because, therefore, we have in the person of this Jesus an
high priest, and not a mere Moses redivivus, because he is, in
virtue of this, so much superior to Moses, we must " hold- fast
the New Testament confession,' and are not at liberty to give
this an inferior and subordinate place to that of the Old Testa
ment. Kpareiv, not " seize," but " hold fast," the opposite of
irapappeiv ii. 1, rraparrirrretv vi. 6.
In ver. 15 there follows not an argument or motive for the
exhortation Kparmpiev ; for this has already its motive in the
words having an high priest; besides, the circumstance that
Christ sympathises with our weakness, and was tempted like
us, contains no motive for that exhortation ; for this being
tempted is not a peculiar characteristic of the New Testa
ment high priest, not a prerogative of the new covenant, but
a quality which belongs to him in common with the Old Testa
ment high priests. In ver. 15 we have rather an explana
tion of the clause, We have an high priest. The author shows
that Christ was not wanting in the chief requisite necessary to
an high priest in general. (In ver. 15, therefore, there is no

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 169
such thing as a comparison between Christ and Aaron. The
Old Testament high priests were in like manner able to sympa
thise. Comp. chap. vi. 1. " Every high priest enters into office
as one taken from among men, for the benefit of men in their
relation to God.")
But to what extent Christ was able to sympathise with our
infirmities, and what is to be understood by these infirmities,
appears most clearly from the words which follow : Having been
tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. (At bptoibrvTa
the r/pimv which of course is to be understood, is omitted, as in
Ephes. iii. 18.) We must here, first of all, endeavour to obtain
a clear idea of what is meant by being tempted. Being tempted
is, on the one hand, something different from being seduced;
on the other hand, however, it is something different from mere
physical suffering. He who is seduced stands not in a purely
passive relation, but with his own will acquiesces in the will
of the seducer ; he who is tempted is as such, purely passive.
This, however, is no merely physical passivity ; headache as such
is no rreipaapLos. In order rightly and fully to apprehend the
idea involved in rretpaapj><;, we must keep iu view the opposition
between nature and spirit, between involuntary physical life and
freely conscious life, natural dispositions and culture, original
temperament and passions and personal character, a given situ
ation and the manner of conduct. Christ as true man had a truly
human physical life, experienced the affections of joy and sorrow,
of pleasure and aversion, of hope and fear and anxiety, just as
we do. He was capable of enjoying the innocent and tranquil
pleasures of life, and he felt a truly human shrinking from suf
fering and death ; in short, he was in the sphere of the involuntary
life of ihe soul passively susceptible as we are. But there is a
moral obligation lying upon every man, not to let himself be
mastered by his natural affections which in themselves are alto
gether sinless, but rather to acquire the mastery over them. This
will be most evident in reference to temperaments. That one
man is naturally of a sanguine temperament is no sin ; but if he
should allow himself to be hurried into rage by his temperament,
instead of laying a check upon it, this is sin. To be of a phleg
matic temperament is no sin ; but to fall into habits of sloth, by
o-iving place to this temperament, is sin. Thus every tempera-

170 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
ment involves peculiar temptations. The case is similar with
reference to the affections. That I feel joy in an innocent
and quiet life is no sin; but were I placed in a position in
which such happiness of life could be acquired or maintained
only by the neglect, of a duty, then it is my duty to suppress
that feeling which is sinless in itself, — that innocent sensation, —
and to sacrifice my pleasure to duty. And in as far as I shall still
be susceptible of that natural affection of pleasure which I have
sacrificed, in so far will it be to me in my peculiar position a
temptation. That a poor man loves his children, and cannot
bear that they should perish of hunger, is in itself a natural sin
less affection ; but let him be so placed as that without danger of
discovery he could steal a piece of money, then that natural affec
tion becomes to him a temptation.
Now, it is quite clear that a man may, in this way, find him
self in the situation of being tempted, without its being necessary
to suppose that there is therefore in him any evil inclination.
The poor man may be a truly honest Christian man ; the objec
tive temptation is there ; the thought is present to his mind in
all the force of the natural affection : " If I were at liberty to
take this gold, how I might appease the hunger of my children ; "
but at the same time he has an immediate and lively conscious
ness of his duty, and not a breath of desire moves within him to
take the gold ; he knows that he dare not do this ; it is a settled
thing with him that he is no thief. — So was it in reference to
Christ's temptation ; he was tempted " in every respect," in joy
and sorrow, in fear and hope, in the most various situations, but
without sin; the being tempted was to him purely passive, purely
objective ; throughout the whole period of his life he renounced
the pleasures of life for which he had a natural susceptibility, be
cause he could retain these only by compliance with the carnal
hopes of the Messiah entertained by the multitude, and he main
tained this course of conduct in spite ofthe prospect which became
ever more and more sure, that his faithfulness and persecution
would lead him to suffering and death, of which he felt a natural
fear. That susceptibility of pleasure and this fear, were what
tempted him — not sinful inclinations but pure, innocent, natural
affections, belonging essentially to human nature.1
1 Hence the error of the Irvinites in thinking that it is impossible to

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV. 171
It is evident, that a distinction is to be drawn between this
being tempted without sin and that temptation in whith the sinful,
fallen man " is drawn away of his own lust and enticed" (i.e. the
subjective operation of a sinful desire, in an objective situation
which demands the suppression of a natural affection in itself
good.) That this species of temptation found any place in the
sinless one, is denied in the words : without sin. Christ, as
Olshausen well observes, possessed in his estate of humiliation
not indeed the non posse peccare, but certainly like Adam the
posse non peccare.
Ver. 16. brings the second section of the second part, and,
therewith, this part itself to a full and formal conclusion. We
have here, however, not merely the old admonition of merely
general import : not to lose the benefits of the new covenant from
a false attachment to the forms of the old covenant ; the admo
nition is given here in a special form, namely, to hold fast the
grace of God, and to come with joyfulness to the throne of grace.
In speaking of this throne of grace, the author had certainly not
in his mind the j-pQi (which indeed is called " mercy-seat" only
in Luther's translation, but not in the original, nor in the Sept.,
and which was in reality a simple " cover" or " lid") ; the author
in an exhortation to hold fast the specifically Christian element
in the atonement of Christ, would assuredly not have expressed
himself in a form peculiar to the Jewish cultus. The throne of
grace is simply the throne of God, but of God as a reconciled
father in Christ : They are to draw near to God not as a judge
but as a gracious father for Christ's sake.
' Iva Xdfimpiev kXeov Kal %optv evpmpev et? evKaipov j3or)0eiav,
that we may receive mercy and find grace to a seasonable help
(as seasonable^ help.) jEv/cotpo?, opportunus, not " in time of
need," but simply the opposite of an o«otpo? jSorjQeia, a help
which comes too late. Eh cannot, grammatically considered, intro
duce the time ofthe receiving and finding, hut only the end and result
thereof. ("That we may receive mercy, &c. to a seasonable
help" = that the mercy which we receive may take the form of
a help coming still at the right time ; i.e. to give the. sense in
hold the real temptation of Christ without the supposition of an inward
evil inclination.

172 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IV.
other words : that we, so long as it is yet time, and we have
something still to help us, may receive mercy and find grace.)
This concluding exhortation to have recourse to grace, forms
also at the same time the transition to the following part. " Let
us come to the throne of grace," the author has just said. Forth
with he himself follows his own admonition, and goes with his
readers before the throne of grace, and begins the consideration
of the high pmestly calling of Christ.

( 173 )

PART THIRD.

(Chap. v. — vii.)
CHRIST AND THE HIGH PRIEST.
Hugo von St Cher has, here again, shown a happy tact in
making a new chapter begin with the words 7ra? ydp dp^tepeu?.
On the first superficial view, one might be tempted to connect
chap. v. 1 — 10 with chap. iv. 14 — 16, because in both passages
we find, a comparison between Christ and the Old Testament
high priest (a comparison, too, which has respect to the points
of similarity.) But, to say nothing of the formal conclusion in
iv. 16, a closer view of the contents will show us that a new part
begins with v. 1, which (as before at ii. 17 s.) was merely inti
mated, and for which the way was prepared in iv. 14 ss. In
chap. iv. 14 the writer had already come to speak of the highest
and last point in the high-priestly work of Christ; the compari
son with Moses and Joshua had led him to the high-priestly
entrance of Christ into the Sabbatical rest of the heavenly
sanctuary. In chap. v. 1, on the contrary, he begins again, so
to speak, at the lowest point and goes upwards, specifying one
by one the requisites for the office of High Priest, and proving
whether these requisites are found in Christ. (Every high priest
must, in the first place, be taken from among men ver. 1 — 3,
secondly, however, must be called of God to his office ver. 4.
Christ was truly called of God ver. 5, 6, but at the same time
he was true man, ver. 7 — 9.) These points of similarity, how
ever, lead him of themselves to the points of difference between
Christ and Aaron, to the Melchisedec-nature of the priesthood

174 KPTSTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. — VII.
of Christ, which new theme he intimates in ver. 10, and,
after a somewhat lengthy digression of a hortatory character,
treats it in detail in chap. vii. In chap. vii. he then takes up
the threads of argument laid down in chap. ii. and chap, iv., and
is at length led back to the idea, which was already only briefly
intimated in chap. iv. 14 (the entrance of Christ into the heavenly
the true holy of holies) as the highest point at which he aims.
The entire part, therefore, chap. v. 1 — chap. vii. 28, forms the
exposition of the theme that was merely intimated iu chap. ii.
17, and chap. iv. 14. And thus we are convinced that chap. iv.
14 — 16 forms in reality the conclusion of the second principal
part, in like manner as chap. ii. 17, 18 that of the first part, and
that the true and proper commencement of the third part is to be
placed at chap. v. 1.
We infer also from what has just been said, that the third part
is, as a whole, parallel in its arrangement with the two first parts.
It, too, falls into two sections, (1, chap. v. 1 — 10, similarity between
Christ and Aaron ; 2, dissimilarity between Christ and Aaron,
similarity with Melchisedec), and here also, these two sections are
markedly separated from each other by an admonitory piece
inserted between them (chap. v. 11 — vi. 20.) That this hortatory
piece in the third part is longer and fuller than in the two first
parts can create no surprise. Already was that of the second
part (extending from the 7th to the 19th verse of chap. 3) longer
than that of the first part (chap. ii. 1 — 4) ; in this third part
it extends to twenty-four verses, and thus shows itself even
outwardly as the last part of an admonition, which from its
commencement onwards, gradually becomes more urgent and
more full. But in its internal character also, as we shall see, it
stands in very close connexion with the chapter which follows.
And a longer resting-place was necessary before this seventh
chapter, not merely on account of the greater difficulty of its
contents, but chiefly also because chap. vii. does not connect
immediately with chap. v. 10, but at once points back to the
train of thought in chap. i. — ii., iii. — iv., and weaves into an
ingenious web all the threads formerly laid down. Chap. vii. is
not merely the second section of the third part, but forms at once
the key-stone of the first and second parts, and the basis of the
fourth part (the argument that the sanctuary into which. Christ

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1 — 10. 175
entered is the true sanctuary, of which the Old Testament temple
and worship were only a type.) Nay, the seventh chapter may
thus be said to form properly the kernel and central point of the
whole epistle.

SECTION FIRST.
(Chap. v. 1—10.)
CHRIST AND AARON.
Ver. 1. Tap is not argumentative, but explicative, and intro
duces the exposition ofthe theme intimated in iv. 14 — 16, to the
closer consideration and laying to heart of which a charge was
implicitly given in ver. 16. — Other interpreters have understood
ydp as argumentative, and entirely misapprehending the clear
structure of thought in these ten verses, have taken ver. 1 as
helping to prove what is said in iv. 15. " Christ must have
sympathy with our infirmities, for even human high priests have
sympathy with sins." Thus the high priests taken from among
men would here be opposed to Christ as one not taken from among
men, and an inference drawn a minori ad majus. But if this
interpretation is to be received, we miss here, first of all, a Kai or
Kairrep before the words e|f dvOpmrrmv XapBavopbevos ; then the
words iiirep dvOpmrrmv KaOlararai and ra irpbi rbv Oeov would be
quite superfluous ; thirdly, we should expect XvcpOeh, and
finally, the words e'£ avOpmirmv Xap.Bavbp,evo<; would not even
form a clear antithesis to Christ, who also was to be included
among those born of woman. Nay, even the vis conclusionis in
that argum. a minori would be very doubtful ; from the fact that
sinful men are indulgent towards the dyvorjpara of others, it
cannot be all at once inferred that the sinless one must have been
much more indulgent.
We therefore understand the proposition in ver. 1 not as a
special, but as a general one. Nothing is intended to be said of
the human high priests in opposition to Christ, but the intention

176 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10.
rather is to enumerate the requisites which every high priest must
have. That these requisites were found in Christ, and in how
far they belonged to him, is then shown in ver. 5 — 10. Thus
then ver. 1 — 4 form a sort of major proposition, ver. 5 — 10 a
minor proposition (which implicitly contains the self-evident
conclusion.) Of course, the words e\- dvQpmrrmv XariBavbpevo<; cannot be the
attribute belonging to the subject of the sentence, but must be
viewed as in apposition to the predicate. The right rendering is
not : " Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for
men," but " Every high priest is as one taken from among men,
ordained for men in their relation to God." And it is further to
be observed, that the words taken from among men express the
principal idea, while the proof of the necessity of this is given in
the words is ordained for men. The form in which this proof is
given is, that the being taken from among men expresses the
ground of the possibility of the being ordained for men. Expressed
in a logical form, it would stand thus : Every high priest can
appear before God for men, only in virtue of his being taken from
among men. (We found precisely the same logical form at chap.
iv. 6, 7.)
It is men whom the high priest is to represent, and that " in
their relation to God," rd 7rpo? rbv Oeov (comp. chap. ii. 17,
where the same idea was briefly hinted which is here ex professo
carried out ;) therefore must every high priest himself be taken
out of men, out of the number of men ; this is the first requisite of
every high priest. This requisite is now further explained. He
is ordained or appointed for men as their representative before
God, not as Moses, to receive the law in their stead, but to offer
sacrifices for them. Am pa is not the more general, and Ova iai
the more special term, for virep dpiaprimv refers to rrpoa<pepy, and
therefore also to both Bmpa and Ovaiai. These two terms are
(just like repara and anpeia) only two designations of one and
the same thing, regarded from different points of view. Sacrifices
are called Bospa, because the person for whom the atonement is
to be made gives them to the priest for God ; they are called
Ovaiai, because they must be slain in order to have an atoning
efficacy. The person whose guilt is to be atoned for must take
the victim from his own property, that it may appear as a repre-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10. 177
sentative of himself; and then the victim must suffer the death
which its owner had deserved.
In vers. 2, 3 this first requisite of the high priest is still
further illustrated. Every high priest is set up as one taken
from among men, that he may offer sacrifices as one who can
rightly judge respecting the sinners who bring them. The mecha
nical offering of the sacrifices is not enough ; a psychologically
just estimate of the particular case of him for whom the atonement
is to be made, must precede the offering.
Now, this is a point which, so far as I know, no commentator
has rightly understood. To look at the passage, first of all,
grammatically, the word pterptoiraOeiv is a term invented by the
Peripatetics, which afterwards passed into the general language.
The best explanation ofthe term is given by Diog. Laert. v. 31,
when he represents Aristotle as saying that the wise man is not
o7ra0T;? but p,erpioiraO^<i. The term involves an antithesis at
once to the want and the excess of the passions ; it denotes the
application of Aristotle's cardinal virtue pieaorv1} to the sphere of
the rrdOr}. Hence, it may quite agreeably to the context signify :
" firm" in relation to suffering, " mild" in relation to the offender,
" indulgent"' in reference to the erring. (So in Appian, Josephus,
especially in Philo and Clem. Alex.) Many commentators would
therefore, without more ado, understand the term here also as
signifying " to be indulgent," but, as we shall soon see, improperly
so. The term dyvovpta does not denote sin in general, but a
particular class of sins. It is well known, that by no means all
trespasses and crimes were, under the old covenant, atoned for
by sacrifice, but wilfully wicked transgressions of the law (rrapa-
Bdaeii) were required to be punished, and could be expiated and
atoned for only by the endurance of the penalty. Those sins
alone which had been committed n^lttfoj t,e* without the purpose
tt : •
to do evil, in which the man had been hurried into evil by his
nature, by the ebullition of passion, could be atoned for without
punishment, by sacrifices or sin-offerings (according to the degree
of the trespass.) Now, dyvoovvre<; Kal ifXavmpievoi in our passage
corresponds precisely to the idea of the n^ffij- (Some wrongly
tt :
explain dyvbvpia of " sins of error," Such sins are not meant as
proceed from habitual errors, but such as in the moment of their
M

178 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10.
being committed were not accompanied with a clear consciousness
of their culpability.)
We have now the explanation of the idea as a whole. A priest
was not at liberty all at once to receive and slay a sacrifice which
one brought to him ; but he must first make inquiry into the act
that had been committed, and must examine whether it belonged
to the category of the n^flj to which sacrifices were appropriated.
This, of course, he could do only by knowing from his own
experience the passions of human nature ; i.e., iirel Kal avrbf
irepiKeirai daOeveiav. (FLepiKetaOai ri, to be clothed with any
thing, to be burdened with.)1
The third verse contains a farther explanation. In order to
demonstrate how necessary it is that a high priest should partake
in the infirmity of the men whom he represents, the circumstance
is added, that according to the ordinances of the Mosaic law, the
high priest was required to offer sacrifice for his own sins. It is
this idea chiefly that has given occasion to the false interpreta
tion of ver. 1. Such a thing, it has been thought, could be said
only of " human high priests." But this is altogether unneces
sary, for the author in ver. 1 — 4 speaks just as little of human
high priests in opposition to Christ, as of Christ specially. He
simply lays down the two requisites which belong to the idea of
high priest, as historically represented in the law, and ver. 3
contains a proof of the first requisite taken from the law. Let
us leave it to the author himself to inquire in ver. 5 ss. how far
these requisites were predicable of Christ. He will himself
know the proper time and place, ver. 8 (and later, chap. vii. 27),
for showing in what respects Christ was unlike those Old Testa
ment high priests.
In ver. 4 we have the second requisite qualification of every high
priest. He must betaken/rom amongmen; he must not be ordained
by men, nor usurp the office himself, but must be one called of
i The idle question why the author does not use avp.iradeiv instead of
perpiowadelv, as well as the false solution of this question connected with
the false interpretation of ver. 1, namely, that a pure sympathy can be
ascribed only to Christ, but a weak " indulgence" to " human high
priests " — both fall of themselves to the ground. 2vpiradi)o-ai could not
be used ; we might say crvp.7ra6rjo-ai rais dcrBeveims, but not o-v/iTraOrjo-ai
to« ayvoovai; the latter would mean : to partake in the feelings of
sinners— therefore, for example, in those of an evil conscience.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10. 179
God (at dXXa KaXovptevo1; virb rov Oeov is to be supplied simply
XafiBdvet n)v riptnv, "as one called of God he receives this
honour"), as was the case also with Aaron (and therefore with
his posterity who were called with him.)1
At vers. 5, 6, the inquiry begins whether, and in how far,
these two requisites belonged to Christ. The words in them
selves are clear. At oXX' o XoXt/o-o? is, of course, to be supplied
iBb^aaav avrbv. The sentiment, however, is variously inter
preted. Some, as Grotius, Limborch, Tholuck, &c, understand
the cited passage Ps. ii. 7, as if the author intended to adduce
it as a proof that Jesus was called of God to be an high priest,
The words oXX' 6 XoXtjo-o? would accordingly have to be logi
cally resolved thus : " But God, inasmuch as he has spoken to
him." Others, however, object to this, that in the passage of the
psalms neither is the person of Jesus addressed, nor is anything
said of the high priestly dignity. Now, that in the psalm Jesus is
not personally addressed, would of itself have little weight ; the
verse that is cited contains an address to that Son of David who
came soon to be identified with the Messiah ; and that Jesus is
the Messiah was, as we have before seen, a thing undoubted by
the readers. If then it was said in the Old Testament that the
Messiah must be an high priest, this was eo ipso true also of
Jesus, because he was the Messiah. But another question is,
whether in Ps. ii. 7 there is any mention of a high priestly
dignity as belonging to the Messiah ? In the most ingenious
way has it been attempted to introduce this into the words,
while the expression, This day 1 have begotten thee, refers, as we
have seen at chap. i. 5, to the prophecy of Nathan, 2 Sam. vii.,
which is regarded by the Psalmist as, so to speak, a generation
of the future seed. Grotius, Limborch, Tholuck, &c, would
accordingly understand this statement, arbitrarily as I think, of
the future installation of the second David into his kingdom ; and
with this again the resurrection of Christ is said to be denoted,
and this again is said to involve a calling to the office of high
priest. It is therefore not to be wondered at that others, as
Carpzov, Bengel, Bleek, &c, have renounced that interpreta-
1 Tholuck begins a new section with ver. 4. But ver. 7 — 10 refers
to ver. 1 — 3 precisely in the same way as ver. 5, 6 to ver. 4. Ver.
6 — '10 forms the logical minor proposition to ver. 1 — 4. M 2

180 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10.
tion of oXX' o XoXt;o-o? as a whole, and following Theophylact
and Erasmus, have taken these words, together with the citation
from Ps. ii. 7, as a mere circumlocution for 6 rrarijp. Jesus did
Hot make himself an high priest, but he who has called him his
Son. The same who, in another place (Ps. ii. 7), called him his
Son, has called him also priest (Ps. ex. 4.) But convenient as
this escape from the difficulty is, it can still hardly be justified.
The author must in that case have said at ver. 6 : Xeyet yap
iv erepm, or at least (with the omission of the «:ot) : «a#&>? iv erepm
Xeyei. But as it stands, the passage cited in ver. 6 from Ps. ex.
is clearly added as a second proof to the passage from Ps. ii., the
first proof of the divine calling of the Messiah (consequently
of Jesus) to the honour of the priesthood.
And, in reality, the second psalm will be seen to involve such
a proof, whenever we look at it in its historical connexion. The
Messiah was called, 2 Sam. vii., to build an house for the Lord
more perfect than the tabernacle built under the direction of
Moses and Aaron; through him, nay in his person, God was
really and perfectly to dwell with men ; through him, mankind
was to be exalted to the honour of being children of God ; he
himself was to be raised to the honour of being a son of God.
To this Ps. ii. refers. Thus was given to him indeed the calling
to be more than a mere ruler ; by a truly priestly mediation he
was to transact the affairs of men in their relation to God.
This is expressed undoubtedly more plainly and distinctly in
the passage Ps. ex. 4 which is cited in ver. 6. The emphasis in
this passage rests on the words thou art a priest, not on the words
according to the order (Hebr. j-pyj) °f Melchisedec. Some
wrongly suppose that the author, here already, designs to pass
to the dissimilarity between Christ and Aaron, the Melchisedec-
nature of the priesthood of Christ. How can such an assertion
be made in the face of the fact, that the author first in ver. 10
formally lays down the comparison between Christ and Melchi
sedec as a new theme (of whom we have much to say), to the
detailed treatment of which he does not proceed, until he has
prepared the way by an admonition of considerable length v. 11,
vi. 20? In our passage, those concluding words of the 4th
verse of the psalm are cited, simply in passing, along with the rest
of the verse, partly, for the better understanding of the verse in

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1 — 10. 181
general, partly, because the author has it in his mind after
wards (ver. 10) to bring into the fore-ground this new element
involved in the name Melchisedec, partly, in fine, because, in
general, Melchisedec offered a suitable example for the element of
which he treats here in the 6th verse — the union of the priestly
with the kingly dignity of the Messiah. Here then, as already
observed, all the emphasis hes on lepevi. That to the promised
seed of David (to that form which was then, so to speak, obscure
and wavering, but which afterwards consolidated itself into the
definite form of the Messiah) it was said : " Thou art a priest" —
in this lay the most sufficient proof of the statement that he who
was the Messiah was therewith, eo ipso, also called of God to the
honour of the priesthood. We have already seen (on chap. i. 13)
that Ps. ex. refers to that same prediction of Nathan 2 Sam. 7.
And that the Psalmist could not but see in that promise of Nathan
the promise of .a priest-king, has appeared from our remarks on
the 5th verse. A king who was called to build God a temple, was
called to something more than the kingly office, — to something
more than the government of men in their human and civil
relations ; he was called to a direct interest in the sacred relation
of men to God. Now in Ps. ex. 1 it was expressly said, that
that seed shall sit with God upon his throne, take part in
the dominion of God, be the most immediate fulfiller of the will
of God among the Israelites, and thereby serve the Lord in a
priestly character, not, however, in that of the Aaronitical priest
hood. What better form could present itself to the Psalmist as
combining all these features, than the form of that Melchisedec
who had been at once king and priest on the same hill of Zion,
and in whose name even was expressed all that was expected of
the future second David ? (comp. Ps. xiv. 6, and our remarks
on chap. i. 9 ss.) Thus came the Psalmist to the designation of
the Messiah as a priest.
Therefore : Jesus, who is the Messiah, is in the first place
similar to Aaron in this, that like him he is called of God to the
high priesthood, called in the prophecy of Nathan itself, and in
the two psalms which refer to that prophecy, which represent
the future Messiah as mediator of men with God,, and the second
of which even names him " priest." In ver, 7 — 9 the author
now proceeds to prove that the first requisite also — taken from

182 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10.
among men — belonged to Christ. The farther treatment of this
requisite carries him naturally to the point in which Jesus is
superior to Aaron, to the theme of the second section (hence he
has given this requisite which stands first in the major proposi
tion the last place in the minor.)
By means of o? this sentiment is loosely connected with ver.
5, 6. Grammatically, o? refers back, of course, to 6 Xptarbs or
(¦n-po?) avrbv, ver. 5. The whole period vers. 7 — 9 can be con
strued in two ways. We may either, A, take the participles
irpoaevey/cas and elaaKovaOeh as appositions to the first principal
verb epuaQev alone (consequently to the first part of the predicate) ;
or B, those two participles may be taken as appositions to the
subject o? (in which case the two verbs epiadev and kyevero are
logically to be referred to the two ideas expressed by irpoaeviyKa<;
and elaaKovadeh.)
A. o? 1, . . . irpoaeveyKas Kal . . . elaaKOvaOel'i . . . eptaOev
2, Kal reXeimdeh iyevero otVto?
B. o?, irpoaeveyKas Kal eiaaKovaOei<s
1, epaOev
2, Kal iyevero a'lrio'i
In order to be able to decide which of these two constructions
deserves the preference — for, grammatically, both are equally
possible — we must look more 'closely at the meaning of the
several parts of the period, and we begin with the first part of
the predicate, i.e. the words Kairrep mv vlb<s epaOev d<f> mv eiraOe
rt)v vrraKorjv, " Who .... although he was a son, learned obedi
ence in that which he suffered." The concession in Kairrep refers
not to epaOe as if what is strange consists in this, that a son can
learn -1 but it evidently refers especially to vrraKorjv. Although
a son he must learn to obey. Of course, however, viraKorj cannot
be used here in its general sense, as denoting obedience to the
commands of God in general, but finds its natural limitation in
the words o<p' mv erraOe beside which is the verb epaOe. What
is spoken of is obedience to the special decree of the Fatherwho laid
upon the son the necessity of suffering ; or, otherwise expressed,
1 This would be admissible only if vibs were used by our author in
the sense of the, Nicene creed to denote the Logos qua pre-existent,
which, however, as we have seen in chap. iv. 1, is not the case. 'Yi6s in
the Epistle to the Hebrews always denotes the son of God qua incarnate.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1 — 10. 183
a special manifestation of general obedience to the Father con
sisting in this — that Christ swerved not from that general obedience
even when it entailed upon him inevitable suffering. And thus the
epaOe explains itself. By this cannot of course be meant a
gradual transition from disobedience to obedience, but only a
development of the virtue of obedience itself, the progress of
which runs parallel to the difficulty of the situation in which Jesus
was placed ; consequently, the transition from easy obedience to
more difficult, and thereby, more perfect obedience. In propor
tion as the choice for Jesus either to become unfaithful to the
will of his Father, or firmly to encounter unavoidable suffering,
became more definite and critical, did he decide with ever
increasing firmness and clearness of consciousness on the side of
suffering, and against that of disobedience. Thus was every
successive step rendered more easy by that which preceded it.
When, at his entrance on his public labour, there was objectively
set before him in the temptation (Matth. iv.) the possibility of
his yielding to the carnal expectations of the Jews with refer
ence to the Messiah, the choice which he then made was,
outwardly indeed, (as no definite suffering threatened him as
yet) easier, but, inwardly, more difficult than that which he made
at the temptation in Gethsemane, when indeed his impending
suffering appeared to him in its most definite and threatening
form, but when he had already made such progress in the way
of obedience, that he must have cast aside and negatived his whole
past history had he now chosen the path of disobedience. With
every step which he took in the way of obedience this became
more and more a part of his nature, the law of his being. This
is what the author will express by the words, he learned
obedience. The next question now is, on what word the determination of
time ev toi? 17/iepat? tt}? aapnb<i avrov depends, whether on
rrpoaeveyKa<i or on epiaOe, whether therefore we are to place a
comma after o? or after aapKo<i avrov. If ev rjp,epai<;, &c. is
referred to epiaOe, then ev 17/iepat? as the chronological determi
nation of the first principal verb epiaOe corresponds to reXeimOei?
as the chronological determination of the second principal verb
iyevero. We should then have to adopt the construction above
denoted by A, [o? 1) e'v tow ijuepot?, &c. rrpoaeveyKa% Kal elaa-

184 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 1 — 10.
KovaOeh, epiaOev, 2) Kal reXeimOeh iyevero atVto?.] For, if iv rah
^piepai'}, &c. belongs to epiaOe, then irpoaeveyKa<; Kal eiaaKovaOei<s
cannot of course be in apposition to o?, but only to the predicate
contained in epiaOe. If, on the other hand, ev i)pLepai<;, &c. be
referred to Trpoo-evey/co?, in this case both the constructions A
and B are possible. But against this reference of e'v i^phpait,
&c. to rrpoaeviyKas is, in general, the circumstance, that the
words irpoaeveyKa<; Se^cret? Kal tKernpta?, &c. evidently point to
the struggle which Christ underwent in Gethsemane, for the
chronological determination of which, however, the words e'v toi?
j}//.epot? tt}? aapKof avrov would be too vague and indefinite.
2dpi;, different from ampia, denotes the creature in contradis
tinction to the immaterial, invisible God, — then in its opposition
to God, — finally corporealness, as lying under the effects of sin,
subject to death. In the future kingdom of glory there will be,
according to 1 Cor. xv., amptara, but no longer amptara aapKiKa.1
The rjpepat tt}? aapKoi avrov are, therefore, the days of the life
of Christ even to his death. They form indeed the most suitable
antithesis to reXeimOeh, and quite as suitable a chronological
determination of epiaOe viraKoijv, but on the other hand, not so
suitable a chronological determination of the particular event
denoted by the words TrpoaeveyKas Select?, &c. For this reason,
even if there were no other, the reference to epiaOev recommends
itself as the preferable, and with it, that construction of the whole
period which we have denoted above by A.
This is confirmed, however, when we turn to consider the two
participles irpoaeveyKas and elaaKovaOeh with that which is
dependent on them.
That in the first of these participles there is a reference to the
suffering of Jesus in Gethesmane, is unmistakeable. (So Theo
doret, Calvin, Bengel, Carpzov, Paulus, Tholuck, Bleek, and
the most of commentators.) On Kpavyri comp. Luke xxii. 44,
although Kpavyr] is a rhetorico-hyperbolical expression descrip
tive of the inward intensity of that struggle. It is doubtful,
1 It has been justly doubted, on the other hand, whether the expres
sion " resurrection of the flesh" in the Symb, apost. of Luther, &c, is
one that altogether corresponds to Scripture phraseology. And in the
oldest recensions of the Symb, apost. it is not an avdo-rao-is rfjs o-apKos, but
nwijs o-apKos that is spoken of (= "^fcQ"^, au men> righteous and
ungodly.)

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1 — 10. 185
however, whether 0dvaro<s here denotes death in the wider sense,
— the danger of death — or death as having already actually
taken place ; whether therefore the sense is, Jesus prayed to him
who could save from death, preserve from death, or : Jesus
prayed to him who could save from death i.e.raisehimup. (Estius,
Baumgarten, Schuk, suppose the latter ; Michaelis and Bleek
take both ; the most of commentators the former alone.) In as
far as that prayer of Jesus contains simply the request that he
may be saved from the threatened cup of suffering, but has no
special reference whatever to a future resurrection, in so far
does the first interpretation recommend itself prima facie.
This is confirmed again by the following words : Kal elaaKov-
aOels dirb tt}? evXaBelas. Critics are, indeed, here also, not agreed
as to the way in which these words are to be explained. Chrys.,
Phot., CEcum., Theophylact, Vulgata, Luther, Calov, Olshausen,
Bleek, and some others, understand evXdBeia in the sense of fear
of God, piety, drrb in the sense of pro, propter = Bid c. ace, and
make the sense to be — that Jesus was heard on account of his
piety. (In this case, amK/etv m Oavdrov must be referred to the
resurrection of Christ ; for his prayer to be preserved from death,
as every one knows, could not be heard.) But the meaning here
given to dirb is unnatural, and the sentiment itself much more
unnatural. In this place, where the design of the author is to
show, that the first requisite of every high priest — that namely of
being taken from among men, and clothed with infirmity — was not
wanting in Christ, there was assuredly no occasion for mentioning
the special piety of Christ. More correctly the Peschito, Itala,
Ambrosius, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Gerhard, Capellus, Limborch,
Carpzov, Bengel, Moras, Storr, Kuinoel, Paulus, De Wette,
Tholuck, and a whole host of critics besides, render ivXdBeia by
fear, anxiety, which signification has been vindicated on philolo
gical grounds by Casaubon, Wetstein, and Krebs. EtaaKov-
aOeU is now, of course, to be taken in a pregnant sense, which
pregnancy (this Bleek has entirely overlooked) is here fully
explained by the foregoing words : rrpoaeveyKa<s Serjo-et? Trpo? rbv
Bvvdpievov am£eiv. Christ was, in reference to his prayer to be
preserved, heard, and thus saved dirb tt}? euXo/3et'o?. But then
there is in these very words dirb tt}? euXo/3et'o? a limitation of

186 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 1 — 10.
elaaKovaOeh. He prayed to be preserved from the death which
threatened him, and was heard and saved from the fear of
death.1 At all events, it would be altogether unnatural to explain eto-a-
KoveaOai dirb tt}? ei/XaBeia<i of the resurrection (" to save from
all anxiety and trouble.") For this would certainly be a very
indistinct way of denoting a thing for which many distinct
expressions were at hand.
If, however, elaaKovaOeh drrb tt}? euXa/Set'a? is still explained
of the resurrection from the dead, then must also the words am^eiv
iK rov Oavdrov be, of course, explained of the same. In this case,
things that were done in ihe days of his flesh would be spoken of
not in both participles, but only in the first (irpoaeveyKa<;, &c.)
Then must the chronological determination in the days be referred
to irpoaeveyKa<! alone, and thus we should come to the construc
tion B.
Who,
After he, a, cried in the days of his flesh to him who could
raise him up from death,
and, b, was then freed (by the resurrection) from all
distress,
1, learned obedience by his suffering, and : '
2, after he was perfected, is able to save others.
But against this interpretation there are all possible reasons ; first,
the unsuitableness indicated above of the second chronological
determination in the days, &c, to this single event ; secondly, the
circumstance that Jesus did not pray in Gethsemane with reference
to his restoration from death ; thirdly, that the words elaaK. dirb
tt}? ei)Xa/3e/a? cannot be understood as denoting with any distinct
ness the resurrection.
If, on the other hand, we abide by the explanation given above,
and understand elaaKovaOeh, &c, of the strengthening of Jesus
by the angel, there results a far finer and more suitable sentiment.
Jesus prayed to be preserved from death. This was not sin, but
infirmity. His prayer was not unheard ; it was so heard,
i Perhaps it would be still more simple not to take elo-aKovo-6eis in a
pregnant sense, but to give drrd the signification on the side of, " in
reference to." He was heard in so far as regards the fear of death.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 1  10. 187
however, as that Jesus was divested of the fear of death.1 What
a significant example of learning obedience !
According to this interpretation, things are spoken of in both
participles which were done " in the days of Christ's flesh," We
can now refer in the days to that to which alone it is suitable,
and to which it is more suitable than to irpoaeveyKa<;, namely to
epiaOev. Accordingly, we render the passage thus :
Who,
1, In the days of his flesh,
a, when he prayed for the warding off of death,
b, and was heard in as far as respects the fear of death,
learned obedience in that which he suffered, and :
2, after he was perfected,
became the author of eternal salvation, &c.
What a beautiful harmony and symmetry does the sentiment thus
receive !
On ver. 9 only a little remains to be observed. TeXeimdeh
finds its explanation in its corresponding antithesis : in the days
of his flesh. In the days of his flesh he was a member and
partaker of humanity still lying under the effects of sin and not
yet arrived at its destination, and he himself had therefore not
yet come to the destined end of his actions and history. This
was first attained when, raised from the dead, he entered in a
glorified body into the heavenly sanctuary, as the first-fruits of
exalted humanity (chap. ii. 9.) Thither he draws after him all
who allow themselves to be drawn by him, and who reproduce in
themselves his priestly obedience in a priestly form, as the obedience
of faith (Acts vi. 7 ; Rom. i. 5.) But as Christ himself was not
saved from bodily death, but from the fear of death, so also is the
salvation which he gives to his followers not a preservation from
bodily death, but an eternal salvation, a deliverance from the fear
of death and the power of him who has the power of death (ii. 1 4),
from eternal death.
Ver. 10. Some hold with great incorrectness that ver. 10
contains an explanation of ver. 9, and is designed to show how,
and in what way, Christ is the author of salvation, namely, by
1 This would do away with the objection of Bleek (ii. p. 78) : " that
Christ was freed from his solicitude, stands in no intelligible connexion
with the principal clause, that he learned obedience by suffering."

188 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20.
his priestly intercession with the Father. Not a word is here
said of the priestly intercessio in opposition to the priestly satis
factio. Nor does the comparison with Melchisedec point to this,
as Melchisedec never interceded for any one. The truth is, that
the first section of our third part has at ver. 9 fully reached its
conclusion, and at ver. 10, just as at i. 4, iii. 2, the intimation of
a new theme is grammatically (but not logically) connected with
what precedes. Logically, ver. 10 points back only to ver. 6,
inasmuch as a word which formed part of a passage there cited,
but the import of which has not yet been developed, is now placed
in the foreground as the title of a new section. That the author
intends in ver. 10 not to give an explanation of ver. 9, but to
intimate a new theme, appears plainly, indeed, from the relative
clause ver. 11.

INTERMEDIATE PART OF A HORTATORY KIND.
(Chap. v. 11— vi. 20.)
Ver. 11 connects grammatically as a relative clause with ver.
10. Hepl ov 7roXii? rjpiiv (scil. iariv) 6 X070?, the use of the
article in this manner is familiar. But why is this comparison of
the priesthood of Melchisedec with that of Christ hard to be
understood ? The first reason lies evidently in the subject itself.
The thesis of the similarity of Christ with Melchisedec is, as we
have already seen, not merely a third principal clause beside the
two foregoing, but is an inference from these two. From the
fact that the Messiah must, on the one hand, be more than an
angel, on the other hand, more than Moses — -from the fact that
his priesthood is grafted, in like manner, on his immediate oneness
with the Father, as on his humanity, it follows of itself that he
is not merely equal to Aaron, but that he is more than Aaron ;
that as the perfect high priest he is partaker of the divine nature.
Thus the author rises in chap. vii. 1, 2, directly to the doctrine of
the divinity of Christ.1
1 The Epistle to the Hebrews thus affords, at the same time, an
important testimony in a critical point of view, for the original and
intimate organic connexion of the so-called " Johanneic" doctrine of

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 189
A second reason, however, why that X070? was Svaeppuivevros
difficult to be made intelligible, is given in the clause which follows,
and was of a subjective nature. The difficulty lay not certainly
in the fitness of the writer to set it forth, but in the capacity of
the readers to understand it. NmOpol yeybvare rah cucoah, they
had become obtuse and dull of hearing. Those are wrong who
take yeybvare in a weakened sense = iare. From the words of
ver. 12 : rrdXiv xpeiav exere and yeyovare %peiav 'expvres, as well
as from the admonition in chap. x. 32 : avapiipivrjaKeaOe to?
rrporepas T^epa?, it is evidently to be inferred, that the readers
had exposed themselves to the charge not merely of a want of
progress in the development of their knowledge, but were even
on the point of making a melancholy retrogression.
What was the nature of the retrogression we are told in ver.
12. "According to the time ye ought already to be teachers, but
now ye must be taken again under instruction." The majority
of commentators have passed very cursorily over these important
words ; only Mynster_(Stud. u. Krit. 1829 p. 338) has deduced
from them the right negative inference that the Epistle to the He
brews cannot possibly have been addressed to the church in
Jerusalem. How is it possible that the author could have
written in such terms to that mother-church of Christianity,
containing several thousand souls, among whom were many who
had grown old in Christianity, and certainly individuals still who
had known the Lord himself, who since the period referred to in
Acts vii. had undergone a multitude of persecutions? How
could he then have written to a large church which must neces
sarily have had in it many teachers, to whom the words ye have
need that we teach you — and. again many Neophytes, to whom the
words ye ought according to iiie time to be teachers — would be
altogether unsuitable ? We agree, therefore, with Mynster when
he finds that the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot have been
written to the church in Jerusalem, and are of opinion that the
suggestion of Bleek that James was then no longer alive weighs
nothing against this, while the supposition " that the author had
not before his mind at the time the whole circumstances of the

Christ's person, with the " Pauline" doctrinal system of Christ's work,
and of the influence of both on the Jewish Christians.

190 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20.
church to which he wrote," weighs less than nothing. Mynster
should only have gone a step farther and perceived, that our epistle
can have been designed in general for no church whatever, con
sequently for no church in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
For every church, from the very nature of the case, consists of
earher and later converts; our epistle, on the contrary, is addressed
to quite a definite circle of readers who had passed over to Chris
tianity together at the same time, and because they had let
themselves go astray from the faith had been taken anew under
instruction — for that the words ye have need again that some one
teach you are not mere words, but indicate a fact, should not
certainly be doubted. The author does not mean to say : ye had
almost need that one instruct you again ; but upbraids his readers
with this as a thing of which they ought to be ashamed, that
those who, considering the time, might already be teachers, yet
need to receive instruction from others. That, then, which we
have already, at an earlier stage, seen to be probable finds here
its fullest confirmation :. the Epistle to ihe Hebrews was written for
a definite circle of catechumens, who, upon their conversion, having
been perplexed by a threatened excommunication from the commu
nion of the Jewish theocracy, had been subjected anew to a careful
instruction. The author had received information of this, and
had doubtless been specially requested by the teacher of that people
to prepare a writing that might serve as a basis for this difficult
instruction. This defect of knowledge related to the arovyeta tt}? apyi}?
rmv Xoyimv rov Oeov. Abyiov means a "saying," then an
" oracular saying," then in biblical and christian usage " revela
tion" (Acts vii. 38), hence at a later period Xo7ta is used to denote
the theopneustic writings generally (Iren. i. 8 ; Clem. AI. Strom.
vii. 18 p. 900, s. ; Orig. comm. ad Matth. v. 19 ; Joh. Presb. in
Euseb. iii. 39). Here, it has the quite general signification " reve
lation of God" = the doctrine revealed by God ; the same as, in
chap. iv. 12, vi. 1, is termed o X070? rov Oeov, rov Xptarov. Ac
cording to the context, it is of course the New Testament
revelation that is meant (as at iv. 12), not the Old Testament
as Scbulz will have it. Ta arotxeia tt}? op^Tj? is a cumulative
expression similar to the Pindaric o-«to? 6'vap, or as at Eph. i. 19,
fj ivepyeia rov Kpdrovs tt}? i«7^vo?. ^Totyetb means by itself

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20. 191
" beginnings," " elements." The idea of beginning is, however,
intensified. " Beginnings of the beginning," = the very first
beginnings. Ttvo is ace. of the subject " that some one teach you" = that
one should teach you. (Luther, Bleek, Olshausen, &c.) The
Peschito, Vulg., De Wette, &c, accentuate Ttvo, "that one
teach you which be the first elements." But this is unsuitable.
In the first place, an accusative of the subject would thus be
wanting to StBdaKeiv, and, secondly, the readers were not
ignorant of what doctrinal articles belonged to the aroixeia, but
did not rightly understand the import of these aroixeia.
The author repeatSv the same idea by means of a figure in
the words : and are become such as have need of milk and not of
strong meat.
Ver. 13, 14 contain an explanation from which it already begins
to appear what doctrines the writer understood by the milk. JTo?
yap b /i6Tey«DV ydXaKroq, whosoever still partakes of milk, still
particeps lactis est, still receives and needs milk for his nourish
ment. Of every such one it is said that he is uninformed, and
has no share in the X070? SiKaioavvv<;. Calvin, Grotius, Moras,
Schulz, Olshausen, Kuinoel, De Wette, &c, take the genitive
8tKaioavvn<; as the genitive of quality, and SiKatoavvv = TeXeto-
ttj?, so that X070? SiKatoavvv'; would be equivalent to " the perfect
doctrine," the completed, higher knowledge (or according to
Zecharia, Dindorf, and others, " the proper, true instruction.")
But apart from the intolerable tautological circle which would
thus be introduced into the train of thought between ver. 13 and
ver. 12, apart, further, from the insipid triviality of the 13th verse,
as thus explained, the author would assuredly have used and
applied other and less far-fetched expressions for the " perfect
doctrine" than the strange expression X070? BiKaioavvv<;.1 The
majority of commentators have therefore rightly understood
SiKaioavvv<! as the genitive of the object, " the word of righteous-
1 The Hebrew jyBJ-VQt (&""'al Bueauxruwijs) Deut. xxxiii. 19, &c,
would not even form an analogy. For p^-lpflt are in reahty such
sacrifices as correspond to the statutes, to which therefore the property
of TE£> i,e" of Perfect legallt7> can te ascribed, while, on the contrary,
in our passage iutauurivti must be taken in the altogether heterogeneous
sense of " perfect development," which it never has.

192 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20.
ness," in which, however, SiKaioavvv is not (with Theophylact,
Chrysostom, Oecumenius, a Lapide, Primasius, Bretschneider,
&c.) to be explained of the perfect morality, and consequently
X070? SiKatoavvns of the moral law, but, as in the whole New
Testament, ofthe righteousness before God in Christ ; and X070?
SiKaioaiivvs is the doctrine of justification (Beza, J. Capellus,
Rambach, Bengel, Storr, Klee, Tholuck, Bleek, &c), which, as
is well known, is also not strange to the Epistle to the HebreAvs
(comp. chap. xi. 7, xiii. 9.)
This explanation, however, is accompanied with a difficulty in
respect to the logical connection with ver. 12. We should
rather expect as an explanation of ver. 12 the words in an
inverted form : Ua? yap b aireipos X070U SiKaioavvns ydXaKros
pierexei. This would explain in how far the persons addressed
are as yet babes. The train of thought would be this : " You
still need milk; strong meat does not agree with you. For
whosoever (like you) has not yet apprehended even the funda
mental doctrine of righteousness in Christ (whosoever still makes
his salvation to rest on the services and sacrifices of the temple),
needs as yet milk, being yet a babe, and standing still at the first
elements of Christian knowledge." This is what we should
naturally expect the author to say. Instead of this, however, he
says : " Every one who still needs milk, has as yet no part in the
doctrine of justification." Bleek thinks that ver. 13 contains an
explanatory repetition of the words not of strong meat ; " you
could not yet bear strong meat, for whoever still nourishes him
self with milk cannot yet understand the doctrine of justi
fication." According to this, the author must haA'o meant
by the strong meat the doctrine of justification. But this
is plainly against the context. By the strong meat, of which
the readers were not yet capable, is rather to be understood
that X070? Svaepp,r)vevro<; concerning the similarity between the
priesthood of Melchisedec and Christ, the deep insight into the
Old Testament type, the doctrine ofthe divinity of Christ. On
the other hand the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of
repentance and dead works, oi faith, and of baptism, are rather
reckoned as belonging to the elements, chap. vi. 1, s. ; the doc
trine of justification is itself the milk which must first be taken
into the heart and the understanding, in order that a foundation

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11 — VI. 20. 193
may be laid on which the more difficult theologoumena can be
built. Bleek's explanation is therefore not fitted to remove the
difficulty. This difficulty is rather to be removed simply by regarding the
proposition in ver. 13 not as descriptive or declaratory, not as
determining the import, but the extent orcomprehension ofthe idea
expressed by p.erexmv 7oXo«to?. It is not an answer to the ques
tion : " What are the characteristics of him who still nourishes
himself with milk?" but an answer to the question: " Who
nourishes himself with milk? " The words contain a conclusion
backwards from the consequence to the presupposed condition.
Whosoever still needs milk, of him it is presupposed that he must
not yet have rightly apprehended the doctrine of justification :
= whosoever has not yet apprehended this doctrine is still at
the stage at which he needs milk. We found similarly inverted
conclusions at chap. ii. 11, iv. 6. This interpretation also affords
a most satisfactory explanation of the words, for he is still a
babe. Not without a stroke of irony does the author explain
in these words, in how far it must be presupposed of a spiritual
suckling that he will be unskilled in the word of righteousness.
The 14th verse also now runs perfectly parallel with the 13th.
He who still needs milk will doubtless not yet have comprehended
the doctrine of justification ; but that strong and more difficult
meat (of the higher typology) is adapted not to such, but only
to mature Christians who have come of age, and who are exer
cised in distinguishing between the true and the false way.
TeXetos, as the opposite of vrprio<;, is a term familiar to the Apostle
Paul (1 Cor. iii. 1, xiii. 11; Rom. ii. 20; Eph. iv. 14.) TeXeimv
finds here its special explanation in the words which stand in oppo
sition to it, rmv Bid tt)v e£tv aiaOvrrjpia yeyvpivaapieva ixbvrmv,
Soc. "Egis is a term proceeding -from the Aristotelian school-
phraseology, denoting the given natural condition or habitus, in
opposition to the SidOeav; (rrpagisi), the sphere of self-determina
tion. In general use, it denotes frequently the condition as re
spects age— hence age —i)XiKia; and so in our passage the spiritual
age, the degree of inward maturity. AtaOrjrtjpia are the organs of
feeling, the nerves of feeling. Tvpvd^etv, in the well-known sense
of " exercise," occurs also in chap. xii. 11, further in 1 Tim. iv. 7 ;
2 Pet. ii. 14. The distinguishing between the KaXov and KaKov
N

194 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20.
does not, as some strangely suppose, belong to the strong meat;
but the habit already acquired of distinguishing the trae from
the false, is rather the immediate fruit of the right understanding
of the X070? BiKaioavvv<!, and forms, together with the latter, the
indispensable condition which must be fulfilled ere strong meat
can be once thought of. He who has taken the milk of the
Gospel, Le., the fundamental doctrine of justification so in
succum et sanguinem, that he can spontaneously, and by imme
diate feeling, consequently without requiring any previous long
reflection or reasoning, distinguish the right from the wrong,
the way in which the Christian has to walk from the Jewish
by-paths, the evangelic .truth from the Pharisaic righteousness
of the law, so that he could, as it were, find out the right path
though asleep— he who has so thoroughly seized and digested
these elements, that he no longer needs to be instructed in them
(the milk), consequently is no longer vrjirio<;, but TeXeto? — may
now have strong meat offered to him — the difficult doctrines of
the higher typology of the old covenant, and of the eternal
Melchisedec-nature of the New Testament high priest.
In chap. vi. 1, therefore, the author admonishes his readers to
strive after that perfection, and to exert themselves in order
finally to pass beyond the elements. 'Atpevres rbv tt}? op^T}? tou
Xpiarov Xoyov — this, of course, signifies (as appears already from
v. 12) not " the doctrine of the beginning of Christ," but " the
beginning or elementary doctrine of Christ." Tt}? apx*}? is an
adjectival genitive, and to be closely connected with X070?, so
that tou Xpiarov is dependent not on apx^, but on Xoyov. The
great majority of interpreters do not take (pepmpeOa as the
insmuative first person plural, and the whole passage as hortatory,
but understand the first person plural as communicative, and the
whole as an intimation on the part of the author that he now
intends to pass to the consideration of the strong meat. But that
which, first of all, is opposed to the common interpretation, is the
particle Sto. How, from the fact that the readers, accordmg to
chap. v. 12 — 14, could as yet bear no strong meat, but needed the
milk of the elements, could the author with any appearance of
reason draw the inference : " Therefore, let us lay aside these ele
ments, and proceed to the more difficult doctrines ? " Secondly,
that interpretation leads jtself ad absurdum, for, according to it,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20. 195
TeXetoTir? must be taken in a completely different sense from
TeXeto?, chap. v. 14. In chap. v. 14 TeXeto? denoted the subjec
tive state of those who are already exercised in the word of
righteousness, and in the discerning between good and evil, in
order to be able to understand what is more difficult ; in chap.
vi. 1 TeXetoTir? is suddenly made to denote the objective difficult
doctrinal statements respecting the similarity between the priest
hood of Melchisedec and Christ ! Hence Chrysostom, Theo
doret, Photius, Gennadius, Theophylact, Faber, Stapul., Calvin,
Schulz, Bohme, and Bleek, have with reason understood the
first person plural as insinuatory, and the whole as an admoni
tion to the readers ; they are to strive to get at length beyond
the elements (in the partic. a<pevre<s there hes then, at all events,
a prolepsis : strive after the reXeibrv<i, so that you may then
be able to lay aside the op%Tj? X070?), and to arrive at that
TeXetoTTT? described in chap. v. 14.
If, however, this explanation is right, then by consequence
must the words pit] KaraBaXXopevoi, &c, be understood differ
ently from what they have been by all commentators hitherto
(Calvin, Bleek, &c, not excepted.) All take KaraBdXXeaOai
in the sense " to lay a foundation," a sense in which this verb
also actually occurs. (Dion. Halic. iii. 69, TapKVvioi roix; re
OepteXiovv KareBdXero ; see other passages in Bleek ii. p. 149.)
Now this sense would certainly suit well that false interpreta
tion of the preceding words (" I design, laying aside the funda
mental elements, to hasten to what is more difficult, and not
again to lay the foundation of repentance," &c.) But, on the
other hand, this sense of KaraBdXXeaOai does not suit the trae and
only possible explanation of (pepmpieOa. If the readers were still
deficient in the elements, in the apprehension of the doctrine of
justification, the true means of attaining to the TeXetoTTi? did not
assuredly consist in their neglecting to gain anew the foundation
which they had lost, but, on the contrary, in their using the
most strenuous endeavours to secure again that foundation of
all knowledge which they had lost. We are therefore reduced
to the necessity of taking KaraBdXXeaOai in another sense, in
the signification which is the original one and the most common,
namely, "to throw down, demolish, destroy," which the word
has in all the Greek classical writers, and which it cannot sur-
n2

196 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11— VI. 20.
prise us to find in our author, who writes elegant Greek.
" Strive after perfection, while you do not again demolish the
foundation of repentance and faith, and the doctrine of baptism,
the laying on of hands, the resurrection, and the judgment."
The genitives pieravola'; iriarem'i are also suitable to this expla
nation. The author does not speak of a foundation of the
doctrine of repentance and faith — SiSo^t} is first introduced in
connexion with the third member — but of the foundation of
repentance and faith themselves. The apostle would assuredly
not have dissuaded from laying again the foundation, in the case
of its having been destroyed ! According to the right explana
tion, he rather advises them not to destroy whatever of it may
stiU remain. IldXiv means, of course, not iterum "a second
time," but is used here in the privative or contradictory sense,
as at Gal. iv. 9 ; Acts xviii. 21. That the article is wanting at
OepeXiov cannot cause surprise; it is in like manner wanting in
chap. v. 13 at Xoyov BiKaioavvv<s ; chap. vi. 5 at Oeov pijpM, &c.
The word is sufficiently determined by its genitives. Now, the
foundation which the readers are to preserve from destruction,
in order to attain to perfection, consists of three parts. The first
is the pierdvoia, the subjective turning of the vo£)?, the mind, the
conversion from selfishness to the love of Christ, from self-
righteousness to the consciousness of guilt, from contempt of the
will of God to the accusation of self. And this pierdvoia is here
called a pierdvoia drrb veKpmv epymv, because that state of the
natural man had, in the persons addressed, taken the special
form of a Jewish pharisaism which led them to believe that, as
regards their relation to God, they might rest satisfied with
certain works which were severed from the root of a heart right
towards God, and were therefore " dead." (It is, moreover, not
to be forgotten, that not merely the Jew, but every one has the
tendency to stamp certain actions outwardly praiseworthy as
meritorious works, and with this dead coin to discharge the
demands of his conscience, aitd to still the accuser in his breast.)
The positive and supplementary part to this pierdvoia is the
iriarK eifl Oeov. That faith is here denoted not in the historico-
dogmatic form of faith in Christ, the Messiah, but in the philo-
sophico-rehgious form of faith in God, is not undesigned, but
belongs to the fineness and delicacy of the thought. That the

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11  VI. 20. 197
author means the Christian faith, was already self-evident, and
needed not to be expressed by circumstantial description ; on the
other hand, this he would and must say, that the Christian,
as by the pierdvoia he renounces dead works, so by the rriarvi
he enters into a living relation to the living God.
The third member is the BiSaxv, i.e. not here, of course, the
act of instruction, but the object gained by instruction, the know
ledge of doctrine thereby acquired. On SiSo^t}? are dependent
the four genitives Barrnapimv, iiriOeaem1; re ^etpwv, avaardaem
re vexpmv Kal Kplpiaro<s. It is evident of itself, that the three
iast of these genitives cannot be directly dependent on 0ep.e-
Xtov, for as the resurrection and the judgment are things to be
looked for in the future, the readers cannot be admonished to
retain these things themselves but only the doctrine respecting
them. (Those interpreters who understand cpepmpeOa, ver. 1, as
an intimation of the author's design, and who render KaraBdX
XeaOai by "lay," as they would supply StSo%T}? at pieravoias,
7rt<7Te&)?, imOeaems, avaardaem<i and Kpiftaros, must then as a
matter of consequence supply a second SiSaxij'i at Barrnapimv
BtSaxfj*;, which would be nonsense. To make SiSa^?}? dependent
on Bairriapimv — " the doctrine of baptisms " in opposition to mere
lustrations — as is done by Bengel, Winer, and Michaelis, yields no
meaning whatever, as it is not the doctrine which forms the dis
tinguishing feature between the sacrament of baptism and the
mere lustrations, but the forgiveness of sins and regeneration.
(With as little reason can we with Oecumenius, Luther, Hyperius,
Gerhard, take SiSo^t}? as an independent co-ordinate genitive
beside /3a7rrtoyiwv ; for what then would be the meaning of dvaa-
rdaem<i and Kplptaro'; ?) The right construction has been given
by Calvin, Beza, Schlichting, Storr, Bohme, Paulus, and Bleek.
They supply SiSo^t}? at imOeaems, dvaardaem'i, and Kpiptaro'i re
spectively. The writer therefore specifies four principal objects of the
BiBaxri, baptism and laying on of hands which belong to the
beginning ofthe Christian fife, and with which are connected the
forgiveness of sins and bestowal of gifts of the Holy Spirit,
and the resurrection together with the judgment, in which the
life ofthe Christian Church finds its consummation, and which
form the object of the Christian hope.

198 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11— VI. 20.
Ver. 3. Those who understand <pepmp,eOa, ver. 1, as an inti
mation of the author's intended plan of teaching, must, as a
matter of consequence, understand rroiijaopxv, ver. 4, also in the
same way, and refer the rovro to the intimated transition to
more difficult subjects, so that the author would here say, he
designs, " if God will," now in fact to pass to what is more diffi
cult. But it will be difficult to see how what he says in ver. 4
— 6, namely, that whosoever has fallen away from the faith can
not be again renewed, is subservient to this design either as
argument or illustration. We who have understood <f>epmpie0a,
ver. 1, as insinuative, i.e., as an exhortation, understand, of
course, rroir)aop,ev also in the same way, and refer toOto to the
whole of what precedes, as well to the " striving after perfec
tion" as to the not destroying the foundation of the psrdvota,
rriarK and StSa^i}." We thus obtain a sentiment with which
ver. 4 connects in the closest and finest manner. The author
seriously considers it as still a problematical thing whether the
conversion to faith and the attainment of perfection be as yet
possible for his readers. For, he says, he who has once fallen
from the state of grace, can no more be renewed. Still, he
adds ver. 9, the hope that with his readers it has not yet come
to an entire falling away. He therefore sets before them in
ver. 4 — 8 the greatness of the danger, but gives them encourage
ment again in ver. 9 ss. Both taken together — the danger as
well as the still existing possibility (but only the possibihty)
of returning — form the exegesis of the idvirep. The thing rests
upon the edge, but it is still upon the edge.
Vers. 4 — 6. The impossibihty of being renewed is declared of
those who, a, were enlightened, who had tasted the heavenly gift,
had become partakers of the Holy Ghost, and had tasted the
gospel together With the powers of the future world, and then, b,
have again fallen1 away. The first four particulars describe the
various steps from the beginning of conversion, on to the perfect
state of faith and grace. The beginning is described in the words
arra% (pm0iaOevre<;, the general designation for the knowledge of
the truth. Conversion begins with this, that the man who was
blind as regards himself, blind in respect to his relation to God,
his obligations to God, his undone state, his need of salvation,
and therefore all the more blind in respect to the offered salvation

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 199
which he knew not and wished not to know, is now enlightened
as to his own condition and the truth of the salvation in Christ ;
that he begins to perceive and to feel, that there is something
more than deception and superstition in what is declared to him
of the Nazarene. Has this knowledge been once gained ; then
it must be* progressive — or the man must be lost; for this light
arises upon any one only once.— The second step is, that the man
taking hold ofthe salvation, now has the actual experience in and
for himself, that in Christ a heavenly gift — grace, forgiveness,
and strength — is offered to him. — If he accepts these gifts in
humility and faith, he receives, thirdly, the gift ofthe Holy Ghost ;
his Saviour begins by his spirit to be a living principle within
him ; and this has as its consequence a twofold fruit. He learns
and experiences in himself the koXov Oeov prjpa (= yft£-*\yi
Josh. xxi. 43, xxiii. 14 ; Jer. xxix. 10, &cTJ — God's word of
promise, i.e. of course the fulfilment of this word, consequently
the whole riches of the inheritance of grace promised to the
Messianic Israel — peace, joy, inclination to what is good, a new
heart, &c. ; and then, as a second fruit, he experiences in himself
the powers of the world to come. To these powers belong not
merely those extraordinary miraculous gifts of the apostolic
age (which may certainly be viewed also as anticipations
of the final, victory of the spirit over the flesh), but all
those gifts of sanctification and glorification which, even here
below, give to the Christian the victory over the old Adam,
and death. — This passage repels the slander of the young He
gelians and their associates who hold, that the Christianity
of the Bible is a religion of the future world and not of the pre
sent. No ! because it is a religion of the future state, it has
power to elevate the present and to free it from the evils of sin
which is the ruin of mankind. But the young Hegelians and
their associates, because they have no future world, cannot do
otherwise than corrupt and destroy the present.
Now, of him who has already passed over those stages in the
Christian course and then falls away, it is here said that " it is
impossible again to renew him," i.e. the state of grace out of
which he has fallen (the pterdvioa conversion/ cannot be again
l Others foolishly think that the state of Adam before the fall is here
meant.

200 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20.
restored in him ; he is and remains lost. We must not shrink
from these words or attempt to explain them away. The author
assuredly does not mean (as some of the more ancient commen
tators thought) that such a one is not to be again baptized,
although he may notwithstanding be saved ; just as little does he
mean that only men cannot save him, but God notwithstanding
may. He lays it down quite absolutely, "it is impossible to
renew him again to conversion."
This is one of those passages which speak of the so-called sin
against the Holy Ghost, or more correctly of a fall that leads into
irrecoverable perdition. It is well known, that on this subject
there was a difference between the predestinarian Calvinists and
the Lutherans, a difference extending even to the exegesis itself.
The Calvinists founded their view on the passage in Matt. xii.
31, s., in which Christ warns the unbelieving Jews against com
mitting the sin against the Holy Ghost which can never be
forgiven ; further, on the passage 1 John ii. 19, where John says
of certain individuals who had fallen away from Christianity to
Gnosticism : " They are gone out from us, but they were not of
us ; for if they had been of us they would have continued with
us." Both passages were used by the Calvinists as a proof of the
theorem that, a, one who is really born again cannot fall away, b,
consequently he who falls away cannot have been really born
again — a theorem which, we may observe, is not necessarily a
consequence of the absolute doctrine of predestination, but is
also conceivable independent of it. But how now is this to be
reconciled with our passage Heb. vi. 4 — 6 ? with this passage in
which we are taught, that there may be a falling away from a
state of faith in the fullest and most proper sense of the term.
Calvin laid emphasis on the word yevadptevoi ; individuals are
here spoken of who had but tasted a little of the gifts of grace, and
had received only " some sparks of light." But whoever is
not blinded by dogmatical prejudices must perceive, that the aim
of our author is evidently and assuredly not to say : the less one
has tasted of the gifts of grace the more easily may he be
irrecoverably lost, but precisely the reverse : the more one has
already penetrated into the sanctuary of the state of grace, by so
much the more irrecoverably is he lost in case he should fall
away,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11 — VI. 20. 201
Our passage, therefore, unmistakeably declares the possibility
that a regenerate person may fall away. But does it not herein
contradict what is said in 1 John ii. 19. Not in the least ! Kin
our own day a Christian preacher should write or say of people
who had been corrupt members of the Church, and had become
the prey of Ronge and other lying ^apostles : " They have fallen
away from us because they neArer belonged to us," &c, who
would infer from this, that that pastor virtually denies the
possibility that those who are really regenerated may also fall
away? So it is with John. Of him who could 'become
the prey of such manifest babblers and lying prophets as the
Gnostics were, it must be inferred, that he had not pene
trated far into the substance of Christianity. From this,
however, it does not at all follow, that one also who has really
attained to a state of grace in the fullest and most proper sense,
may not, by becoming indolent in the struggle with the old
Adam, and allowing a bosom sin to get the mastery over him,
suffer shipwreck of faith.
In opposition to Calvin, then, we must lay down the following
as the doctrine ofthe Holy Scripture on the sin against the Holy
Ghost. There are three different ways specified in Scripture in which a
man may be eternally lost. 1. The sin against the Holy Ghost
properly so-called, Matth. xii. 31, s. when a man obstinately resists
the call of grace, and repels all the first motions ofthe Holy Spirit ~
in his heart and conscience; 2. 1 John ii. 19, when one embraces
Christianity outwardly and superficially without being truly born
again, and then becomes a prey to the seducing talk of some
vagabond babbler ; and 3. Heb. vi. 4 — 6, when one has been
truly born again, but gives place to the evil principle in his heart,
and being worsted in the struggle, suffers himself to be taken
captive by some more refined temptation of Satan, some more
refined lie (as here by a seemingly pious attachment to the insti
tutions ofthe old covenant.)
Why such a "one is irrecoverably lost, we learn from the words
in apposition to those we have considered : dvaaravpovvra% &c.
Such a one commits, in a more aggravated degree, the^sin which
the unbelieving Jews committed against Christ. The Israelites
crucified in their madness a pseudo-Messiah, or at the worst a

202 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11  VI. 20.
prophet. But he who has known and experienced Jesus as his Sa
viour and Redeemer, and yet after all fails away from Christianity,
actually declares him whom he has known as the Son of God to be
a pseudo-Messiah, and contemns him.
If now by Swdp^is are meant the gifts communicated by the
laying on of hands, then (as the laying on of hands took place
after baptism,) the readers must have been baptized, and only
taken again under instruction afterwards. Still Swd/Aet? may
mean also the powers of sanctification in the Avider sense. The
former is however the more probable.
Ver. 7, 8. The apostle here remembers Christ's parable ofthe
different kinds of ground. In this parable, however, we find the
best refutation of the Calvinistic exegesis of vers. 4 — 6. The
fruitful as well as the unfruitful soil received the same rain and
blessing ; it is the fault of the soil if the seed is choked by thorns
or evil lusts. The cause of the falling away lies not in the want
of an abstract donum perseA^erantiae withheld by God, but in a
shortcoming in the struggle with the old man. In the words Kard-
pa? 677V? the author cannot intend to say that the curse is still
uncertain (this is forbidden by the words that follow), they simply
mean " it goes towards the curse," " the curse is impending over
it." (Comp. chap. viii. 13.) — 'Eh Kavaiv for the nominative
Kavai<; is a Hebraism = -^^S with the ^ substantiae, comp. LXX.
Is. xl. 16 ; xliv. 15. The meaning of the author is, of course,
not that the thorns and thistles merely, but that the whole land
itself shall be burned up with fire and brimstone (comp. Deut.
xxix. 22.) This is, then, a type ofthe eternal destruction ofthe
individual who was compared with an unfruitful field.
Vers. 9 — 12. The author now turns to the other side of the
subject, to the comforting hope that in the case of his readers it
has not yet come to a falling way. " If we thus speak to you
(in this style of earnest warning) we are yet persuaded of better
things concerning you, of things that pertain to salvation." ('-Evo-
ueva amrvpia's a classical amplification of the adjectival idea —
haud insalutaria. "Ex^cOai Ttvo?, pertinere ad aliquid, to be con
nected with any thing, to have part in any thing. The expression
is purposely left indefinite, and it is wrong to attempt to find in it
one or another precise sense. 'Exbpieva amrvpias. forms only the
general antithesis to Kardpa<; iyyvs. The change here from

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 203
Severity to gentleness reminds us of the pauline passages Gal. iv.
12 and 19 ; 2 Cor. x. 11.
Ver. 10. The more that the new life has already shown itself
to be efficacious in a Christian, the more that the fruits of holiness
have already been visible in him, so much the more safely may it
be concluded that his has been a trae central, fundamental, and
deep conversion. The more that his Christianity consisted only
of theory and head orthodoxy, so much the more reason is there
to fear that the whole man has not been converted, so much the
greater danger is there of a seeming conversion and a subsequent
falling away. What the man has gained by mere dialectics may
again be entirely lost by mere dialectics, amid the temptations of
the flesh and the trials of suffering. The only sure mark of con
version is the presence of sanctification ; the only sure mark of
continuance in the state of grace is progress in sanctification.
Upon this truth the sentiment of ver. 10 is founded. Because
the readers have already evinced, and do still evince, the visible
fruits of faith in works of love and of service, the author cherishes
the persuasion that God will not let them fall, will not withdraw
his Spirit and the help of his grace from them. It is striking,
however, that he here appeals to the justice of God. The Roman
Catholic theologians haA'e made use of this passage by way of -
confirming their theory of the meritum condigni. The natural
man can indeed perform no good and meritorious works ; but the
converted man can, by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, perform
works perfectly good and therefore meritorious, which God
rewards by the communication of new gifts of grace. The evan
gelical theologians have justly opposed to this theory the truth,
that the best works ofthe regenerate are still stained with sin and
imperfect, and, in fact, that nothing is said in our passage of
rewarding particular works. But the evangelical theologians have,
in general, been able to find no other way of explaining this
passage than by supposing, that the good works of the regenerate,
although imperfect, yet received a reward of grace from God.
This, however, is a contradictio in adjecto ; what God gives out
of grace in spite of our imperfection wants precisely for that
reason the quality of a reward. — The truth is, there is another
righteousness besides that which recompenses or rewards. The
righteousness of God spoken of in our passage is that which

204 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20.
leads, guides, and governs, every man accordmg to the particular
stage of development which he occupies. It is here affirmed of
God that he does not give up to perdition a man who can still in
any way be saved, in whom the new life is not yet entirely extinct,
and who has not yet entirely fallen away ; but that he seeks to
draw every one as long as they will allow themselves to be drawn.
This is not a judicial or recompensing righteousness towards
man (for man has no right to demand the assisting grace of God
as a thing deserved), but it is the righteousness of the Father
towards the Son who has bought men with his blood, and to whom
we poor sinners still belong until we have fallen away from him.
Not towards us but toward Christ would the Father be dBiKos,
were he to withdraw his gracious assistance from a man ere he
has ceased to belong to the peculium of Christ.
Ver. 11. The writer now expresses his earnest wish that his
readers may advance in the Christian life with renewed zeal ;
that " each one of them may now manifest, even to perfection, the .
same zeal in striving after the full assurance of hope," as they
had hitherto shown in the dydirn. The full assurance of hope is
opposed to the wavering and uncertainty which they had hitherto
shown, as to whether they might rely entirely and undividedly
on the salvation and promise of Christ, or whether they required,
together with this, the temple service, and Levitical priesthood.
Ver. 12. The result of that zeal which the readers are to show
is, that they may be no longer vmOpoi (as they have been hitherto
chap. v. 12), but may be equal to other Christians, not only in
the dydirv Sto/covto but also in the maris and piaxpoOvpiia. Ma-
KpoOvptla, however, by no means denotes merely passive patience,
the passive endurance of suffering, but as at Rom. ii. 7 even
vrropMvr) serves to denote active constancy, this is still more
denoted here by pdKpoOvpia.
Vers. 13 — 15. Here commences a somewhat more difficult train
of thought which, by means ofthe particle ydp, is connected with
the foregoing as an explanation. The question presents itself :
What is said in vers. 13 — 15, and what is intended to he proven
by it or to be inferred from it as an explanation of ver. 12 ?
What is said, and said in words grammatically quite clear, is :
God has sworn to Abraham (comp. Gen. xxii. 16 ss. with chap.
xvii. 1 ss.) that he will bless him and multiply him. And from

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 205
this it is inferred in ver. 15, that that ancestor ofthe covenant-
people was thus also made a partaker of the promise through
paKpoOvpla. This idea of the p.aKpoOvpieiv is evidently the
connecting link between ver. 12 and vers. 13 — 15. On the
other hand, the words God hath sworn by himself, ver. 13, are
at first only cited as an accessary circumstance which is after
wards brought into prominence in ver. 16, and made use of
as a new and independent idea. (The words Kara tt)v rdjjtv
MeXxtaeBeK, chap. v. 6, are found to be cited quite in a similar
way, and then, afterwards in chap, vii., made to form properly a
new theme. Similarly also the citation chap. iii. 7 — 12 compared
with ver. 15 ss. and chap. iv. 3 and 7.)
The principal question then in the explanation of the three
verses under consideration is, how far does the fact that God has
sworn to Abraham that he will bless him and multiply him
involve the inference, that Abraham attained to the (fulfilment
of the) promise by paKpoOvpla ? Bleek is certainly wrong when,
in spite of the Kal oyrm, he will still not allow ver. 5 to be an
inference from vers. 13, 14, but finds in it a statement to the effect
that Abraham deserved that promise of the blessing and multi
plying, by his constancy (in the faith) evinced at another time,
namely, in the offering up of his son Isaac according to the
command of God. The writer, indeed, does not in a single word
point to the strength of faith shown in complying with the
command to offer up Isaac ; but from the circumstance that God
sware to Abraham to bless him and to multiply him, he infers
that Abraham obtained the promise (namely the fulfilment of it)
through the constancy of his faith. Now, whoever ascribes to
our author a rabbinical method of exegesis which cleaves to words
and to the letter must, here again, find himself greatly embar
rassed ; for here, as always, the vis argumentationis lies not in the
letter, but in the thought. There are ,two particulars on which
the force of the proof rests. First, God promised to Abraham
with an oath; this already implied that the fulfilment ofthe promise
was to be looked for at some future time, for there can be no need
of confirming with an oath the promise of a gift which is forthwith
and immediately bestowed ; an oath is then only necessary, when
the fulfilment is so remote as to make it possible that doubts
might spring up in the mind of the receiver of the promise from

206 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS V. 11 — VI. 20.
the long delay. Secondly, the subject-matter of the promise, the
promised object itself, was such as from the nature of the case
could only be realised after the death of Abraham. He was to
be blessed, and that by an immense multiplication of his seed ;
this could, from the nature of the case, be fulfilled only many
generations after Abraham. Thus Abraham throughout his whole
life saw nothing of the fulfilment of the promise which had been
made to him (comp. chap. xi. 39) ; he was directed to continue
until death in the constancy of the hope of that which he saw not.
So also are the readers of the Epistle to the Hebrews admonished
not to rely on the earthly, visible, Jewish theocracy and its
institutions, but with the constancy of Abraham's faith to build
their hope of salvation on the crucified Jesus who has gone into
the heavens, whose followers still form a scattered flock, and who
have nothing on earth but the hope of what is promised for the
future. Vers. 16 — 19. The author now brings into prominence the
accessary idea indicated in ver. 13 : that God can swear by none
greater than he is himself, and makes use of it for a new turn of
the thought, namely, for the inference that, just because God is
in himself unchangeable, a promise which he has not only given,
but has, moreover, sworn by himself in confirmation of it, is
absolutely sure and settled. In this certainty of the promises of
God there lies a second motive for the readers to continue stedfast
in the hope of the glory promised to the Messianic Israel (already
in Abraham's time.) And from this the author, having inwardly
prepared his readers and opened their hearts, dexterously retraces
his steps to his theme respecting the similarity between the New
Testament Messianic priesthood and that of Melchisedec.
Ver. 16. " Men swear by one who is greater (than themselves),
and the oath is for certainty beyond all strife" (for indisputable
certainty.) This idea is in itself plain. Men swear by a being
who is greater than they, who possesses omniscience enabling him
to know the perjured person, and power and justice to punish
him. The oath consists in this, that the person who swears calls
the higher being to witness at once the promise and its fulfilment
or non-fulfilment, and to be the eventual avenger of the latter.
(Hence with the purified Christian every word is a tacit oath,
inasmuch as it is spoken in the consciousness of the testimony of

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 207
the all-present and all-knowing God. And hence Christ forbids
swearing by inanimate things (Matth. v. 34), and puts that state
of mind in which every yea is a yea — i.e. in which every word,
whether God be expressly called to witness or not, is spoken in
the consciousness that God is witness — in the place of that
swearing which was alike superstitious and false. Christ therefore
does not forbid the oath, but he wills that the Christian should
speak only oaths, and that in this way the difference between
swearing and not swearing should find an end.)
Ver. 16. Now in God, the possibility of wavering, or the want
of veracity, and thus the necessity of a higher guarantee, falls
absolutely to the ground. He is trae, not on account of another
or from fear of any other, but by his own nature. Therefore he
can swear only by himself, he can produce only himself and his
own nature as the witness and guarantee of his veracity. It is
true that for this very reason God's swearing by himself is an
anthropopathism, or more correctly a condescension to human
infirmity. On his own account" he needs not to swear ; on his
own account the form of swearing, the form of a promiser and a
witness, might be dispensed with. But so long as to man the
knowledge of the unchangeableness of God was still hidden or
imperfect, God condescended to swear. With wonderful wisdom
he stooped to the human presupposition ofthe possibility of change
in God, therefore he sware ; but inasmuch as he sware by himself,
he in the same act lifted man upwards to the knowledge that he
has that in his own nature which hinders him from change. This
idea, which was already briefly indicated in ver. 13, is further
developed in ver. 17.
'Ev &, literally " in which circumstances," = in these circum
stances, quae cum ita sint. Hence it may be rendered by
"therefore" (Theophylact, Erasmus, Schlichting, Grotius, Kuinoel,
Olshausen, De Wette, Tholuck, Bleek, &c.) 'Ev m does not,
however, belong to BovXopxvo<; ; Rambach and others have
explained thus : as now by this (by conforming to the practice
among men of swearing) God would show, &c. ; the swearing of
God is evidently, however, not placed parallel with the swearing
of men, but in opposition to it, as already appears from the words
avOpmiroi piev yap. 'Ev m belongs rather to epieairevaev.

208 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11  VI. 20.
" Therefore (because men swear by one superior to themselves)
God, when he would show to the heirs of the promise the
immutability of his will in a superabundantly sure way, placed
himself in the middle" (between himself qua the promiser, and
men.) — Meairevm, se interponere, to place one's self as mediator
between two parties. Then specially in promises in the form of
an oath, to place one's self as warranter, as fidejussor or security
between the promiser and the receiver of the promise, in order to
undertake the security for the fulfilment of the promise. God
does this when a man swears by him ; he then lets himself be
called by both men as a witness and guarantee. When, however,
God swears by himself, he then as it were comes in between
himself and men. In other words, he is his own witness.
Ver. 18. " Therefore we have firm consolation by two inde
structible things, in both of which it is impossible for God to lie
— we who flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope at the future
goal." As God is in himself unchangeable and trae, and needs
not to swear, so his promise is in itself alone already sure and
indestructible. But when, moreover, he appears not merely as
promiser, but (inasmuch as he swears) also as pieatrevmv, as his
own witness and security, then must the fulfilment be doubly
sure, or, more precisely, a double testimony is given to the divine
immutability. In the words which stand in apposition to the subject ol Kara-
(pvybvres, &c, the author repeats the condition upon which a
subjective interest is obtained in the promise which is in itself
and objectively sure. Nothing is wanting on God's part ; but we
on our part, forsaking all false consolation, must flee to lay hold
on the eX7ri? irpoKeipievrj. (On the partic. aor. comp. chap. iv.
3. — Others less naturally understand Kara<pvybvre<; as an absolute
idea, and make Kparrjaai dependent on rrapaKXvaK, and give
this latter the signification " admonition, injunction.") The hope
involves here both the object of the hope (comp. the adjective
irpoKeipievv) and the act of it (comp. Kparrjaai.) Kara<bvybvre<i
is well explained by Calvin thus : Hoc verbo significat, non ahter
Deo vere nos fidere, quam dum praesidiis omnibus aliis destituti
ad solidam ejus promissionem confugimus. The readers were to
flee from all false Judaistic props of hope in the concern of their

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS V. 11 — VI. 20. 209
salvation, and to direct their eye alone to the invisible goal of
future glory promised in Christ.
Ver. 19. This firm hope resting solely upon Christ is " a sure
and firm anchor of the soul, and such as enters into the inner
place behind the vail." Two figures are here, not so much mixed
as, in a very elegant manner, combined. The author might
compare the world to a sea, the soul to a ship, the future still
concealed glory to the covered bottom of the sea, the remote firm
land stretching beneath the water and covered by the water.
Or he might compare the present life upon earth to the fore
court, and the future blessedness to the heavenly sanctuary,
which is still, as it were, concealed from us by a vail. He has,
however, combined the two figures. The soul, like a shipwrecked
mariner, clings to an anchor, and sees not where the cable of the
anchor runs to, where it is made fast ; it knows, however, that it
is firmly fixed behind the vail which conceals from it the future
glory, and that if it only keeps~fast~hold ofthe anchor, it will, in
due time, be drawn in with the anchor by a rescuing hand into
the holiest of all. Thus there is in the hope itself that which the
fulfilment certainly brings about.
Ver. 20. The holy of holies is now more particularly described
as that " into winch Christ is entered as our Forerunner." In
these words the author touches on the second section of the first
part (chap. ii. ver. 16, comp. with ver. 17), and at the same time
on the second section of the second part (chap. iv. vers. 10 and
14.) In both passages, but with more distinctness in the second,
the inference was drawn from this going before of Christ as the
first fruits and preparer of the way to heaven, that his office is a
high-priestly office. Thus the sentiment of ver. 20 leads the author
naturally and without constraint back to the theme begun
at chap. v. 1 — 10, namely, the comparison of Christ with the high
priest, and now, after having prepared the hearts of the readers
for what he is about to say, he proceeds exactly from the pjace
where he broke off at chap. v. 10 ; he repeats the new theme
already intimated there : Christ is a priest after the order of
Melchisedec, and this similarity between his priesthood and that
of Melchisedec culminates in the eternity of it.

210 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
SECTION SECOND.
(Chap, vii.)
THE MESSIAH, AS A HIGH PRIEST AFTER THE ORDER OF MEL
CHISEDEC, IS A SUPERIOR HIGH PRIEST TO AARON. .
The train of thought in this chapter is most clearly arranged .
First, it is shown in ver. 1 — 10 that Melchisedec's priesthood was
of a higher order than the Levitical; then, in vers. 11 — 19, the
inference is drawn from this, that the Levitical priesthood, and,
in like manner also, the Mosaical law upoh which it was grafted
was imperfect, and finally in vers. 20 — 28, that the Messiah,
because according to Ps. ex. he must be a high priest after the
order of Melchisedec, was greatly superior to the Levitical priest
hood as well as to the Mosaical law.
The first of these three parts divides itself again into two lines
of thought ; in vers. 1 — 3 it is shown that the priesthood of
Melchisedec is an eternal priesthood, in ver. 4 — 10 that Mel
chisedec took tithes from Levi.
Vers. 1 — 3. Ovro<; points back to chap. vi. 20. This Mel
chisedec, namely, he who is spoken of in Ps. ex. The principal
nerve of the passage lies, of course, in the principal verb pievet
eh to SuTveKe? (not as Storr would have it in the words eppivvevo-
/uevo? BaaiXei"; SiKaioavvns.) It was already intimated in chap.
Ari. 20, that Christ is like Melchisedec an eternal high priest.
And, now in vers. 1 — 3, it is explained in how far Melchisedec's
priesthood was eternal, and in like manner it is then shown in
vers. 20 — 28 in how far Christ's priesthood Avas eternal. It can
therefore not be doubted that the words p,kvei et? rb BivveKei
contain the principal idea of the sentence. All the other parts
from vers. 1 — 3 are only accessary members of an explanatory
kind. The question, however, still remains in what relation does this
principal idea stand to the thesis chap. iv. 20. Are we to take
the ydp in an argumentative sense, and is it the intention of the
author to prove in vers. 1—3 that Christ was a high priest after
the order of Melchisedec ? And does the proof consist in this,
that Melchisedec was an eternal priest, and that, in like man-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII. 211
ner, an eternal priesthood belongs also to Christ, so that in virtue
of this tertium comparationis — eternity — Christ can be called a
high priest after the order of Melchisedec ? This cannot possibly
have been the author's intention. He must in this case have
left out the words et? rbv aimva in the thesis chap. vi. 20, and,
instead of this, must have introduced immediately after ver. 3
Avhat he says from vers. 20 — 28. (The train of thought must
then have been : Christ is a high priest after the manner
of Melchisedec; for, Melchisedec's priesthood was eternal,
Christ's priesthood was also eternal, ergo.) — In reality, how
ever, the author was under no necessity whatever of proving
that Christ's priesthood was and must be after the order of
Melchisedec. This had already been settled at chap. v. 1
— 10, and settled on the ground that the prophetical psalm,
Ps. ex., contains the calling of the Messiah to the priestly dig
nity, and that the Psalmist had therefore before-hand ascribed
to the Messiah the priestly in conjunction with the kingly honour.
No, it is not the aim of the author to -prove in chap. vii. 1 — 3
that the priesthood of Christ is of the same order as that of
Melchisedec, but, from the thesis already established, chap. vi.
20, to draw inferences, the inference, namely, that the priesthood
of the Messiah is superior to the Levitical priesthood.
We must therefore take ydp in an explicative signification in
the sense of namely. The weighty import of the thesis, chap. vi.
20, is now to be evolved, the author will, so to speak, unfold to
the reader the fulness of meaning that lies in the simple expres
sion after the order of Melchisedec, and show him with what
important results it is fraught.
A series of clauses in apposition follows the subject of the
sentence, which, however, do not all belong to the subject, but
in part to the predicate. Those which belong to the predicate
begin with first being by interpretation ; that they begin here
and nowhere else is evident from this, that the first two attributes
are here repeated by way of being explained.
Melchisedec,  first being by interpretation king of
righteousness,
king of Salem, .... then king of Salem, i.e., king of peace,
priest of God, &c.
We have therefore to render the sentence thus : " This Mel-
o2

212 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
chisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met
Abraham, &c, and blessed him, abideth for ever as one whose
name signifies king of righteousness, &c." The first group of
appositional clauses serves to denote and to describe the subject ;
the second serves to show, what ground there is for ascribing to
this subject the predicate abideth for ever.
Let us consider the first group. Melchisedec, the well-known
king of the Amorites, Gen. xiv. The conjecture of Jerome,
Luther, &c, that Melchisedec was no other than Shem the son of
Noah, is now with reason universally rejected. Equally unten
able is the view of Molinaus, Hottinger, &c, that Melchisedec
was no man, but a temporaiy incarnation of the Son of God.
Melchisedec was doubtless, according to the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testament, nbne other than an Amoritic prince of a
tribe among whom (just as in the house of Laban) the ancient
primitive monotheism was still preserved, and who, according to
the old patriarchal fashion, still offered sacrifices as the priest of
his tribe to the invisible God in heaven. — The words who met
&c. as also the words to whom he gave a tenth, &c. serve here,
first of all, to recall to the minds of his readers the few incidents
that have been preserved from the life of this man, and to give
them a more distinct presentation of the form of Melchisedec,
although these incidents are afterwards, vers. 4 and 6, again
taken up and made use of for farther inferences (just as at chap.
vi. 13 the words irrel, &c.)
Pass we now to the second group of clauses in apposition.
Melchisedec remains a priest fqr ever, he whose name being
interpreted is King of righteousness, whose title signifies King of
peace. The author was fully entitled to lay stress on these
names, as they were not merely arbitrary, but were really expres
sive of the nature and character of that man. If our author had
drawn similar inferences from the name of the later kingAdoni-
zedec of Salem (Josh, x.), this might justly have been character
ized as a rabbinical proceeding ; but eA'ery reader of sound sense
will feel how impossible such a proceeding would be to the author
of the epistle to the Hebrews, how harshly it would contrast with
the usually profound character of his reasonings. In Melchisedec
the nomen et omen truly met and- harmonised. The tribe of
people which had built Salem must have been really a peaceable

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 213
tribe, otherwise they would not have given to the city the name
"Peace," " city of Peace," and, in fact, the king of this city had
not involved himself and his people in that war which, considering
the times, was a pretty extensive war. This king himself showed
really a sense of justice in sympathising with the righteous cause
of Abraham, and he showed more than this, in coming to meet
Abraham in a friendly spirit with presents of refreshment.
Abraham, the champion pf faith, offers to him gifts of homage ;
nay, in giving him the tenth, he thereby places himself under his
sovereignty, he takes refuge beneath the sceptre of this king
who served the living God, in order that under his protection
he may henceforth hve unmolested by hostile bands of heathen.
The names p-72 ^h'O an(^ D^ttJ *T^D> therefore, really ex
press only in a concise way the features of character and form
which distinguished that priest king. And when David (Ps.
110) in the spirit of prophecy sees and expects of the seed pro
mised to him, that, like Melchisedec, he will unite the priestly
with the kingly dignity, he surely does not predict in these words
a merely outward and mechanical conjunction of the two dignities,
but he has before him the figure of a man in whom, as in Mel
chisedec, the kingly power would be consecrated and penetrated
with the sanctifying virtue of the priestly dignity and work, the
form, therefore, of a king who would truly govern in peace
(comp. 2 Sam. vii. 11) and righteousness (comp. Ps. xiv. 8.)
From this alone, however, it does not follow that Melchisedec's
priesthood is eternal. In order to prove this other attributes are
still necessary. Melchisedec is without father, wiiliout mother,
without descent. What does the author mean by this ? Schulz
and Bohme have imputed such absurdity to him as to suppose,
that he really meant to say that Melchisedec came into the world
without parents, and with some this strange idea even yet finds
acceptance. But is it seriously believed that the author meant
to ascribe to Melchisedec a really eternal priesthood ? Christ
then was not the only eternal priest ! Such an interpretation as
this which cleaves to the letter, carries only in itself that rabbi
nical narrowness which those who employ it think they find in
the Holy Scriptures.
Our author reasons in. quite the reverse way. He turns

214 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAV'S VII.
entirely away from all investigation respecting the other unknown
events in Melchisedec's life, and views him only in so far as
David in the 110th psalm has made use of him, and could make
use of him as a type of the Messiah. The individual Melchisedec
who met Abraham had indeed a father and a mother, possibly a
brave father and a gentle mother — for all we know. But just
because we do not know this, and because David also could know
nothing of it when he used the words, " Thou art a priest after
the order of Melchisedec," he cannot have intended to say : the
Messiah will have a brave or not brave father, a gentle or
ungentle mother, &c, — in other words, he could not mean to set
forth the individual with his other characteristics as a figure of the
future Messiah, but must have referred to the figure of Mel
chisedec only in so far as it stands out from obscurity in Gen. xiv.,
when he said ofthe promised seed that he shall be a priest after
the manner of Melchisedec.
But this and this alone is justly important to our author. The
Levitical priest had to legitimize himself as a priest by his
descent from Levi and Aaron; Melchisedec's priesthood had
certainly nothing to do with his race and his descent, as nothing
at all has been recorded of his descent. Melchisedec stands alto
gether outside of the great theocratical lineage, which runs from
Abraham upwards to Adam and downwards to Levi and Aaron,
&c. He comes forth from the darkness, like a streak of light,
only to disappear immediately in the darkness again. And yet —
although he cannot have been a priest by theocratical descent —
the Holy Scripture adduces him, Moses himself adduces him. as
a " priest of God on high," and acknowledges him as such. If
now the Messiah is to be a priest after the order of Melchisedec,
then to him also is ascribed not the Levitical hereditary priest
hood but an independent priesthood having its root in his own
person. That the words dirdrmp, dpJyrmp mean here really nothing
more than parentibus ignotis appears partly, from the analogy of
profane writers (for example, Horace serm. 1, 6, 10 : Multos
saepe viros nullis majoribus ortos. Liv. iv. 3 : Servium Tullium,
captiva Corniculana natum, patre nullo, matre serva, Cic. de
oratore H. 64 : Quid hoc clamoris ? quibus nee pater nee mater,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII. 215
tanta confidentia estis ?) — partly from the explanatory dyeveaXo-
717T0?, which, as is well known, signifies not "without generation"
but " without pedigree."
Now this also points already indirectly at the eternal nature of
the priesthood of Melchisedec ; the full proof, however, is first
given in the words having neither beginning of days nor end of
life, but d<f>op.oimpievo<; rm vim rov Oeov. How this is to be
explained appears from what has just been said. The individual
Melchisedec had, in truth, a beginning and an end of life ; but
of this nothing is recorded in the Pentateuch, and therefore
David could not refer to it in the 110th psalm. It is of import
ance to the author that nothing is recorded of Melchisedec's birth
and death. As he has explained without father and without
mother by the term without genealogy, so now he explains having
neither beginning of days nor end of life by dtpop,oimpiivo<;, &c.
Calvin has already observed with reason that the author does not
say bptoio<;. Melchisedec was not like to Christ, but was repre
sented in a manner like to Christ. But that nothing is recorded
in the Pentateuch of the beginning and end of Melchisedec's life,
and that, notwithstanding, Melchisedec is acknowledged 'as a
priest of God, and that this his priesthood — without predecessors
and successors — was set forth by David as a type of the future
Messianic priesthood — this, again, has properly for our author a
positive significance. This is to be explained by the antithesis to
the Levitical priesthood ; for all these characteristic features of the
priesthood of Melchisedec are adduced as bearing on the compa
rison with the Levitical priesthood, and in proof of the inferiority
of the latter. The Levitical priest or highpriest became a priest
by his birth, and left the priesthood at his death to his son; his office
was, from the nature of him who held it, not a continuing one,
but one that moved onwards from member to member, and this
succession was expressly prescribed and regulated in the law.
When- therefore the Psalmist will describe the priestly glory of
the promised seed, and seeks to concentrate this in a corresponding
type, he selects not that of a ritual Levitical high priest — one of
those high priests who, from generation to generation, ceased
from their office and gave place to each other — but that of Mel
chisedec who, a, was a priest not by formal, legal investment, but
because his internal character, his qualities of righteousness and

216 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
peace impelled him to bring sacrifices to God, and to consecrat
the power of the king by the internal qualities of the priest ; who,
b, was a priest not by descent but in himself; and who therefore,
c, was not a link in a chain of predecessors and successors, but is
represented as alone in his order, and thus far as one who con
tinues a priest (yields up his priesthood to no one).
It is therefore truly no play upon words or artifice of ingenuity,
but the divine wisdom and illumination of the Holy Spirit, by
which our author obtains the inferences which he builds on those
particulars in the form under which Melchisedec is represented
to us. The vindication of his procedure hes in this, that Mel
chisedec does not appear as in himself (Gen. xiv.) a type of
Christ, but is first stamped as a type of Christ by David in
Ps. ex., who in this could not certainly refer to all that Mel
chisedec was, but only to the little that was recorded of
him in Gen. xiv. — Seeing then that David when he would
describe in its highest form the glory of the seed promised to
him, selects not the form of a Levitical high priest, but that of
Melchisedec as represented in Gen. xiv., our author must needs
inquire, wherefore and on what grounds this of Melchisedec
appeared to the Psalmist the most glorious form, more so than
that of a Levitical high priest. These reasons were not difficult
to discover. The Levitical high priest was such by investment ;
altogether apart from his personal character, but the Messiah was
to be a high priest (comp. i. 9, ii. 17, iv. 15) from his own internal
character, through his personal holiness, compassion, righteous
ness, and truth, just as Melchisedec was a high priest through his
own independent free act and piety. The Levitical high priest
held his office in virtue of his descent from Levi and Aaron ; the
Messiah was to descend not from Aaron but from David ; like
Melchisedec he was to stand outside of the hereditary Levitical
succession of priests. The Levitical high priest must give place
to a successor ; the Messiah was to be a priest-king without end
(2 Sam. vii. ; Ps. ex. 4) ; to this corresponds in Melchisedec the
circumstance, that we are nowhere told of his successor in the
priestly office. In the manner then in which the account
respecting Melchisedec is given Gen. xiv. hes the reason why he
must have appeared to the Psalmist as more exalted than the
Levitical high priest. None of those limitations which were

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII. 217
essential to the latter are ascribed to the former. It is precisely
in the mysterious way in which the Pentateuch represents him
as emerging from the darkness, and standing above the theo
cratical race, that we are to seek the ground of that impression
of more exalted majesty which induced the Psalmist to set him
forth as a type or example of the priest-kingly glory belonging to
the future Messiah. It will, accordingly, be evident that those
expositors are entirely mistaken who maintain, that the words
remaineth a priest for ever intimate merely that the priestly office
of Melchisedec was everlasting. The office was also in the case
of the Levitical high priests abiding and lasting. No ! the person
of Melchisedec — not precisely his person in its individual reality
but in the outline of it which was presented to the Psalmist —
wore the aspect of a priest whose priesthood had its root in himself, .
and who resigned his office to no successor. ¦ The substance of ver.
1 — 3 is therefore this : Already the Holy Scriptures of the Old
Testament ascribe to the Messiah a priesthood which, in virtue
of its internal and external independence and freedom from limi
tations, is far superior to the Levitical priesthood.
Ver. 4^-10. A second proof now follows of the superiority of
the priesthood of Melchisedec to the Levitical priesthood. This
second proof is drawn from the incidents in the history of
Melchisedec already mentioned casually in ver. 1, s., who met
Abraham, &c. The whole argument in ver. 4 — 10 moves in the
form of a sorites. This sorites consists of two principal parts. In
ver. 4 — 7, from the circumstance that Abraham gave to Mel
chisedec the tenth and received his blessing it is inferred, that
Melchisedec was superior to Abraham. In ver. 9, 10 from the
fact that Levi was then yet in the loins of Abraham it is inferred,
that Levi also was subordinate to Abraham.
The first part of the sorites will in- a scholasticc-logical form
stand thus : —
Major : The receiver of tithe and bestower of the blessing is
superior to the giver of tithe and receiver of the
blessing.
Minor : But Abraham gave tithe to Melchisedec and received
the blessing from him.
Conclusion : Therefore Melchisedec is superior to Abraham.

218 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
The author does not, however, merely omit the conclusion accor
ding to the form of the sorites, and forthwith proceed to the
second principal part, but he makes the omission of the conclu
sions still more easy by the simple process of placing the major
after the minor proposition.
Ver. 4 is the first half of the minor : Melchisedec received
from Abraham the tenth. In ver. 5 a subsidiary remark follows,
to the effect that Melchisedec received the tenth from Abraham
in a much more striking and distinguished manner than the
Levites now receive it from the Jews. In ver. 6 the first half
of the minor, enlarged by the antithetical reference to ver. 5, is
repeated, and the second half of the minor : that Melchisedec
blessed Abraham, is added.
In ver. 7 the major proposition (already involving the con
clusion) now follows the minor ; formally, however, it is adduced
only in reference to the blessing. (The same thing was already
self-evident in reference to the levying of the tithe chiefly from
ver. 5.)
After it has been shown that Melchisedec is superior to Abra
ham, the receiver of the promise, and the progenitor of all the
Levitical and non-Levitical Jews, the author, now glancing
back to ver. 1 — 3, makes the transition in ver. 8 to the second
principal part of the sorites, ver. 9, 10, ver. 9 containing the
thesis, ver. 10 the proof.
Ver. 4. The particle Be serves simply to denote the transi
tion to another subject. " But noAV observe further." HrfKiKos
how great, how highly exalted, namely, in comparison with the
Levitical high priests. The m does not serve first to determine
who is meant by oSto?; but ovros refers backwards to the
Melchisedec named in A*er. 1 — 3, and m is confirmatory, cui
= quum ei. The apposition 6 irarpidpxv; is, on account of the
emphasis, placed at the end of the period. He who, as the
progenitor of all Israel, also of the Levites, is superior to Israel
and to the Levites, nevertheless paid the tenth to Melchisedec,
and thus placed himself in a subordinate position to him. This
finishes the first part of the minor proposition (placed before the
major in ver. 7.)
Before, however, the author adds the other part in ver. 6, he
must first meet an objection. The objector might say, Why is

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII. 219
so much stress laid on the circumstance that Melchisedec took
tithes? Did not the Levitical priests also take tithes? The
author must needs show, therefore, what an important difference
there is between the two cases. He does this in a subsidiary
remark at A^er. 5. He first of all introduces the objection itself
in the form of a restriction, " and indeed the Levites also take
tithes ;" he, however, at the same time, joins to this restriction or
concession all the particulars in which the inferiority of the
Levites in this respect shows itself, so that he can then forthwith
set forth, in opposition to this, the higher form of tithe-taking
in the case of Melchisedec, and with this can, at the same time,
repeat in a more enlarged and more definite form, in the 6th
verse, the idea of the minor proposition of ver, 4.
We must first of all consider more closely the subject : oi piev
e/c rmv vlmv Aevt tt) v lepareiav XapiBdvovres. That ol XapiBdvovrei
is really the subject, and that the words e« rmv vlmv Aevt depend
on XapiBdvavres, is evident of itself. If oi e'« rmv vlmv Aevl by
itself were taken as the subject, and rrjv lepareiav XaptBdvovres
as a more special determination of the idea in the predicate, we
should then obtain the unsuitable sense that the Le\ites then take
tithes when they receive or enter upon the priesthood. This, how
ever, would not be agreeable to historical fact. With as little
reason can we, with Bleek and others, render thus : those among
the Levites who receive the priesthood (in opposition to those who
were Levites merely without being priests) — for, according to
the Mosaic law, all Levites received tithe (Lev. xx\-ii. 30.)
The emphasis rather lies on Xo/ttjSovovTe?, and the Levites are
placed in a twofold antithesis to Melchisedec ; first, as those who
were descended from Levi ; secondly, as those who received the
priesthood (in virtue of this their descent.) "Those who, being
of the sons of Levi, received the priesthood," stand in opposition
to Melchisedec, who, according to ver. 1 — 3, was without gene
alogy, and had neither predecessor nor successor ; but whose
priesthood flowed independently, as it were, from his own person.
(So substantially also Reland, Pierce, Wolf.)
The word XapiBdvovres, then, already indicates one point of infe
riority in the Levitical receiving of tithes. A further point of infe
riority is given in the words cvtoXtjv e^oucri. The Levites received
by a command the right to lift tithes, and the rest ofthe Israelites

220 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
give tithes because they must do so. Abraham, on the contrary,
gave tithe to Melchisedec voluntarily. There there was a third party
(namely, God) who is superior to the Levites, as well as to the
rest of the tribes, to whom the tithe properly belonged, and who
assigned it to the Levites. Here it was the personal dignity
and majesty of Melchisedec that moved Abraham to give tithes.
The same antithesis is repeated in the words Kara rbv vbpiov.
But the author does not overlook the circumstance, also, that
the right of the LeAdtes to exact tithes extends only to the Xoo?,
rovreari tou? oSeXi^oii? avrmv, while Melchisedec's superiority
stretches beyond his tribe, even to Abraham, who was quite a
stranger to him. In like manner, also, that the descent from
Abraham as, on the one hand (in the case of the Levites) it
confers the right to take tithes, so, on the other hand (in the
case of those who are not Levites), it does not protect from the
burden of paying tithes. This latter hes in the words, though
they came out of the loins of Abraham. Is Melchisedec, then,
superior to the progenitor of the race whose members divide
themselves into tithe-receivers and tithe-payers, it is therefore
evident that the right of these latter (the Levites) to take tithes
is of a far inferior nature to the right of Melchisedec. Or,
in other words : that Melchisedec stood higher above Abraham,
than among his descendants the Levites stand above those who
are not Levites. The relation might be mathematically repre
sented thus :
Melchisedec ~P* ~P~ [Abraham ;>»¦ (Levites ^»" not Levites)].
Then, in addition to this, comes the other difference indicated in
the words ivroXrjv and Kara vbpiov, between the right of the
Levites to take tithes as a dependent right, and conferred by the
lawgiver, and that of Melchisedec as independent and flowing
from his personal dignity.
In ver. 6 the other side of the comparison between Melchi
sedec and the Levitical priests is presented, and special emphasis
laid on this feature of it that Melchisedec received tithes from
one who, in respect of descent, was not connected with him. In
this the first part of the minor proposition is repeated, but in a
more full and definite form. To this is added here the second
part of the minor proposition, viz., that Abraham, although he
had received from God the theocratical promise, was yet blessed

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS A'll. 221
of Melchisedec. The designation rbv exovra to? iirayyeXla<s
corresponds in its logical position to the designation 6 rrarpid-
PXV>) ver. 4. At both a Kairrep might be supplied instead of
the article.
In ver. 7 'the major proposition now follows the minor, and
here we do not indeed find both parts of the minor referred with
scholastic accuracy to corresponding general propositions, but
only the second part of it, which was adduced immediately
before. " Without all contradiction the less is blessed of the
higher," = he who blesses is always superior to him who is
blessed. The parallel member : The tithe-receiver is always
superior to the tithe-giver was so self-evident (especially after
what was said from ver 5 onwards), that the author might safely
omit it.
Equally unnecessary was the formal statement of the conclu
sion : Ergo Melchisedec is superior to Abraham ; and so much
the more, as he had placed the major proposition, which involved
this conclusion, behind the minor.
He therefore, in ver, 8, forthwith makes the transition to the
second principal part of the sorites, to the argument, namely (for
which also he had already prepared the way in ver. 5), that if
Abraham is inferior \o Melchisedec, so much the more inferior
to him is Levi. He, however, makes this transition precisely in
such a way as to introduce an accessory remark which connects
substantially with the accessory remarks of the 5th verse.
The idea, namely, that here (under the Levitical law) it is
dying men who receive tithes, but there, he of whom it is testi
fied that he liveth — this idea forms no link in the syllogistic
chain, does not follow from ver. 7, and proves nothing for ver.
8, but is in reality an accessory idea, serving only to lead the
attention of the reader away from Abraham to the Levites. In
respect of its import, this verse merely points back in a brief
way to Arer. 3, and only in this atow is it, in general, intelligible.
If ver. 3 had not gone before, ver. 8 might then really be so
understood as if the author there meant to ascribe an endless
life to the individual Melchisedec (for, with Justinian, Capellus,
and others, to consider Christ as the subject of £?}, is mere non
sense.) But, after what was said in ver. 3 (as in the main Bleek
also has rightly perceived) piaprvpovpievo<s on £5} can be nothing

222 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
else than a concise representation of the idea: prjre dpxv"
f)piepmv piijre £<ot}? reXos evorv, and is therefore to be explained
thus : " Of whom only his life is recorded, not his death"
(Bleek) ; or, in other words : it is again not the individual
Melchisedec who has the testimony that he liveth, but it is again
the typical figure of Melchisedec, as it appeared to the eye of
the Psalmist in the framework of Gen. xiv. Ver. 8, therefore,
contains nothing new, but merely reminds the reader of the
inferiority of the Levitical priesthood, already shown at ver. 3,
and this with the view, as has been already observed, merely of
turning in this way the attention of the reader from Abraham to
the tribe of Levi.
Ver. 9, 10. In these verses we have now the second principal
part of the sorites itself. In ver. 9 a thesis is laid down, a minor
proposition to which the major proposition of the foregoing syllo
gism implicitly contained in ver. 7 (the tithe-receiver is superior
to the tithe-giver) stands directly related; namely, the minor pro
position : Levi also in a certain sense paid tithes to Melchisedec ;
so that here, neither the major proposition nor the conclusion
needed to be specially adduced. In ver. 10 the minor proposition
of ver. 9 is proven. The words in both verses are perfectly clear.
In the mode of reasoning, however, many commentators have,
with a greater or less display of merriment, found here again a
thoroughly crass specimen of the rabbinical manner of interpre
tation and reasoning, while others again (as Olshausen, Bleek)
have sought to vindicate this reasoning by viewing it merely as
an " argumentatio ad hominem directed against the Jewish
estimation of mere bodily descent" (which might properly be
called deductio ad absurdum), and thus to defend it against the
charge of unsuitableness. Even Olshausen thinks that this argu
ment is " not to be understood literally, and that the author means
to indicate this by a>? e7ro? eiireiv ;" but how then is it to be
understood ? — The argument would indeed be rabbinical, if the
author had inferred from Levi's being still in the loins of Abraham
that Levi participated in Abraham's giving tithes considered as
an individual act of Abraham. For example, it would be strange
and absurd were I to reason thus : " The Margrave George of
Brandenburg with great courage protected the Reformation in
Baireuth ; but Frederic William IV. was then in the loins of

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 223
George, therefore Frederic William IV. with great courage
protected the Reformation in Baireuth." Our author, on the
contrary, infers from the fact that Levi was then in the loins of
Abraham (i.e. let it be observed, that neither Levi, nor Isaac, nor
Jacob were at that time begotten — for so soon as Isaac was
begotten Levi was no longer in Abraham's loins) only this, that
the legal relation in which Abraham placed himself to Melchisedec
held good also with reference to Levi. That he does not mean
an absolute participation by Levi in the paying of tithes, but only
such a participation in a certain sense, not a participation in the
act as such, but only in the results and legal consequences of it,
seems to me to be indicated by the clause &>? eVo? elireiv which is
added to SeSe/caVwToi. He therefore takes care not to say of
Levi Sexdrvv eSmKev, and purposely makes use of the passive
SeBeKarmrai. In this view the argument is fully justified. If,
for example, I obtain the freedom of the city of Hamburgh, and
have already a son arrived at majority, my investment with this
right will not affect the position of this son ; on the other hand,
those of my children who are still minors, and those whom 1 may
afterwards beget, participate in this right of citizenship which I
have acquired. Or, if the Knight of Kronenburgh has placed
himself in subjection to the Duke of Nassau as vassal, his already
grown up and independent son dbes not participate in this act,
but the children who are begotten after this act of subjection
must acknowledge the sovereignty of the Duke of Nassau. So
also here. If, at the period referred to in Gen. xiv., Isaac had
been an independent man, he would have had a right to say to
his father : You may, if it pleases you, subject yourself to this
Melchisedec ; that does not affect me ; I am free. Isaac, however,
was not begotten until after Abraham had entered into this rela
tion of subjection. With perfect justice, therefore, is the inference
drawn from the dependent character of the descendents to their
participation in the act of subjection. Of course, however, it is
not an outward political relation of subjection that is here meant
(for such could only be spoken of, if the posterity of Abraham
had continued all along to be subjects of the Amoritic kings of
Salem), but an ideal subordination of the theocratical race to the
priestly form of Melchisedec.1
i Strange to say, many commentators have found a difficulty in this,

224 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
In ver. 11 — 19 we have the second train of thought in this
section. In ver. 1 — 10 the priesthood of Melchisedec was
compared with the Levitical, and the inferiority of the latter
demonstrated. In ver. 11 — 19 the author demonstrates, as a
further inference from this, the imperfection and incompleteness
not of the Levitical priesthood alone, but also of the Mosaical law.
Here again, the ideas of the writer move in the form of sorites.
Ver. 11 involves the new thesis : in the Levitical priesthood there
was no TeXetft>crt?. This, however, is not laid down formally as a
thesis but the transition is made in the following manner. In
ver. 1 — 10 had been already shewn the inferiority of the Levi
tical priesthood. In ver. 11 the author now says : How too could
this be otherwise ? If a TeXetWt? had been given by the Levitical
priesthood, then in general there had been no necessity for that
promise of another priest, a priest after the order of Melchisedec.
He thus shapes the new thesis into the form of an argument.
And as in ver. 1 — 10 he drew inferences from the import of the
prophecy Ps. ex., so here, he draws an inference from the fact of
its existence. He then in ver. 12 adduces a collateral argu
ment, or rather he again disposes of an objection (just as above
at ver. 5.) He has conceded in parenthesi ver. 11, that the
Levitical priesthood forms the inner basis of the Mosaical law;
from this the inference might have been drawn : by so much the
more must the Levitical priesthood be perfect ; for the law is
perfect. This objection the author in ver. 12 removes by the
explanatory remark that, vice versa, from the imperfection of the
priesthood follows that also of the law. In this, however, there
is implicitly contained a second thesis ver. 12.
This second thesis : the Mosaical law has no perfection, is
proven in ver. 13 — 19. (For the first thesis there lay already
an argument in ver. 11.)
A, Ver. 13. The Messiah is High Priest, and yet not of the
tribe of Levi (consequently the Messianic idea as such
involves a going beyond the law.)
Proof: a, Ver. 14. The historical fact : Jesus was of the
tribe of Juda.
that Jesus as the descendant of David and Abraham must also have
stood below Melchisedec. Did Jesus th?n proceed from the loins of a
human father?

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS Vll. 225
b, Ver. 15 — 17. The christological necessity.
Major, Ver. 15 : the Messiah was to be a priest
after the order of Melchisedec.
Minor, Ver. 17 : Melchisedec is a priest for
ever.
Conclusion, Ver. 16 : the Messiah must not be
born according to the law of the flesh.
B Vers. 18, 19. From the fact that the law could be abro
gated, it follows that it was imperfect.
Ver. 11. El with the Imp. expresses the abstract possibility of
a case already known as not actual. " If perfection were." As
the logical intermediate member between vers. 10 and 11, the
idea supplies itself : " It follows that the Levitical priesthood was
also imperfect. And how naturally ! For if, &c." 'Iepmavvn,
also in ver. 12, denotes originally the priestly condition, the
priestly office, the priestly dignity, while lepareia denotes ori
ginally the service to be performed by the priests. But in this
chapter (comp. vers. 5 and 12) both words are used promiscuously
to denote the priestly condition as a whole — person, office, and
service taken together. The expression reXetmats rp> Bid is
purposely of a quite general character; it denotes not the
perfected atonement nor the perfected sanctification, but, quite
generally, the completion of the saving acts and saving ways of
God, i.e. of the theocracy.
The parenthesis 6 Xab<; yap, &c, serves to explain how some
might be led to see in the Levitical priesthood the completion of
the theocracy. Upon the basis of this priesthood the people
received their law. 'Erf avrfj<; is the reading in A.B.C.D.E.
Cyr. and the cursory manuscripts ; in like manner, Grotius,
Lachmann, Bleek; eV avry is less authorized, and yields the
trifling sense that the people received their law with the priest
hood, i.e. either contemporaneously with it (Erasmus, Luther,
Calvin, Beza, &c), or over and above the priesthood (Gerhard,
Bengel, Limborch, &c. Wolf, Storr, and others, interpret the
eVt " on condition of the existence of a priesthood," which is
equally unsuitable, grammatically and in point of fact.) If we
adopt the reading eV outt}?, then irfi is c. gen., and used in the
same way as at ix. 17 ; 1 Cor. ix. 10, " upon it," " upon its basis."
The Levitical priesthood, although, considered externally and in

226 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
respect of time, it was first instituted in the law and through the
law, yet formed, internally, the basis and presupposed condition
in the giving of the law, nay for the giving of the law. In the
giving of the law ; for the entire plan and arrangement of it rests
on the law of worship, on the representation of the people before
God by the priests, and likewise all its other ordinances are most
closely connected with the institution of the Levitical priesthood.
For the giving of the law ; inasmuch as this law was necessary-
only to awaken within the Israelites a sense of their need of a
priestly representation before God; in itself the Mosaical law
was not necessary, but only a pedagogical preparatory step
correlative with the period of the Levitical priesthood. Some,
therefore, might be led. to infer, from the important part which
the Levitical priesthood plays in the Thorah, that the Levitical
priesthood was certainly complete in itself, in like manner as the
Thorah was considered as perfect by the Jews. On this latter
supposition, and the inquiry whether a reXeimats was given by
ihe law, the author does not yet enter here, but, in the first
place, proves his first thesis — -that no perfection was given by
the Levitical priesthood — altogether independently of the other
supposition ; and he proves this simply by showing, that other
wise there would assuredly have been no promise of another
priest, who should be a priest not after the order of Aaron, but
of Melchisedec. The construction of the passage is as follows :
Th en %peio, erepov lepea Kara rrjv rd^iv MeX^tcreSe« dvia-
raaOai, Kal (avrbv) ov Kara rrjv rd^iv 'Aapmv XiyeaOai ; What
necessity would there in that case have been, that another priest
should arise after the order of Melchisedec, " and that he,"
(= " this one,") should not be called after the order of Aaron ?
(Schleusner and others take XiyeaOai unnaturally in the sense
of " to be chosen." Luther, Baumgarten, &c, construe : Tt?
en xpet'a, XiyeaOai- erepov lepea dviaraaOai koto tt)v rdgiv
MeXxiaeSeK Kal ov Kara, r. r. 'Aapmv, a construction which
necessarily presupposes a very unnatural arrangement of the
words.) That Kal XiyeaOai stands for o? XeyeTot will explain
why the author — having o? Xiyerat in his mind — has put ov
for piij.
In ver. 12 the author now proceeds to obviate the objection
contained in the parenthesis of ver. 11. Will some infer from

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 227
the perfection of the law that the Levitical priesthood, which
stood so closely connected with the law, was also perfect ? He
infers, vice versa, from the imperfection of the priesthood, that
the law also was imperfect. As a proof of the imperfection
of the former, he has just adduced in ver. 11 the fact, that the
Levitical priesthood was to be superseded by one after the order
of Melchisedec, and now he proceeds to say : " But where the
priesthood changes, there of necessity also the law changes."
This, however, involves the assertion that the law also was imper
fect, as a second or auxiliary thesis ; and this is now in ver.
13 — 19 circumstantially proven.
Ver. 13 — 17 forms, as has just been said, the first principal
part of the proof. In ver. 13 we have the argument, that he of
whom this was said (namely, the promise mentioned in ver. 11
of a priest after the order of Melchisedec), was member of
another tribe (than the tribe of Levi), a tribe none of the mem
bers of which had ever anything to do with the altar. The
words are clear. The author does not say : It is prophesied in
the Old Testament of the Messiah, that he should be of another
tribe, but he simply lays down in ver. 13 the fact, that he to
whom that prediction applied — therefore the Messiah — was of
another tribe. Not till ver. 14 and ver. 15 — 17, does he sepa
rate the fact of the fulfilment from the prophetical christological
necessity. In ver. 13 he still mentions merely the fact of the
case viewed as a whole. The Messiah, the Son of David (conse
quently, one whovwas not a Levite), was to be priest. Thus a
priesthood out of the tribe of Levi was ordained. A passing
beyond the law, a pierdOeats vbpov, was therefore predicted.
That Jesus is he of whom these things are spoken, the author
does not prove, and needs not to prove. His readers did not
doubt that Jesus was the Messiah ; the question only was,
whether by this Messiah the Old Testament cultus was abo
lished, or whether it still continues.1
In ver. 14 the author, by way of confirming what is said in ver.
1 3,' appeals to the manifest historical fact that "our Lord" (so
he evidently designates Jesus as the historical person) " sprang
1 I cannot understand how even Bleek (ii. 351) should still deny this
gnmd practical aim of the whole Epistle to tbe Hebrews. P 2

228 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAA'S VII.
from the tribe of Judah." Those therefore are altogether wrong,
who find in our passage a proof that the Christians had first
inferred from the prophecy of the Messiah's descent from
David, that Jesus must certainly have sprung from the tribe of
Judah. No ! the author introduces this inference first in ver.
15 — 17, after having previously in ver. 14 laid it down as a
manifest fact not of the Xpiarbs, of the Messiah, but (as Bleek
also rightly perceiA^es) of " Our Lord," of the person of the Lord
and Master historically known to the Christians, that he " has
sprung" from Judah (dvoT6ToX«:ev perfect). We have here
therefore rather a most significant proof, that the descent of Jesus
from the tribe of Judah was a well and universally known fact
before the destruction of Jerusalem. In the same years in which
the Gospels of Mark and Luke were written, the descent of Jesus
from David was already universally knoAvn.
UpbBvXov is stronger than SrJXov. Arfkov is what lies open and
manifest, irpbSvXov is what hes conspicuously manifest among
other manifest things. — ' AvariXXeiv is a term, techn. for the rising
of the sun ; also in Luke i. 78 the expression dvaroXij is used of
the birth of Jesus. In the words et? t)v (pvXijv, &c, it is again
emphatically repeated that, according to the law, the tribe of
Judah had no right to the office of the priesthood. The author
here delicately expresses in the form of a litotes, the strict prohi
bition laid on all who were not Levites from serving as priests :
" In reference to which tribe Moses has said nothing of a priest
hood." In ver. 15 — 17 the author shows that the Messiah, as he was
in fact not a Levite, so in accordance with the prediction could
not be a Levite. He adds the christological necessity to the
historical reality. In proof of the former, he might simply have
appealed to the predictions of the Messiah's descent from David
already mentioned in the preceding chapters ; but his manner is
not to grasp at what lies nearest and what every reader must
himself have been able to say. He goes deeper. He proves in
ver. 15 — 17, not merely that the Messiah must in respect of his
humanity spring from David (this was already implied in ver.
13), but that it follows from the nature ofthe priesthood of Mel
chisedec, that the Messiah must be born, in general, not according

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 229
to the law of a carnal commandment, but according to the power of
an indestructible life.
The sentence beginning with et cannot, of course, form the
subject to KardSnXbv ian, as et cannot stand for on ; equally
unnecessary and unjustifiable is it arbitrarily to invent a subject
to KardSnXov (as is done for example by Oecumenius, Limborch,
Tholuck, Bleek, &c. : " that, with the priesthood, the law also is
abrogated, is so much the more manifest," &c) ; all that we have
to do is simply to bring down from ver. 14 the clause on e'f
'IovBa dvareraXKev, &c. That Jesus sprang from Judah is
already in itself an acknowledged fact (ver. 14) ; but this is all
the more manifest, as (ver. 15) it follows from Christ's priesthood
being after the order of Melchisedec, that he could not be born
Kara vop.ov. This reference is drawn syllogistically. From the
major proposition ver. 15 the conclusion is directly drawn in ver.
16, and then, in ver. 16, the minor which connects the two is
added in the form of an explanation.
The major proposition ver. 15 is clear ; it is a mere repetition
ofthe prediction already adduced in ver. 11. In the idea which
logically forms the minor premiss ver. 17, the emphasis lies
on et? tov almva. Therefore the inference follows from the
nature of the Messianic priesthood (its being after the order
of Melchisedec), that the Messiah must be born according to
the power of an indestructible life, because the et? tov almva
belongs to the characteristics of that priesthood of Melchisedec.
— Is now the conclusion thus made good? Does the word
^yy\\y^, Ps. ex., form really the tertium comparationis in which
the future heir of David is to agree with Melchisedec ? No ;
tert. comp. lies rather in the union of the priestly with the
kingly power. But neither (as Bleek thinks, ii. p. 62) has our
author by any means adduced the et? rbv almva as a tert. comp.,
but only as an inference which appeared to the Psalmist to follow,
and (as is proven in vers. 1 — 3) must follow, from the general
idea of a priest like to Melchisedec. The promised posterity
which was described to David, and was conceived of by him as a
priest-king, and therefore as a Melchisedec-like figure, could not
for this very reason be, like a Levitical high priest, a single
member of a genealogically connected series of- priests, but, _ as
the only one of his kind excluding every possibility of sue-

230 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
cession, must consequently appear as holding his office for
ever. Ver. 16 contains the conclusion which follows from the
everlasting duration of the Messianic priesthood. He who,
differently from the Levitical priests, is to remain a priest for ever
must have been made a priest differently from the Levitical
priests. The latter were made priests according to the law of a
fleshly commandment. SapKiKos (good ancient manuscripts
here, and in other passages, have the form aapKivbs, which, how
ever, in like manner as the reading in the received version,
forms the antithesis to irvevpariKos, so that no difference is thus
made out in the sense) is not to be understood as designating
the commandment in so far as, in respect of its import, it refers
to bodily descent (Theodoret, Grotius, Limborch, Tholuck,
Bieek) ; for then those Messianic prophecies which say that the
Messiah was to descend from David had also been fleshly ! The
term is rather to be explained (as already Carpzov and Kuinoel
rightly perceived) from the antithetical word o«;aToXvTO?. The
passage contains a threefold antithesis ; BvvapiK is antithetical to
voptos, fyor) to cvtoXt}, and dKardXvros to aapKiKos. The meaning
of these antithesis we shall best be able to explain by the follow
ing questions : a, How did the LeAdtical priest originate ? First,
and in general, according to a law which ordained that the
posterity of Aaron should be priests, whatever might be their
inward character and qualifications. How was the Messiah made
priest ? Independently of the law, nay contrary to the law (vers.
13, 14), purely in virtue of the power which dwelt within him
personally, which entitled and qualified him to represent men
before God. — b, What was the nature of that law ? — It appeared
as a single external statute, an ivroXrj. How did that Bvvapit<;
show itself? As a £mi), as direct power and actuality of life. — c,
What was the character of that ivroXij ? It belonged to that
paedagogical preparatory stage which had as yet nothing to do
with the implanting of spiritual life in man who was dead
through sin, but only with the setting up of outward barriers
against sin, and with types of salvation for the natural, carnal,
man. (This is the meaning of aapKiKos comp. Gal. iii. 3.) What,
on the other hand, is the character of that £<dt; ? Indissoluble,
i.e., possessing in itself the power of perpetuity. In the one

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS All. 231
case, therefore, that separation of men from their Maker, in
which the divine being appears to man only outwardly in the
form oi fixed commandment without entering into inward fellow
ship with him (comp. chap. iv. 2) still, continues; in the other
case, on the contrary, God has united himself with man, im
planted himself within man as the beginning and beginner of a
new life, inasmuch as he has assumed the nature of men, and
shown himself to be the true and perfect high priest, inasmuch
as he proved his divine power in his vicarious sufferings, and in
the victory of the resurrection.
In vers. 18, 19 the author now draws from the proposition laid
down in ver. 12 and proven in ver. 13 — 17, viz., that the Mosaic
law was destined to be annulled by the Messiah — this last infer
ence : that this law was a mere pedagogical preparatory stage,
and therefore not the final perfect consummation of the divine
revelations. The mode of argumentation is retrogressive. That
dOirvaK, the actual fact of which was already shown in ver. 13
— 17, is explained only, on the presupposition of the aaOevh Kal
dvmfaXes. The author might have logically connected in the
scholastic form the separate ideas of vers. 18, 19 in the following
way : " But (atque oiiv) now the annulling of a commandment
only then takes place when the commandment in question has
shewn itself to be weak and unprofitable. Consequently (ergo,
dpa) that law must have, been weak and unprofitable, must have
left its task unfinished, and must only have been an introduction
to a better hope." But, as always in such cases of reasoning in
this inverted order, he despises this scholastico-pedantic form, and
chooses the easier form of the explicative 7op.
The principal sentence and the last inference lies in the words
ovSev ydp ereXeimaev b vbp,o<;, eireiaaymyrj Se Kpeirrovo<; eX7rt'So?.
At iireiaaymyrj we have not to supply yiverai from ver. 18 (as is
done by Theodoret, Luther, Gerhard, Bengel, Tholuck, Bleek,
Olshausen, and others) ; for the words, in respect of their import,
form no antithesis to d0err)ai<s pev yap yiverai — (what sort of
antithesis would this be : " An annulling of a law is wont to take
place only on account of the weakness and unprofitableness of
that law ; but an introduction of a better hope takes place." —
Nothing is said as to how or why this introduction takes place !)
Nor are we to supply ireXeiwaev (with Schlichting, Michaelis*

232 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
Semler, Ernesti, and others), for then, first of all, the article must
have stood before iireiaaymyr], and further, it is not possible that
a TeXeiWt? can have been effected by the introduction to a hope.
The right construction is that which supplies at irreiaar/myr),
either rp> (Erasmus, Vatable, Calvin, &c), so that irretaaymyr)
becomes predicate to vo/to?, or iyevero St' avrov (vbpiov), — "the
law has made nothing perfect, but an introduction was given
through it to a better hope." That the omission of such a verb
is not elegant Greek is of small moment ; the supposition that
our author, who usually writes correctly, has here again written
with somewhat less care, must always be more tolerable than a
construction which yields a senseless idea.
Something negative and something positive, therefore, is
affirmed of the law. The negative is : ouSev ireXeimaev. OvSev
is not here in the sense of ovBiva, as Theophylact and others have
supposed. What is here said is, not that the particular individual
could not be led to perfection by the law, but that the law in
every respect opened up and imposed a number of problems
without solving any one of them. It set up in the decalogue the
ideal of a holy life, and yet gave no power to realise this ideal ;
it awakened, by means of its law of sacrifice, the consciousness of
the necessity of an atonement, and yet could provide no true valid
offering for sin ; it held forth in the institutions of the priesthood
the necessity of a representation of the sinner before God, and
yet it gave no priest who was able to save men et? rb rrav-
TeXe? (as it is said ver. 25.) In short, "it left everything
unfinished." — But one thing the law did accomplish ; those who
submitted to its rebuke, and did not allow themselves to be
seduced into the base and delusive hope of a pharisaical self-
righteousness, were led on by it to the better hope through
which we (Christians) come nigh to God (in truth.) This is the
positive thing which is affirmed of the law in the words erretaa-
ymyv &c.
Ver. 20 — 28. In these verses we have the third part of this
section. It was shown in ver. 1 — 10 that the priesthood of
Melchisedec, wliich was represented in Ps. ex. as the type of the
Messianic priesthood, is more exalted than the Levitical. In
ver. 11 — 19 it was proven that this Levitical priesthood, together.
with the Mosaic law so closely connected with it, was destined

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 233
to find its end and its abolition as an imperfect preparatory stage
in the Messiah. In ver. 20 — 28 it is now shown that Jesus
the Messiah, in opposition to the imperfect Levitical. priesthood
and Mosaic law, is the perfect priest of a new and perfect cove
nant. The mention of the imperfection of the Mosaic law, ver.
19, leads, by an easy transition, to this new thought.
In ver. 20 and 22, we have tho principal sentence : " Inas
much as Jesus (was made a surety) by an oath, insomuch was
he made a surety of a better covenant (or, insomuch is the
covenant, whose surety he was made, a better covenant.) There
are here (just as at chap. ii. ver. 18, also ver. 17, chap. iii. 3)
three members of a syllogism brought together in one sentence.
The idea expressed in a strictly logical form would run thus :
A covenant, whose surety has been made a surety by an oath,
is better than a covenant in which this is not the case. Now
Jesus was made such by an oath, but not so the Levitical priest.
Therefore, &c. The minor proposition implicitly contained in
ver. 20 and 22, is now further explained and confirmed by the
parenthesis in ver. 21. Let us first look at ver. 20 and .22.
Only the terms BtaO-qKi) and eyyva? need here any explana
tion. AiaOrjKv, from SiariOeaOat, has in classic Greek the
signification testament, last will; then also the further sig
nification contract ; hence also covenant, also foundation, insti
tution. If now we consider that the LXX. always renders
by SiaOr/Kr] the fully developed Old Testament religious idea
fYH!3? i* w^ De eyident tnat tne Greek Bia0r)Kv must also
have developed itself into a fixed dogmatical idea, and that,
consequently, whenever the word occurs in a religious con
nexion in the writings of Jews and Christians, we must, as a
matter of course, take it in this sense as = ]"VH2> covenant. It
may appear as if the context imperiously forbids this interpreta
tion in the passage before us. This, however, is by no means
the case ; on the contrary, the mention of a surety is strongly in
favour of the rendering by " covenant," and against that by
" testament." For, it is nowhere the custom for a testator to
appoint a surety for the actual fulfilment of his last will; he
himself is the surety for this, if, of course, he does not retract his
will before his death, and he gives no security that he will not

234 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
do this. On the other hand, when two parties enter into a
covenant-agreement, in which the one party binds himself to an
act which is not to be performed till some future time, there is
then some reason in his appointing a surety who may give secu
rity in his person that the thing promised shall be truly and
rightly performed. Luther, Bohme, Bleek, &c, would hardly
have allowed themselves to be misled into the rendering " testa
ment," had they not believed that the signification " covenant "
would not correspond with a subsequent passage of this epistle
(ix. 16), as, indeed, Bleek ii. p. 390, has quite frankly con
fessed. We must, however, interpret our passage in the sense
in which alone every reader could understand it, who reads the
epistle onwards from the beginning, and not in the reverse way.
We will then have to deal with the subsequent passage in its
proper place.
"Eyyvo<;, denom. from 677111; sponsio, signifies sponsor, fide
jussor. Christ is called a surety here, not because he had stood
before God as surety (that is, as the vicarious fulfiller of that
which men ought to have performed), so Calov, Gerhard,
Cramer, &c, but (so Schlichting, Grotius, Olshausen, &c),
because God on his part gave him to the human race as a surety
for the actual fulfilment of his covenant promise. For this, and
this alone, is what is spoken of in the context. Because God
has made him a surety by an oath, he is therefore the surety of
a better covenant. (Comp. the similar idea in chap. vi.
17, 18, where it is said that God himself interposed as fide
jussor between himself and men.) — The author here, with good
reason, calls Jesus not aeairvt, but 677110?. From the fact,
that God confirmed with an oath the promise that he would
send a mediator or founder of a coA'enant, it follows only that
such a mediator would come, and that such a covenant would, in
general, take place, but not that this covenant has already taken
place, and will continue for ever. Has God sworn, on the other
hand, that he will appoint a surety ? — i.e., a guarantee for the
maintenance of the covenant — the permanent validity of the
covenant itself has been thereby guaranteed. — In how far God
has promised to appoint a surety for the everlasting maintenance
of the covenant to be established,is now shown in the parenthesis,
ver. 21: The subject is 01 p,ev b Se, the Levitical priest and

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS A'll. 235
Jesus. The Messiah, Jesus, has been made priest (comp. vi. 16
ss.) by an oath of God — i.e., God promised and swore that the
Messiah should be a priest according to the order of Melchisedec.
The descendants of Aaron were constituted priests in quite a
different way, namely, in consequence, and by means of the
carrying out of a simple, ordinary, legal command. If, then,
God has, by that promise on oath, sworn that a priest-king after
the order of Melchisedec (consequently eternal, comp. ver. 1 — 3,
and ver. 17), should stand as representative between him and the
people, he has thereby clearly promised, not merely one who shall
set up a covenant, but one who shall set up and everlastingly
maintain the covenant — a surety.
Ver. 23 — 25. As the superiority of the new covenant is mani
fest in the appointment of a surety by an oath, so also does it
further appear in what is closely connected with this, — the
unchangeableness of the New Testament priest as compared with
the change of the Levitical priests. Ver. 23 — 25 is, in its
position as well as in its form (oi piiv — 6 Se — ), parallel with ver.
21 ; ver. 21 contains a first, ver. 23 — 25 a second illustration of
what is said in ver. 22 : that Jesus is the surety of a better
covenant. — 01 ptev — o Si is again the subject. jEtcrt yeyovbres is
the copula of ol pev, while lepeh is predicate, and ifkeioves a more
special determination of the subject. (Not : they were made
several priests, but : they, as being more than one, were made
priests, i.e. they were made priests in their plurality.) The
author does not, however, allude here to the circumstance, that
cotemporarily with the high priest there were also a number of
subordinate priests ; he has, up to this point, taken no notice of
this difference between the ordinary priests and the high priests,
but rather views the entire Levitical priesthood (the lepmavvv,
ver. 11) as a whole, in comparison with the priesthood of Melchi
sedec, although, of course, all that is said of the Levitical
priesthood applies also and pre-eminently to the Levitical high
priest. For this very reason, however, the 7rXetove? here refers
not to those several priests who existed simultaneously with the
high priest, but (as appears from the words Sid to KmXveaOai,
&c.)-to the successive plurality of priests who followed one another
(and chiefly high priests.) The priesthood of Christ, on the
contrary, is, according to ver. 1 — 3 and ver. 17, dirapdBaros,

236 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII.
such as cannot pass to a successor, because he ever lives. On
the one side, we see the weakness of mortality, on the other, the
power of an endless life ; comp. what is said in ver. 16.
From this now proceeds the inference ver. 25, that Christ,
because he ever lives, is able to save to the uttermost all who come
to the Father through him. .Et? rb rravreXk does not signify
" evermore," but " to completeness," i.e. perfectly ; it forms, both
in its etymology and its place in the context, the precise antithesis
to the words ver. 19, the law made nothing perfect. There is still
another inference drawn from thp ever liveth ; Christ is therefore
able to make intercession for them. (.Et? c. inf. need not be
understood in a final sense, comp. 2 Cor. viii. 6 ; Rom. vi. 12 ;
Winer Gramm. § 45, 6.) 'Evrvyxdveiv is a genuine Pauline
term, comp. Rom. viii. 34 ; to appear in the stead of another, in
order to represent his interests, at the same time taking upon
one's self his guilt.
In ver. 26 — 27 the author proceeds, now in conclusion, to state
what was properly the material difference between Christ and the
Levitical priesthood, inasmuch as he shows, wherein lay the ovSev
ereXeimaev of the one, and the et? rb iravreXi'} of the other. He
states in a concise and condensed form the principal points of
difference between the person and the office of both high priests,
and thus the difference between the two covenants.
Kal eirpeirev, he says, and thus ver. 26, 27 connects itself
with ver. 24, 25, in the same way as ver. 15 — 17 with ver. 14.
As, in ver. 14, the fact ofthe non-Levitical descent of Jesus was
laid down, and in ver. 15 — 17 the christological necessity for
this, so in ver. 24, 25, the fact of the singularity and perfection
of the New Testament high priest is stated, while in ver. 26, 27
the soteriological necessity for such an high priest is declared.
It had been shown in chap. v. 1 — 10 that Christ, by taking
part in human infirmity, was an high priest— that he had this
similarity to the Levitical high priest. Here, it is shown, that,
for the same end, the representation of men before God, he must
also at the same time be different from the Levitical high priests,
namely sinless. This sinlessness is expressed, however, by a
series of attributes all of which are to be explained from the
antithesis with the Levitical high-priesthood. The Levitical
high priest was also all that is here predicated of Christ ; he was,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VI I. 237
however, not perfectly, not truly so, but only in a symbolical
way, and therefore imperfectly. The high priest bore upon the
plate on his forehead the inscription Holiness to the Lord (Ex.
xxxix. 30), he was, however, not truly holy, but had holiness in
himself only in that symbol. Christ, on the other hand, was truly
and inwardly holy ; this is expressed by oaio<; ; for otrto? forms
the antithesis to " sinful" (while 0710?, as we saw before, is opposed
to " profane.") The Levitical high priest, farther, was, only as
a sinless person, qualified for bringing the blood of the sacrifice
of atonement into the holiest of all for the people ; he was, how
ever, not sinless, but required first to atone for his own sins by a
sacrifice (Lev. xvi. 2 — 14), and this atonement too was no real
one, but only symbolical, typical. Christ, on the contrary, was
truly o/ea/co?, therefore (comp. ver. 27) he needed not -first to
offer for himself. The Levitical high priest must, thirdly, be
undefiled and pure in order to be able to represent the people
before God; he was, howeA-er, not inwardly immaculate and
pure, but had only the outward symbolical representation of
purity, the Levitical purity. Christ, on the contrary, was
inwardly and truly undefiled. The Levitical high priest required,
finally, to be ever on his guard, lest by contact with one who
was Levitically unclean he should himself become unclean, and
therefore had always to keep at a distance from such, Lev. xxi.
22, especially xxi. 12. Nay, the Talmud ordains (tract. Jomah
i. 1), that, for seven days before the sacrifice of atonement, he
must refrain from all intercourse with his family. This separation
was, however, again only outward. Christ, on the contrary, in
his intercourse with sinners remained inwardly free from all par
ticipation in their sinfulness, inwardly untouched by its contagion ;
notwithstanding that he mingled with men in all their varieties
of character and situation, he yet never let drop, for a moment,
that inner veil of chaste holiness which separated him from
sinners. This is what is meant by the expression separate from
sinners (Theophylact, Calvin, Gerhard, Michaelis, Storr, Boehme,
Kuinoel, Olshausen, &c), which need not therefore (with
Grotius, Bengel, Tholuck, Bleek, &c.) be made to refer to Christ's
departure from the world, i.e. to his ascension, which comes first
to be spoken of in* a subsequent place. (Besides, his being
separate from men after the ascension, would form no parallel with

238 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
the separation of the Levitical high priest before the day of the
sacrifice of atonement.) Not till the very last, is his exaltation
above all heavens adduced as a sealing proof that he was holy,
sinless, undefiled, and uncontaminated by the sin of the race, —
that exaltation in which, as is then shown in chap, viii., his high-
priestly work completed itself.
Ver. 27. The inner difference of his person showed itself also
in the form and manner of his functions. The principal idea of
ver. 27 hes in the words : " whoneedeth not daily as those high
priests to offer up sacrifice. For this he did once." It is clear that
the this here refers to the principal idea, the offering up sacrifice,
and cannot refer, at the same time, to the words first for his oion
sins. There is, however, a subordinate idea inserted into that
principal idea, namely, that Christ did not need to offer first for
his own sins, ere he offered for those of the people. A twofold
difference, then, is found to exist between his priestly service and
that of the Levitical high priest. First, and chiefly in this, that
Christ offered only once, whereby he has, once for all, ver. 25, et?
rb iravreXh saved all who come to God by him, while the Le
vitical high priests always atoned only for one generation, and
this always but for a year, and this only typically. Secondly in
this, that he needed not first to offer for his own sins-
A difficulty hes in the statement, that the high priests offered
daily. For, the comparison with the atoning sacrifice of Christ
offered once seems to require that, here also, in reference to the
high priests, we should understand the yearly — not daily — great
sacrifice of atonement as meant, and so it would be really doubly
unsuitable to take ol dpxiepeh here in the weakened sense =
oi lepeh ; doubly unsuitable, as precisely here, for the first time, the
author uses this expression. Two solutions of this difficulty have
been attempted. Some have understood either, the daily incense
offering (Ex. xxx. 6, s.) which the high priest had to present —
but with this the expression Ovaia will not at all correspond ;
or (as Gerhard, Calov, Michaelis, Bleek, Tholuck, &c.) the daily
burnt offering (Ex. xxix. 38 — 42 ; Num. xxviii. 3) — this, how
ever, was not brought by the high priest, although (according to
Jos. bell. Jud. v. 5, 7) he might sometimes voluntarily take part
in this offering, namely, on the new moons and Sabbaths ; the
expression KaO' rjpiepav, however, would still be unsuitable, (One

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII. 239
might rather suppose that the author intends to oppose to the
one offering of Christ, not merely the oft-repeated offerings of the
sacrifice of atonement, but also the various kinds of offerings — if
only oi dpxiepeh did not stand here.) Others (as Schlichting,
Piscator, Olshausen) are for taking KaO' t)p,ipav in the signification
die statuto (= once every year), or else in a weakened signifi
cation (= frequently). The former will certainly hot do ; had
the author intended to express the definite idea that the high
priest brought the offering yearly on a certain day, he would have
said (as at chap. ix. 25, x. 1 — 3) Kaf iviavrbv. On the other
hand, I do not see what well-grounded objection can be brought
against Bengel's view that our author here — where nothing
depended on the bringing into view the length of time that inter
vened between each day of atonement, but where all the emphasis
lies merely on the repetition of that sacrifice — should have used
the somewhat hyperbolical expression «o0' r/piepav " one day after
the other." Looking back on a series of centuries, he fixes his
eye merely on a successive series of days, upon which the high
priests again and again brought the appointed sacrifice. He takes
no notice of the intervening days. Enough, that " day after day"
such sacrifices were offered. In one word, the author intends
here not to measure but to count. He does not lay before him
the calender of the days in the year, and inquire upon what
days an atonement festival fell, and how many days intervened
between each, but he sets before him the immense number of
days on which these fasts were observed, and lays stress upon
this, that on one such day after the other the high priest must
offer the sacrifice. (In like manner Olshausen.) He treats
these days, in other words, as a discrete, not as a concrete quan
tity.! So might a teacher say to an unruly pupil : " day after day"
or " day by day I must punish you," without meaning by this,
that he is wont, regularly every day at a certain hour, to punish
him, but only, that, again and again, punishments are necessary,
although not merely the Sundays, but, now and then, whole
weeks should intervene between them. So much, at any rate,
is beyond all doubt, that our author did not say KaO' r/piepav
from any ignorance of the law ; for, in chap. ix. 7 (where he
expressly distinguishes the yearly service in the holiest of
all from the daily service in the sanctuary), he himself mentions,
that the sacrifice of atonement was brought once in the year.

240 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VII.
How far the once offered sacrifice of Christ was to consist in
this — that he offered himself eavr'dv rrpoaeviyKas — is explained
in the following principal part of our epistle, so that we do not
need here to anticipate what is there said on this question by any
subjective reasonings of our own.
Ver. 28 is a concluding explanation, but, at the same time
also, a recapitulation ofthe whole of our third principal part.
As an explanation and further development of what goes before,
this verse connects itself (by means of an explicative ydp) with
vers. 26, 27, the connecting link being the idea, that through the
oath of promise the Son of God was made an high priest for ever.
It is, however, a recapitulation of the whole part, in virtue of
the antithesis implicitly contained in it between b vbpio<s and o
X070? tt}? bpicmptoaia<i.
Meanwhile it may be asked, whether ver. 28 is really a reca
pitulation of chaps, v. — vii., or merely of chap. vii. This verse is
generally so understood as that the words 6 vbpo<sydp .... daOi-
veiav refer to the Levitical priests, and accordingly, that something
is here declared of the law as no longer valid, as abrogated by and
for Christ, consequently, that we have only a repetition of what is
said chap. vii. 11 — 19. The idea would be as follows : The (no
longer valid) Mosaical law could make no better high priests than
men encompassed with infirmity ; on the contrary, by the promise,
Ps. ex., a better high priest has been appointed, namely, the for ever
perfected Son (scil. of God as at chap. i. 1 ss.) But there are
serious objections against this interpretation. If this were the
author's idea, he would then, in the first place, deny here what
he himself had formerly maintained and taught chap. iv. 15 ; vii.
5 — 10, namely, that Jesus also was encompassed with infirmity.
And, in addition to this, we are by no means warranted in under
standing by daOiveia here the imperfection of the Levitical
priesthood, thus giving it a different signification from what it
has in chap. iv. The solution given by Bleek is preferable to
this, that in this passage Christ is regarded only in his state of
exaltation in which he had laid aside the daOiveia ; as the one
who had ascended into heaven, as the perfected one, there is no
necessity for him to repeat his sacrifice. Meanwhile, — not to
mention that the author had he meant to say this must of neces
sity have said it more plainly,— it would, even then, not be in
accordance with his teaching elsewhere; since, according to

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VII. 241
chap. ix. 9—14 and 26, the sacrifice of Christ was a perfect one,
excluding all repetition, not in virtue of the exaltation which
followed it, and the laying aside of the daOiveia, but already in
virtue of its own quality. To this is to be added, that according
to this the common interpretation of our verse, the author would
not merely deny that Christ had infirmity, but, secondly, that he
was avOpmiro'i. For, he would plainly put the vlb<; (in the sense
of chap. i. 1) in opposition to the avOpmiro<;. I am of opinion,
therefore, that the whole verse must be taken in a different
sense. The author does not intend to deny that Jesus was an
apXiepeii? dv0parro<; mv Kal daOiveiav ex<nv ; but he takes it for
granted as known that Christ was both these things, on the one
hand, avOpmrros daOiveiav e^wv according to chap, v., and, on the
other, vto? TeTeXetca/ievo? et? rbv almva according to chap, vii.,
and he recapitulates both here, the fundamental idea of chap. v.
1 — 10, and the fundamental idea of chap. vii. 1 — 27. He shows
that Christ must have answered the requirements also ofthe law,
and in how far he must have done so. That the legal requirements
of Levitical descent, of daily sacrifice, &c, do not apply to
him, that in these respects he abrogated the law — this is
proven ; but one requirement of the law had an internal, an
everlasting validity, and, according to chap. v. 1 — 10, was
applicable also to the New Testament high priest, namely,
that he, as every high priest, must be a man having infirmity.
To this of humanity and infirmity was added, in the case of the
Messiah, a second requisite contained, not in the law, but in the
promise, Psalm ex., that he must also be a Son perfected for ever.
Thus, then, the words 6 vbpios . . . daOiveiav contain a conces
sion pointing back to chap. v. The idea is this : The law (in so
far as it has not been abrogated) requires of all high priests
(consequently also, of Jesus,) that they be men having infirmity ;
the word of promise, however, confirmed by an oath given after
the law and stretching far above it, constitutes the Son, who is
perfected for ever an high priest.
Thus understood the 28th verse therefore contains really a
recapitulation of the whole third part.

( 242 )

PAET FOURTH.

(Chap. viii. — x.)
THE MOSAIC TABERNACLE AND THE HEAVENLY SANCTUARY.
From the nature of the two covenants is now shown the
difference between their respective sanctuaries, their Xeirovpyiai,
and the result of their respective services. This, the last of the
theoretical parts, as it introduces us to the fifth practical part in
which all the rays from the hortatory parts are concentrated into
one focus, is not itself interrupted by an intervening exhortation,
as was the case with the three foregoing parts. And, as it does
not stand parallel with these three parts, but (as is expressly inti
mated in chap. viii. 1) is placed as a key-stone upon them, so also
the introduction to it does not run parallel with that of the fore
going parts, but is independent and peculiar. Our fourth part
divides itself into four sections. In a first introductory section,
chap, viii., it is shown, in general, that the two tabernacles, the
Mosaic and the heavenly, correspond to the two covenants. In a
second section, chap. ix. 1 — 11, the construction of the two
tabernales is compared, and it is shown how, in the Mosaic
tabernacle, there hes an imperfection in the separation of the
holy place from the holy of hohes. In the third section, chap.
ix. 11 — chap. x. 13, the two tabernacles are compared, a,— simi
larity : chap. ix. 15 ss., that for the fulfilment of the perfect
covenant in general, the death of Christ was necessary, — b, dissi
milarity : chap. ix. 25 — chap. x. 13, that this death was aperfect
sacrifice once offered, in opposition to the Old Testament animal
sacrifices. Finally, in the fourth section, chap. x. 14 — 39, the
result of these respective services is compared, and it is shown
how, by the offering of Christ, the perfect atonement and the
access to God in the spirit has been accomplished in a way
which renders all auxiliary means of any other kind superfluous.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 243
SECTION FIRST
(Chap, viii.)
THE TWO TABERNACLES CORRESPOND TO THE TWO COVENANTS
In chap. viii. 1, preparation is made for the theme which lies
in ver. 2. Ke<pdXatov Si is not to be taken as an apposition to the
whole sentence that follows ; it is better, as some do, to supply a
Xiym rovro (not an ian, as Bleek does, for then it must have been
to Ke<f>dXaiov). — Ke<pdXaiov, used for the classical expression
Ke<f>aXij, signifies sum, or also principal point. Either significa
tion will do here, provided that the rendering " sum " be not
understood of a recapitulation of former particular points (this
belongs rather to chap. vii. 28), but of an organic combination,
a product resulting from all that goes before ; and further, that
the rendering " principal point " be not understood of a particular
principal proposition which stands only side by side with the
former propositions (much less of a "principal thing" taken
from the ideas developed at the conclusion of chap, vii., upon
which, as a point of special importance, emphasis is again laid),
but of the principal point of the whole book, at which all the
former parts aimed. The meaning ofthe word is best and most
comprehensively rendered by the expression " key-stone." 'Eirl
rot? Xeyoptivovi means, besides, not " in what has been hitherto
said, under what has been hitherto said," (this or that is especially
important) ; but " to what has been hitherto said," (the author
will now add the key-stone.)
In the sentence toiovtov, &c, all the emphasis lies, of course,
on the words e'v Segifi tou Opbvov, &c. That Christ is such an
higli priest as has entered not into the earthly but into the heavenly
sanctuary ; or, as it is still more plainly repeated in ver. 2, fulfils
his service in the true tabernacle, — this new sentence, with its
further development in ver. 8 — 10, forms the key-stone of all
that has gone before. The two tabernacles, together with their
services, are forthwith compared.
What now are we to understand by the expression on the right
hand of the majesty iv the heavens ? Instead of occupying them-
Q2

244 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VIII.
selves here with dogmatical discussions on ubiquity or non-
ubiquity, the critics ought to have explained these words solely
from the antithesis. The O. T. high priest went into the earthly
holy of holies as ihe place where God revealed his presence. Still,
this revelation of the presence of God in the holiest of all, was
not such as if this compartment ofthe tent had been the true and
proper dwelling-place of God ; but only in gracious condescen
sion to the wants of men did God, by means of theophanies
and manifestations in the hght-cloud, consecrate this abode
as a place of his presence for men. The holy of hohes, therefore,
was not the place of God's presence in itself, but only the abode
of his presence for the Old Testament Israel, and therefore,
secondly, rather a place where God symbolically represented his
nearness than one in which he really was. For, the entire dis
tinction of profane places and holy places, the entire distinction
of world, fore-court, holy place, and holy of holies (as also the
separation of a particular people — Israel — from the rest of man
kind ; or, again, the separation of the Levites from Israel, or of
the Aaronites from Levi) — all this rested on the real truth, that
God could not yet in truth dwell with men, because sin and the
power of sin as yet hindered him from revealing himself among,
and in, and before men, as he can already reveal himself in the
sphere of the angels, and of the just made perfect, in that heaven
where his will is perfectly fulfilled (Matt. vi. 10.) And there
fore, thirdly, this same holy of hohes, in which the nearness of
God was emblematically represented, was, at the same time also,
an emblematical representation of the distance of God from men.
The need of a special place, where God revealed his presence,
intimated that he was, in general, as yet separated from men.
(Comp. with this John iv. 21 — 24.) This was the holy of holies
into which the high priest might enter once every year, and in
which he was not permitted to abide, but must immediately
again leave it. In opposition to this, Christ has, a, sat down on
the throne of the majesty on high ; in him (comp. Heb. ii. 9)
man has entered on the everlasting, abiding enjoyment of the
presence of God; the state of separation, of banishment from
God in which man was before, is now done away with ; God
is there in heaven truly present to man, because man is present
to him, and thereby has a beginning been made upon earth of

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 245
the real presence of God. b, Christ has sat down at the right
hand of the throne of the divine majesty ; he has not appeared
before God, like the Levitical priests, as a poor sinner who must
draw near to the presence of the divine majesty — even its
symbolical representation — only with fear and trembling, but so,
as that he himself fully participates in the divine majesty and
dominion.1 c, Christ has not entered into that symbolical holy
of holies, where God represented quite as much his distance
from men as his presence with them, and the latter only as a
presence for men (more particularly for Isreal), but into that
sphere where God, without hindrance or limit, really reveals
before the sinless angels his entire being, and the entire presence
not merely of his world-governing omnipotence, but of his whole
being manifested on all sides.
This universal view which we thus take of the idea in the
words before us, shows us, now already, that we must regard the
expression to sit down on the right hand of the throne as figura
tive = enter on an abiding participation in the sovereign autho
rity of any one, and that the author did not entertain the crude
conception (as has most recently been laid to his charge by the
young Hegelians), that a throne stands in the heaven, with a place
on the right hand and on the left ! Such a conception would in
deed be in direct contradiction to the ground-idea of the author,
who makes the divine element of the New Testament high
priesthood to consist in this, that Christ has done away with the
limitations of place and time. Carefully, however, as we are
here to guard against a crass materialistic exegesis, we must
equally beware of a false spiritualistic exegesis in the explanation
of the ovpavol, as if the heaven were the mere absence of space,
and the state of being above or beyond space regarded as an at-
1 The more recent deniers of the divinity of Christ, though they
maintain that " nothing is to be found in the Bible about the divinity
of Christ,'' are yet wont at least to acknowledge with the Socinians,
that the exalted Christ participates in the Godhead according to the
doctrine of the holy Scripture ! But he who acknoAvledges so much
must, if he will not give up all claim to the name of a rational being, also
acknowledge the eternal divinity of the Incarnate. For that a finite,
created being should take part in the world-governing dominion of the
Omnipotent and Omnipresent — this were indeed the very climax of
unreason.- An absolute being can limit itself, becauseit is absolute and
its own lord; but a finite being can not be made absolute.

246 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VIII.
tribute of God. That this is never denoted by Qift© we have
already seen at chap. i. 3. The heaven is that sphere of the
creation in which the will of God is perfectly done (Matt. vi. 10),
and where no sin hinders Him from the full and adequate reve
lation of Himself. Into that sphere of the world of space has
Christ ascended, as the first-fruits of glorified humanity, in
order to bring us thither after him (chap. ii. 10).
Ver. 2. The principal idea of ver. 1 is now repeated with
more distinctness, in the form of an apposition to the subject of
iKaOiaev, and, therewith, the proper theme of the fourth part for
mally laid down. Christ has sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty, as one who (in this) completes the service in the trae
sanctuary and the true tabernacle. Tmv dyimvis, of course, not to
be taken (with Oecumenius, Schulz, Paulus, &c), as gen. plur.
masculine (Christ a servant of the saints), but as gen. plur.
neut., and ra dyia does not signify (as Luther and others render
it), " the holy possessions," but (as at chap. ix. 8, 12, and 24,
s. ; chap. x. 19; chap. xiii. 11) "the holy place," or specially
the "holy of holies," (Theophylact, Erasmus, Calvin, Bleek,
Tholuck, and the most). As the author wished to place the ad
jective oXtt0ivo? after the noun, for the sake of the emphasis, he
could only make it to agree in ease and number with ovctivt}? ;
in respect of the sense, twv dXvOtvmv is to be supplied also at
rmv dyimv (Bleek, &c.) A similar use of the adjective is made
also in German, with the exception that it is placed • before the
noun. " Ein Diener des wahrhaften Heiligthums und der (scil.
wahrhaften) Hiitte."
The trae sanctuary, the place where God is really and truly
united with men, is " not made with men's hands." That tent,
covered with curtains and skins, cannot, of course, be the place
where heaven and earth are united.
In Ver. 3 — 4 the author now adduces the first argument, to
prove that the sanctuary into which Christ entered is the true
sanctuary, and different from the tabernacle of Moses. The
steps in the reasoning logically arranged are the following : — A,
Only the Aaronitic priests were qualified and permitted to offer
sacrifice in the Mosaic tabernacle. Christ being not an Aaronite
could not offer there. B, But he must offer (somewhere and
something), because every high priest must offer sacrifice. Con-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VIII. 247
sequently, he needed another tabernacle than that of Moses, (the
only one that existed on earth). The author now, however,
(just as at chap. vii. 15 — 17), passes forthwith from the thesis to
the second and more remote member of the proof (B), and then
brings in after it the first member of the proof, in the form of an
explanation (of how far there lies in B an argument in proof of
the thesis). The idea, therefore, takes this form : Thesis : Christ
is minister in the true (namely heavenly) tabernacle. Argu
ment: For every high priest must offer sacrifice; therefore, Christ
also must offer. (Supple : from this follows, however, the above
thesis, that Christ needed another tabernacle ;) for, had he been
priest in that earthly tabernacle, he would then have been no
priest, as there were already priests there, who brought their of
ferings in conformity with the law.
The words in detail have no difficulty. Ampa re Kal Ovaiai
as a general designation of the offerings, we had already at chap.
v. 2. The author does not, of course, say of Christ that it was
necessary for him to bring Bmpa re Kal Ovaiai, different kinds of
offerings, but only that he must have somewhat to offer.
Ver. 5. Although grammatically connected with ver. 4 by a
otrtve? (which, however, may be well enough rendered by " and
these"), ver. 5 contains an independent idea, a new argument for
the thesis ver. 2, so stated as that this thesis itself, only in a more
definite form, is first repeated (the tabernacle in which the
Levitical priests served is called an image and shadow of the
heavenly things), and then the passage Ex. xxv. 40 is adduced
as a new argument for the inferiority of the Mosaic tabernacle.
Aarpeveiv with the dative of the person whom one serves is
frequent ; it more rarely occurs with the dative of the thing in
which one serves (besides this passage comp. chap. xiii. 10.) To
take the dative in an instrumental signification would yield no
sense. The Levitical high priests served in a tabernacle which
was an emblem and shadow of the heavenly things. "Ayia is not
(with Bleek and others) to be supplied at to irvovpdvia ; the
author has evidently rather, on purpose and with good reason,
avoided placing a heavenly tabernacle in opposition to the earthly.
True, in ver. 2, where in stating the thesis he wished to make an
evident antithesis, he spoke of a " true tabernacle," a " true
sanctuary ;" from that place onwards, however, he avoids with

248 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII.
intentional care every expression wliich might have led to the
conception of a local sanctuary in heaven. Also in chap, ix., he
again sets in opposition to the " holy places made with hands "
only " the heavenly things " an'd " the things in the heavens,"
ver. 23. And, moreover, the whole reasoning in chap. ix. shows,
that he considered as the archetype of the tabernacle not heavenly
localities, but heavenly relations and heavenly facts. (The holy
hfe of Christ, in his state of humiliation, is the heavenly sanctuary
through which Christ must pass ; the rending of his body is the
rending of the vail that separates him from the holiest of all, &c.
Comp. below on chap. ix. 11, and on chap. x. 20.) Now, to
these heavenly relations and facts of salvation the Mosaic taber
nacle stands in the relation of a viroSevypui and aKid. The verb
from which virbSetypta is derived, viroSeiKvvp,i, has two significa
tions ; first, it signifies to show something privately to any
one, to let something be seen in an underhand way, hence virb-
Seiypia, a private sign, secret token, and, in general, a mark
or token ; secondly, it signifies also to illustrate something by
examples, to draw from a pattern, to copy, hence virbSeiypia, a
copy, or also (in the profane writers as well as in Heb. iv. 11)
= irapdSeiypia image, model, example. In this passage, however, .
it has not the less proper signification of image in the sense oirrapd-
Sevypia, model, pattern, but the proper signification of copy, so that
it was not the Mosaic tabernacle that was the rrapdSetypia (the
original from wliich the copy was taken), but the heavenly things.
The same idea lies in aKid, but in a still stronger form. The
shadow of a body represents not even a proper image of it, but
only the colojurless contour.
Now, that the Mosaic tabernacle was not an original but the
copy of a heavenly original, the author proves from Ex. xxv. 40.
In Ex. xxv. 40 Moses is told to build the tabernacle according
to the ]-p22]"l> tnat 1SJ pl°tn (not model, comp. Is. xliv. 13, where,
ver. 13, the draught is first sketched, and then, ver. 14, the wood
is sought for completing it ; also 2 Kings xvi. 10 ; 1 Chron.
xxviii. 11, where the signification "plan, sketch," is perfectly
suitable, better certainly than the signification " model") —
according to the plan which God showed to him in the mount.
These words already lead (as j-p^Ufi never denotes an indepen
dent original building, but always only apian on a small scale by

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 249
which one to be guided in the construction — and, even according
to the common false explanation of the term, only a model in
miniature) — these words, I say, already lead, not to the conception
that there had been shown to Moses on Mount Sinai a large real
tabernacle ; still less, can the author's opinion of Ex. xxAr. 40 be,
that the original of the tabernacle stands permanently on Mount
Sinai (as later Rabbins fabled), and least of all, that Moses looked
forth into the heaven from the top of Sinai, and saw there in
heaven the original structure. Either the words in Ex. xxv. 40
are to be taken as a figurative expression (so that the description in
words, Ex. xxv. 4 ss., was called figuratively a plan which had
been shown to Moses), or, there was really shown to Moses in a
prophetic vision the draught of a building (comp. Ex. xxvi. 30)
but still a draught or plan which, beyond his vision, had no
existence. — The question now presents itself, whether our author
understood the passage in this, the right way, or whether he
misunderstood it after the manner of the later Rabbins. Now,
it is first of all to be observed, that there are throughout no
positive intimations that might necessitate our adopting this
latter supposition. The whole reasoning retains its full force on
the supposition, that he rightly understood the passage in ques
tion. The heavenly things themselves (the New Testament
facts of salvation which were dehneated in the tabernacle) were,
indeed, not shown to Moses, but only a plan according to which
he was to build that hypodeigmatic tabernacle, and he had as
yet no consciousness of the prophetical signification of this build
ing. But, indeed, the force of the author's reasoning depends in
nowise on whether Moses understood the typical signification of
the tabernacle or not. Enough, that Moses himself did not make
or invent the plan of the tabernacle, enough, that God gave him
the plan — God, who knew well the symbolical signification of
this plan. That the plan for the tabernacle was given by God
— in this circumstance hes the nerve of the argument ; for this
reason is the Mosaic tabernacle a reflection of heavenly thoughts,
ideas, relations.1
1 Faber, Stapulensis, Rivet, Schlichting, Storr, and Bleek, go still
farther, and suppose even, that our author did not at all understand the
word twtos in the sense of ground-plan or model, hut in the sense of
copy, and that his object was expressly to say, that the model which
was shown to Moses was itself the only copy of the true iirovpdvia.

250 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VIIL
But further, there are even distinct reasons at hand for reject
ing the supposition, that the author conceived of an original
tabernacle standing permanently in heaven, or on Mount Sinai.
If he had conceived of this as in heaven, then he must either
have said more plainly, Moses was permitted to look forth into
the heaven from Mount Sinai, or he must have said more plainly
(comp. the remarks above) : that which Moses saw on Sinai was
itself again only a copy of the heavenly original. If, however,
he conceived of this as standing on Mount Sinai, then this
tabernacle would not have been iirovpdvia, but iirl tt}? tt}?, which
was precisely denied in ver. 4. But that neither of these fantas
tic ideas had any place in the mind of the author, appears most
evidently from the ninth chapter. If the separation of a holy of
hohes from a holy place is there expressly represented as an
, imperfection, in which the Mosaic tabernacle is distinguished from
the heavenly original, — how, in all possibility, can the author
have regarded that model shown to Moses — which corresponded
with the Mosaic tabernacle even in the minutest detail, and
therefore had also a holy place separated from the holy of hohes
— as that heavenly original itself? So much then is beyond all
doubt — that those heavenly things, which in the Mosaic taber
nacle were dehneated in a faint shadow-sketch, did not them
selves, according to our author's view, consist of a locality, a
tabernacle with skins, curtains, fore-courts, holy place, and holy
of hohes.
" Thus, then, the force of the reasoning in ver. 5 hes in reality
only in the negative circumstance, that the tabernacle was not
an independent original, but was built according to a pattern
given by God, the object of which, therefore, must have been
symbolically to represent divine ideas.
In ver. 6 the thesis, contained in ver. 2 and repeated in a more
modified form in the beginning of ver. 5, is once more repeated,
and this time in a form still more complete ; so, namely, that
not merely the two ideas contained in ver. 2 and ver. 5 are
united, but a third is added. In ver. 2 it was said positively :
Accordingly, he intends to represent the tabernacle as the copy of a
copy. This, however, could hardly be justified on exegetical grounds.
The author would assuredly have expressed this idea more distinctly.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS ArIH. 251
Christ is minister in the true tabernacle, in ver. 5 negatively :
the Levitical high priests served in a tabernacle which was only
an image and shadow. Now, in ver. 6 it is said : the ministry
of Christ is more glorious (than that of the Levitical high priests),
and in so much more glorious as the new covenant is more glorious
(than the old.) Here, therefore, not merely are the two Xeirovp-
yiai compared with each other, but they are, moreover, placed
parallel with the two Bia0iJKat<;. Thus ver. 6 forms the proper
thesis of the entire fourth part, and vers. 1 — 5 serves only as a
preparatory introduction to this thesis. As the author in ver. 6
not merely combines the ideas in vers. 1 — 5, but, at the same
time, also passes to a new idea, to the comparison of the services
with the covenants, he has therefore connected ver. 6 with ver.
5, not by a particle of inference, but by a particle of progress
sion (vvvl Se.)
In respect of form, ver. 6 has the greatest resemblance to
chap. i. 4. Here, as there, the comparatives Kpeirrmv and Sia-
<popdnepo<; are used in the comparison of what belongs to the
Old Testament with what belongs to the New. Instead of Xet-
rovpyia the author might, by all maans, have put aKvvr], but,
as has already been observed at ver. 5, he henceforth industriously
avoids placing a heavenly tabernacle in opposition to the Mosaic
tabernacle. The ground-idea of ver. 6 then is this, that the ministry of
the Levitical priests in the Mosaic tabernacle stands related to
the minstry of Christ in the heavenly things precisely as the old
covenant does to the new. In what the old covenant is excelled
by the new, we are informed in the relative clause -t/tk, which
finds farther explanation in vers. 7 — 12. This explanation, a.t
the same time, already contains the idea, that the old covenant
was destined to vanish and to be replaced by the new. This idea
is then in ver. 13 formally expressed as an inference. Does the
Levitical priestly service in the temple bear the same relation
to the ministry of Christ (according to ver. 6) as the old coven
ant bears to the new, and again, is the old covenant (according
to ver. 13) to be abrogated by the new — in this hes already
implicite the final inference (which is then in chap. ix. — x.
explicitly developed in detail), that the Levitical temple service

252 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII.
is in like manner abrogated, rendered superfluous by the ministry
of Christ, as the old covenant by the new.
So much on the train of thought in general. Let us look
now, first of all, at the relative clause: tjtk iifi Kpeirroaiv
iirayyeXiai<} vevoptoOirvrai. NopioOereiv, here evidently in the
wider sense = to establish, to enact authoritatively ; for that the
new covenant also has to do with the giving of a law is expressly
shown in vers. 8 — 12. The new covenant is founded on better
promises; for (comp. vers. 9, 10) the old covenant promised
salvation and blessing only to him who perfectly fulfilled the
law ; the new covenant, on the other hand, gives first before it
asks. Ver. 7 serves, first of all, to obviate an objection that might
arise in the minds of the readers at ver. 6. They were wont to
consider Moses, and the covenant of God with Moses, as the
proper and most sacred kernel of the Israehtish true rehgion.
Had not the Messiah himself, according to their view, been pro
mised and given precisely to the members of the Mosaic covenant
people ! Now, to say that this covenant of God with Moses was
lowered in value by another Covenant, must have appeared to
them as almost frivolous. Therefore the author explains to
them, that he is at liberty to depreciate, nay, to find fault with
the old covenant, and why he is so. " If that first covenant
had been faultless, then there had been no room for desiring a
second." This was certainly the author's idea, but instead of
saying ovk dv rbiro<; ¦tjv tov %r)retv Sevripav, he has with uncon
scious conciseness (or by blending the two ideas : ovk dv fjv
rbiro<; and ovk dv it,vreiTo Sevrepa) joined totto? also with
i^vreiTO as the object. (The explanation of Bleek and others is not
natural : then God would have had no need to seek in the hearts
of men a better place for his covenant than was the place on the
tables of stone. Equally unnatural is Olshausen's " to7tov Ttvo?
§riTetv = to will that something should take place.") — The turn
of the thought in general is quite parallel with that in chap. vii.
ver. 11 (and ver. 18.) As in that place, from the established
fact that a new and different high priest is promised, the infer
ence is drawn that the old high priesthood must have been
insufficient (and similarly at vii. 18 of the law), so here, from the

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 253
fact that God — as is shown explanatorily in vers. 8 — 12 — has
promised a new covenant it is inferred, that the old covenant
was ovk dpepyirro<;.
The meaning of this ovk aptepvirTos is well explained in the
expressions used in quite a similar way in chap. vii. 18, daOevh Kal
ovoxpeXe?. The author does not mean to find fault Avith the old
Mosaic covenant as being not of divine origin, or, although con
stituted by God as being insufficient even for its relative object,
and unwisely framed ; he only means, that it lies open to the
charge of being faulty, when human folly, contrary to the divine
purpose, gives it out as being everlastingly sufficient, while yet
God himself, inasmuch as he has promised to give a new, another
covenant, has thereby declared the old one to be imperfect. It
is, therefore, not the author, nor generally speaking a man who
presumed to find fault with the old covenant, but God himself
has found fault with it. (Comp. the repeated Xe7et Kvpio<;, ver. 8
and 9. It was not the word of Jeremiah, but the word of the
Lord to Jeremiah.)
Ver. 8 — 12. The author in these verses cites the passage in
which God has promised a new and a different covenant, and
thereby has found fault with the old covenant (not as one that
was not divine, or not wise, but as insufficient and destined to
cease). The passage is in Jer. xxxi. 31 — 34, The author quotes
literally from the Sept., and the rendering of the Sept. is right. —
In the whole of the Old Testament no passage is to be found in
which the view is expressed more clearly and distinctly, that the
law was only a rraiSa-ymyb^, than in this. And, if some commen
tators have thought that in this passage no fault is found with
the old covenant itself, but only with the Israelites, they merely
show by this, that they have not understood the simple sense of
the passage. It is true, that fault is found with the Israelites
who " abode not in the covenant (of Moses) ;" but when the Lord
is induced by this consideration to determine, that he will frame
a different covenant, in which he will write the law not upon
tables of stone but on the hearts of his people, he surely
acknowledges thereby expressly and clearly, that a part of the
fault belonged also to the old covenant. (In like manner Ols
hausen. Comp. also our explanation of the passage chap. iv. 2,

254 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS VIII.
in which we encounter a similar misunderstanding on the part of
the critics.)
The train of thought in the passage Jer. xxxi. 31 — 34 is as
follows. A first principal idea lies in the words t'Soii .... 7^?
Atyvirrov. The Lord announces to his people, that he will, at a
future time, make a new covenant with them, ver. 8. He calls
this covenant new, however, not in the sense of its being only a
confirmatory renewal of the old covenant, but in precise and
express opposition to the covenant which was made on their
removal from Egypt, it is to be a new covenant not merely nume
rically, but qualitatively (ver. 9, ov Kara .... iKyr}'; Aiyvirrov).
Then follows a second principal idea (on avrol ovk .... eaovrai
pot eh Xaov). We are now told what it was that was imperfect
in the old covenant, and why there was need of a new covenant,
and wherein this should be different from the old. The prin
cipal imperfection of the old covenant hes in its inefficacy, which
has been demonstrated by actual experience. The cause of this
is to be traced not merely to the Israehtes not continuing in that
covenant, but to the mutual relation that subsisted between the
people and their God, which is expressed in the two members :
they continued not, fyc, and I regarded them not. The people, on
their part, remained not in the covenant, fulfilled not the com
mands enjoined as the condition of the covenant, and God, on
his part, punished the people, inasmuch as after, and in conse
quence of, the transgressions, he accepted them no more. The
conduct of God regulated itself then according to the conduct of
men. God first demanded before he gave ; he first imposed his
commands without regard to the capacity and power of men ;
then he rejected the people because they fulfilled not these com
mands. (It needs not, of course, to be shown here for the first
time, how wise this stage of legal enactment in the training of
Israel was, how necessary it was in order to awaken the know
ledge of the infirmities of sin. Nor does our author deny that it
was necessary for its time. But he proves from this announce
ment of God himself to Jeremiah, that this stage was only a
preparatory one, which could not confer blessedness and brought
no perfection.) It is different with the new covenant which God
promises to make Qi^^n WD\ In tins covenant God will not

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII. 255
write his law outwardly, as a cold requirement, on tables of stone,
but he will write it in the hearts and in the minds of his people;
he will, therefore, first give to the people and then ask from
them ; he will first give them a new heart, a regenerate spirit,
pleasure, love, and joy in God's will, and then he will require
of them, nor will he then require in vain, for he will then be
truly the people's God, worshipped and beloved by them,
and, in consequence of this, the people can then also be truly
his people, protected and blessed by him. In a third prin
cipal idea (ver. 11 — 12), it is now shown still more plainly, how
the fulfilment of the law is under this new covenant to rest
on the inward disposition, and on what ground this disposition is
to rest. In the old covenant God had commissioned Moses and
the priests to read the law to the people, and to lay before them
the command to acknowledge Jehovah as their God. There is
to be no such outward process under the new covenant. Then
will every one personally, and from his own inmost experience,
know and acknowledge the Lord, — and how ? by what means ?
Because he forgives their sins, and remembers not their iniquities.
The difference, then, between the old and the new covenant is
traced even to this innermost centre-point in that evangelical
announcement of God to Jeremiah. There it is the law that
stands first, and lays down its requirements, which man cannot
fulfil, because he wants the power and the spirit, the power of
love and the spirit of love. Here it is free grace, the forgiveness
of sins, and reconciliation that stands first, and in the heart
whose sins have been forgiven love springs up, and from love
springs the strength and the inclination for holiness, and the
personal experience of the knowledge of God.
Ver. 13. The author has now shown that, according to God's
own announcement, a new, a higher covenant was to be formed,
which rests on better promises, (namely, promises not first con
ditioned by the conduct of men). From this is now drawn the
further inference, that for the old covenant a time must also at
length comej when it would no longer be merely relatively the
old in opposition to the new, but also, the absolutely weak through
age in opposition to the new covenant coming into operation with
the freshness of youth.
Two ideas are to be distinguished from each other in this

256 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS VIII.
verse. First, with the promise of God to make in general a
(relatively) new, different, second covenant, the covenant made
with Moses ceases to be the only one, and becomes a (relatively)
old covenant. Secondly : But of two things, that which is the
relatively older must also, at some time, become the absolutely
old, be survived and pass away.
We have here, first of all, to obtain a clear idea of the two
categories, old and new, aged and young. Kotvo? means new,
new in the relative sense, that which is added to a thing already
existing as a new, i.e. a different thing, novus. ' (In the same
sense might one, who at an entertainment brings first wine of
vintage 1846, and then of 1811, say he will now bring a new
wine, that is, a new, another kind.) The opposite of this in
Greek is rraXatos, that which was already there, rrdXai, the old
— the earlier, (relatively old), antiquus (from ante), what does
not come after something else. The application of 7raXotb? to
old persons is secondary, and these also are so called, not in the
sense of their being infirm through age, but only in the sense of
their having been earlier in the world than those who are young.
Nebs, on the other hand, means young, fresh, recens, that
wliich (at any given time) is still absolutely new in respect of
its existence, (not in comparison with another), that which has
not yet existed long, still stands in fresh vigour. (So is that
wine of 1846 the young wine.) In opposition to this, yepaibs, as
the Latin vetus denotes what is absolutely old, what has no
longer in itself the strength to exist much longer. (Thus a man
of eighty years of age may be a new member (/eotvo?) of a legis
lative assembly, and still be a yepaibs, and one of thirty years of
age may be an old (iraXam) member of the assembly, and yet
be veo?.)
Most unjustly, therefore, will Bleek, Tholuck, and others ren
der 7raXatow by senem reddere, " to render antiquated." Only
thus, Bleek thinks, can a natural connection of ideas be made
out between the two members ; it gives rise rather, we think,
only to a tautology. IlaXaiovv is rather simply " to make the
older " antiquum reddere, (not to antiquate in the modern sense,
which would be equivalent to " abrogate.") Inasmuch as God
speaks of a Kaivr/ StaQrjKv, he has (the use of the perf. is to be
noted) thereby made the covenant of Moses the old covenant,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 1 — 10. 257
i.e. the relatively older. That, however, which has been made
the antiquum, the older, is, for this reason — because it is des
tined to be displaced by a novum — also far on the way towards
an absolute point of old age, i.e. it is a yrjpdaKov, it is old in
respect of its own capacity of existence, and approaches there
fore, step by step, the impending dcpaviaptb?. ('Eyyv<i is used
in the same way as at chap. vi. 8. As, in that place, 6771;? ko
to/jo? does not mean " nigh to the curse," but " approaching
step by step nearer to the curse," so here, 6771;? d<pavtapiov}
" approaching step by step nearer to dissolution.") Thus, from
the fact that God has promised, in general, a new, i.e. second
covenant, and has declared the covenant of Moses to be the
earlier, it follows, that this earlier covenant must, at some time,
be old and cease. Now, as, according to ver. 6, the relation
between the ministries is the same as that between the covenants,
ver. 13, therefore, already implicitly contains the idea (as has
been already observed) that the Levitical Xetrovpyia is destined
to become old, to be survived and to cease.

SECTION SECOND.
(Chap. ix. 1—10.)
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MOSAIC TABERNACLE.
According to the train of thought in the foregoing section, we
are prepared to expect here two ideas which Zuingle has already
well denoted in the words : Docet, ceremonias testamenti veteris
nonnisi typum fuisse novi. Atque ita rursum probat, novum
testamentum, sacerdotium videlicet Christi, excellentius fuisse
levitico. First, the author will have to prove in detail the idea
expressed in chap. viii. 1 — 5, that the Old Testament tabernacle,
in general, was a copy of the heavenly things i.e. the ministry of
Christ, — then, the idea in chap. viii. 6 ss., that, as a mere copy, it
corresponds to the nature of the old covenant as distinguished
from the new. And indeed we do find both of these things iu.

258 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1  10.
this section, only (as was to be expected) not treated successively,
but blended together.
In ver. 1 the first thing to be asked is, what substantive is to be
supplied at 7rp£0TTi. The Complut. and Steph. editions read t) rrpmrm
aKvvi,, but this aKnvrj is not found in the majority of the oldest and
best codd. and versions, it rests, therefore, merely on a conjecture,
and this conjecture, moreover, is groundless. In chap. viii. 6—
13 it was the two covenants that were spoken of throughout, and,
even at ver. 13, the words in that he saith, a new, &c, pointed
back to the citation in ver. 8 (I will make a new covenant), and
thus, at ver. 13 also, the substantive, covenant, was to be supplied
at the words — he hath made the first old. This of itself would
show, that the same substantive must be supplied at -r) rrpmrn
in the verse before us. And, indeed, avvvt] would in nowise
be suitable. For, in ver. 2, where the expression 17 rrpmrv
aKvvr) actually occurs, it serves to denote not the Old Testament
sanctuary in opposition to that of the New Testament, but the
fore-compartment of the Old Testament tabernacle (the so-called
" holy place") in opposition to the hind-compartment (the " holiest
of all"), and, therefore, has a signification which would not at all
be suitable in ver. 1. We have, therefore, to supply SiaOiJKv (so
Peschito, Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Bleek,
Olshausen, and, in general, all the more recent commentators.)
AtKaimpiara Xarpelas, — SiKaimpa denotes the result of the act
expressed by SiKaiovv, and signifies, therefore, the making just or
right. In the New Testament it occurs in a threefold sense :
first, it signifies the fulfilling of righteousness (as applicable to
the perfect man Christ), Rom. v. 18, viii. 4 ; secondly, the
declaring of the sinner to be righteous by God for Christ's sake,
Rom. v. 16 ; thirdly, it denotes an act whereby certain things are
declared to be right and therefore obligatory, i.e. ordinance, law
= t23.UJDj fth> Bom. i. 32 ; Luke i. 6. Here, of course, only
t : • 1
this third signification is suitable. To understand SiKaimpiara
of the holy vessels is contrary to all usage. Luther, Grotius,
and others, take Xarpeias as the accusative, and suppose a comma
between BiKaimpara and Xarpeias, so that the three things would
be co-ordinated, " ordinances, services, and sanctuary." But,
first of all, Te is mostly used in the case of things connected by
pairs ; besides, the use of the plural in XoTpet'o? would be strange,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 259
and XoTpet'o?, moreover, would express nothing else than the
performance of the SiKatmp,ara, which would give rise . to a
tautology. We therefore agree with the immense majority of
both ancient and modern commentators in taldng Xorpeto? as the
genitive to BtKaimpiara. We thus obtain tico ideas (" ordinances
respecting the service," and " the sanctuary"), which correspond
precisely to the two ideas of the foregoing chapter, service and
tabernacle. By to dyiov, as already appears from the epithet KoapiKov
(which forms the antithesis to iirovpdviov), is to be understood
the entire Old Testament fanum (not the " holiest of all," which
in the Epistle to the Hebrews is denoted by to 0710, vers. 3 and
8, or 0710 dylmv, ver. 2 ; nor the so called " holy place," which
our author always designates by the expression 1) rrpmrv aKvvq.)
— The epithet KoapiiKov, as already said, finds its explanation in
the antithesis to to iirovpdvia. The writer intends evidently to
say this : " the old covenant, too, had indeed a service and a
sanctuary, but it had a service determined by ordinances, and a
sanctuary belonging to this world," These two things he has
concisely put together in one clause. He, therefore (as already
Olshausen has rightly observed), expresses by KoaptiKov nearly the
same thing that he had already expressed in chap. viii. 4 by iirl
yrji, with this difference, that in KoapiKov lies not merely the
.locality but also the quality. Some of the older critics have
strangely mistaken the sense of these simple words. Luther and
others take rb dryiov = rrjv dyibrqra ; Hornberg rightly inter
prets rb dyiov, but renders KoapiiKbs .= Koapios, " adorned ; "
Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Kypke, explain KoaptiKos
= for the whole world, destined for all nations (but one of the
principal imperfections of the Old Testament sanctuary lay
precisely in this, that it was not destined for all nations, but only
for one people) ; Theophylact, Grotius, Este, Wetstein, explain :
" representing a type of the world-structure " (but the tabernacle
represented this in no possible way.) Even among those com
mentators who rightly explain KoapiKo<; as antithetical with
irrqvpdvio<s (It., Vulg., Calvin, Beza, Cramer, Storr, Kuinoel,
Tholuck, Bleek), it is still unnecessarily disputed, whether the
writer intended by this to denote the imperfection or the mate
riality of the Old Testament sanctuary. KoapuKbs signifies
R2

260 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10.
neither "imperfect" nor "material," but "belonging to the
world." 1 The Old Testament sanctuary was an integral part
of this world, this K00710?, which exists as a world separated from
God, and in which, therefore, even when what was heavenly
appeared, it must needs take the form of the limited, the parti
cular, i.e., under the distinction of fanum and profanum. In
this is involved at once the material, local, external, and emble
matic character of the Old Testament dyiov, and, at the same
time, also, its imperfection.
Ver. 2 — 5. What is now to be proven i3 not that, in general,
a service and a sanctuary existed under the old covenant, but
that that service was one according to ordinances, and that sanc
tuary one pertaining to this world. In proof of this (comp. the
7op), the principal idea is now laid down : " There was built
the first compartment of the tent; behind the second vail, how
ever, was the holy of holies." In this construction, which
rendered it necessary to pass through two vails into the holiest
of all, was plainly expressed that cosmical imperfection, that
state of separation between God and the sinful world.
This separation was not, however, in any way meaely acci
dental or outward, but was most closely connected with the
entire nature, and with the collective symbols of the Old Testa
ment cultus. The writer shows this by specifying the particular
pieces of furniture in each of the two compartments of the taber
nacle, and the acts of worship which were performed in each.
Before entering here on the explanation of the text, we must
not omit taking a short survey of the local construction and
symbolical significance of the tabernacle.
On entering by the door of the rectangular fore-court (which
stood on one of its smaller sides) into the fore-court, one would
then have had the tent immediately before him (again its smaller
side), but in entering it, he would yet have to pass the altar of
burnt-offering and the basin of water which stood just at the
entrance to the tent. On entering into the tent itself (therefore
i Bleek renders the Avord by " worldly." But this word has acquired
in common usage a different meaning. It no longer forms the anti
thesis to heavenly, but to spiritual, and has become almost synonymous
with " profane."

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 261
passing through the first vail, which formed the entrance from,
the fore-court outwards), he would then have found himself in
the holy place (rrpdrrrj ovm/vt}), a rectangular space which, again,
had greater depth than breadth. On the right hand, in this
space, stood the table with the shew-bread, on the left, the golden
candlestick, and furthest back, immediately before the entrance
to the holiest of all (Ex. xxx. 6), the altar of incense. On enter
ing (through the second vail, which separated the holy place
from the holiest of all) into the holiest of all, he would then have
found himself in a square space which had no other entrance but
the one from the holy place. Here stood the ark of the covenant.
This holy of holies was the place where God sometimes mani
fested his presence in a bright light or a cloud of smoke. . This
was the place where God was to be conceived of as always
present, even although he should not be visibly manifest. He
was present here, however, not as the Creator and Governor of
the world (as such he dwelt in heaven), but as the covenant God
of his people. And therefore was the act of the covenant kept
here in the ark of the covenant. This act of the covenant
contained the mutual contract which God had made with his
people. He required of the people the fulfilment of his eternal,
absolutely holy will, which he had expressed in the " ten words ; "
the decalogue was the condition of the covenant; if this was
fulfilled, then would the Lord, on his part, fulfil the promise of
the covenant, and be the God of this people.
But, not only did the people break that condition from the very
first ; they had never the power to fulfil a command in which even
an evil desire was forbidden. Hence God had never given this
law to the end that it should be fulfilled, but to the end that the
people should by this testimony (]-pniO De ^ to tne knowledge
of their sinfulness. And this is not an idea to be found first
in the New Testament, in the writings of Paul, but one which
had been, in the clearest manner, expressed in the ceremonial law
and worship.
The " words of the testimony " (i. e. the decalogue) must needs
be covered (-(535), so that the eye of the God who was present in
the holy of holies might not fall upon these words, which were
an act of accusation against the people. (From this is to be
explained the frequent form of expression " to cover sin.") A

262 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 1 — 10.
golden cover the j-nEG> was to De ^ai(^ uPon tn® ar^ » ^s ^ea(*
cover, hoAvever, did not suffice of itself to turn away the eye of
divine penal justice from the record which testified of the guilt of
the people. For this there was necessary an actual atonement for
this guilt. Therefore the high priest must, once every year, on
the great day of atonement, slay the great sacrifice of atonement,
and carry the blood into the holiest of all, and sprinkle it on the
cover or lid of the ark, that the eye of God might fall upon this
witness ofthe accomplished atonement. (Of course this atone
ment was, in like manner, only symbolical and typical, as was
the representation of the presence of God, and the beholding of
God.) Thus, then, there was represented in the holy of hohes
the absolute relation of the absolutely holy God to the sinful
people. It will appear from what has been said, how very super
ficial is the view of those who would place the decalogue in the
same category with the ceremonial law, and regard it as given
only for the Jews. The whole ceremonial law had rather a
significance only on the supposition, that the decalogue was not
a relative thing suited to the capacity and development of the
time when it was given, but the purely absolute representation
of the eternal, independent will of God.
Let us now look at the cultus ofthe holy place, the irpmrr)
aK-qvr). After the decalogue God gave, at the same time, to the
Israelites (Ex. xx. 22, 23, 33), a second law, which did not
require absolute holiness, but rather, on the contrary, was suited
to an unholy sinful people, and which presupposed the non-ful
filment ofthe decalogue. In the decalogue it is said: thou shalt
not kill ; in chap. xxi. 12 ss. it is taken for granted that, not
withstanding of this, murder would occur, and ordinances were
given how this should be punished. In the decalogue it is said :
thou shalt not steal ; in chap. xxii. 1, it is presupposed, that still,
thefts would be committed, and the civil punishment for the
thief is specified, and so forth. In short, the decalogue was a
law which could not be kept by a sinful people ; the law, on the
other hand, chap. xx. 22 ss. was instituted precisely to meet the
capacity of observance belonging to a sinful people. The deca
logue required absolute holiness; the second (the civil) law
required merely civil propriety of conduct, therefore only a
holiness of a very relative kind, only a justitia ciAalis. — Noic, just

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 263
as this civil law stands related to the decalogue, so does the cultus
of the holy place to that of the holy of holies. While, in the one,
the absolute will of God as accusing the people needed to be,
as it were, hid from the eye of God by the lid sprinkled with
the blood of the sacrifice, so, in the other, the people brought
before God the temporary fruits of the land, — bread and oil, — as
symbols of their relative services, their relative holiness — they
did not, however, present these immediately before the eye of
God, but only in the fore-chamber of his house. The show-
bread was no lectisternium, no meat for God (but as already the
name D^a-Qpib intimates), was intended only to be looked upon
by God ; in like manner, in the candlestick which was filled
with the other chief produce of the land, oil, the people made, as
it were, their light to shine before God. In the holy place,
therefore, were represented the symbols of the temporary relative
piety, which the Lord, in the meanwhile, until the people should
become entirely and inwardly holy, graciously accepted, and which
he could graciously accept only because, at the same time, in
the holiest of all, the sins against God's absolute requirements
were, from time to time, covered by the sacrifices. Thus, then,
we see how this twofold character of the cultus, really pointed to
a future removal of the difference between the absolute require
ments of the covenant and the merely relative services of the
covenant. The fore-court was the place for the sinful people. Here tMS
sacrifices, namely, the atoning sacrifices were slain and burnt.
This slaying and burning was a symbol of the death and the
condemnation which the sinner properly had deserved, which,
however, was transferred from him to the victim. Of course,
therefore, neither the holy place nor the holy of holies was the
fitting place for these acts of judicial punishment (the great
sacrifice of atonement was therefore commanded to be burnt
without the fore-court, nay, without the camp) ; only the blood
of the slain sacrifice of atonement was brought before the eye of
God, i.e. into the holy of hohes, as a testimony that the atoning
Aacarious act of punishment had been executed. The general
mutual relation between God and his people resulting from the
sacred rites of the holy of holies, from those of the holy place
and of the fore-court, — the result, that God in general still

264 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1  10.
accepted the homage and worship of this people, was symboli
cally represented in the incense-offering. The incense-offering
was burnt in the fore-court, in the fire of the altar of burnt-
offering — only in virtue of this connexion with the expiatory
side of the cultus was it acceptable — it was not carried into the
holy of holies itself j but (just because it represented only the
temporary, relative peace that subsisted between God and his
people) into the holy place ; but the altar of incense on which it
was placed stood (Ex. xxx. 6) just before the entrance to the
holy of holies " over against the ark of the covenant," and thus,
the incense-offering referred to the God who was present in the
holy of holies ; the smoke of the incense was to penetrate into
the holy of holies itself, and, because it belonged to the cultus
of the holy of holies, it was offered not by the priests but by the
high priest.
With this explanation of the symbolical meaning of the
tabernacle and its worship in general, the question is already
solved, why the author in vers. 2 — 5 names and enumerates
these pieces of furniture (a question which, moreover, is answered
by himself in ver. 6 ss.) But, at the same time also, a difficulty
is thus by anticipation removed, which Calmet has declared to
be the maxima totius epistolae drfficultas. If, however, there
existed no greater difficulties in it than this, then would the
epistle to the Hebrews belong to the easiest books of the New
Testament ! It is the difficulty arising from the fact, that the
author in ver. 4 reckons the golden altar of incense as belonging
to ihe holy of holies, while it stood undoubtedly in the holy
place. Commentators have had recourse to a threefold solution of
this difficulty.
First, some have directly expressed their opinion, that the
author was mistaken. This, however, is too gross to be for a
moment conceivable. The position of the altars must have been
known to every Israelite from the book of Exodus, much more
must he have known it, who set himself to reason from this
against the Jewish Christians. This view has therefore been
supported by auxiliary conjectures. Some say, the author may
perhaps have lived and written in Alexandria, and therefore not
have had an exact knowledge of the arrangements of the temple

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 265
in Jerusalem. But the question, whether one lived in Jerusalem
or elsewhere, is here altogether irrelevant, as, even in Jerusalem,
the layman could not enter into the temple, and could only
become acquainted with the internal arrangements of the temple
from what he read in the Pentateuch or in 1 Kings. This infor
mation could be obtained, however, quite as easily in Alexandria
as in Jerusalem, by a layman or a non-layman. Moreover, it
is not the temple that is here spoken of, but the tabernacle, and
specially those arrangements which found place only in the old
tabernacle (thus in ver 4, Aaron's rod and the pot of manna are
mentioned, both of which, according to 1 Kings viii. 6, even at
the time of the building of Solomon's Temple were no longer to
be found). — And this will, at the same time, afford an answer to
a second auxiliary conjecture (that of a reviewer in Rheinwald's
Repert. 1842 vol 9. p. 193), according to which, the author had
in his mind, and before his eye, the arrangements of that temple
which the Egyptian Jews, under Onias 150 B.C. built at Leon
topohs. This conjecture is the more untenable when we find
that Onias built his temple with great exactness after the pattern
of that at Jerusalem, so that, at Leontopohs, the altar of
incense assuredly stood nowhere else than it did at Jerusalem.
Side by side with the first solution is to be placed also that of
Bleek, according to which, the altar of incense did really stand
in the holy place, but the author allowed himself to be led
into the mistake of placing it in the holy of holies by the passages
Ex. xxx. 6 and 26 ; Lev. iv. 7, ss. (where it is said the altar of
incense stands " over against the ark ofthe covenant.") This hypo
thesis is, however, simply refuted by the 7th verse of our chapter,
where the author expressly and definitely says that the high
priest entered into the Sevripa aKrjvtj only once in the year,
which he could not have said if, in his opinion, the daily offering
of incense had been brought into the holiest of all.
With this also is refuted a second hypothesis (which has been
put forth by Tholuck, only problematically, however, on the
alleged ground of 1 Kings vi. 22 ; Ex. xxvi. 35), that, in reality,
the altar of incense may have stood in the holy of hohes. We
are not under the necessity of having recourse to Ex. xxx. 6
(" thou shalt place it before the vail") in order to prove, that the
altar of incense really stood in the holy place, and by no means

266 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10.
in the holy of holies,1 as it clearly appears from the 7th verse of
our chapter that, in the opinion too of our author, it stood in the
holy place and not in the holy of holies. The question, now, is
no longer one of a contradiction between our author and the
Pentateuch, but of a kind of contradiction into which he seems
to have fallen with himself.
By how much the less conceivable such a contradiction of
the author with himself is^ by so much the more might the third
principal solution seem, on a superficial view of the question, to
recommend itself, the solution, namely, of those (as the Peschito,
Vulg., Theophylact, Luther, Calov, de Dieu, Reland, Deyling, J,
G. Michaelis, Bohme, Kuinoel, Stuart, Klee, &c.)who would trans
late Ovp,iarr]piov here by censer. That Ovpnarrjpiov may actually
mean censer is proven (from Thucyd. vi. 46 ; Diod. Sec. xiii. 3 ;
LXX. Ex. viii. 11 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 19 ; Joseph. Ant. iv. 2, 4).
It has even been maintained that it must be rendered here
by censer; for the altar of incense is never denoted in the
LXX. by Ovp,iart]piov, but always by Qvaiaarr\ptov 0vp,id-
/iOTo?. But this ground is not conclusive, as in Josephus, Philo,
Clemens Alex., and Origen, the altar of incense, in spite of the
usage of the LXX., is very often called Ovpttarrjpiov. More
over, our author, in the designation of the parts and vessels of
the sanctuary, does not at all confine himself to the terms of the
LXX. ; he calls the holy place for example not to dyiov (as
LXX. Ex. xxvi. 33, &c.) but i) irpmrv aKvvrj, while he uses to
ayiov (ver. 1) in a far wider sense to designate the entire sanc
tuary; to designate the holy of holies he uses, besides the
expression ofthe LXX. 0710 dyimv, also the expressions 1) Bevripa
aKvvrj (ver. 7) to dyia (ver. 8), &c. It is thus quite possible
that in the designation of the altar of incense he may have
departed from the circumstantial term of the LXX., and fol
lowed the usage of Josephus and Philo. The word Ovptiarrjpiov,
therefore, in itself determines nothing.
Just as little is determined by the predicate xpvaovv. Some
have understood this as a differentia specifica distinguishing a
1 For the opposite opinion it has been contended, that Origen also
(hom. 8 in Exod., 9 in Levit.) Oecumenius and Augustine (qu. 177,
in Exod.) assigned the altar of incense to the holy of holies. But none
of these three Fathers saw the temple themselves ; they, all of them, drew
their information solely from our passage, Heb. ix. 4, so that their testi
mony here is entirely without weight.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 267
golden censer from a silver one, and in support of this, have
appealed to a passage of the Talmud, according to which, there
were many silver censers and only a single golden one — at the
same time also, to the omission of the article at ^pueroCv Ovptia-
rrjpiov. But if the author had intended to distinguish that one
particular censer from the many, he must precisely then have
used the article. But the epithet xPverovv can> just as little, be
a differentia' specifica as is the parallel epithet irepiKeKaXvp.-
piivvv rrdvroOev xpwim, Qr, will the author distinguish the gilt
lid of the covenant from a number of others, namely, of cove
nant lids not gilt !
The two following considerations are unfavourable to this third
solution of the difficulty. In the first place, the holy of holies
was no store-room in which all possible vessels were kept ;
though it were granted, then, that there was a particular golden
censer which was specially set apart for the incense on the day of
atonement in the holy of holies (Lev. xvi. 12, s.), this censer
would still not be kept, the whole year through, in the holy of
holies, as in that case, the high priest must needs have entered
into the holy of holies before the formal presentation ofthe sacri
fice in order to bring out the censer. But, in the second place,.
it is purely inconceivable that our author should have passed
over the altar of incense, this essential part of the sacred furni
ture, and have mentioned, instead of it, any kind of incense-
vessel whatever ! Tholuck, it is trae, observes that Jose
phus, in describing the entrance of Pompey into the temple
(aut. xiv. 4, 4) mentions, among the objects which Pompey saw
in the holy place, merely the table, the candlestick, and cen
sers f these, however, were certainly not placed upon the
ground, but standing on the altar of incense, so that, from
this passage of Josephus, it can in no nowise be inferred, that
at the time of Pompey there was no longer any altar of
incense. But granted even, that there was then, in reality,
no altar of incense, still our author speaks not of the temple,
least of all of the temple as it existed after the captivity, but
of the tabernacle. Aaron's rod and the pot of manna were
no longer in the temple, (they were not there since the time of
Solomon, 1 Kings viii. 6),. and yet the author does not omit to
mention them !

268 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10.
We need, in fact, to have recourse to none of these artificial
expedients. The solution is exceedingly simple. The altar of
incense stood, indeed, in the holy place, but referred to the holy
of holies. (So, substantially, already Mynster and Olshausen.)
The smoke of the incense was not intended to spread backwards,
in order to dim the light of the candlestick, or to impart an aro
matic flavour to the show-bread, but was intended to penetrate
into the holy of holies, as a symbol of worship and homage.
Now, our author, as has already heen observed, mentions all
these things, not with the aim of giving a local description, but
in order to show (ver. 6, s.) how the entire cultus of the taber
nacle divided itself into two parts, which pointed to a future
union and reconcihation. Regarded from this point of view,
the table of showbread and the candlestick, the cultus of which
consisted in their being symbolical of the relative covenant ser
vices of the people — belonged to the holy place ; the altar of
incense, however, the smoke of which referred to the God pre
sent in the holy of holies, and in which the total result of the
entire cultus of the tabernacle was represented, belonged most
properly to the holiest of all, although it stood before the en
trance to it, (just as the sign-board of a shop, although outside
the shop door, yet belongs not to. the street, but to the shop).
Nor was this a refinement first invented by the author of this
epistle, for in Ex. xxx. 6, it had already been expressly said, that
the altar of incense, although without the vail, was yet to stand
" before the ark of the covenant," (fna^j-j 133^) 5 nay> m 1
Kings vi. 22, this connection of the altar of incense with the
holy of hohes is yet more strongly expressed in the words
|-ftt!2n *yiyrS "iiy^. By what other word could the author
render this ^ than by e^etv ? We are under no necessity to
understand e^etv in a local sense. Being in a place locally, the
author everywhere expresses, ver. 2 — 4, by the preposition ev
(ev rj) ; while ej^etv is used in a local sense just as little in ver. 1
as in ver. 4. We therefore render the words thus : " the holy of
holies, to which the golden altar of incense belonged." The
author had the less reason to shrink from this use of the e^etv, as
he might well take it for granted that the local position of those-
vessels was familiar to all his readers ; and, moreover, ver. 7
showed that it was not unknown to himself.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1—10. 269
'Ev $ ora/ivm xPvaV> &c- I* ^i" De necessary to inquire
here, first, whether the pot of manna, together with Aaron's rod,
really stood in the ark of the covenant, and then, why these two
objects, which had no significance in respect to the cultus of the
tabernacle, are here mentioned.
With regard to the first of these questions, the passages Ex.
xvi. 33; Numb. xvii. 25; and 1 Kings, viii. 9, have been
strangely referred to in support of the view, that those two
things had their place not in, but before, or beside the ark of the
covenant. The two first of these passages, it is said, expressly
affirm that they were placed before the ark ; the third as ex
pressly denies that they were placed in the ark. But the very
opposite of this is true. In Ex. xvi. 33, it is said, quite gene
rally, that Jehovah commanded Moses to lay up n'iiT,~',3Q^> a
pot full of manna for a memorial. Now, so much, certainly, is
trae, that this expression does not possitively affirm that the pot
of manna was to be laid precisely in the ark of the covenant, for
jT^-p-ijrjV is often used of any one who enters into the holy of
hohes, nay, even into the tabernacle and its fore-court ; and so,
when it is said of Moses, he came rnrY1-,2!b'?? ** 1S assuredly not
meant that he went into the ark of the covenant. But neither
does that expression forbid our associating it with the holy of
holies, and the ark of the covenant. And, if the pot of manna
was kept at all in the holy of holies, it must have been kept in
the ark of the covenant ; for, placed on the ground, it would soon
have been spoiled (it is not to be forgotten that the tabernacle
was daily moved from place to place), and there was no niche in
the wall, as the walls consisted of hangings. Now, as the ark
was the only vessel in the holy of hohes, it is reasonable to sup
pose, that the pot of manna would have its place nowhere else
than in it.
If we are led to this conclusion already, a priori from Ex. xvi.
33, it is expressly confirmed, with respect to the pot of manna, by
ver. 34, and, with respect to Aaron's rod, by Num. xvii. 25. For
it is said there, of both these objects, that they were laid ]-njt;-j
i^th " Derore tae testimony." Expositors have yet to produce a
passage in which the ark was designated by ]-frj». The ark is
called jvwrj 2r rvni-^nN* royrr)^N ; on tne other han<i>

270 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10.
j-ny is always, and everywhere, used to designate the decalogue or
the tables of the law, which, as is well known, lay in the ark. If
now, for example, I have a microscope standing in a press, and I
were to say, I have laid some article before the microscope, no
rational man would understand me to say that I had laid it upon
the ground, before the press in which the microscope stands, but
every one would understand that I have laid it in the press, and
before the microscope there. Just so is it with the pot of manna
and Aaron's rod. If they were laid before the tables of the law,
then must they have been placed on the same level with these,
therefore on' the bottom of the ark, not on the ground before the
ark. Bleek himself admits- it to be possible (ii. p. 458) that Ex.
xxx. 6 may have the meaning, that the altar of incense, because
it was J-pSSil ^o'T' stood in the holy of hohes, notwithstanding
of its being expressly said shortly before that it stood " before the
vail," and yet, he all at once repudiates the very natural inter
pretation of Ex. xvi. 34, that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod,
because j-pfyn ^Q7> na<i their place in the ark.
We have still to look at the passage in 1 Kings viii. 9. It is
here said, certainly, that " there was nothing in the ark except
the two tables," but what time is it that is here spoken of? The ¦
time of Solomon ! Now, that in the time of Solomon the golden
pot of manna and Aaron's rod should have been lost will not
seriously surprise any one. Had nofthe ark been long in the
hands of the Philistines, and carried about from place to place ?
Might not the Philistines have thrown aside the seemingly
worthless rod of Aaron, and taken away the more valuable pot
of manna ? Let us now, however, inquire finally, why then in
general the circumstance is mentioned in 1 Kings viii. 9, that in
Solomon's time, when the ark was brought into the temple,
" nothing was in it save the two tables." Certainly not for the
purpose of obviating any idea that there might, perhaps, be in
the ark, besides these, some bowls, plates, caps, &c, &c. It is
quite evident that the statement has then only a meaning when
it is supposed, that there was something else besides the tables
belonging properly to the ark, which one might justly and reason
ably expect to find in it. Now, let any one search through the
whole of the Old Testament, and he will be able to discover no

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 271
other objects that could be expected in the ark besides the tables,
except the pot' of manna and Aaron's rod mentioned in Ex. xvi.
and Num. xvii. Thus, then, the passage 1 Kings viii. 9 speaks
not of what belonged to the ark in Moses' time, but of what was
found in it in the time of Solomon. With an emphasis expressive
of surprise, it is observed, that " the tables only were found in it,"
i.e. that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod had been lost. This
very passage, therefore, contains a decided testimony, that both
of these objects, so long as they yet existed, had their place in
the ark of the covenant. — The second question is, why the author,
in general, mentions these objects which, in reference to the cultus,
had no special significance ? In ver. 5 he says expressly, that,
in so far his object was concerned, he might pass over the more
particular description of the cherubim ; surely then, he must have
had a special reason for not passing over the pot of manna and
Aaron's rod. This reason consisted, on the one hand, perhaps
in this, that he wished to show how, in the innermost sanctuary,
there were not merely the tables of the law but also memorials of
divine miracles of mercy;1 on the other hand, however, and
chiefly, in this, that the manna which fell from heaven, and the
miraculously budding almond branch of Aaron formed a contrast
with the ordinary earthly products of the land which were daily
and weekly brought to the holy place.
The cherubic forms mentioned in ver. 5, which (two in
number) which were brought to the mercy-lid, have no inde
pendent symbolical signification. They served only the aestheti-
¦ cal purpose of mediating between the accusing testimony which
lay beneath them, and the cloud that hovered above them, in
which God at times manifested himself. Thus, below, they formed,
as it were, the guardians who kept watch over the records of the
law, and, above, with their wings they formed, as it were, the
throne upon which the cloud of revelation moved when it appeared.
Hence, as Tholuck rightly observes, God is spoken of in the
Psalms now, as " he who sitteth on the cherubim ; " again, " a
throne of the glory of the Lord" is spoken of, i.e. a throne of
1 Olshausen finds in the pot of manna a symbol of the heavenly
spiritual bread of life, in Aaron's rod (less happily) a symbol of
regeneration. Comp. on this our remarks on the words reXeiorepas
o-Krjvi)s infra ver. 1 1 .

272 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 1 — 10.
that cloud, — from which it is evident that the cloud, when it
appeared, appeared over the cherubim. (The rabbinical doc
trine of the " Shekinah " is fabulous only in so far as they
considered this cloud to hover permanently over the cherubim.
In opposition to this comp. 1 Kings viii. 10, but on the other
side also Ex. xxv. 22 ; Num. vii. 89 ; 1 Sam. iv. 4, and 22 ;
2 Sam. vi. 2.) The genitive Sb^vs is, therefore, also (with Ham
mond, Deyling, Braun, Schottgen, Michaelis, Bohme, Tholuck,
Bleek, &c), to be explained of the cloud which, indeed, is in the
Old Testament frequently called *ifo3iT They are called
" cherubim of glory," because they bore " the glory of the
Lord." Beza, Kuinoel, Olshausen, and others, have taken
Sbfj tt? as the gen. expressive of quahty (" glorious cherubim "),
but to what purpose would be such a predicate here, as in its
Vague generality would not even be parallel with the descriptive
epithets golden, overlaid with gold, ver. 4 ?
Ver. 6, 7. The author, having thus noticed the construction
of the tabernacle, proceeds to consider the significance and desti
nation of its two compartments. And in ver. 6, 7, he simply
notices the acts of worship which were performed in each. 'H
rrpmrv aKvvr), as at ver. 2 the holy place. Aiarravrb<s is explained
by the antithesis drra^ rov evtavrov, and signifies, therefore, not
continually, absolutely without interruption, but without such
interruptions as, according to ver. 7, characterised the worship
in the holy of holies, which was performed only once in the year.
The acts of worship in the holy place were performed, in part,
daily, and, in part, weekly. Daily the high priest presented the
offering of incense on the altar of incense, daily was the candle
stick supplied with the oil ; while the show-bread was laid out
weekly. The pres. eiaiaaw (comp. ver. 9, «atpo? ivearms,
irpoacpepovrai) can be explained only the supposition, that when
the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, the Old Testament
temple worship was still in existence, consequently, that this
epistle was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. In the
description of the construction of the sanctuary, the author, for a
very intelhgible reason, has not had in view the Herodian
temple, but has adhered to the description given in the Penta
teuch of the original sanctuary, the tabernacle ; here, however,
when he speaks of the acts of worship, he describes them, with

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAArS IX. 1  10. 273
equal reason, as still continuing ; for the acts had remained the
same, and also the distinction between the holy place and the
holy of holies, changed only in its outward form, had been main
tained unaltered in the temples of Solomon, Zerabbabel, and
Herod.1 The high priest went once every year into the holy gf holies.
It is needlessly asked, whether the high priest, on the great day
of atonement,, did not enter twice in succession into the holy of
hohes. He certainly did this, as we learn, not merely from
Philo, but also from Lev, xvi. 12 — 14, and ver. 15 ;2 but this is
not in contradiction to our passage. Our author himself
indicates in the words, for his own sins and the sins of the people,
that this act, which was done once in the year, consisted of two
parts. — On dyvoijpidrmv comp. what is said at chap. v. 2.
Ver. 8 — 10. From the fact that the worship of the taber
nacle consisted of two parts, as described in ver. 6 — 7, the author
infers, in ver. 8, that the division of the tabernacle into two parts,
as described in ver. 1 — 5, implied an imperfection. This infer
ence, however, finds its link of connection and its explanation in
the relative sentence ver. 9, 10. The connexion ofthe thought as
a whole is very subtle, and can be apparent and intelligible only
to those who have understood all that lies in ver. 6, 7. For
ver. 6, 7 has a twofold reference. In it, first of all (as is quite
evident), the section v. 1 — 10 on the construction of the taber
nacle is brought to a close, and an inference drawn backwards
from the service of the tabernacle to its construction and des
tination. But in this verse, also, the way is prepared, at the
same time, for the idea which follows, that the Old Testament
sanctuary as a whole was merely of a relative character. In ver.
6, 7 then, first of all, notice is taken of the difference between
the (relatively) holy place and (absolutely) holy of holies, and
1 Bleek infers, on the contrary, from the connection of the pres. with
the words tovtcov Se ovras, &c, that the author must have believed that
all the things which he names were still to be found in the temple !
Why does Bleek not go just a step farther, and charge the author with
believing that there was as yet no temple, but that the old tabernacle
was still standing.
2 The statement of the later Maimonides, that the high priest entered
into the holy of holies four times on that day, is of no value against the
testimony of Philo.
s

274 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 1  10.
then it is at the same time also - indicated, that, just on Account
of this distinction, the tabernacle as a whole was of a merely
relative character in comparison with the New Testament ful
filment. First, notice is taken of the distinction between the
(relatively) holy place and the (absolutely) holy of holies. In
the one place there was a daily service ; this service is not more
particularly described here, but its general character appears
from the antithetical expression in ver. 7, not without blood.
The service in the holy place was without blood; the priest
brought oil and bread, never an offering of blood. No atoning
act was ever performed in the holy place, but always only a
representation of the occasional relative holiness or conformity
to the law.
But what follows from this distinction? That the people
were relatively holy, but regarded from an absolute point of
view, were unholy, and remained so in spite of the atonement
which was repeated every year. (Comp. the preceding general
observations on ver. 2.) It followed therefore, in other words,,
from the continued existence of. a holy place (a symbol of rela
tive holiness) side by side with the holy of holies, the place of
atonement, that the atonement itself was as yet merely relative,
that the trae place of atonement had not yet been opened, or
that " the place of atonement had not yet been truly opened."
What is subjoined to this by means of the gen. absolute
(" inasmuch as the Holy Ghost thereby showed,") is easy and
intelligible. That Holy Ghost, according to whose eternal
plan (comp. chap. viii. 5), the tabernacle was built, intended to
indicate by the separation between the holy place and the holy
of holies, a second, a further truth (besides the distinction of
relative holiness and absolute atonement), namely, that here, in
the tabernacle, the absolute also was as yet relative.
This is the idea in ver. 8. "Ayia (comp. ver. 3), the holy of
hohes ; the genitive is the genitive of direction (as in Matt. x.
5 ; LXX., 2 Sam. viii. 23.) The way into the hohest of all
was not opened (literally, not yet shown, revealed1), the hohest
The author seems here to allude to the event, recorded in Matt.
xxvii. 51. Otherwise, he would have said limply: fir)™ dveaX6ijvai
rr)v twv ayiav 6S6v. But, in the manner in Avhich he expresses himself

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 1  10. 275
of all was still shut ; consequently the access to fellowship with God
still prevented, the separation still subsisting, man not yet truly
reconciled. Why so ? How does this follow from what is said
in ver. 6, 7 ? Various conjectures have Jbeen made in reply to
this, instead of attention being directed to the fact, that the idea
which is presupposed as the connecting link between the major
proposition and the conclusion is first expressed in ver. 9. Some
have found the vis conclusionis in this," that the existence of a
holy place separate from the holy of holies pointed to the dis
tinction between priests and the laity, (but the existence of a
holy of holies, as distinguished merely from the fore-court, would
have pointed to the same distinction, even had there been no
rrpmrv aKnirr] between.) Others sought the vis conclusionis in
this, that a chamber which has an antechamber, cannot be said to
be an open chamber ! or in this, that it was not open, because
the high priest alone might enter into it (but the question still
recurs, whether this had any connection with the existence of a
rrpmrv aKvvrj.) Others, again, sought the vis conclusionis
in the vail which separated the holy place from the holy of
holies, (but this vail is only the manifest separation itself between
the two aKvvah ; nothing, therefore, is thereby explained.) The
true reason is given by the author himself in ver. 9. The holy
place is related in respect of place, just as, in respect of time, ihe
tabernacle as a whole is related to the priestly service of Christ :
rrprnTi} aKvvrji dyia dyimv=\rrpmrv aKvvr) + dyta dyimv]: Christ.
The holy place was a symbolical representation of relative
holiness, outward conformity to the law, while the holy of holies wasa
symbolical representation of the re-establishment of the absolute
relation between the merely sinful people and the absolutely holy
God. If, now, the holy of holies had been a true holy of holies,
if it had truly answered its purpose and truly opened the way of
access to a real and true fellowship with God, then the people
had been a truly redeemed and sanctified people, nor would there
have been any state of merely relative, outward, typical holiness
which needed to be represented in the holy place. From the
he points to a time Avhen an event had not yet taken place, which, again,
only emblematically indicated the opening up of the way. " At that
time," he says, " it had not yet been shown by God (as has now been
done) that the way into the holiest of all is open." S 2

276 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. IX. 1  18.
fact, therefore, that there was still a state of typical, relative
holiness to be represented, i.e., that there was such a state, the
author is fully warranted in drawing the inference, that the absolute
¦restoration of the relation to God (the place of which Avas the
holy of holies) had not yet been really and truly attained and
wrought out, but that this absolute relation to God was even in
the holy of holies only represented, only typically shadowed forth.
Or, as he expresses it in ver. 8, the entrance to the presence and
fellowship of God was not yet truly open.
The connexion of the ideas may very simply be made evident
in the following way :
Upmrv aKvvr) : dyta drfimv
Representation of Representation
relative hohness. of absolute perfection.
V  v  '
Mere representation : New Test, fulfilment.
Or : because, in the holiest of all, the restoration of the abso
lute relation to God was merely represented (for the relative
conformity to the law still subsisted side by side with it, and was
still the object of representation side by side with it, namely, in
the rrpmrv aKvvrf), the holiest of all itself was therefore not yet of
an absolute but of a relative character. As the holy place, in a
local respect, stands related to the holy of holies', so does the latter
stand related, in respect of time, to the fulfilment in Christ.
Let us now see whether the author has really adduced this
argument in ver. '9, 10.
In ver. 9 he says plainly and pointedly, the rrpmrv aKvvr) is a
irapaBoXr) — (i.e. likeness, comp. chap. xi. 19, denoting, however,
as well the figurative representation of a thing in words as in
things) — a rrapaBoXri of the present time, in which the Old
Testament sacrifices are still presented. That jjTt? refers
to rrpmrv aKvvr) should never have been doubted.1 What
the author means by the "present time" is made plain by
1 Erasmus and others, among whom is Bengel, have explained the rjns
as connected by attraction with rrapagoXi], so that tjtis Avould stand for
o, t». The existence of a irpbmt) crKt)vrj before the holy of holies is a
figure of the time when the author wrote, in so far, namely, as at that
time the Israelitish theocracy, which still subsisted, formed as it were
the outward space for the Christianity that had arisen in its bosoni.
Ingenious but artificial !

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10. 277
the relative clause KaO' ov Smpa, &c. A, B, and D, it is true,
have the reading KaO' r/v (scil. rrapaBoXijv), and Lachmann,
Olshausen, and Bleek, give the preference to this reading. But
how forced would be the idea thus obtained: "the anterior
tent which was a figure of the present time, according to which
figure sacrifices were brought !" In what sense was the presen
tation of the sacrifices performed in accordance with the figure
which was represented in the rrpmrv aKvvr) ? There were no sacri
fices at all offered in the rrpmrv aKvvrj ! Moreover, the reading rjv
Avould deprive the expression b Kaipbs 6 ivearm'; of all its clear
ness and definiteness ; for, separated from its relative clause, this
expression might denote, as well the New Testament, as the Old
Testament time. We may therefore confidently suppose that
the reading rjv owes its existence to an error in the writing, or a
misunderstanding. We therefore adhere to the reading KaO' bv,
and thus get the necessary determination of the idea 6 Kaipb<;
b eveo-Tto?, The author might have called the time of the Old
Testament temple worship also " the past," and he would doubt
less have so designated it had he intended to speak from his own
point of view, but, with practical wisdom, 'he here speaks from
the stand-point of his readers who still joined in the temple
worship, and for whom, therefore, the period of the sacrifices did
not yet belong to the past. (In another antithesis o almv b
eveo-™? (Gal. i. 4) is used.
Thus, then, the holy place is called a figure of the Old Testa
ment time, the time of the imperfect sacrifices of animals which
could not make man perfect koto avvelSvaiv. SvvelBvai<; is used
here in the widest sense ; it denotes the inner part of man, his con
sciousness (including certainly the conscience specially so called),
and finds its best explanation in the antithesis ver. 10.
At pbvov iirl Bpmpiaai, &c, it is simplest to supply the words
Svvdptevai reXeimaat. 'Em' c. dat. denotes (as at Acts v. 35,
and in our chapter ver. 15) the object on which, or in reference
to which, the act in question is performed.1 Those sacrifices
1 Grotius, Bengel, Olshausen, Bleek, De Wette, and others, give to
art the signification together with, which it nowhere has. It signifies
in addition to this and that, but not together with this and that.
And what could be meant by the p.6vov ? " The sacrifices which could
not make inwardly perfect only in addition to meats, drinks and wash ¦
ings'' — what does that mean ?

278 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 1 — 10.
could make the man complete and perfect, only in that which
concerned meat, drink, and washing; i.e. the purity which
was thereby obtained was no other than that Levitical, that
typically outward purity which , was ^acquired and maintained
by observing the laws and ordinances about meats and wash
ings. Hence, those Bmpd re Kal Ovaiai are called also StKaimuara
aapKo<; (comp. what is said at ver. 1) ordinances of the flesh, of
the old natural man, the e%m avOpmiro? (comp. 2 Cor. iv. 16).'
That the reading BiKaimptara, authorised by all the versions
(only cod. D reads StKaimpui), deserves the preference before the
received reading Kal BiKaimpiaai (so Olshausen reads), is already
established on external grounds. (So also Mill, Bengel, Gries-
bach, Tholuck, Knapp, Lachmann, Schulz. How easily may
the reading BiKatmptaai have arisen from a copier mechanically
and carelessly putting it in the same case with the preceding
words.) On external grounds, also, the reading BiKaimptara is
the morejsuitable ; for BiKaimp,ara is much too general an idea
to form a fourth co-ordinate class along with meats, drinks, and
washings. Besides, no one knew how erriKeipieva was to be con
strued ; this nom. plur. neuter must be taken as an apposition
to the nom. plur. fem. ptrj Svvdp,evai ! If, now, we read BiKaim
para, the simplest way will be to understand this word as in
apposition to Bmpd Te «ot Ovaiai. (It is unnecessary to take it
as an anacoluthic apposition to the datives.) 'ErriKeipteva p-expt
Kaipov SiopOmaems, the ordinances of sacrifice were enjoined until
the time of a better state of things- This time forms the anti
thesis to /cotpo? evearm<;. The expression SiopQmaem<; explains
itself from chap. viii. 8, s. ; it is the time when God had promised
to make a better covenant.
If now we look back on the connexion of the thought in ver.
9 — 10, and, tracing it backwards, resolve it into its particular
parts, we will find them to be as follows : —
1. In the Old Testament time sacrifices and gifts were brought
which do not make the inner man perfect, righteous and holy,
but produce only that Levitical purity, that state of outward
conformity to the law, which is especially shown also in the
observance of the laws and commandments respecting meats and
washings (ver. 10.)

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11— X. 18. 279
2. The rrpmrv aKnvr\ with its service is a figure of this rela~
tive, because typical, hohness (while, in the holiest of all, the
restoration ofthe absolute relation to God is represented) — (ver.
3. The fact, however, of there being such a relative holiness
to represent (consequently, that the absolute is not yet in exist
ence, but is only typically represented even in the holy of holies),
involves the inference (ver. 8), that the true way of access to
God does not yet stand open, that the holy of holies itself still
belongs to the category of the relative and the typical. Thus,
we find that reason in proof of the proposition in ver. 8, which
we mentioned above as the right one, actually' expressed and
developed by the author.
But, it having thus been made out, that the holy of holies
itself also was merely relative and typical, this idea leads, forth
with, to a new theme, to the comparison of the New Testament
act of atonement with the Old Testament acts of atonement.

SECTION THIRD.
(Chap. ix. 11 — chap. x. 18.)
THE SERVICE OF THE TABERNACLE. THE BLOOD OF THE
BULLOCKS AND THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.
In this section the author, first of all, lays down the principal
theme, ver. 11, 12, namely, that Christ has offered his own blood.
From this it follows 1, vers. 13, 14, that his sacrifice was of
an internal, spiritual character ; 2, vers. 15 — 24, a sacrifice by
which the new covenant promised, chap. viii. 8, ss., was ratified ;
3, ver. 25 — chap. x. 10, one which needed not to be repeated.
In chap. x. 11 — 18 all the fundamental ideas of the whole part
are recapitulated.
Vers. 11, 12. By means of the particle Se the idea in
ver. 11 forms an antithesis, first of all, certainly, to the
immediately preceding train of thought ver. 7 ss., — Christ
is introduced in opposition to -the high priest, — but thereby, at

280 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11 — X. 18.
the same time, also an antithesis to the whole preceding section,
vers. 1 — 10. Nay this Se points not exactly to the 7th verse,
where there is no ptiv to correspond with it, but to the ptiv of the
first verse which logically corresponds to it. Trae, the old covenant
also had a sanctuary ; but (as was shown in ver. 1 — 10), even
the holy of hohes in this sanctuary was no trae holy of holies.
Christ, on the contrary, as the true high priest, has entered into
the trae holy of holies through a better tabernacle, in order
to effect a not merely relative, and typical, but an eternal
redemption. This idea forms, however, only the transition to the new
theme. This new theme hes in the words of the 12th verse :
by his own blood ; for it is this idea which is afterwards further
developed, and which forms the proper subject of the section.
Three points are contained in the period ver. 11, 12 : a,
Christ is the present high priest of existing good things ; b,
Christ has entered through the perfect tabernacle into the holy of
holies, and that, c, by his own blood. The two first points form
the transition.
Let us consider the first. IIapayevopievo<s dpxtepev<; rmvyevoptiv-
rmvdyaOmv forms an apposition to the subject Xpiarov. Critics are
not, indeed, agreed upon this construction. Tholuck, Bleek, and
others place rrapayevbp.evo% in apposition to the predicate eta-nX-
Oev, and resolve rrapayevbptevo'i elarjXOev into rrapeyivero Kal
elarjXOev : " But Christ has appeared as a high priest of . . .
good things and entered, &c." Meanwhile, not to say that such
an emphatic announcement is more of a modern cast than in
accordance with the plain and homely style of the New Testa
ment, even in a grammatical point of view, it is to be objected to
this construction that the irapayevbptevo<;, would then have to
stand first, and the sentence to run thus : IIapayevbpt€vo<; Be b
Xpiarbs, 6 dpxiepevs, &c. It will therefore be better, even on
this ground, to connect rraparfevbpevo<s with apvtepeu? as an
adjectival attribute, and to bring this again into apposition with
the subject of the sentence. Still stronger reasons than this
however, are furnished by the sentiment itself. But before we can
attend to these, we must first determine the reading. The
reading wavers between t<3v yevoptivmv dyaOmv and rmv pteX-
Xbvrmv dyaOmv. The former reading is found in cod. B and D

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11 — X. 18. 281
in Lat. D.E., in the Peschito, the Philoxen., and in Chrysostom
and Oecumenius. It is certainly also a very ancient reading,
which soon gave place generally to the easier reading pteXXbvrmv.
Bleek thinks that yevoptivmv may have easily arisen from a mis
take ofthe transcriber, on account of the irapayevbptevo<; preceding,
but would such a mistake have spread through so many families
of MSS. (Peschito, B, D, Philoxen) ? It is far more comprehen
sible that the more difficult yevoptivmv should have been misun
derstood, and the copier have confidently put peXXovrmv in its
stead, because, in chap. x. 1 also, " future good things" are
spoken of. But in chap. x. 1 peXXbvrmv is suitable ; here, however,
it is by no means suitable. In chap. x. 1 it is said of the Old
Testament that this and that were types of the New Testament
good things ; here, on the contrary, it is meant to be said of
Christ that he did not, like the holy of holies in the tabernacle,
point merely typically to a future salvation, but that he brought
about the fulfilment of this salvation. MeXXovrtov dyaOmv as said
in reference to Christ would only then be tolerable, if here (as
for example at chap. vi. 5) the antithesis were between the
present sufferings of the church and its future glory, or between
the present faith and the future vision. But nothing of this is
said, even in the remotest degree, in the passage before us. The
author does not speak here (as in chap. iv. 1 and 9) of this, that
it is the privilege of the Christian to hope also for something future,
but he mentions in vers. 12 and 14 only such good things belong
ing to the Christian as had already been, once for all, obtained
for him. In one word, he places the trae high priest who has in
his hand the already secured and existing good things of grace,
in opposition to the Old Testament high priest who had only to
fulfil the emblems and types oi future good things. We therefore
give the decided preference (with Lachmann) to the reading 7evo-
ptevmv, and then it will be self-evident that we must connect
rrapayevbpievos with dpxtepevs as its adjective. The Old Testament
high priest was not present as regards the salvation to which his
service referred, and as little was he present in rgeard to those
for whom he was to make atonement ; but he performed the
duties of his office — separated, in respect of place, from the people,
in respect of time, from the salvation — alone in the holy of holies.
Nor was he present as regards God, but represented the people

282 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 2  X. 18.
only in the place where God was symbolically present. Christ,
on the contrary, is, in every respect, apresent high priest, present^
as regards his Father, to whom he has entered into the true
heavenly holy of hohes ; present, as regards his people, with
whom he is always, even unto the end of the world, after having
once appeared on the earth for their salvation ; present, as
regards the salvation, which he does not need to look for from
the future.
The second idea lies in the words Sid tt}? ptei^ovo^ Kal reXeiorepa<i
aKvvr)<;, &c. We have here that use ofthe article which might best
be termed the proleptical ; the idea is properly this : by a tabernacle
which (of the two) is the better. Similarly Acts ii. 47, rrpoaeriOei
robs am&piivovs, " the Lord added such to the church as (then and
on this account) belonged to the saved." John iii. 10, ait el b SiSd-
aKaXo<! rov Tapa-rjX, "thou art one (such a one) who stands here
before us as the teacher of Israel." Compare also Heb. xii. 25.
The import of the clause -is this : Christ entered into the holy
of holies by a more perfect tabernacle than that was by which
the Old Testament high priests entered into the holy of hohes.
(By the aKvvr] is, of course, to be understood specially the rrpmrv
aKvvr], as it is distinguished from the holy of hohes.) In what
respects that holy place by which Christ entered into the holy
of holies was better than the holy place of the Mosiac tabernacle,
is now shown in the words not made with hands, that is not be
longing to this creation. In opposition to the Mosaic, typical
rrpmrv aKvvr) is placed a real rrpmrv aKvvv, which bears
the same analogous relation to the Mosaic as the New Tes
tament holy of hohes into which Christ entered, bears to the
Mosaic holy of hohes. This rrpmrv aKnvtj is not described
positively, but negatively, namely, as one " not made with hands,
that is, not belonging to this creation." If this last clause, that is,
not belonging, &c, were not there, one might be contented to
understand this reXetoripa aKvvr) (witn Zuingle, Bucer, Tho
luck, Bleek, and the most of commentators) of the canopy
of heaven, (the sidereal heavens) through which Christ passed
into the upper heaven, into the sphere of glorified corporality,
subject to no death or change.1 But that clause which is added
1 Calov, Vriemont, and others explain it most unsuitably ofthe New

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 283
renders every explanation of this kind .impossible. MoreoA-er
the parallel itself between the heavens and the Mosaic rrpmrv
aKvvrj would be altogether without significance or meaning. In
what would the analogy between the two aKrfvai consist? At
most it might be said, that there is an analogy in the outward
circumstance, that the Mosaic rrpmrv aKijvij stood locally outside
of the Mosaic holy of holies, and the visible heavens are outside
of the heavenly holy of hohes ! But such frigid parallelisms are
not in accordance with our author's manner. We must rather
seek the key to the solution of ver. 11 in the profound and subtle
thoughts of ver. 8 — 10. It was there shown that the Mosaic
holy of holies was itself only typical ; the antithesis between the
Mosaic and the heavenly holy ofiholies, is essentially not so much- one
of place, as rather of time and quality ; it is not the heaven viewed
as a place that makes the true holy of holies, but the heaven and
throne of Godv as the scene of the finished true atonement and
reconciliation of God with man. The true and proper antithesis
between the Mosaic and the heavenly holy of holies is that between
the prophetic type of an atonement and the actual fulfilment of it.
Now the opposition between the Mosaic rrpmrv aKvvr) and the
reXetoripa (rrpmrv) aKvvrj must be analogous to this. We have
here, as it were, a question in proportion to solve
(Mos. holy of holies: heavenly holy of holies. = Mos. holy place :X.)
The Mosaic holy place symbolically represented that relative,
temporary, outward, purity, conformity to the law and holiness
which was described in ver. 10. The trae, moral, inward holiness
must form the antithesis to the symbolically holg place — the thing
to its emblem. Is the holy of holies into which Christ entered
not the place in heaven viewed as a place, but the act of his exalta
tion and the time of his being exalted, then will also the rrpmrv
aKvvij, through wh^ch he passed into his state pf exaltation, be
not a place but an act and a time. In ver. 9 the Mosaic holy
place was actually called a figure ofthe time of the old covenant.
Through that time in which the okTcovenant with its ordinances
still subsisted Christ has passed, inasmuch as he was made under
Testament church. But this was rather first founded by Christ's
entrance into the holy of holies. How then can he have gone thither
through it?

284 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
the law ; his act of passing through this state, his act of living in
a state of humiliation, i.e. therefore, his perfect inward fulfilment
of the law, or his holy life, was the reXetoripa aKvvr) through
which he passed into his state of exaltation.1 The real fact of
holiness (in the life of Jesus upon earth) stands opposed to
the symbolical representation of holiness in the Mosaic rrpmrv
aKnvij. All that was emblematically represented in the Mosaic
holy place has by him been actually accomplished. Was the
earthly showbread laid out there — he was the bread of hfe- that
came down from heaven ; did the candlestick burn there with
earthly oil — he was the light of the world. Nay, we can now, for
the first time, rightly understand why the author at ver. 4 has
not omitted to mention also the pot of manna and Aaron's rod.
Did the pot of manna in the holy of holies point to a better bread
than the earthly showbread, to a bread from heaven — Christ was
this better bread from heaven. Did Aaron's rod reaving again
from a state of death point to a new life out of death — Christ
brought, and was, this life which arose out of death, and gave
life again to dead humanity.
The third idea not by blood &c. does not peed here a more
detailed explanation, as the author himself developes it, in the
form of a new theme, in the verses which follow. The following
points, only, are briefly to be noticed. Side by side with the
absolutely holy life of Christ as the passage through the reXeto
ripa rrpmrv aKvvij stands the holy death of Christ (together with
his resurrection and ascension) as the entrance into the eternal
holy of holies. The Sta is, pf course, not to be taken in a local
sense here (as if Christ had passed to the Father through his
blood poured out, and then everywhere diffused, as certain old
Lutheran theologians have explained) ; this is. inadmissible,
already on the ground, that in the words SC 'at]u,aTo? rpdymv
Kal ptbax<ov the Sid cannot evidently be so understood. The Sid
is to be understood in an instrumental sense. Aipa stands by
metonyme for " death " (as the Heb. q-j) ; the death of the victim
was the condition, and, in so far, the means, of being permitted
1 Augustin, Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, and others, approximate
the true explanation when by the rikewrepa o-kiji/iJ they understand the
body of Christ.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18. 285
to enter into the holy of holies. — The adverb i<pdwal; introduces
a natural consequence of what has been said. Types must, from
their nature, be ever repeated until their fulfilment. The fulfil
ment itself needs no repetition, just because it is the fulfilment,
i.e., the adequate satisfaction of the existing need. An explana
tion of i<pdira^ lies in the words almvlav Xvrpmaiv evpdpievo';.
Evpduevos is a part. aor. 2 formed after the analogy of aor. 1 ;
an Alexandrine pecuharity of dialect which had already passed
into the LXX., and had thence been imparted to the idiom of
the Hellenists (Jews and Jewish Christians who spoke Greek).
EvpiaKm in the sense of " to discover, to bring to pass," occurs
also at Rom. vii. 18. Avrpmai<: signifies literally ransoming, used
of a slave who has no money wherewith to redeem himself, and
for whom, therefore, another pays the ransom in his stead (hence
substitution is the principal idea in Xvrpmai'i).
Ver.. 13, 14. The third ofthe ideas contained in ver. 11 — 12,
namely, that Christ has by his own blood opened up the true
entrance to the holy of holies, is now further explained. What is
said in ver. 1 3 — 14 is mainly and substantially this : The animal
sacrifices give outward purity ; the moral sacrifice of Christ puri
fies the conscience. These two members, however, are not simply
placed antithetically to each other, but in the form of an infer
ence a minori ad majus (et — irbam pidXXov). The form of this
inference is confirmed by this, that the Levitical symbolical
purity followed from the sprinkling of the blood of animals by an
internal necessity far inferior to that with which the real cleans
ing of the iuner man results from the sacrifice of Christ. The
causal connexion between the means of purification and the
purification is, in the one case, much more loose, more arbitrary,
because it is symbolical, while the cleansing of the conscience
from dead works. by the sacrifice of Christ is effected by a neces
sity of the inmost and strongest kind.
Pass we, now, to the particular parts of the first member of
the sentence. Tpdyoi, goats, were offered by the high priest
for the people, ravpoi, bulls, for himself (Lev. xvi. 6 — 11).
Besides these, also, the ashes of the (reddish) cow are mentioned
(Num. xix.), by the sprinkling of which such as had contracted
uncleanness by contact with dead bodies were made Levitically
clean. One reason why the author particularizes this ordinance

286 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18.
was, that it afforded a special and manifest example of the exter
nal character of the relation subsisting between the means and
the result. A deeper reason will appear from the antithesis in
ver. 14. Of Christ it is said, ver. 14, that he cleanses the con
science from dead works to serve the living God. The idea
expressed by avveiSvai<; finds its explanation in ver. 9, and the
remarks there made. The ^opposition is that between what is
really experienced in the consciousness, and what is only out
wardly and in the outward man symbolically pourtrayed. The
inmost religious consciousness is cleansed by Christ, and that
from dead works. Many have all at once understood by these,
sinful and evil works, and have explained this, either of the
cleansing from the guilt of these evil works (justification), or of
the cleansing from the sins themselves (sanctification). Others,
on the contrary, as Bleek, understood by the epyot? venpoh
the outward works prescribed by the Mosaic law, and by the
cleansing from these works conversion to Christianity. I think
that both of these explanations are too narrow and too scholas
tic. The idea involved in the expression comprehends these
two things, first, that in the state of mind of the person to be
cleansed the whole question with him is one of works (there
fore of a righteousness of the law), and, secondly, that all those
works which a man does in order to acquire merit before God are
dead (i.e. not merely " outwardly and symbolically," but " in
wardly dead," " not proceeding from love," and therefore " tainted
with sin." By the concise expression e/yyo veKpd is denoted, a,
not subjective sinfulness or guilt as such, b, nor the objective defi
ciency of the ceremonial law, but, c, the state of heart in general
of him who, as yet, knows no other way to righteousness than
that of works, and who, therefore, as a natural unregenerate
man, is able to perform only dead works, i.e. works which are
viewed separately from the disposition of the heart, works each
of which by itself is considered as an objectively valuable legal
tender to God, while, in reality, it is not only imperfect and
tainted with sin, but also, on account of its standing isolated and
by itself, a dead and worthless thing. The opposite of this state
of heart is that of him, who does not at all imagine that he is
able to pay God or to earn a reward from God by particular
works and meritorious acts, but who seeks to become righteous

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11 — X. 18. 287
only through Christ — who has died for him and now lives in him
and whose member he now is — and who, thereby, receives the
power to consecrate his whole self, his whole personal life, to
God ; and to let himself be penetrated and sanctified by the
spirit of Christ. This state of heart includes both justification
and sanctification in their organic combination. It is denoted by
the Avords Xarpeveiv Qem tmvn. Aarpevetv is used in the Sept.
of the holy service of the priests and Levites, and denotes, there
fore, in the New Testament the priestly consecration and offering
up of the whole man to the service of God. The idea expressed by
Xarpeveiv is therefore quite different from that of SovXeveiv ; the
latter signifies SouXo? etvat and denotes simply subjection, obedi
ence, be it slavish or willing ; Xarpeveiv, on the contrary, the
willing priestly offering of oneself to God. The expression living
God forms a logically proper antithesis to dead works. The
unregenerate legally righteous man sets not God before him, but
rather the requirements and services of the law ; his eye is 'not
directed immediately to the living God ; he does not compare
himself, his whole person, with the person of the living God, he
sees not his personal organic corruption in the mirror of the
divine holiness ; but he measures and compares himself only with
the particular isolated requirements of the law, and directs his .
regard and attention only to his particular, falsely supposed me
ritorious, works, and feels perfectly satisfied if only he has
performed a certain number of such works. The regenerate man ;
on the contrary gives up his own personality to the person of
the living God.
It Avill now, moreover, be evident why the author has iu ver.
13 mentioned particularly the ashes ofthe heifer. There, it was
a (Levitically outward) cleansing that was effected from conta
mination caused by contact with the dead bodies of others ; here,
it is an inward and real cleansing from one's own inner death that
takes place, and a consecration of oneself to the living God.
What that act of Christ was, by which he has rendered this
inward purification possible, we are now told in the relative
clause, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot
to God. Instead of almviov, the reading 071011 is to be found in
D, Copt., Basm., Vulg., Slav, and Lat. D, E, and in Chrysostom.
But there is still stronger external authority for almviov in A, B„

288 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18.
Peschito, Philoxen., Armen., Ambrosius, Theodoret, and Theo
phylact; for, besides the Alexandrine and Byzantine families,
there is here the oldest authority, the Peschito, against the
Italian family. Besides, it is easy to understand how the reading
dyiov may have arisen, through a gloss or correction, in place of
the more difficult almviov. — But what, now, does this mean :
Christ has offered himself through the eternal spirit as a spotless
sacrifice to God ? These words have received some A-ery strange
interpretations ; Nosselt has rendered irvevpta by victima. ; Doe-
derlein by status beatissimus ; Storr and Olshausen understand
by rrvevpia almviov the heavenly life of Christ, the holy moving
principle of love in Christ ; Welcker has declared the whole pas
sage to be inexplicable, and supposed that the author did not
know himself what he would say, upon which Tholuck well ob
serves : "It is bad, indeed, when the conceit of an interpreter
leads him to impute the product of his own fancy to his author."
But many, also, of the most judicious critics, go too hastily to
work, when (as Bleek, Tholuck, and others) they all at once ex
plain rrvevpia almviov as synonymous with rrvevpia dyiov. Bleek
thinks that the Holy Spirit has here the designation of eternal
spirit, " because he imparts to him in whom he dwells an eternal
imperishable existence." But in ver. 14 it is not the eternal life
with God as the result of the sacrifice of Christ that is spoken of;
it is Christ's offering himself to death that is there spoken of.
Tholuck and others think that the Holy Spirit is here designated
as the impelling power which constrained. Christ to offer himself
to the death. , But surely the author must have had a reason for
not saying Bid rov rrvevp,aro<; ayiov ! We shall most safely
escape the necessity of having recourse to such guesses and con
jectures by explaining the words in question from their own con
text, i. e. from the antithesis to ver. 13. Let us, first of all,
suppose that the adjective almviov is not there, then Sid irvevpta-
to? forms the simple antithesis to Sto crap/eo?. The ashes of the
heifer produced the cleansing of the flesh, because this heifer (so is
the sentence to be extended) was offered Sto aapKos. In this
sacrificial act it was merely the adp% of the priest, i. e. the na
tural man, that took part. A particular disposition or state of
heart, a irvevpta Oeov, was not at all necessary in order to bring
that offering. Whatever the priest's internal state might be, it

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18. 289
was enough if he outwardly performed the prescribed ceremony.
Christ, on the contrary, cleanses the avvelSvaK, because he has
offered himself Sto rrvevparos. He was not slain through me
chanical compliance with a carnal ordinance, i.e. an ordinance
which every natural man is capable of fulfilling, he was not
struck down by any priest, stabbed with a knife and burned ;
that which performed the sacrificial act in him was his rrvevpia.
His making himself by his holy life an object of aversion and
hatred to the sinful and obdurate rulers, his patiently bearing
this hatred, his not allowing himself to swerve — through fear of
the persecution which threatened him on account of this hatred —
from his fidelity to the will of his father, and from the fulfilment
of the work committed to him ; all this was that through which
he offered himself; consequently, it was by a moral act, an act
of his irvevpta (where rrvevpia is to be taken in the New Testa
ment sense, in which it denotes not the understanding, but the
disposition of mind or heart). And hence, in the sacrifice of
Christ, the most important element, and that in which the
atoning virtue lies, is not the outward physical shedding of
that substance which we call blood, but it is that inward act
by which Christ willingly endured unmerited sufferings. For
the death of Christ is a holy death, precisely in virtue of its being
pure suffering. Christ did nothing directly towards his own death,
he did nothing actively to bring this about ; he did not kill him
self, either directly or indirectly, he merely forbore to withdraw
himself from suffering by disobedience to his Father's will. He
did not offer himself as a fanatic does who, under the influence
of some illusion, lets himself be nailed to a cross— this would
indeed have been to offer himself Sto, aapKos — but he offered
himself as, for example, a faithful minister of the Gospel does,
who faithfully declares the truth, notwithstanding that he. thereby
exposes himself to suffering and persecution, or as a martyr,
when he is reduced to the choice between martyrdom and
denial, and will not choose denial.
But, thus far, Christ is not the only one who has offered him
self through the spirit. When a Codrus, a Leonidas, an Arnold
of Winkelreid will rather give up life than prove unfaithful to
his country ; when a Socrates does not choose to ward off the
threatened cup of poison by denying that measure of truth to the
T

290 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
knowledge of which he had attained, — these are likewise offer
ings Sto irveiiptaro<}. And yet there is an immense difference
between Christ and all those, and also between Christ and the
Christian martyrs. Ihis difference the author expresses by the
adjective almviov. Others, too, have offered themselves " through
the spirit," but only in the struggle for good things of a rela
tive nature ; the triumph or downfall of a country, a relative
knowledge of the truth was at stake in their case. In Christ,
it was the absolute salvation of the world, it was eternity itself
that was at stake. Hence, a relative rrvevpia was sufficient for
those others, the spirit of patriotism, or of the love of truth,
&c. ; but the sacrifice of Christ could only be offered in the
power of eternal spirit. Only the eternal spirit of absolute love,
hohness, wisdom, and compassion was capable of enduring that
sacrificial death. Because, then, Christ's giving himself up to
death was a moral act, and not a moral act of relative value and
significance, but the absolute moral act, the act of all acts, the
angle of the world's history, the finished manifestation of the
fullness of the eternal being of God in time, the absolute fulfil
ment of the eternal decree of God — therefore, says the author,
Christ has offered himself to God, Sid rrvevptaros almviov.
And he offered himself " as one who was faultless," dptmptov.
The animal sacrifices under the law behoved also to be faultless,
and so it may be said, there lies in dptmptov first of all, only a
similarity between Christ and the animal sacrifices. But the
words, he has offered himself without spot, cannot of course be
separated here from through the eternal spirit. Has Christ
offered himself without fault through the eternal spirit, he thereby
obtains another and higher faultlessness, in comparison with
which those animal sacrifices were ovk dpteptirrot. (Comp. chap.
viii. 7.)
The 14th verse is, in a practical point of view, one of the most
important in the whole New Testament. For, as directed
against the doctrine here taught concerning the value of Christ's
sacrifice, all that calumnious talk of old Rationalists and new
German Catholics about a theology of blood and wounds, and a
tyrannical God, who " would look only on blood," is put to a
shameful silence. The main thing in the sacrifice of Christ is
not the blood, this red substance — for then might the blood of

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11  X. 18. 291
the animals under the first covenant have sufficed, — as little is it
" the spirit " alone, if by the spirit be understood an abstraction,
a misty ideal of virtue, - or freedom, or of man-deification (in
which case, it is too often the mere adpf; that falsely boasts of
possessing " the spirit of Christ") — but it is that eternal spirit of
absolute eternal holiness and eternal love which has efficaciously
manifested itself in time, inasmuch as it endured the real bloody
death for the sinful world.
Thus much our author says, in general, on the opposition
between the sacrifice of Christ and the Old Testament animal
sacrifices. From ver. 15, onwards, he developes particular sides
of this comparison.
In Ver. 15 — 23 he shows how, by the atoning death of Christ,
a new BtaOijKv also has been ratified. Thus this section points
back, at the same time, to chap. viii. For, there, it was said, in
general, that God has promised to make a new covenant, and
that by this new covenant the old must be annulled. This, too,
had already been said in chap, viii., that the priestly service
(Xetrovpyia) of Christ bears the same relation to the Levitical
priestly service as the new covenant bears to the old. The author
then in chap. ix. entered more at large into the consideration of
the old covenant, and had shown how the structure (vers. 1 — 10)
as well as the service (vers. 11 — 14) of the tabernacle pointed to
something future and more perfect; in vers. 11 — 14 he has shown
how, in the death of Christ, the more perfect Xetrovpyia consists ;
now in vers. 15 — 23 he shows, that by this very death of Christ,
also the (promised) moreperfect covenant has been ratified.
Aid tovto, in ver. 15, does not point backwards to ver. 14,
but forwards to the clause beginning with ott&>? (although this
final clause itself certainly involves substantially a repetition
of the former idea. This final clause, is, however, differently
construed.) First, it must be asked, whether the words et?
diroXirpmatv belong to Oavdrov yevoptivov or to XdBmatv. The
former is the more natural according to the position of the
words, and. has also been acknowledged as the right con
struction by almost all critics. But, secondly, there is the
question, whether the genitive tt}? almviov KXvpovoptla? is
dependent on irrayyeXiav or on KeKXvptivoi. In the latter con
struction (Tholuck and others) not only must a strong hyperbar
ton be presupposed, but also the idea which it vields (" that
t2

292 EPISTLE T() THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal
inheritance") is not quite suitable, seeing that this promise as a
promise had already, according to chap. viii. 8, ss., been given to
the members of the old covenant. It is better, with the majority
of commentators, to take that genitive as dependent on KeKXv-
ptivot. Those who are called to the eternal inheritance are,
accordingly, those members ofthe old covenant who, according tc
chap. iv. 1 and 9, had hitherto only attained to a temporary rest.
Ti]v iirayyeXiav denotes not the act of promising but (as at chap.
x. 36 ; chap. xi. 13 and 39) the promised object, the thing pro
mised to them. The sentiment then is this : that those who are
called to the eternal inheritance might receive the thing promised
to them (the fulfilment of the promise.)
How this was done is shown in the words Qavdrov yevopAvov
et? drroXvrpmaiv rmv iirl rfj irpmrrj SiaOrjKV irapaBdaemv. Ac
cording to ver. 13, s., the animal sacrifices under the old cove
nant had not. the power to redeem the sinner from transgressions
(i.e. from the guilt of these.) They procured for him, not right
eousness before God, but that relative outward purity or con
formity to the law, which itself was only an emblem and symbol
of the righteousness of God. In order truly to redeem from sins
committed under the old covenant, a death must be undergone
(a different one of course from that of bulls and goats.)
Nowtheentire sentiment becomes clear. In order that bya death
— through which, at the same time, the sins committed under the
old covenant first found their true atonement — those members cf
the old covenant who are called to the eternal inheritance might
be enabled to receive the thing promised to them (namely, the
eternal inheritance itself) : Christ must establish a new covenant.
The internal ground of this connection of ideas is manifest. It
had already been shown in chap. Aaii. and ix. of the old covenant,
that its priestly service could not blot out the guilt of sin. If the
old covenant still continued to subsist, then its priestly service
also continued, and thus, so long as it continued, there could be
no redemption, no possibihty of at length truly entering into the
long promised inheritance. There is liere, therefore, an inference
drawn backwards from the necessity of a new priestly service (Xet
rovpyia) to the necessity of a new BtaOtJKv.
But closely connected with these principal points is the second
idea of the passage before us, Oavdrov yevoptivov et? drroXvrpmaiv,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11  X. 18. 293
that it was possible to accomplish this only by an atoning sacri
ficial death.
This second point is further developed in ver. 16, ss. A cove
nant cannot be made without death ; the sinner cannot enter into a
covenant with the holy God without dying ; hence, also, in the
making of the first covenant, substitutionary burnt-offerings must
needs be brought by the Israelites who entered into covenant
with God.
This passage in itself so easy — easy whenever one has patience
to read to the end of it, that is to ver. 22 — has by most critics
been regarded as a real crux. Many have been led by what
seems to be said in ver. 16, to suppose, that the signification
covenant here is by no means suitable, and thus have rendered
8ia0rJK7j either, already at ver 15, by testament (thus completely
breaking the connection between chap. viii. and ix.), or, they
supposed a play upon the word1 in ver. 16, as if BiaOrjKv meant
covenant in vers. 15 and 18, and testament in vers. 16 and 17 ; in
' other words, they here again imputed the product of their own
fancy to the author. We will show that the signification testament
is throughout the whole passage, not only not necessary, but even
unsuitable. Already, at chap. vii. 22, we found that BiaOrjKv, in the sense
of the Heb. nvtlJ was a long-established religious idea among the
Jews and Jewish Christians. It is very doubtful, on the other
hand, whether the Hebrews knew anything in general of testa
ments (comp. the 1760 of Rau's disput. de testamenti factione
Hebraeis veteribus ignota). The passage Deut. xxi. 16 affords
an argument against the possibihty of there having been volun
tary dispositions of inheritances, and the whole Mosaic right of
inheritance was, in its nature and basis, an intestate right of
inheritance. The most that can be said is, that, under the influ
ence of the Romans, testaments may have come to be used here
and there among the Jews, but it is still prima facie very impro
bable that the author should have selected a thing so foreign
1 The rendering " testament" is given lo Sraftjm; throughout by Chry
sostom, Vulg., Luther, and the older Lutheran theologians; that of
" covenant" by the most of the Greek fathers, the most ofthe reformed
theologians, especially Grotius, then by Michaelis, Tholuck, and others ;
a change in the signification, or a paronomasia, is supposed by Bleek,
Olshausen, and several of the more recent commentators.

294 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
and so httle known, with which to compare God's highest act of
atonement. Now it is, moreover, a fact, that in that passage from
Jer. xxxi. 31 ss. cited in chap. viii. 8 ss., which forms the founda
tion of the whole of this part of the epistle, SiaOijKv is the trans
lation of the, Hebrew ]-\i-^. It is also a fact, that chap. ix. 15
connects closely with the ideas of chap. viii. ; and, besides, that
in chap. ix. 15 a mediator ofthe SiaOijKv is spoken of, while in a
testament there cannot, from the nature of the thing, be a medi
ator ; tnere may be such, however, in a covenant which two
separated parties make. From all this, so much', at least, is
evident, that so long as the signification covenant can be shown to
be suitable, we are not at liberty to depart from it.
And why should this signification not suit in ver. 16 ? " Where
a covenant is, there must, of necessity, the death of the person
making the covenant be proven." ($ipea0ai never signifies
existere, as Schulz and Bohme would have it ; it certainly signi
fies versari, for example, ev reTapaypiivois irpdypaat (pepeaOai, to
find one's self in decayed circumstances ; but, when it stands by
itself, it never has the independent substantial signification : to
exist. Quite as httle does it ever signify intercedere, as Beza
understood it. But either : sermone ferri, fama divulgari, i.e. to
be generally known ; or, what suits still better here, afferi coram
judicious to be proven, authenticated.) Therefore: where a
BiaOrjKv is, there must the death of the StaOiptevos be proven.
What had these commentators to do but to conclude, all at once,
that it is evidently a testament that is here spoken of? But is
it trae, after all, that a testament cannot exist until the testator is
dead ? Would this inference be just : where a testament is (!), there
must the death of the testator be shown ? " It would be so if the
author had said : where a testament is to be opened or imple
mented! The signification testament therefore is not even suitable.
Let us try how it goes with the signification covenant. " Where
a covenant is, there must of necessity the death of him who
makes the covenant be proven." This idea is certainly not so
self-evident as that of the testament seemed to be on a superficial
consideration of it. This idea is rather enigmatical, obscure,
almost paradoxical. But should we shrink from it on this
account ? Was it not also paradoxical, when the author, ver. 8,
from the fact that the high priest entered once every year into

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 295
the holy of holies, all at once inferred, that so long as there was
a holy place, the holy of holies would be inaccessible ? Was it
not also paradoxical, when in chap. vii. 15, from the statement
that the Messianic high priesthood was to be after the order of
Melchisedec, he inferred that the Messiah must proceed from the
tribe of Judah ? He has not failed to explain the former para
dox in chap. ix. ver. 9 — 10, and the latter in chap. vii. 16 — 17.
He is fond of making at once a bold leap from the major propo
sition to the conclusion (or, as here, from the conclusion to the
major proposition), and to bring in afterwards the connecting
ideas. Why should he not be allowed the same privilege here ?
" Where a covenant is, there the covenant-maker must be dead "
— certainly an enigmatical statement ; but patience only for
a few verses, and the author will not fail to explain it.
In Ver. 17 he again repeats the idea. " A covenant is valid
in the case of persons who are dead, as it never has force if
he who makes the covenant be alive." Again very enigmatical,
and again have the commentators, without delay, had recourse
to the testamenti factio. A testament may, indeed, be over
turned or revoked so long as the testator lives. But it would
be too much to affirm that a testament is never (jjtnrrore) vahd
so long as the testator lives. And so, to favour the explanation
" testament" the signifiation of ptr/irm has been actually given to
pttjirore here for a change !
In Ver. 18. ss. the author gives the solution of all these enigmas.
" The first covenant also was not consecrated without blood,"
(eyKaivi^etv not " to renew," but literally, to bring a new thing
into existence, into use, hence to consecrate.) Did ever any one
hear of the consecration of a testament ? and does not the author
speak of the first StaOr/Kv as a thing well known ? But does the
expression " first testament," or " testament" in general, any
where occur in the Old Testament? Is it not rather quite
eA^dent, that in the passage Ex. xxiv. 6 — 8, to which the author here
refers, it is the consecration of a jyr\2 that is spoken of ? " For,
after Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according
to the law, he took the blood of the calves and goats, with water
and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled the book of the law
itself, and all the people saying : this is the blood of the covenant
(r\V*Q) which God hath enjoined (upon me to ratify) in rela-

29o EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
tion to you. Moreover, he sprinkled likewise with blood both
the tabernacle and all the vessels ofthe ministry. And all things
are by the law purged only with blood, and without shedding of
blood is no forgiveness"
Three things fall to be observed here. The first is of an anti
quarian character, namely, that particulars are here mentioned
(as the mixing of the blood with water, the scarlet wool on the
stalk of hyssop) which are not to be found in Exodus, but only
in Josephus. Josephus followed in this doubtless an ancient
and general tradition, and our author too might, without hesita
tion, follow this tradition, especially as nothing depended here on
archaeological exactness in the statement of the event referred to,
his object being only to bring that event to the minds of his
readers in the way in which it was familiar to them, and to call
it up vividly before them by a picturesque description of it.
Secondly, We are here perfectly satisfied that the signification
" testament" for SiaOr/Kv will not do. In ver. 18 BtaOr]Kv is to be
supphed at i) rrpmrv. If SiaOijKv meant " testament," then the
author would have had to shew at ver. 19 ss. that already in
Moses' time also the testator, God, was dead, or, at least, he must
have regarded these burnt-offerings mentioned in ver. 19 as
sacrifices which had been slain in place of God !
Thirdly, what seemed obscure and paradoxical in vers. 16 —
17 is now fully explained. " Without shedding of blood there
is no forgiveness." The author, therefore, has considered that
covenant sacrifice described in Ex. xxiv. 6 — 8 to have been one
of an expiatory, atoning kind. Some, indeed, have thought that
they knew better, and have raised the objection that that sacri
fice consisted of jr^y " burnt-offerings," and that burnt-offer
ings had no atoning significance. But while this may be trae of
the burnt-offering generally, it is not true specially of the burnt-
offering used in ratifying the covenant. This could not but be
evident to the native Israelite who was familiar with his Old
Testament. It is chiefly apparent from Gen. i. 15, where God
for the first time ratifies his covenant with Abraham. Abraham
there receives the command to bring sacrifices ; he offers the
animals in sacrifice and falls then into a deep sleep, and while
he sleeps, birds of prey come down and make for consuming the
sacrifice ; but now fire falls from heaven and hcks up the sacri-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 297
fice. Upon this it is shewn to him, that as it happened to the
sacrifice so will it happen to his seed ; it too will be afflicted and
disquieted for a time, but will then be led into glory by God him
self. Thus was that burnt-offering an emblem of Abraham
himself and his seed with whom God made the covenant. We
have here, therefore, the symbolical meaning of the burnt-offering.
As the sacrificer slays the substitutionary victim and commits it
wholly to the flames, so ought he to give himself to God as one
dead to his former hfe. Thus the ;-y7i3? was> m reality, quite as
expiatory as the " sin-offering" and " guilt-offering," the only
difference being this, that by these latter only certain particular
sins were atoned for, while in the former the atonement extended
to the sinner's whole person. How much also the element of
atonement belonged to the burnt-offering appears in this, that,
according to Lev. xvi. 24, on the great day of atonement a burnt-
offering formed the conclusion of the services " to atone for
his own sins and the sins of the people." This is perfectly evident
in the case of the covenant burnt-offering. The man who will
enter into a covenant with God is a sinner, and as such incapable
of entering into fellowship with the holy God, nay even of appear
ing before God's presence (Deut. v. 26.) He must die on account
of his guilt, if a substitutionary sacrifice be not offered for
him. But he must also die to his former life, in order to
begin a new hfe in covenant with God. In short, from
a simple view of the symbolical import of the covenant-burnt-
offering described in vers. 18 — 22, the following may be stated
as the result: "Where a sinful man will enter into covenant
with the holy God, the man must first die — must first atone for
his guilt by a death (or he must produce a substitutionary burnt-
offering.") But this is precisely the idea which the author has
expressed in ver. 16 s., and which there appeared so obscure
and paradoxical.
It is altogether different in the case of a testament. There,
the testator dies and gives place to the heir. Here, it is rather
the heir, the man that is called to the possession of the heavenly
good things who must die, in order to be able, as a pardoned
and purified man, to enter into the new life with God. From
this it is clear, that the author could only have used the com
parison of a testament, if it had been his object to represent the

298 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
death of Christ on the cross as the " death of God, the testator."
But this would, in the first place, have been in itself absurd ;
secondly, there is not the slightest trace of any such reference'to
the death of Christ as the testator ; thirdly, the author could
not then have said that, already in the time of Moses, the rule
expressed in ver. 16 s., had found its apphcation.
On all sides, then, the interpretation of the word BiaOrjKv by
covenant is confirmed. The only circumstance which in ver. 16
might lead the commentators astray is, that the author there
lays down the principle not in the hmited form (" where any
one will enter into a covenant with God,") but generally
(" where a covenant is"), seeing that an atoning death is neces
sary, not to every covenant, but only when a sinner will enter
into a coA^enant Avith God. But this limitation, according to
which it is only religio-theocratical covenants that are here
spoken of, is evident enough from the context ver. 15.
Ver. 23 now forms the conclusion. That the old covenant
could not be ratified without shedding of blood, without substi
tutionary sacrifices, was shown in vers. 18 — 22. That the same
law is applicable also to the new covenant, is shown in ver. 23.
" It was necessary, therefore, that the symbols of the heavenly
things should be purged by this (by the goats and calves men
tioned in ver. 19), but the heavenly things themselves by better
sacrifices than these." Those sacrifices by which the old cove
nant was ratified, belonged to the category described in ver. 13,
of those acts by which the conscience was not expiated and
purified. The fulfilment, the new covenant as the heavenly
archetype whose symbol was the Mosaic tabernacle (for, here
also, as at chap. viii. 5, there is no heavenly a^vr} placed in
opposition to the Mosaic aKnvr]) required for its formation and
consecration, also a death, but a death of a different kind. A
death ; for here as in the old covenant man comes before God
as sinful, laden with guilt, and can, in that state, enter into no
covenant with God ; here, as in that covenant, the past guilt
must be expiated by an actual death, and the sinful hfe must be
judicially destroyed ere a new life with God can be begun, a
life in which God can manifest his love positively to men i.e.
as grace ; here, as in that covenant, if the man does not undergo
that death himself, he needs a substitutionary sacrifice. But

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11— X. 18. 299
here he needs another sacrifice than in that covenant, namely,
that of Christ, Avho, as was already shown at ver. 14 — and did
not need to be repeated at ver. 23 — has offered himself a sacrifice,
not through ihe flesh, but through the spirit, and through the
eternal spirit.
At avrd Se to errovpdvta Kpeirroat Ovalai<s, the verb KaOa-
pl£eaOat is of course grammatically to be supphed ; but logically
this will not be suitable, because the heavenly archetype, in
virtue of its being not relative, outward, imperfect, but perfect —
needs no purification. With reason, therefore, have Luther,
Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Clericus, Bleek, and others, supposed
that KaOapi^eaOai is used as a kind of logical zeugma, and that
merely the idea of eyKtuvi^eaOat is to be taken from KaOapi^eaOat,
and supphed at the second member. For, in the new covenant,
the act of redemption does not need a purification, but only the
men who are to be redeemed.
Thus that second idea contained in ver. 15 : that the new cove
nant could be made only by an atoning death has, in ver. 16 — 23,
been fully proven. Ver. 16, 17 : He who will enter into a
covenant with God must first atone for his sins by a death (by
his own or that of a substitutionary sacrifice.) Ver. 18 — 22 :
Hence it was necessary that the covenant of Moses should be
consecrated by atoning sacrifices. Ver. 23 : In like manner,
also, the new covenant, — only, that here a better sacrifice was
necessary (the death of Christ Bid irvevptaroq.)
Ver. 24 forms the transition to the next train of thought. First
of all ver. 24 is connected with ver. 23 by 70)3, as explanatory
of the antithesis between the symbols and the heavenly things
themselves. Christ has not entered into an earthly tabernacle,
but into heaven (comp. on this what has been said at chap. i. 3) ;
from this it is evident, that it was not a symbolical purging of
outward figures that he had to do with, but the initiation and
confirmation of a new relation between God and man. With
this idea, however, the author connects a new theme by one of
those easy turns which are peculiar to the Epistle to the Hebrews
(comp. i. 4, ii. 5, hi. 2, &c.)
In Ver. 25 — 28 is shown how, from the fact that Christ offered
his own blood, it follows that the sacrifice of Christ was made
only once, and with this, that other sacrifices besides that of Christ

300 EPISTLE TO THE nEBREAVS IX. 11 — X. 18.
are superfluous. In this the author draws a third inference from
the old principal theme at ver. 12. He had laid down at ver. 12,
as principal theme of the section, the proposition that Christ
offered his own blood. In ver. 13, 14, he had drawn a first infer
ence from this, namely, the internal and spiritual nature of Christ's
sacrifice. In ver. 15 — 23 is a second inference : that through
Christ's self-sacrifice, that long promised new covenant mentioned
in chap. viii. 8 ss. had been founded. In ver. 25 he now brings
in a third inference, that of the once offering of Christ 's sacrifice,
which likewise follows from the proposition, that Christ entered
into the presence of the Father, not with the blood of another,
but with Jiis own blood.
" He entered, not that he might offer frequently as the high
priest who entered yearly into the holy of hohes with the blood of
another." The main emphasis hes evidently on the words e'v
a'ipiari aXXorpim ; hence they are placed after (just as, at chap.
Aai. 4, o irarptdpxv'i is placed at the end of the sentence.)
The reason why the high priest had to offer frequently was, that
he offered another's blood. Thus the idea is easily extended : the
reason why Christ did not offer frequently was, that he did not
offer another's blood.
And it is this that is now proven in ver. 26. This verse is
not intended to prove, that Christ has offered himself only once
(for then it would be mere reasoning in a circle, thus : Christ has
offered himself only once. For otherwise he must have offered
himself repeatedly. But he has not offered himself repeatedly,
ergo, &c.) In ver. 26 it is rather intended to be proven, that
Christ needed not to offer himself repeatedly, because he has
offered himself. How, from his having offered, his own blood, the
once offering of his sacrifice follows — it is this which is to be
proven in ver. 26. — The words iirel — Koapiov are not a paren
thesis (Mill, De Wette, &c), but belong to the substance of the
reasoning ; " for, otherwise (if he had not offered his own blood),
he must often have suffered from the foundation of the world
onwards." We should rather have expected : " then he must
often have offered sacrifice." That the sacrificial act is here
denoted by suffering is logically inaccurate, as, on the supposition
that Christ had not offered his own blood but another's, his
sacrifice would not then have consisted of suffering. The author

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11  X. 18. 301
has therefore put iraOeiv here, unconsciously, because he was in
the habit of using rraOeiv and irpoa<f>ipeiv promiscuously of Christ.
The reason why Christ, if he had offered another's blood, must
have done this repeatedly — as the Levitical high priest : from of
old ever and ever again — lies in what is said at ver. 13. — " But
now he has appeared once in the end of the time (i.e. in the time
, of the fulfilment, the Messianic time, in opposition to the time of
expectation and. prophecy, comp. i. 2 and 1 Pet. i. 20), to take
away sin by his own sacrifice." As the sacrifice of Christ was
not a typical sacrifice, but the fulfilment itself (for the time of the
Messiah was to be the avvriXeia tt}? at'wvo?, the final fulfilment),
it needs not to be repeated.
In Ver. 26, then, from the fact that Christ has offered his own
blood, it is inferred, that he needed not to repeat this sacrifice ; in
ver. 27, 28, it is inferred from the same thing, that he could not
repeat it. A man can offer the blood of another repeatedly, his
own blood he can offer — in other words, die — only once. This is
the main point in ver. 27, 28. " As it is appointed to every man
once to die, so was Christ also once offered for our sins." With
this principal idea, however, is entwined a subordinate idea which
has no close connexion with the argument, but is added only
parenthetically, namely, that, after death, the judicari awaits the
rest of men, but the judicare awaits Christ. — The expression
without sin is explained by the antithesis, to bear the sins of many.
Irving, therefore, had no reason to infer from the without sin that
Christ, at his first coming in humiliation, was not without sin but
partook of the sinful imOvptta. It is rather only the first coming
to bear the sins of others, i.e. the guilt of sin, that is here opposed
to the second appearing without sin. When he comes again he
has no more to do with sin ; he comes then not as the bearer of
others' guilt, but as the holy judge of others' guilt, as a consuming
fire, wliich stands in a hostile and negative relation to all that is
called sin.
In Chap. x. 1 — 4 the author recurs to what is said in chap. ix.
13, 14, in order to deduce from it also, that the sacrifice of Christ
was offered only once. Thus vers. 1 — 3 contains an explanation
of ver. 26 of the foregoing chapter. — The subject of ver. 1 is 6
voptos ; this subject has however the appositional clause aKidv

302 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11  X. 18.
exwv rmv pteXXovrmv dyaOmv, ovk aurrjv tt)v etKova rmv rrpa/yptarmv.
E'tKmv does not signify precisely " substance" (Luther, Peschito)
much less does it denote the " mere image" in opposition to the
" thing" (Oecumenius, Gregory of Nazianzum, Calvin, Tholuck),
as if it were meant to be said that the law is the shadow of the
gospel, the gospel itself again, however, only an image of the
good things to come ; elxmv denotes here simply the form in oppo
sition to the mere shadow. The genitive t<bv rrpayptdrmv is
genitive of the substance. The form of the things themselves
=the form, namely, the things themselves. The whole of this
apposition is designed to show, how far it was possible and allow
able to speak unfavourably of the Old Testament, and that this
was done not from contempt of the Old Testament, but because,
according to its divine destination, it was to be, and must be,
imperfect. Comp. the remarks on chap. iv. 2, and especiaUy the
passages chap. vii. 18 ; viii. 7 ss.
What now is affirmed of this vbpws ? It was not able, year
by year, with the same sacrifices which were continually offered,
to make the comers thereunto perfect. Kaf iviavrov belongs of
course to the verb. Year by year (the author here in the
word Ovaiai1} has evidently in his mind chiefly the yearly
sacrifice of atonement) the law remained incapable of making
the comers thereunto perfeet by its sacrifices, how uninter
ruptedly soever these also were offered. (Lachmann and
Paulus join et? rb St^ve/re? with reXetmaat ; but then the remain
ing part of the relative clause becomes meaningless. Besides,
the author says in ver. 3 also, not merely that those sacrifices
were not able permanently to make perfect, but that they effected
no atonement whatever, that they rather only pointed to the need
of such an atonement.) Instead of Bvvarai A, C, many ver
sions and the Peschito (here, however, giving generally a
free translation) read Svvavrai. Then aKidv ydp exmv 6 vbpto<;
must either be an independent clause with the partic. pro verbo
finito, which, however, is altogether foreign to the style of our
author. Or, we must suppose an anacolauthon ; the author
began the sentence with 6 vbpto<s and intended originally to
write Bvvarai ; in writing, however, he inverted the idea, and
made the subject of the relative clause also the subject of the

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 303
principal clause. But it is far more probable that some trans
criber is to be charged with this carelessness than our author, who
usually writes so correctly.
In Ver.2_the reading wavers between irrel ovk av and irrel dv ;
ovk is, however, already externally better attested (by A, C, D, E,
Copt., Arab., Ital. Also a reading irrel kwv is exphcable only
from the matrix EIIEIOTKAN.) It is, besides, easy to see
how transcribers might come to omit the ovk. The whole sen
tence (with ovk) has meaning only when taken as a question
(" would they not then have ceased to be offered ? as the wor-
shippersonce purgedwould have had no more consciousness of sin.")
But if a transcriber overlooked this, and read the sentence as a
thetical proposition, he must then, certainly, have held it neces
sary to cancel the ovk. — The idea is easily understood. The Old
Testament sacrifices did not take away the consciousness of sin,
but only brought to remembrance (ver. 3) year by year the
presence of sin and guilt, and, therewith, the (continual, still
unsatisfied) need of a real propitiation.
That the Old Testament sacrifices could not really atone for
sin is, in ver. 2, inferred from the fact of their repetition ; it
would have been a meaningless ordinance if God had enjoined
the repetition of a sacrifice which had already, the first time it
was offered, really taken away the guilt of sin from man or from
Israel. In ver. 4 the same thing, namely, the inefficacy of the
Old Testament sacrifices to make real atonement is inferred from
the very nature of these sacrifices. The blood of irrational
animals cannot possibly take away moral guilt. (Comp. chap.
ix. 14.) There is wanting in these, the two things which are
necessary to a trae substitution. A sacrifice which shall truly
take upon itself the punishment of another's guilt must, firstly,
be able to bear the same sufferings as ought to have been borne
by the guilty person, therefore, not a merely bodily pain or death,
but an inward suffering of the man endowed with a rational soul.
A trae sacrifice must, secondly, after having as a substitute
endured the suffering, be able to remove again the element of.
substitution, i.e., to place itself in a relation of internal oneness
with the party represented ; it is thus that the merit of Christ's
suffering is appropriated by us, inasmuch as, although we stood
beside him as other and different persons when he suffered (so

304 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11 — X. 18.
that he did all that was necessary for us without our assistance
and co-operation), we now no longer continue to stand beside
him, but, by his spirit on his part, and by faith on ours, become
members of him, to whom all now really belongs that belongs to
him. For we become righteous, not as individuals, the descend
ants of the first Adam, but as those who by faith have given up
themselves, who have given themselves to the death, and are
now willing to have any merit before God only in so far as before
belong to Christ and he belongs to. Both these conditions were
impossible in the animal sacrifices.
Vers. 5 — 10. The writer in these verses shows, that already
also in the Old Testament itself, there are intimations of the
necessity of another, a better sacrifice than that of animals. In
the citation from Ps. xl. 7 — 9 the author follows the Sept. As
the Sept., however, deviates from the original, the question arises
whether it has at least rendered substantially the sense of the
passage. — After enumerating the wonderful and gracious acts of
God, the Psalmist says : " Sacrifice and offering thou hast not
desired ; ^ T^'SD O^TN > burnt-offering and sin-offerings thou
hast not required." He evidently in these words " Q^TN intends
to place in opposition to the external sacrifices one of an internal
and better kind, and some sacrifice or other of this kind must at
least implicitly be designated by those words, " mine ears hast
thou digged out." The older commentators, as also Olshausen,
referred this digging of the ears in general to that boring through
the lap of the ear of which we read in Ex. xxi. 6. When,
namely, a servant had it in his power to become free, but pre
ferred of his own accord to continue for the rest of his life in the
service of the master with whom he had hitherto been, he was,
in token of this, to let (j^"l) nls ear (tne ^aP 0I" the ear) be bored
through by his master. The majority of the more recent com
mentators (Hengstenberg, Stier, Hitzig, Tholuck, Bleek), on
the other hand, take ;-p2 in the sense of j-r^j. To say that
God has " digged out the ears" of a man, is equivalent to saying
¦that he has given him ears, made ears for him." The creation or
formation of an ear in the head is figuratively denoted as the
digging out of an ear. And, indeed, the verb j-p^ (used gene
rally of the digging of a well, a pit, and the like) would suit this
representation. The meaning then would be : " Thou wiliest

ETISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11— X. 18. 305
not sacrifice, but thou hast given me an ear, a capacity to hear
thy commands, and thus hast pointed out what sacrifices are
acceptable to thee." Meanwhile, I am doubtful after all whether
the author has not had in his mind that command in Ex. xxi. 6 ;
the boring through the lap of the ear might poetically be denoted
as a digging through it, and then the sentiment : " I have let my
ear be bored through by thee, i.e. I have freely given myself to
be thy servant for the whole of my hfe," forms, certainly, a finer
and fuller antithesis to the words : " burnt-offering, &c. thou
wiliest not," than that somewhat vague idea : " thou hast made
ears for me." But, be this as it may, one thing evidently hes in
the words — the Psalmist places obedience, as the trae sacrifice, in
opposition to the animal sacrifices.
The reading in the Sept., according to Bleek's opinion, was
originally mra or ojtio ; ampta is said to have first slipped in as a
different reading, because the expression wto Se Kari)priam ptot
was not understood. But the oldest authorities for the reading
mra reach only to the time of Irenaeus, while Bleek himself must
acknowledge that our author read ampta in his copy of the Sept.
Indeed, it is much easier to understand how, if the free trans
lation ampta were the original one, the reading mra might arise
at a later period, in the time of Origen, from aiming at conformity
with the Hebrew text, than that, vice versa, from an original
reading mra the reading ampa should have arisen. We con
sider, therefore, the reading ampta Be Karvpr'iam pot as the
genuine reading of the Sept. The Septuagint translator might
easily take the expression as it stood to be unintelligible, and
substitute for it the more general idea : " thou hast prepared my
body (myself) for sacrifice." The meaning remains substantially
the same : " thou wilt not have animals for sacrifices, but my
self." But Bleek is certainly in error when he thinks, that our
author cites the entire passage on account of this word ampia
(in the opinion that this points prophetically to the bodily death
of Christ). We have seen at chap. ix. 14 that our author does
not lay the principal emphasis on the bodily side of the sufferings
of Christ; his aim is rather precisely to show, that with the
blood, qua blood, nothing has as yet been accomplished. And
indeed, at ver. 9, where he makes use of and applies the citation
u

306 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18.
Ps. xl. 7 — 9, he entirely drops the words ampta, &c. and lays all
the emphasis on the words rjKm rov iroir\aat rb OiXvpa aov.
The eighth verse of the psalm begins with the emphatic words
WllDM tN "then I spake." What follows, are the words which
the' Psalmist spake. " Lo, I am come " (ij-|^^ r^H? not
" Lo, I come" ^1 ^3rr) > in the ro^ °^ tne k°°k i* ls Avritten of
me ; to do thy will, my God, is my delight I" That the author
omits the verb iBovXijOvv, so that now tou rroiijaai is dependent
on ir\Km and the words e'v Ke(paXiSt &c. become parenthetical, is,
as respects the sense, quite an inconsiderable deviation. More
important is the question, how the words e'v KecpaXlSt are to be
explained. Hitzig, Ewald, Bleek, and others , render in the
Hebrew the preposition ^ with, the preposition ^j» for (" I come
with the roll of the book which is written for me,"). This idea
would not only be unpoetical but ridiculous. The Sept. has
certainly given a more correct rendering : " I come ; in the roll
of the book it is written of me ;" although, instead of ijKm it
would be more correct to say iXrjXvOa "I am come." The
simplest explanation certainly is this, that the psalm, as the
superscription says, is one of David's ; only, that it was written
not after the prophecy of Nathan pointing to the future, 2 Sam.
Adi., but before it, nay before David's ascent to the throne, but
after his anointing by Samuel — during his persecution by Saul
(with Ps. xl. 2 — 4 compare ver. 14 — 18). David could and
must at that time have combined the old patriarchial blessing
that the Prince over Israel should come out of Judah with the
fact, that God had rejected Saul and chosen him ; in him was
the old prophecy fufilled. " Lo, I am come," he says, " in the
book (Pentateuch) itis written of me" = in me is that prophecy
fulfilled. And now he declares that, as opposed to Saul, it is his
delight to do the will of the Lord. In this way of obedience
towards God he hopes to fulfil that prophecy.
But David as an individual did not carry out the full import
of this his promise ; he did not wholly and purely offer his person
as a sacrifice to God in unbroken obedience, but sinned griev
ously and in many ways. Hence the patriarchial blessing found
in him only a preliminary, not a final fulfilment, as, indeed, this
was afterwards (2 Sam. vii.) revealed to David himself, and was

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 307
acknowledged by himself (Ps. ii. and ex.) That, however, which
David did typically and imperfectly, the second David was to do
perfectly. But that passage in the Psalms remained true,
although it did not come to be absolute truth in the individual
David. This individual spake, however, even there not from
himself, not from his own sinful humanity or from chance, but
from his office, and from the idea of the theocratical Bang, and
therefore under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. Hence it is
not the individual David that is the trae author of those words of
the psalm, but the true heavenly Anointed made use of David
as an organ, in order to express a truth which applies in its ful
ness not to the first but only to the second David. Hence our
author has sufficient reason for saying : the Son of God, when he
entered into the world to become man, spake these words. That
Jesus was not the author of the 40th Psalm, the author knew as
well as we. As little does he indicate that he regarded the
psalm as a direct prophecy of David concerning Christ (Ps. ii.
and ex. were such direct prophecies) ; but his meaning evidently
is, that in David the Son of God spake by his Spirit. The
psalm was not a direct word-prophecy pointing to Christ, but
the Psalmist David was a fact-prophecy pointing to the second
David, and what David promised in order to fulfil it imperfectly,
that has Christ promised by David in order to keep it perfectly.
If now, according to Ps. xl., it belongs to the theocratical
Anointed that he regards not animal sacrifices but the sacrifice
of obedience as suitable to him, this expresses just what our
author had laid down in ver. 1 — 4.
Ver. 8 — 9. The author here simply shows, that obedience was
put in the place of the animal sacrifices, and thereby, also,
declared to be a sacrifice and, indeed, the true sacrifice.
At irepl ayttopTto?, ver. 6 and 8, Ovaiai is to be supplied. There
was no Greek noun for " sin-offering ;" the idea must be rendered
by the circumlocution : (Ovala) irepl o/topTto?.
Ver. 10. By the OiXvpta here, as at ver. 9, we may understand
either the special will of the Father, that Christ should suffer
and make atonement for the world, or, the general will of God,
as, for example, it is expressed in the decalogue. Either :
Christ came to fulfil that special decree of redemption, and in
this will (i.e. by the fulfilment of it on the part of Christ) we
u 2

308 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS IX. 11  X. 18.
are sanctified. Or : Christ came in general to hve conformably
to the will and law of God, i.e. to hve a holy life, and through
this will of God (fulfilled by Christ, i.e. : by the fulfilment of this
will on the part of Christ) we are sanctified. But, as ver. 9
belongs to the citation from the psalm, in which there was no
mention of the special decree respecting the suffering of the
Messiah, the second explanation is preferable. (That the ful
filment of the general will of God already involved the accom
plishment of the special decree is, of course, self-evident. If
Jesus was obedient to the Father in general, he was so also in
that special point.)
'Hyiaapivot here in the widest sense " to make dytot," to take
them from the profane world sunk in death, and to place them in
the kingdom of God. Thus dytd^eiv here involves both justi
fication and sanctification ; that the former is not excluded
appears already from the additional clause Sid tj}? rrpoa<popd<;, &c.
Ver. 11 — 18. The author here again sums up with all precision
the proper quod erat demonstrandum (ver. 12 — 13), and, inas
much as he represents the one sacrifice as, at the same time, the
fulfilment of the promise of a new covenant (Jer. xxxi. 32 ss.)
cited in chap. viii. 8 ss., he derives from this still another and
concluding proof of the once offering of this sacrifice, and there
with of the superfluousness and jdispensableness of the Levitical
ritual beside this one sacrifice.
Ver. 11. The Kai is not to be rendered " namely" (Tholuck),
a signification which it never can have, and, moreover, cannot
have here, as ver. 11 stands related to the foregoing not as an
argument but as an inference. It means " and," " and so." —
Instead of tepev? A.C., Peschito, and several Fathers read
dpxtepew (so also Grotius, Limborch, Lachmann, Bleek). But
it is not likely that a transcriber should have changed an original
dp%tepeu? by way of correction into tepeu?, on the ground that
the high priest performed no daily service ; in chap. vii. 27
mention is even made of the daily sacrifice of the high priest,
and yet no transcriber has thought of substituting lepev<; for
apxtepevt there by Avay of correction. It is much more probable,
that in order to bring our passage into conformity with that, an
original tepev? was changed into dp^tepev?. (Especially might a
translator, as that of the Peschito, be easily led to do so.) In-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11 — X. 18. 309
ternal grounds are also in favour of the reading tepev?. Bleek,
indeed, thinks " the treatise of the writer is entirely occupied
with the comparison between the high priest of the new covenant
and that of the old ;" we have seen, however, that only the third
part chap. v. 7 is taken up with this. There, at chap. vii. 27,
it was quite in order to speak specially of the high priest as the
highest representative of the Levitical priesthood, in opposition
to the Messiah, the high priest after the order of Melchisedec.
Now, however, when the author has already spoken in particular of
the ritual of the old covenant and of all its parts — the ministration
of the priests, ix. 6,-and high priests, ix. 6 — the sacrifice of atone
ment, ix. 7, and the oblations of the holy place ix. 6 — the cove
nant-burnt-offering, ix. 19 ss. and the various meat and sin-
offerings, x. 6 and 8 — it was more suitable to speak of the Levitical
" priest" quite generally. Especially is the attribute 7ro? agree
able to the reading lepew. The author places the single offering
of the individual Christ in opposition to all priests with all their
different sacrifices.
Ver. 11. Here the idea is recapitulated which was developed
in chap. ix. 13 — 14 and 25 ; chap. x. 1 — 4;— in ver. 12 the prin
cipal idea of chap. ix. 25 — 28 is recapitulated in the words ptiav
vrrep, &c, and the idea of chap. ix. 24 (compare i. 3) in the
words et? rb Surve/ee? eKaOtaev, &c. On Segid Oeov compare wl\at
is said on chap. i. 3. By the mention of the second coming of
Christ in judgment ver. 13 (recapitulation of chap. ix. 28), the
author prepares the way for the sentiments of a hortatory kind from
ver. 19 ss., to the effect that now the choice lies before them be
tween salvation and destruction. (On ver. 13 comp. Ps. ii. and
chap. ii. 8 s.) — In ver. 13 the inferences are recapitulated, in ver.
14 the reason ; in ver. 14, namely, he expresses once more the
central idea of this whole part. ' Ayia%bp,evo<; is used in the same
wide sense as i)ytaaptivo'i, ver. 10.
Ver 15 — 18. In these verses he infers yet again, and finally,
the once offering of the sacrifice of Christ — laid down in ver. 14,
and already proven in chap. 9 — 10 — from the passage Jer. xxxi.,
and thereby brings together the ideas of the three portions, chap.
vhi. 8 — 13; chap. ix. 15 — 23; chap. ix. 25 — 28. God has
promised a new covenant, in which he will write the law on men's
hearts by the forgiA^eness of sins (chap. viii. 8, ss.) ; this new

310 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS X. 11 — XI. 18.
covenant is ratified, this forgiveness wrought out, by the sacrifice
of Christ (chap. ix. 15 ss.); but where this forgiveness is, there
there is no need of a repeated sacrifice (chap. ix. 25 ss.) The
first of these ideas is repeated in A-ers. 15 — 17, and, with it men
tion is made of the second ; the third is stated in ver. 18. Thus
does the conclusion of this fourth principal part unite itself again
with the beginning of chap. viii.
Thus has the writer reached the innermost kernel of the
Christian doctrine. Immediately from the consciousness of the
forgiveness of sin on account of Chrisis sacrifice — the point in
Avhich the subjective consciousness harmonizes with the objective
fact of the restored relation to God — he infers in ver. 18 the
superfluousness of those symbolical sacrifices which had only a
subjective value, and could awaken only the subjective knowledge
of the need of an atonement (comp. ver. 3.) (This is entirely the
fundamental idea of the Pauline system.) Let us now look back
from this the highest point in the argumentation, to the way by
which we have been conducted to it. In all the principal parts
and particular sections, the author begins with the most outward
and apparently accidental points of comparison and differences
which offer themselves to view between the Messiah and the
angels, the Messiah and Moses, the Messiah and the high priest
(for example, that God calls none of the angels his son ; that
Moses was a servant, the Messiah the son of the house ; that
Melchisedec's descent is left unknown, &c.) But he everywhere
shows how, in these apparently accidental things, essential rela
tions lying deep beneath them are expressed ; he follows out these
relations, and reaches more universal points of comparison; it is as
if one were to follow brooks which lead him to rivers, and in
the end to a wide stream. The Messiah must be the perfect
messenger of God to men, because in him the hohness of God and
not merely his omnipotence are manifest, because in him the
Godhead is to become man and humanity is to be raised to union
with God. The Messiah must be the perfect representative of
men before God, because he is to be the Son of God himself, not
merely a servant, and is truly to conduct man to his true rest.
The Messiah must be a high priest, and indeed the promised, true,
eternal high priest after the order of Melchisedec, Avho represents
man eternally and without change before God. This discovers

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS IX. 11  X. 18. 311
itself in the manner of his priestly ministration ; the sacrifice which
he offered is a spiritual, moral, and therefore more than a symboli
cal sacrifice ; it is the fulfilment of the typical things of which the
tabernacle consisted, and of the typical actions of which the
service of the tabernacle consisted. Thus the author comes to
the doctrine of the atonement, and, Avith this, to that of the appro
priation of the atonement which he handles in the concluding
part.

( 312 )

PART FIFTH.

(Chap. x. 19— xiii. 25.)
THE LAYING HOLD ON THE NEW TESTAMENT SALVATION.
That portion of the epistle which consists of speculative reason
ing has now reached its conclusion. What the author has now
further to say, is intended not so much to be comprehended, as
rather to be apprehended. The innermost experience of the
innermost life is the cognoscens. To lay hold on the salvation is
not an act of the head and the understanding, but the most
intensive act of the life, — that act in which the man has the
courage to declare himself bankrupt. Hence the author, from
this place onwards, no longer reasons, but addresses himself to
the heart and the will of his readers.
Seven hnes of thought or sections can without difficulty be
distinguished in this part.
1. In chap. ix. 15 — 25 the author lays down the proper theme
of the admonition, that to which he admonishes.
2. In chap. ix. 26 — 31 he enforces this admonition by a first
motive, namely, by calling to mind the greatness of the danger of
falling away, and the fearful consequences of this.
3. In chap. x. 32, xi. 1, he adduces a second motive, inasmuch
as he reminds the readers of their former faith.
4. In chap. xi. 2, xii. 3, a third motive, inasmuch as the author
shoAvs how ah the illustrious and celebrated achievements, even
under the old covenant, proceeded solely from this principle of
faith. 5. In chap. xii. 4 — 17 a fourth moti'-e, inasmuch as the writer

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19 — 25. 313
shows that the very thing which now terrifies his readers, the
suffering that threatens them, brings only blessing.
6. In chap. xii. 18 — 29 a fifth motive. The choice between
Christianity and Judaism is simply identical with that between
salvation and condemnation.
7. Chap. xiii. forms the conclusion, containing special exhorta
tions and references of a personal kind.

SECTION FIRST.
(Chap. x. 19—25.)
THEME OF THE EXHORTATION.
Ver. 19 — 25. In a long and finely constructed period, the
author developes the particular points in the practical applica
tion of what has been now theoretically proven. The particle
ovv is used in the conclusive sense. The admonition, ver. 19 — 25,
flows as an inference from the result of the whole previous
reasoning, recapitulated and concentrated in ver. 11 — 18. The
words e^ovTe? . . . rrovvpch form the first member of the exhorta
tion. The apposition ex0VTe<> rrapprjaiav, &c, belonging to the
latent subject, forms, logically considered, a kind of protasis to
the verb rrpoaepxmpteOa (as we have boldness, &c, so let us,
&c.) Let us look first of all at this protasis.
Two objects depend on exovrei. First, we have joyful confi- *
dence for the access into the holiest of all in the blood of Jesus.
The words e'v rm a'iptan 'Inaov may, grammatically, be referred
to the verbal idea lying in the noun eifo-oSo? (Storr, Klee, Paulus,
Olshausen, Bleek), according to the analogy of the passage ix.
25. Others (many ofthe older expositors) make e'v rm a'iptari,
&c, dependent on exovret ; in which case, however, the deter
mining idea expressed in iv rm a'iptan can, according to the
sense and the position of the words, belong only to the first
member : expires rrappvalav, and not also to the second : Kal

314 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19  25.
(e^ovTe?) lepea. The meaning in both constructions remains
substantially the same. Still the latter construction, as will
immediately appear, yields a finer sense. 'Ev is not to be
explained as a Hebraism, and taken in an instrumental sense,
but in its own proper signification " in." The style of concep
tion and expression, as a whole, is figurative, borrowed from
the Old Testament ritual of the atonement festival. In that
festival the high priest must have died, if he had entered into
the presence of God in the holiest of all without the sacrifice of
blood ; only when sprinkled with the blood, and thus as it were
covered with it, could he dare to enter in, and even then only
with fear and trembling, and no one durst follow him. We,
on the contrary, because covered with the blood of Christ (iv
a'iptan therefore at e^ovTe?) have all of us full joyful confidence
to enter into the, not figurative but, real hohest of aU, Le. to the
opened paternal heart of God, after our high priest who has gone
before us on this way, a way which is everlastingly fresh and
living. 'EyKatvi^eiv, as at ix. 18 in the signification " to conse
crate," "to bring into use for the first time." This entrance
which he has consecrated for us is called aoSo? irpbatparoi;. This
word is formed from the rad. inus. $Af2, and signifies literally
" fresh slaughtered," then " new," " fresh." (So also Olshausen.)
The signification " bloody" (Tholuck) belongs to it here just as
httle as elsewhere ; nor would this signification be even suitable
here, as then there would be no difference in this respect between
the new covenant and the old, seeing that the Levitical high
priest also might not enter into the hohest of all " without blood"
(chap. ix. 7.) IIpba<f)aro<; rather signifies " fresh," which,
however, is not the same as new, novns, «cotvo?, as if it were
intended to designate the way opened up by Christ as a new, a
later, in opposition to the Old Testament way ; nor is it equi
valent to recens, in the sense of this way being now as yet new,
but one which would afterwards become old and obsolete ;
the idea is precisely the reverse, namely, that while the Old
Testament atonement festivals were effectual only for a year,
the entrance to God opened up by Christ is still always new
and fresh, notwithstanding the decades that have since elapsed,
consequently, that in general, it remains everlastingly fresh. —
That way, however, is called tfrnaa in opposition to the way by

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19 — 25. 315
which the Levitical high priest had to pass to the holiest of all,
which was an earthly local way, a place of dead earth or stones
which the feet trod, while the way to God upon which Christ
has gone before us, and by which we must follow him, consists
for him and for us in a living act; (others, as for example
Olshausen, explain £maa = ^moirotovaa, Avhich is contrary to the
usage as well as to the context.)
Christ has gone this way before us through the vail,1 — an evident
allusion to the fact that, at the death of Christ, the A'ail was rent
in twain, and the holiest of all laid open (Matth. xxvii. 51, comp.
also our remarks on iretpavepmaOai, chap. ix. 8.) Still, it is not
to be thought that Christ entered to the Father through that
vail of the Old Testament sanctuary which was then rent, for
the author adds the explanatory words : that is to say his flesh.
By this is, of course, not meant that the body of Christ was that
which had separated us from God (Schulz and others) ; but that
the fact of the violent killing of the body of Christ corresponded
to the symbolical fact of the rending of the symbolical vail.
Throughout, then, we find that what corresponds to the local
earthly aKvvr) is not a aKvvrj in heaven in like manner local, but
that acts and relations correspond to the localities ; the act ofthe
spiritual entrance to the paternal heart of God corresponds to
the local entrance into the holiest of all, the internal blotting out
of guilt through the atoning death of Christ corresponds to the
local rending of the vail.
The second object belonging to e\ovre^, the second thing
which we possess is " a great priest over the house of God."
'Iepevs piyas frequently occurs in the Sept. as synonymous with
dpxiepev<s, and hence many (Klee, Tholuck) have here also
rendered it by "high priest." But as our author elsewhere
uniformly expresses this latter idea by apxiepevs, he must cer
tainly have had a reason for using another expression here ; he
must have meant to say here, not that we have an high priest,
but that we have " a great priest." And, indeed, there is nothing
1 This local signification of bid c. gen. (comp. Luke iv. 30 ; Rom. xv.
28) should never have been doubted in our passage. Olshausen is for
taking did in an instrumental sense, and o-dp£ in the sense of " suffer
ing.'' But, granted that the latter were allowed, still the words Sta tov
kaTaTverdo-iiaTos remain unexplained.

316 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19 — 25.
said here of the high priests as opposed to the ordinary priests,
but Christ appears as the one, great, exalted priest in whom the
entire idea of all leparela finds its realization, in opposition to
the Levitical priests as a whole, the high as well as the ordinary
priests. In ver 23 the exhortation itself now follows : irpoaepxoopieOa
scil. et? to 0710. Does the trae holiest of all stand open, it is
criminal not to make use of this entrance. But how that entrance
is to be made, we are told in the words with true heart, &c. First
and above all, a true heart is required. This is the first condition
and the ground of all faith, that the heart be true ; that it be not
biassed by self-deception regarding its wretched state by reason
of sin, nor by self-deception also regarding all its endeavours, its
inclinations, its plans. It is not that painful self-examination in
order to search out sins which one has not that is required, as the
victims of certain fanatical and morbid tendencies would demand,
who make the very greatness of the corruption of which they
speak a merit, or a ground of self-elation. No ! it is enough
if the man truly knows the sins wliich he has, and thereby comes
to the knowledge that he has not merely sins, but sin, and that
he is encompassed with it even in his best works. Where this
knowledge takes root, it will dispel the delusive fancy that God
needs no atonement, that God is only a dead idol who knows not
the anger of holy love ; it will dispel, too, all confidence in false
self-made atonements, all merit of works, it will destroy all self-
deception about an atonement through other sacrifices than the
sacrifice of Christ, in like manner, also, the self-deception which
leads a man to regard as meritorious, and to rest his hope on, faith
itself, or an institution of faith, a church, confession, &c. A true
heart is such a heart as regards itself, the person in its totality, in
the mirror, not of a means of grace or an institution of grace, but
in the mirror of the person of Jesus Christ, and asks itself whether
it loves the Saviour above all things.
Secondly, the rrXvpotyopla rriarems is required, the full undi
vided faith, not a faith such as the readers of the Epistle to the
Hebrews had, who to the questions : " Is Jesus the Messiah ? Is
he the Son of God ?" &c, replied in the affirmative indeed with
head and mouth, but yet were not satisfied with the sacrifice of
Christ, and thought it necessary still to lean on the crutches of-

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19 — 25. 317
the Levitical sacrifices, and on these crutches would limp into
heaven. In like manner, we will find still a half faith, when one
belongs to the Church and attends divine service, and on a death
bed desires the word of Christ and the consolations of his grace,
but yet only measures off for Christ a certain portion of his time
and his activity, instead of having Christ at all times before his
eyes and in his heart, and letting his whole being and life be
penetrated by him. Christianity and the business of the present
hfe are regarded as two things which, in respect of quantity,
must be weighed against each other, lest by giving too much to
the one (Christianity) the other (the earthly condition, honour,
pleasure, &c.) should suffer and be prejudiced ; instead of its
being remembered, that what we are and do as men on the earthy
we should be and do as Christians. But wherever there is such
incompleteness of faith, such shrinking from a complete and
entire devotedness to Christ, such earthly feeling and reliance
upon something else, as if happiness were to come from this
quarter or from that, only from some other source than from
Christ, there also, the danger is great of becoming the prey of
error, unbelief, and apostasy.
Thirdly, the fruit and effect of faith is required, viz. the con
sciousness of sin being pardoned : 'Eppavriaptivot to? KapSlas dub
avveiBijaems irovvpd<;. The expression, again, is figurative, and
finds its explanation partly, in chap. ix. 19 (in which is the figure
of the pavriteiv), partly in chap. ix. 13, x. 2 (where we find the
opposition between the symbolical cleansing of the body and the
real cleansing of the avvelBvai? or KapSla.) Airb depends on the
idea of " cleansing " which is implied in the (pregnant) pavri^etv.
SvvelSnais rrovvpd is the opposite of avveiSvais dyaOtf, Acts xxiii.
1 ; 1 Pet. iii. 16 and 21 ; 1 Tim. i. 5 and 19. Taken exactly,
however, it does not signify " evil (rebuking) conscience," but
" evil consciousness," where, indeed, rrovvpd is to be resolved into
a genitive of the object (" consciousness of evil," consciousness
of being evil.)
The words Kal XeXovaivot .... Karexoptev, &c, form a second
member of the exhortation. Kal XeXovptivot cannot, of course, be
any longer dependent on irpoaepxmpieOa, as otherwise, an intoler
able asyndeton at kot6^o)/x6v would be the result. This participle,
then, rather corresponds, in the place which it occupies, to the

318 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 19 — 25.
e^o vt6?, ver. 1. (" Seeing that we have an entrance .... and
a priest .... let us enter with true heart, in full faith, cleansed
from the evil conscience. And if we are now washed .... let
us hold fast," &c.) If XeXovptivoi were grammatically connected
with ippavnaptkvoi (as Olshausen and others suppose), and con
nected, moreover, by a tout iart, then might we be justified in
taking XeXovptivoi rb ampta vBan KaOapm as the explanation of
the figure ippavnapiivoi, and in understanding it in the proper
sense of a washing of the body with water, i.e: of baptism. (" And
as we are baptized, let us," &c.) So Bleek and others. But as
XeXovpivot is quite parallel with the figurative expression e^ovTe?
irappvaiav eh rrjv eiaoBov rmv dyimv, and ippavnapiivoi also was
to be taken figuratively, it is better (with Calvin, Beza, Ernesti,
Limborch, &c.) to understand this XeXovptivoi also figuratively
(with reference to Ezek. xxxvi. 25), so that the meaning is :
" And if we are now thus washed from our sins." Thus it con
tains that which connects it with the concluding word of the
first member.
The exhortation itself is : Karixoipev rrp) bpoXoylav tt}? e'X7rtSo?
daXivfj, let us hold fast the profession ofthe hope unmoved. The
profession, that in Christ, and in him alone, is forgiveness of sins
to be obtained, which the readers were steadfastly to maintain
before the Jews, is here called a profession of the hope, a desig
nation which finds its full explanation in chap. iv. 1. It is the
profession that the Christian also, nay the Christian alone, has
the hope of the promised rest ; that he, although cast out from
the theocracy and the temple, persecuted, destitute of all earthly
good, of all carnal hope of a Messiah, yet has the assured hope
of inheriting the kingdom. To such a profession of hope belongs
now, as it did then, the faith which regards an unseen and as yet
unfulfilled word of God as a much surer and more certain pos
session (why ? the parenthesis iriarbs, &c, shows) than all the
visible and attainable glory of the present world. But in our
own day, that profession of the hope has again become one of
the highest and most important duties, inasmuch as now oi
Kvvh (Rev. xxii. 15), both among Jews and Gentiles, as then
-among Jews (Phil. iii. 2) are crying out, that " man by being
amused with fair promises for another world, is losing his happi
ness in this."

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS X. 19—25. 319
The author, in the first member of the exhortation, has said,
how the Christian is to conduct himself towards God, in the
second, towards the world without, and now in the third member
of the exhortation, ver. 24, 25, he says, how he is to conduct
himself towards the brethren, the Church. There is a false
considering of one another which proceeds from selfishness and
pride, and is forbidden by the apostle Paul, Gal. vi. 4. But
there is also a trae considering of one another, which, as it pro
ceeds from love, has the tendency only to call forth " emulation
in love and in good works," and this is recommended in the verse
before us. — To this general duty, however, the special one is
added, not to neglect attendance on the Christian assemblies, as
many of the readers had already done through the fear of man.
'Emavvaymyi], formed from ernavvdyeiv to assemble, is distin-
guishedfrom avvaymyr), inasmuch as, according to the usus linguae,
it was not a designation for the Jewish religious assemblies which
are still called " synagogues," but had always preserved the more
general signification " assembly" (2 Mace. ii. 7 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1),
so that it might therefore be -applied to the designation of the
Christian assemblies. Calvin, Hunnius, J. Capellus, Kuinoel,
and others, falsely explain it of the " society of Christians," so
that iyKaraXeiireiv rrjv eiriavvaymyrjv would be equivalent to
"fall away from Christianity," "to become Jews." The great
majority of commentators understand it rightly in a more special
sense, namely, of becoming careless and shy in their attendance
on the Christian congregational assemblies. To this remaining
away from the assemblies is now opposed the rrapaKaXeiv. At
rrapaKaXovvres it is simplest to supply eavrovs, and the object of
the rrapaKaXeiv may be supposed to be chiefly the attendance on
the assemblies. (" But incite one another to attendance on these
assemblies.") As a special motive to this, the visible approach of
the day is adduced. 'Hpepa does not denote the final judgment,
but the well-known Old Testament idea of the j-pipfi Q"y\ The
prophets (from Joel onwards) had predicted, that the Lord
would, at one time, come to judge Israel and all the nations of
the earth. Jesus had explained to his disciples that this day of
the Lord divided itself into two epochs or acts, into a judgment
upon Jerusalem, which was to be destroyed and to continue
trodden down, and a judgment on the Gentiles, when their

320 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 26  31.
season of grace was past (Luke xxi. and Matth. xxiv. ; Matthew,
liowever, in his account of this address has regard principally to
the points that relate to Israel, comp. my critique of the evan
gelical history p. 502 — 513). Here the author speaks to
Israelites, and therefore of the day of the Lord in so far as it
concerned the people Israel. That the predicted judgment upon
Israel was now approaching with rapid strides, every one must
in the beginning of the 60th year have " seen" (BXiireiv), who
was not as an obdurate Jew already stupified by the intoxicating
cup which preceded the judgment. A people torn asunder by
raging factions would resist the Roman power which extended
over the world !

SECTION SECOND.
(Chap. x. 26—31.)
FIRST MOTIAT5. DANGER AND CONSEQUENCES OF
FALLING AWAY.
Vers. 26 — 27. The expression evovatms dptaprdveiv does not,
according to the context, denote every kind of particular known
sinful acts which a Christian commits even after regeneration
(the 27th verse speaks definitely of adversaries, and in the pas
sage from Deut. xvii. 6, cited in ver. 28, it is blasphemers ofthe
law that are spoken of!), but neither, as regards the meaning of the
word, does it denote the special sin of apostasy itself. The former
explanation is too general, the latter too narrow. The author has
rather in his mind, as regards the general character of the expres
sion, many various kinds or forms ofthe dptaprdveiv, as regards the
context, however, only such kinds and forms as lead to apostasy,
or which already involve a degree of apostasy. He, therefore,
sinned eKovaim<; in the sense of ver. 26, who, from the fear of man,
absented himself from the assemblies, or who, through any kind
of denial of the truth, rendered it possible for him still to be
allowed to take part in the worship of the temple, &c. — Now,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 26—31. 321
whoever, after having known the truth, commits such sins, there
fore against better Imowledge and against conscience, and thus
implicitly contemns the one sacrifice of Christ, for him there exists
no second atoning sacrifice, by which he can be cleansed from
the guilt of this new and highly aggravated sin ; but his portion
is, a, subjectively in himself, " a fearful expectation of a judgment,"
5, on the part of God corresponding to that expectation, " the
heat of a fire which is already about to consume the adversaries
(of God)." $o/3epo 6/cSo^t) Kplaem? is not by hypallage for iKSox')
Kptaem? (poBepas (J. Capellus), but is to be taken literally. He
who acts thus, has before him the certainty of being judged, and
this certainty is fearful, it is already in itself a punishment. As
the expectation of judgment forms the antithesis to the existence
of an atoning sacrifice, we shall therefore have to understand the
judgment not of the destruction of Jerusalem, but of the being
judged on the day of the second coming of Christ mentioned in
chap. ix. 27 s. The scripture speaks of a threefold destiny after
death. (Comp. our remarks on chap. xi. 39.) He who, as one
born again, as a member of Christ, has fallen asleep in Jesus,
comes not into judgment (John v. 24), but goes to Christ in
heaven (2 Tim. iv. 18 ; Phil. i. 23). He who has died without being
born again, but yet without positive unbelief, consequently with
out having had the opportunity of believing, goes into the place
of the dead, into Hades ; he belongs not, however, to those whose
sin is forgiven neither in this life nor in the life to come (Matth.
xii. 21 ss.), but is judged on the last day according to his works,
and if (Rom ii. 7) he has persevermgly striven in well-doing after
immortality, he will be reckoned among the number of those sick
ones, for whose healing (Oeparrela), after the final judgment, are
the leaves of the tree of life (Rev. xxii. 2). There is for him,
therefore, in the interval between death and the resurrection, no
fearful looking for of judgment. But he who has had the oppor
tunity of attaining to faith, and yet with persevering obstinacy
has put this opportunity away from him (Matth. xii. 21 ss.), and
further, he who has attained to faith and yet has fallen away
(Heb. vi. 1 ; x. 26 — 31), goes into Sheol, but with the certain
consciousness that the Kp(at<;, judgment and condemnation,
awaits him, and that that eternal fire is prepared for him which
is to consume the adversaries of God (according to Is. lxvi. 24.)
x

322 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 26 — 31.
Most unjustly, therefore, do Romish theologians appeal to this
passage, as a proof of that purgatory which is to purge away the
guilt of all the particular sins which are committed by the
regenerate. Nothing is said here either of every kind of particular
sins, or of people who are still in a regenerate state and have the '
hope of being saved, or of a purging away of those sins. On
*he contrary, what is not atoned for by the one sacrifice of Christ
remains, according to ver. 26, still unexpiated.
That the author in ver. 26 — 27 was not speaking of every
particular known sin committed by regenerate persons, but only
of such sins as led to or involved apostasy, is confirmed chiefly
by ver. 28 ; for in the passage here cited from Deut. xvii. 6, it is
not said that every one who had transgressed any command of
God is to be punished with death, but he only who was convicted
by two or three witnesses of having apostatized from God, served
false Gods and broken the covenant. If, then, the falling away
from the old covenant was so seA'erely punished, how much more
the falling away from Christianity. This is denoted by the
words Kararrareiv rbv vlbv rov Oeov (used in Horn. II. 4, 157, as
a figure expressive of the most insolent contempt and rejection),
further, as counting unholy (koivo<;, as at chap. ix. 13) the blood
of the covenant (chap. ix. 15 — 23) — for he who, not from error,
but, against better knowledge, falls away from faith in the
atoning death of Christ, thereby declares the death of Christ to
be the just punishment of a malefactor and a blasphemer ; —
finally, this faUing away from Christ is said to be a u/3pt? against
the Holy Ghost, a wanton presumptuous casting out of this
spirit, consequently an aggravated " sin against the Holy Ghost "
(Matt. xii. 21 ss).
For such, God has prepared punishment, vers. 30 — 31. The
passage Ex. xxxii. 35 is wont to be adduced as a prohibition of
revenge being exercised by the injured person himself (" ven
geance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay"), but this is not its
original sense. In the context it is not sins of men against men
that are spoken of, but the future hardening of Israel against the
saving and redeeming work of God, and thus God speaks :
" Vengeance and requittal are [mine (qVu)"| QM lV)< = -"- know to
requite, I have the will and the power to do so ; so that the
emphasis lies not on iptol but on the word eVeSt/Mio-i?, and our

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAArS X. 32 — XI. 1. 323
author has apphed the passage quite correctly. The other
passage, Ps. cxxxv. 14, needs no explanation, and as little does
the exclamation, ver. 31, which closes the section.

SECTION THIRD.
(Chap. x. 32— xi. 1.)
SECOND MOTTVE. CALLING TO MIND THEIR FORMER FAITH.
Ver. 32, 33. The transition is similar to that at chap. vi. 10.
The readers have already at an earher period endured manifold
trials for their faith ; in this hes a doable motive for them not to
fall away from their faith now ; first, because thereby all their
former sufferings would be rendered vain ; and secondly, that
suffering itself was an experimental testimony to the power of
faith. — $<»Tto-0evTe? denotes here, as at chap. vi. 4, the first step
in conversion (see the remarks there made). "A0Xvai<; a later
Greek word for the classic dOXos. The struggles they had
passed through were twofold; partly, they had already them
selves become to the mass of unbelievers and enemies a spectacle
(of malicious pleasure, of contempt, of delight in cruelty), inas
much as they had endured shame and ignominy of all kinds
(oveiSiapioi), nay, even actual afflictions (0XtiJret?) ; partly, they
had become companions of those who were so circumstanced
(dvaarpi<peaOai, not pass, but mid. se gerere, versari. By this is
generally understood, that the readers must have seen many
individuals of their acquaintance enduring contempt and afflic
tion; but the expression Kotvmvol yevvOivres (not yevop,evot)
rather indicates, that they in the act of their conversion had, once
for all, become members of the society, of which they knew that
such things happen and are wont to happen to it.
Ver. 34. Instead of BeaptioK (A.D., Peschito, Philoxen.,
Armen., Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius) many
versions and the lectio recepta read Seap,oh pwv. The latter
reading, however, has less of external testimony in its favour,

324 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 32  XI. 1.
and, besides, might more easily take its rise out of Sea pilots (from
regard to conformity with 2 Tim. i. 16, and its being taken for
granted that Paul was the author) than vice versa. Moreover,
Beapoh iiov is not even suitable ; for granted that Paul was the
author of the epistle, the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem were
not, like Timothy, with the apostle in Rome, or in Caesarea, and
therefore, could only very indirectly be called companions of his
bonds ; avptiraOrjaare is, however, by all means to be taken as
explanatory of koivwvoI yevvQivres ; this is evident from the
«ot ydp. We therefore adopt the reading Seoyu'ot? (with Grotius,
Bengel, Semler, Michaelis, Griesbach, Lachmann, Knapp, Bleek,
and almost all the modern expositors.) Now, as Kal ydp . . . .
avpiraOrjaare is explanatory of Koivmvol yevnOivres, so is koX rnv
dprray-qv, &c. explanatory of OearptC,bp,evoi. By the spoiling of
their goods, we are to understand what we find still at this day
taking place in the sphere of the Jewish mission ; when a Jew
shows himself determined to become a Christian, he is disinherited
by his relations, his share in the property is withheld from him,
his credit and every source of gain withdrawn ; he falls into a
state of complete destitution. But in our own day there is not
wanting, any more than there was then, that state of mind which
is expressed in the words " knowing that ye have in heaven a
better property and an abiding." How do such newly converted
Jews put to shame those Christians who, for example, week after
week, desecrate the Lord's day by manual labour and worldly
business, rather than, make up their minds to suffer a trifling loss
of earthly gain. There is wanting in them the faith in the divine
blessing and in that better wealth !
In ver. 35 the readers are exhorted still to maintain that joyful
confidence with which, assured of the better wealth, they had boldly
encountered losses and sufferings ; for this confidence will not put
them to shame, the recompense of the hoped-for possession in
heaven will assuredly be theirs. Here, of course, it is not a
reward of meritorious works that is spoken of; the sole basis of
that confidence consists in the faith which trusts in Christ, and
only in him. He, again, who regards this faith and confidence
itself as a meritorious work, only shows by this, that he has not
the true faith and has not attained to the trae confidence.
Ver. 36. The continuance of that joyful confidence is indis-

EPISTLE TO TlfE HEBREWS X. 32 — XI. 1. 325
pensable, because the readers are so situated as that, in order to
be able to inherit the promised possession, they will still have
need of great and long patience and stedfastness in suffering. But
that patience and perseverance in suffering can grow out of no
other root than out of confidence, is clear. He who, from the first,
encounters suffering with the bold assurance that his enemies can
kill only the body but not the soul, and that they can spoil him
only of the worthless earthly goods but not of the abiding pro
perty, will from the first be prepared for a cheerful endurance of
suffering, and will not fail of perseverance. But he who meets
suffering without that confidence, full of fear and full of sorrow
for the losses that threaten him, will become more comfortless and
more impatient under every new trial. Thus the necessity of
patience (the fruit) is a proof of the necessity of confidence (the
root). — By the will of God, in this context, is to be understood
his will that we should confess Christ's name before men. If
we do this, we shall obtain as the fruit of it the fulfilment of the
promise, that he also will confess us before his heavenly Father.
— 'EirayyeXla is used here as at chap. ix. 15, xi. 13, to denote
that which is promised.
In ver. 37, 38, the author shows more particularly why the
readers have need of patience, because, namely, the judgment
upon Jerusalem, from which only faith can save them, is now near
at hand. He expresses this idea in the words in which formerly
Habakkuk had spoken (ii. 30) of the then impending judgment
through the Chaldeans. The passage Habakkuk ii. 3 s. is there
fore by no means cited as a proof that now the judgment is
impending1 over Jerusalem ; but the words of Habakkuk are only
applied to an analogous case (as if, for example, a preacher in a
farewell discourse to a thoroughly hardened congregation should
exclaim : " How often would I have gathered you as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye Avould not"). —
The first words en yap piiKpbv oaov oaov are a free introduction of
the subject by our author (perhaps a recollection of Sept. Is.
xxvi. 20.) "Oaov, here in the adverbial signification of " only."
The repetition of a word to strengthen the idea is rare in Greek.
' ! Falsely Tneopbylact : the author will prove, that if the judgment was
already near in the time of Habakkuk, it must now be so much nearer (!)
—This idea is indicated by nothing in the text.

326 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS X. 32  XI. 1.
— " He who comes is nigh and delays not ; but the just will have
life from faith; if, however, he yields to fear my soul shall have
no pleasure in him." In the context of the passage in Habakkuk,
people are spoken of who do not believe in the threatenings of
the prophet, but carelessly pursue their course ; on the contrary
the term n^D« denotes the state of mind belonging to those who
beheve the prophet, and expect from Jehovah alone the punish
ment of the ungodly, and the deliverance of the godly from the
judgments. (Altogether against the context is the explanation
ofthe words of Habakkuk: The just will remain ahve because
of his well doing, because of his good works.) The Sept. has
therefore rightly translated in^ONl by Ik irlarems. — The words
eov vrroarelXvrat, again, are a free translation ; in the Heb. it is
rrpi tib rrSsj; nan in ittfca* "behold, he is puffed up, his
soul is not upright in him" (denoting the pride of unbehef) ; the
Sept. has rendered it by viroariXXetv ; this means " to let down"
(namely the sail), hence to be timorous, afraid. The Sept. has
also put faint-heartedness in place of proud defiance. But,
precisely in this form, the idea was doubly suitable to the object
of our author, and as he does not apply the passage as an argu
ment, but simply makes use of and applies the words in his own
name, so he might, with all the less hesitation, follow the Sept.
which was familiar to his readers.
In ver. 39 he expresses the idea : " We will surely not go to
destruction but save our souls ; consequently, we must not be
afraid, but must beheve," by concisely blending the two members of
the sentiment (just as at chap. viii. 6, &c, where also he has united
the two members in one sentence) thus : " We belong not to
those who are afraid unto destruction, but who beheve to the
saving of the soul." Wvxv is used here in the Old Testament
sense for life. According to the context, it is the bodily pre
servation from the judgment impending over Jerusalem that is
here spoken of.
Chap. xi. 1. The idea ends here. Ver. 35 : You must hold
fast the confidence ; ver. 36 : for ye have need of the patience
which springs from it ; ver. 36 — 38 : for the judgment upon
Judea is near from which only the believing, not the fearful, are
preserved ; chap. xi. 1 : but faith shows itself in that feeling (of
confidence) which holds fast the future promised good.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 32 — XI. 1. 327
Several commentators indeed (Erasmus, Bohme, Winer) would
put a comma after irians, take e'o-Ti as verb, substantivum, and
viroaraais and eXeyxos as apposition to rriarts. But the sentiment :
" Faith, however, really exists" would be too strange. Who had
ever doubted that faith really exists in the world ? And when,
in support of this construction, it is affirmed that eo-Tt as copula
cannot stand at the beginning of the sentence, such passages are
forgotten as Luke viii. 11 : eart Be avrv ¦i) rrapaBoXrj. In the
preceding context of that passage it is said that the understand
ing of the parables is important, and then the transition is made
to the explanation of the parables themselves. Just so here. In
ver. 38 it was said that faith is necessary ; in chap. xi. 1 the
question is answered, what then is this faith.
We take eart, therefore, with the great majority of commen
tators, as copula. Ver. 1, however, does not contain a definition
of faith (as ver. 1 does not form the superscription of a new
section, but the conclusion of the foregoing), but a description of
faith from a particular point of view given in the context (x. 34
— 38). It is to be shown, in how far it is faith which gives that
confidence described in ver. 34. Faith is therefore viewed here
not as opposed to works, but as opposed to sight, and therefore so
generally as to belong not only to the sinner who hopes for
pardon for the sake of Christ, but to every one who rests more on
the unseen and the future than on the seen and present, hence
also to the Old Testament believers (chap. xi. 2 — xii. 1), hence
also to Christ himself (chap. xii. 2 ss.).
Now faith is a virbaraats iXm&piivmv. On inrbaraaK com
pare what is said at chap. iii. 14. Here it is, of course, to be
taken in the sense of fiducia, firmly grounded confidence. All
faith refers to the future, and has for its basis a present capa
bility and necessity of further development. The perfect man
has no longer need of faith (1 Cor. xiii. 8 ss.), nor does the
Son of God as eternal, or, Christ as exalted, need faith. On
the other hand, as he walked in lowliness on our account, and
was partaker of the yet unglorified human nature, he needed faith
in the glorious issue of his work, over wliich a heavy cloud then
hung (comp. below on chap, xii.) ; and in like manner, the
Christian needs faith, as, at present, he has nothing more of the

328 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS X. 31  XI. 1.
victory over sin and death than the unseen ground of it, namely,
Christ ; everything else lies as yet in the future.
As faith refers to the future, so also from its nature does it
refer to the invisible, or more exactly : to good things, which
are not seen eXeyxos ov BXerroptivmv. "EXeyxos does not, how
ever, (as Olshausen thinks) signify "persuasion," "the state
of being persuaded," but " demonstration," " actual proof."
Faith is, therefore, not merely a subjective persuasion that those
possessions although unseen are yet present; but it is an act
which itself gives the knowledge and proof of the existence of
those tilings not seen. The fact of faith is itself the proof of the
reality of its object. In faith the actual power of the thing
beheved is already manifest. Thus the author has had a reason
for using in the first member, precisely the word virbaraais,
" grounding," " state of being grounded." He will represent
faith not as a theory but as a life-power, which, inasmuch as it
actually grasps at the future and unseen possessions,, is thereby
actually assured of them. (And so Thomas Aquinas is, although
not exegetically, yet, substantially right when he explains eXrrt^o-
pivmv inrbaraaK from this, that faith is " the subsistence of the
things hoped for themselves, the beginning of their possession
already entered upon." 'Trrbaraais does not signify " subsist
ence," but the idea of Thomas Aquinas is quite the correct one.)
For that is just the nature and characteristic quality of faith, that
it begins not with theories and arguments, but with acts. Credo
ut intelhgam. As the new-born child does not first receive
instruction on the necessity of breathing, and then resolve to
breathe, but first breathes and then grows to the youth who
learns to understand the process of breathing, so also must that
which is born of the spirit in us first inhale in deep inspirations
the heavenly breath of hfe, ere it can grow up to full knowledge.
And as the drawing of the breath is itself the surest proof of
the existence of a hfe-bringing atmosphere which we breathe,
so is the act of that faith which lays hold on the future and
unseen possessions, and draws strength from them, the most satis
factory proof of the fact that these possessions are more than
mere fancies and chimeras.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2  XII. 3. 329
SECTION FOURTH.
(Chap. xi. 2— xii. 3.)
THIRD MOTIVE. THE HISTORICALLY DEMONSTRATED POWER
OF FAITH.
In Ver. 2 the theme of a new train of thought is connected by
yap with the concluding ideas of the foregoing. 'Ev ravry yap
ipaprvprjOvaav olrrpeaBvrepot. MaprvpetaOat occurs in an abso
lute sense in Acts vi. 3 and other passages, in the signification
" to have for oneself a good witness," " to stand in good repute."
Almost all commentators would therefore, here also, take ptaprv-
peiaOai absolutely, and e'v ravry as indicating the ground of it,
either by making ev stand for Sid (" on accoimt of their faith
the ancients received a good report"), or by supposing it neces
sary to supply an ovres (" as being in the faith they received a
good report"). The former supposition is inadmissible as being
not Consistent with the good Greek style of our author ; if,
however, oWe? must be supphed, it would be much better
to take e'v ravry ovres as expressing the import of the ptaprv-
ptov. " They are testified of as being in the faith" = " it is testified
of them that they were in the faith." And the particulars which
foUow would correspond much more to this idea. For, in the
examples, ver. 3, ss., nowhere are eulogies mentioned which had
been made upon the ancients on account of their faith, but it is
merely shown how it appears from their history, that in no
other state of mind can they have found the requisite strength
for their achievements, but in that described in ver. 1 (and in
chap. x. 35 — xi. 1, enjoined on the readers).
And thus the sentiment : " in this state of mind jthe fathers
also stood and acted" connects simply, by means of ydp, with
the exhortation x. 35 — xi. 1 as a further motive.
There can also be no doubt as to what the examples ver. 3
are properly meant to show. It certainly is not meant merely
to repeat in concrete examples the affirmation made generally in
in ver. 2 as such, as a mere affirmation. Still less can it be the

330 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2— XII. 3-
purpose of the author to prove some such proposition as that faith
has expressed itself differently at different times, and thus to
justify the general ^character ofthe definition in ver. 1. This is
evident, already, because the first verse is neither a definition nor
a superscription to the section (it rather, as we saw, forms the
conclusion ofthe foregoing section). These examples are plainly
intended to prove the thesis laid down in ver. 2, to demon
strate its truth. The author had said : Of the ancients also it is
witnessed that they had the faith described in ver. 1. This is
now proven, however, not directly, for the word naiEN 1S> m the
Old Testament, apphed only in very rare cases to Old Testament
persons. The author must therefore show, that the thing is true ;
that, indirectly at least, the state of mind which distinguished
the ancients is described to be such as is represented in ver. 1
and denoted by the name irians, namely, a firm reliance on
the future and the unseen. And this the author fully demon
strates. In Ver. 3 he shows that all religion, as such, the worship of
a living God, an invisible Creator, is in itself nothing else
than^a rising above the visible to the invisible. " By faith
(not : by means of faith, not : in faith, but = by an act
of that rrlarts that disposition of mind described in ver. 1)
we perceive that the worlds were framed by a word of God."
In voovpiev there lies a kind of oxymoron; vbyai<; gene
rally forms the s antithesis to rriarK ; votto-i? is perception
obtained through the medium of vision. The idea therefore
is, that that state of mind denoted by irians (the demon
stration of the power of the unseen in the man) qualifies the
man to perceive something which is properly not perceptible,
namely, ^not perceptible by the senses ; that therefore a higher
sensorium above the sensual sensorium is opened up in the man.
— The worlds are created by God's word, " so that that which is
seen (rb BXerrop.evov according to A. D. E. Copt., Clem. AI. &c.)
was made of that which does not appear." Beza, Bengel, Schulz,
Bohme, Winer, de Sacy, Martin, Osterwald, the Portroyalists,
Bleek, Olshausen, &c. refer p,y as respects the position of the
words, to yeyovivai, and render : " So that that which is 'seen was
not (again) made of that which is \-isible." But if this were the
idea which was meant to be expressed, then the author would

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 331
not have used the two words BXeirbpevov and (patvbpieva, but
must necessarily have used BXeireaOat both times, or (patveaOat
both times, in order by the repetition of the same word to express
what in German has to be expressed by " wieder." Besides this,
the sentiment in this negative would in general be unsuitable. -
That the visible cannot again have proceeded from what is visible,
would be no affirmation of faith but one of speculation, a philoso-
pheme. — The translators of the Peschito and Vulgate, then
Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus,
Luther, Gerhard, Tholuck, and a great number of other commen
tators, have therefore more properly supposed a transposition (py
e/c for e« pty), and with all the more reason as examples of
analogous transpositions, precisely in the case of the preposition
e'«, are not wanting. (Especially comp. the example adduced by
Tholuck from Arist. Phys. (v. 1 : tt)v e/e pty iirroKetptivov eh viro-
Kelptevov pteraBoXyv . . . y yap pir) i% viroKeiptivov et? ptt) viroKel-
puevov ovk ean pteraBoXy.) It is wrong, however, (with Luther,
J.Capellus, Calov, Bretschneider, &c.) to explain rd pty (patvbpieva
by to ovk ovra, " nothing," and quite as wrong to understand by
it chaos (Limborch, &c.) The explanation of p,y (patvbpieva which
refers it to the ideas in God (in the Platonic sense) is hetereo-
geneous, although an approximation to the truth. The expression
must rather of necessity be explained J(with Tholuck) from the
antithesis laid down in ver. 1. Most will depend, however, on
our keepingin view the distinction between pty and ovk. Ov denies
the existence, pty the quality ; 06 says that aching is not objectively,
py denies a thing as conceived or conceivable. Ovk ov denotes
that which does not exist, which is not ; pty ov that whose exist
ence, in respect of its quality, is a nonexistence, a thing unreal.
In short, ob before adjectives is generally rendered by " not,"
pty before adjectives generally by " un-." Thus the ov BXeirb-
peva are things which are not at present seen ; pty BXeirbpieva
would be things which, under no condition, and at no time, could
be seen. Ov fyaivbpeva would be things which (at the time or
in the circumstances spoken of in the context) do not come into
appearance ; pty patvbpieva are things which, from their nature,
cannot come into appearance. By the plural p.y (paivbpieva. can
not however, of course, be denoted blank nothing, and just as
Httle can chaos be denoted, which is dark and confused, indeed,
s

232 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3.
but by no means lying beyond the sphere of appearance. The p.y
(paivbpeva must rather be qualitatively-invisible things or powers,
to the voTio-t? of which the man raises himself in faith, from look
ing upon that wliich is seen. If, too, we are not at liberty to
understand by this precisely the ideas in the Platonic sense,
we are yet led by the expression word of God to think of the
invisible ereative powers which form as it were the import of
his word.
In Ver. 4 — 7 follow examples taken from the time before Abra
ham. — Through the disposition of mind denoted by irlans Abel
offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Cain offered fruits of the
field, which in themselves were not adapted for sacrifice, for the
atoning n^>1J? (comp. what is said on chap. ix. 19 ss.), and were
also not so valuable as animals. Abel offered the firstlings and
fattest beasts of his flock. He willingly gave up, therefore, a
dear and valuable earthly possession for the invisible possession
of the consciousness of reconciliation, and the manifestation of
gratitude to God. He thus gave eAddence that he had that state
of mind which in ver. 1 was called faith. Therefore (SC prefers
to irlan<;, as also St' avry<s, in respect of the sense, must refer to
irlans) it was testified to him that he was righteous ; for, inas
much as God was well pleased Avith his offering (fire from heaA'en
consumed it), he testified to Abel that he was justified. And
therefore, also, does Abel still speak after his death. A aXei is
praes. hist, referring to Gen. iv. 10 (" thy brother's blood cries to
me from the ground") ; as appears evident also from Heb. xii.
24. Therefore did God take it upon himself to be the avenger
of the murdered one, because he had died in faith, nay on
account of his faith ; for Cain had envied him just on account
of God's being well pleased with him. (The reading XaXeirat
" he is still spoken of after his death" is but Ul-confirmed by
external proofs, and yields a most unsuitable sense ; Cain is still
spoken of too ! Already the passage chap. xii. 24 proves that
XoXet must be the reading.)
Ver. 5 — 6 is a kind of sorites. By faith Enoch was snatched
away so that he did not see death (Gen. v. 24). Wherefore by
faith ? He was taken away, because he led a life well-pleasing
to God ; but God can be pleased only by faith.- -In this form,
however, the reasoning is still incomplete, because built upon. a

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2- XII. 3. 333
very general axiom ; hence the author in the words marevaat
yap Set . . . on . . . mentions that in the case of Enoch also, it was
that faith which was spoken of, and in how far it was so. Precisely
the faith that there is' a God, and one who will reward those who
seek after him, found place in Enoch, and could find place in
him. Far from intending to ascribe to Enoch the New Testa
ment faith, the author defines the irlarts here in its general
form as it apphed to the time of Enoch. Enoch lived in that
time when the descendants of Cain were improving the earthly
life by inventions (Gen. iv. 20 ss), but amid the pleasures of the
earthly life entirely forgot God, and when, already, the Sethites
also were infected with the prevalent corruption (Gen. vi. 1 ss). In
that time Enoch led a godly hfe. He forgot not the invisible God
amid the things and enjoyments that were seen ; he longed for
that blessedness Avhich God is ready to give to those who seek
him. Ver. 7. Iltarei belongs, of course, again to the principal verb
KareaKevaae. In how far the building of the ark was an act of
faith, we are told in the apposition xP7llJLaTI'<J0eh. Noah saw as
yet nothing of the flood, when he began to build the ark ; he
acted with respect to a mere prophecy ; but God's word was to
him more sure and certain than the supposition which had
become habitual by sight — that the course of nature would con
tinue ever the same, — and more important to him than all the
scorn and mockery of an unbelieving world. — EbXaByOeh not
= ebXaBys yevoptevos (compare Luke ii. 25 ; Acts ii. .5, viii. 2 ;
Heb. v. 7, xii. 28) but = " in wise foresight " (namely, in
that which sprang from his obedience of faith.) Prudence is
not named as the source but as the reward of his conduct. By
his believing obedience he came to be at last the one who was
truly prudent. A truth of great practical importance ! He who,
like a child, blindly follows the will of God regardless of all
consequences, is the one who is truly prudent ; for he builds on
the Eternal, and He will never allow his own to come to shame.
He, on the contrary, who, in the fear of man and from a wish
to please man, reckons when it will be profitable to follow the
Lord, he who first anxiously weighs the consequences, will with
his false wisdom assuredly come to shame. How many
Christians would there be now. who, by the building of an ark

334 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3.
(should God command this), would take upon themselves
the contempt of the whole world? We would not seek
them among those who already shrink with fear from the
charge of "pietism." — By his faith "Noah judged the world."
Noah by Ins faith (i.e. by the building of the ark) saved
himself, and thereby left the world to the destruction it
deserved. Ver. 8 — 19. A series of examples follows'taken from the life
time of Abraham. If Abraham, at the call of God, left his home
without even knowing whither God would lead him, he rested
more on things promised of God than on things present, more on
the invisible faithfulness and power of the Lord than on what was
visible ; he showed, therefore, that he had that state of mind
which the author in the foregoing section had required of his
readers, and which, in respect of its main substance, he had
called faith. — It was a demonstration of the same state of mind
when Abraham, as well as Isaac and Jacob (ver. 9), went into
the land which was promised to him as into a strange land, so
that he had to dwell in tents (wander through it nomade-like),
just where he found sufferance. He (as well as Isaac and Jacob)
might have gone back, and dwelt in Mesopotamia as a settled
home (as is shown at length ver. 15). From what other motive
did the patriarchs prefer wandering in a strange land to dwelling
in their native land, than that beheving in the promise of God,
they obeyed the command of God? Their eye was directed
(ver. 10) not to the present and momentary, but to the future
and heavenly, to the blessing which God had promised to the
seed of Abraham, and through him to man, to the promised
restoration of the relation of God to man which sin had dis
turbed. This promised blessing our author now designates as
" the city having settled foundations whose builder and maker
is God." The expression must, first of all, be explained from
the antithesis to the tents in which Abraham hved. That which
gave him strength to renounce a present and earthly home, and
to pass his life in hght unfixed tents, was the expectation of a
future settled city. Many erroneously explain this city of the
heavenly blessedness which Abraham (for his own person) hoped
to find after his death. This is altogether unhistorical ; Abraham
expected after his death to be gathered to his fathers in Sheol.

EPISTLE TO THE HRBREWS XI. 2 —XII. 3. 335
Grotius, Clericus, and others somewhat better refer the 7roXt?
to the (earthly) city of Jerusalem. This, doubtless, is the idea
of ver. 10, that Abraham — on account of the glory promised to
his seed (for kj- eSe^eTO 7<zp is epexegetical of tt}? errayyeXlas, ver.
9), not, however, on account of the individual blessedness sub
jectively hoped for by him — underwent the inconveniences of a
life-long pilgrimage. But Grotius and Clericus err, when they
limit this objective promise to the earthly building of the
earthly Jerusalem. Our author, even for the sake of his readers,
who clung with a false tenacity just to the earthly Jerusalem,
would certainly not have said that the earthly Jerusalem was
that, on account of which Abraham renounced a settled dwell
ing-place. He rather denotes by that "settled^ city founded
by God himself," which he places in opposition to Abraham's
transitory tents, the entire and total import of the theocratical
promise, and he does this, so as that in the form of the designation,
he does not confine himself to the undeveloped intuition which
Abraham had in his lifetime of the future blessing and salvation
(for Abraham had as yet, in general, heard nothing of a " city,"
of the earthly Jerusalem, as httle as of the heavenly), but takes
up at the same time the developement of the promise which
followed from the time of Abraham to that of Christ. In David,
the promise given to Abraham had found a fulfilment, prelimi
narily and symbolically in the founding of the kingdom and
that of its principal city in splendour ; but that DaAad was not
the trae, last, and proper Messiah, that a sec.ond David must
come, was known to the readers from 2 Sam. vii, ; Ps. ii. ; Ps.
ex., and finally, from the history of Jesus Christ himself.
Abraham was not, of course, aware of the distinction between
the first and second Anointed, the first and second Jerusalem—
nor does the author mean at all to say that he was ; but
Abraham at all events looked for a future settled kingdom, for a
state of things in which his posterity would no longer wander in
tents from place to place (Gen. xvu. 6 and 8), and ou account of
this hope, he bore the difficulties of a hfe-long state of pilgrimage.
He looked therefore, in reality, for a settled city which God
would found for his seed. The Christian knows that the future
Jerusalem in the future kingdom of Christ when he has come
again, will form the trae, full and final fulfilment of this hope.

336 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3.
The words of ver. 10 are, however, not to be interpreted- "Abra
ham looked for the future Jerusalem," but the words mean only :
" Abraham looked for this, that God himself would found a
settled city for his seed."
Ver. 11 — 12. By faith Sarah received strength for the found
ing of a posterity : if she had not overcome that paroxysm of
doubt of which we have an account in Gen. xviii. 22, (she was
immediately ashamed of it, ver. 15), she would, of course, not
have yielded herself to the act of generation. — Ver. 13 ss. It
was also an act of faith when the patriarchs died, one after
another, without having received the promise (iirayyeXla as below
ver. 39 and chap. ix. 15, x. 36), and notwithstanding, clung to
the promise, nay as it were, already saw from afar and welcomed
the promised blessing. This latter they did, inasmuch as they
called themselves pilgrims (Gen. xlvii. 9, comp. Ps. xxxix. 13).
This was an expression of their longing for a country, not in
any way for the earthly country which lay behind them —
Mesopotamia (ver. 15) ; for had such a longing taken possession
of their hearts (pvyptovevetv to remember anything, here in a
pregnant sense as at 2 Tim. ii. 8), they might at any moment
have returned thither. That they did not do so, that in spite of
the feeling that they were strangers they yet kept themselves from
seeking again that earthly country, is to he explained simply
from their believing obedience to the instructions of God, and
their believing hope of the future possession of Canaan promised
by God. In ver. 16 this promised future country is again
caUed by the author a heavenly country, just as, at ver. 10, he
brings the kind of fulfilment knoAvn to the Christians at the same
time into the prophetical hope. Here, too, he will obviate the
false apphcation of the words on the part of his readers, that the
earthly Canaan as such was the aim of the theocratical hope.
That which the fathers hoped for' their posterity was not the
ordinary earthly possession of an earthly land or kingdom, but
the setting up of the kingdom of God upon earth, which was
to take place in Canaan. (Just as httle as in ver. 10, however,
is it in ver. 16 the individual blessedness after death that is spoken
Ver. 17^-19. Abraham's readiness to offer up Isaac is men
tioned along with the rest of the acts of faith taken from the life

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2— XII. 3. 337
of Abraham. Abraham, who had received the promises when
God tried him, offered up his only son, him in whose person the
promise rested (ver. 18, comp. Gen. xxi.-12). As Abraham cannot
himself have given up hope in the promises, although he was ready
to offer as a burnt-offering the son through whom, according to
God's express declaration, they were to be fulfilled, nothing remains
to account for this but the supposition which our author expresses,
ver. 19 (and in like manner Paul, Rom. iv. 17), that God would
call the dead back again to life. And, on account of this faith
which held the infinite power of God to be surer than the power
of death, and which, therefore, blindly surrendered itself to the
incomprehensible leading of God, he received as a reward his
son alive e'v irapaBoXy. These words ev irapaBoXfj are particu
larly difficult. Calvin, Castellio, Beza, Schlichting, Grotius,
Limborch, Kuinoel, Bleek, &c, take irapaBoXy in the well-
known signification figure, but then refer ev irapaBoXy to oOev,
and obtain the sense : " thence as it were, namely, as it were, e'/c
veKpmv, as it were from the grave, he received him back." This
explanation is the harshest. For, in the first place, if irapa
BoXy signifies "figure," it cannot then signify "as it were;"
" figuratively," and " as it were " or " not properly, in a certain
way," are surely very different ideas. Secondly, it is very harsh
to refer back oOev to e« veKpmv instead of taking it as a causal
particle " wherefore " . (comp. Acts xxvi. 19), as the author
assuredly intends to mention here, as at vers. 4, 7, 14, 16, the
recompense which the believer obtained on account of his faith.
Thirdly, however, it is besides impossible to refer ev irapaBoXy
to this oOev; the idea that Abraham received back Isaac "as
it were from the dead," no one would ever express thus :
"whence he as it were received him;" the pregnant idea which
is intended to be in oOev must have been expressed, at least
by a Kal ivravOev, and the author must have said : Kal ivrav-
6ev, to? e7ro? etVetv, eKoptlaaro avrbv. — Others, as Theodoret,
Erasmus, Luther, Calov, Bohme, Olshausen, take irapaBoXy
likewise in the signification " figure," but in reality give it this
signification and explain : " wherefore he received him back as
a symbol (or in symbol.) This idea is much more suitable ; the
author shows that that remaining-ahve of Isaac, that deliverance
from the danger of death, was a symbol or type of the resurrec-
T

338 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3.
tion of Christ the only begotten of God, whom God gave up as a
sacrifice for the world ; that resurrection through which the faith
of Abraham, that God was able to raise from the dead, found its
confirmation, and was crowned with its highest fulfilment. The
only thing in this explanation at which we might stumble is,
that, accordmg to it, we should have expected rather et? rrapa-
BoXyv ; but the iv also yields a good sense. In a figurative act
Abraham received Isaac, that is, the act of the Kopttfytv was a
figure and type of a later and more perfect act. The idea result
ing from this explanation harmonizes with the words Xoyiad-
pievos on, &c, so admirably, and with such internal necessity,
and at the same time the way is so prepared for it by the
designation of Isaac as the only begotten, that we hold this
explanation to be decidedly the true one, and therefore have no
need with a third class of commentators (Camerarius, Ernesti,
Tholuck, &c.) to take e'v irapaBoXy = 7ropa/36Xco? or " against
expectation" (comp. Rom. iv. 18), 7rop' iXrriBa, a signification
which does not belong to the noun irapaBoXy. HapaBoXy does
signify " bold venture," but the signification " in bold venture"
would not at all correspond to iKoptiaaro.
Ver. 20 — 22. Several examples follow in which the patriarchs,
by the act of blessing their sons and descendants, declared that
they participated in the hope of the future fulfilment, or, by
giving commandment that their bones should be carried along
with their descendants from Egypt to Canaan, proved that they
expected with certainty the promised return (Gen. xv.) The
first instance is that of Jacob, who blessed the sons of Joseph
(Gen. xlviii. 15 ss.), by which he (ver. 21) distinctly expressed
his hope of the return to Canaan. With this are connected the
somewhat enigmatic words /cot irpoaeKvvyaav iirl rb aKpov tt}?
pdBSov avrov. We have here to inquire, first of all, why these
words are cited along with the rest, and then whether the Sept.
has here given the right translation. Assuredly the author did
not cite these words along with the rest, merely because he went
on mechanically with the quotation of the passage ; for the words
in question do not occur at all in that passage Gen. xlviii. 15 ss.,
but are to be found in an earlier chapter (xlvii. 31.) The author,
therefore, had certainly a definite object in view when he quoted
these words. What then was this object ? — In the Masoretic

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 339
text, the words ran thus n^GH ^NT^y btfyPl inntiW " and
Israel leant (back again) on the head of the bed (pillow), " and
this reading is not only very old (Onkelos, Jonathan, Symmachus,
Aquila, Peschito), but is also plainly the more natural. The
LXX read ntflftnj an(i rendered just as our author cites. But
it can hardly be supposed, that in 'the word rrpoaeKvvyaev, which
is peculiar to the LXX., there lay the idea which induced our
author to cite the passage; he would hardly have cited the
passage on account of the circumstance that Jacob " prayed "
(as if in his habit of praying there lay a special proof of
that faith described in ver. 1). I rather think that he quoted
the words in order to call to the minds of his readers, who were
familiar with the Pentateuch, the context of the passage/ In the
context of that passage Gen. xlvii. it is recorded how Jacob gave
orders to carry his bones to Canaan ; thus, then, these words
lead quite naturally to the analogous command of Joseph men
tioned in ver. 22.
In Ver. 23 — 31 follow examples of faith from the timeof 'Moses
and Joshua. Ver. 23. The whole existence of Moses became
possible through the faith of his parents, who laid the child in
the basket of reeds, confident that the infant which appeared to
them as dareiov would be an object of care to the paternal eye
of God which looks into the smallest things, and that God's
power is superior to all, even the most evident, dangers, and is
stronger than the frown of Pharoah. — Ver. 24 — 26. , Moses
himself had the choice, either to remain at the court as an
Egyptian prince and to enjoy all the splendour of Egypt — but
then he must renounce his faith which his mother as his nurse
had implanted in his heart, and his connection with his people ;—
or to remain true to the God of his fathers— but then he must
bid farewell to the court, and share in the difficulties of his
people. His God and his theocratical hope were dearer and
more precious to him than all present earthly fortune. He
preferred the avyKaKovxehOat to the " enjoyment of sin ;" the
" reproach ofthe Messiah" was dearer to him than all the riches
of Egypt. In the expression " reproach of Christ," the author
again puts into the germ the development known to the Christian.
Moses had as yet received no revelation of the " Anointed ;" he
J y2

340 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2  XII. 3.
knew only the theocratical promise in the simple form in which
it was given to the patriarchs. But the New Testament believer
knows, that that simple hope was destined to find its fulfilment
in the "Anointed of God." And thus the reproach which.
Moses endured because it was a theocratical was also a Messianic
reproach -such as has received (Matt. xvii. 1), and will yet
farther receive, its honourable reward through the Messiah.
Ver. 27 does not refer to Moses' wandering to Midian (Ex. ii.
15), where he indeed " feared," but to the departure from Egypt
(Ex. xiv. 13.) That 'the two parts of which this departure
consisted, namely, the Passover, and the passage through the
Red Sea, are afterwards specially mentioned, is no reason why
the event as a whole might not also be mentioned first. The
resolution, in general, to undertake the dangerous work of
delivering Israel from Egypt, was a strong act of faith (comp.
Ex. iii. 11 ss.) Moses had stedfastly before his eyes God, the
invisible, just as if he saw him. Tbv dbparov is here, according
to the position of the words, the object to iKapripyae. Kap-
repetv as transit. " to bear anything stedfastly, or to do anything
stedfastly," hence generally in reference to any person or thing
to conduct oneself stedfastly. It is a pregnant idea to be explained
here thus : rbv dbparov riptmv iKapripyae. (So also substan
tially Olshausen. The construction adopted by Bleek, Tholuck,
&c, is forced : iKapripyae yap, a>? tov aoparov bpcav.)
Ver. 28 is clear. Had the Israelites not believed that God
would really slay the first born,1 or had they had no faith in the
atoning power of the lambs, they would not have marked their
door posts with the blood of the Passover lambs. In like manner,
it was plainly a manifestation of faith (ver. 29),, when they ven
tured into the bed of the Red Sea, between the masses of water
standing wall-high on either side, which, physically considered,
seemed every moment as if they must close in upon them, as
they afterwards in reality did upon the Egyptians. Not less was
it an act of that faith which holds the command of God to be
surer than any appearance of sense, when the Israelites marched
l The simplest way of construing ver. 28 is : iva pi) 6 SKoBpevav Slyy ra
TrpaTOTom avT&v. Others make ra n-pwrdroKa dependent on Skodptvwv,
and airav on 6iyn, in which, however, this avricv would be by far too
vague.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2  XII. 3. 341
round the walls of Jericho (ver. 30) with the blowing of trumpets
instead of laying siege to it (Josh, vi.) And Rahab, too, was
saved by her faith, she who trembled before the mighty God, —
" who is a God both above in heaven, and beneath on the earth,"
— and saved the messengers of his people, and was therefore pre
served from the destruction of the city (in the power of this faith,
however, also, changed her conduct, comp. Matth. i. 5.)
Ver. 32 — 34. The author, by means of the rhetorical formula
of transition, now breaks off from adducing particular examples
in detail, and passes to a summary enumeration of names (ver. 32)
and actions (ver. 33 — 454). The opinion of Bengel and others,
that the particular acts correspond to those particular names
(so that Karyymviaavro BaaiXeias refers to Gideon, elpydaavro
BiKaioavvyv to Barak, 'i<ppa^av arbptara Xebvrav to Samson) is
fanciful, and, in reference to ver. 35, not capable of being carried
out. The relation of ver. 32 to veri 33 — 34 is rather to be
understood thus : — The author, first of all, passes from the
detailed description of particular examples of faith to a (con
secutive) enumeration of heroes of faith, then, however, as a
longer continuation of the mere catalogue of names would have
been dry, he breaks off from this also, and now (ver. 33 ss.) he
groups* together mere-general classes of acts resulting from faith.
Of course, the particular examples of these genera may be pointed
out in the Old Testament history, but not so as that only one
example always corresponds to each genus. Thus, the subduing
of kingdoms was an act of which there Avere frequent examples.
Certainly Gideon, also, subdued the power of a kingdom, that of
Midian, and he did so by that' faith in which, trusting more to
God's promise than to horses and chariots, he dismissed the
greatest part of his army (Jud. vi. 7). But Jonathan, too, when
alone with his armour-bearer, he climbed up the rock Seneh, and
droA'e the enemies' host to flight, in the strength of the faith
that it is easy for the Lord to help by many or by few (1 Sam.
xiv. 6 ss.), — and David, when in the power of faith he slew the
giant (1 Sam. xvii. 25),— and Samson, and many others, might
here be adduced as examples. Wrought righteousness in their
official station :— this did all the judges, chiefly Samuel, in like
manner the pious kings ; and, in their private relations, all the
righteous persons of the Old Testament; still the author must

342 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2  XII. 3.
have had the first especially in view. This administration of
justice was also not possible without that state of mind which,
apart from all regard to earthly advantage, has respect only to
the will of God, nor is it possible yet, in our own day, without
this " faith," hence, neither in the private nor the public adminis
tration of justice can a people be happy, if in the one case, as in
the other, it be not administered by God-fearing persons. Ob
tained promises : — chiefly of David was this trae (2 Sam. vii.),
then, of course, also of the entire series of the prophets briefly
mentioned in ver. 32. CEirayyeXlai denotes here not, as at
veT. 13 and 39, the promised thing, i.e., the fulfilment, but the
prophecies themselves. The proof lies precisely in ver. 39).
Stopped ihe mouths of lions : — Daniel did this (Dan. vi. 17, comp.
ver. 23) ; less direct is the reference to Samson (Jud. xiv. 6)
and David (2 Sam. xvii. 34 ss.) Quenched the violence of fire : —
this did the friends of Daniel (Dan. iii.) ; they, like Daniel
himself, stedfastly maintained the profession of the invisible true
God, and held his almighty power to be greater than the might
of the Babylonian and Median kings (Dan. iii. 17 ; vi. 10 and
20). Escaped the sword : — David did so (1 Sam. xviii. 11 ; xix.
10, ss. &c), Ehas (1 Kings xix. 1 and 10), and Elisha (2 Kings
vi. 14 ss. and 31 ss.), but only in the case of Ehsha was jihe
escape a positive act of faith, brought about by faith, hence the
reference may be properly limited to him (namely, the incident
recorded in 2 Kings vi. 14, ss. where he is represented as seeing
the invisible hosts of God). Out of weakness were made strong : —
such was Hezekiah (Is. xxxviii. 3 and 5), and that in conse
quence of a beheving prayer. Others, with less propriety, refer
this to Samson (Jud. 15 — 16), whose strength returned to him
unconsciously, and without an act of faith on his part. Waxed
valiant in fight, — almost all the Judges were heroes in battle, then
Jonathan, David, &c. KXlveiv rrapepBoXas dXXorplmv (aciem
inchnare) — the reference is, here, again, to Gideon and Jonathan.
In Ver. 35 the author places over against each other two
kinds of manifestations of faith— the faith of those women (1
Kings xvii. 17, ss. ; 2 Kings iv. 17, ss.) whose sons were re
stored to bodily life by the prophets, and the still greater faith of
the martyrs (of the time of the Maccabees), who sacrificed the
bodily life in faith, and on account of faith, for the sake of the

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 343
future resurrection to the glorified life. Hence he does not merely
say : " Not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better
deliverance ;" but, referring back to the first clause of the verse,
he speaks of a better resurrection. — Tvptrravi^eiv comes from
rvpiravov, which signifies originally a kettle-drum, 2 Mace.
vi. 19 and 28, but occurs as the designation of an instrument
of torture (probably in the form of a wheel), upon which the
sufferers were stretched in order then to be beaten to death.
They accepted not the diroXvrpmat<;, namely, that deliverance
which they might have bought at the price of denying their
faith. At if- dvaardaems in the beginning, of the verse, i£ is so
to be explained as that dvdaraaK denotes the act of rising again.
They received them from the resurrection, i.e. as those who had
just been raised up.
Ver. 36 — 38. The writer returns in ver. 36 to the mention
of less violent sufferings, in order, from these, to rise again
in a new chmax, ver. 37, to the greatest tortures. Then, at
the end of 37 and in ver. 38, he sets over against the cruel
death of some martyrs, the destitute life of others. Mockings,
and these of a public and most abusive kind, were endured in
the Maccabaean persecutions (1 Mace. ix. 26 ; 2 Mace. vii. 7) ;
scourgings in the same persecutions (2 Mace. vi. 30, vii. 1) ;
imprisonments in the same persecutions (1 Mace. xiii. 12), and
also in the Old Testament (1 Kings xxii. 27"; Jerem. xxxvii.
38). — Death by stoning, 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, ss., comp. Matth.
xxiii. 35. The torture consisting in being bound between two
boards and sawn alive in two, is said, accordmg to a tradition
common to Christians and Jews, consequently an old Jewish
tradition, to have been undergone by the prophet Jeremiah
under Manasseh. Now follows iireipdaOyaav. The cursive
manuscript 17 places this word before hrrpiaOyaav ; it is omitted
altogether in the Peschito, Aethiop., Eusebius, and Theophylact ;
but these inconsiderable deviations are easily to be accounted for
by the internal difficulty which lies in the word. For it is difficult
to see what this jejune and general expression, " they were
tempted," can have to do in this connexion,1 and as sure as some
word must have originally stood in this place, so sure is it that
l Olshausen thinks, that the temptation to apostatize from the faith
is represented as the acme of all the suffering that can befall the Chris-

344 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2  XII. 3.
this cannot have been the word. Of all the conjectures which
have been made, that of Sykes is the best : iirvplaOyaav " they
were burned" (comp. 2 Mace. vi. 11, vii. 4, s. ; Dan. xi. 33).
This, first of all, explains the early appearance of the reading eVet-
pdaOyaav ; but it accounts also for the omission of the word in
in the Peschito, Aethiop., &c. For one transcriber might easily
put for eirvpiaOyaav the synonymous word iirpyaOyaav, which a
second might confound with iirplaOyaav, or might even read it
so, and therefore omit it. — In sheepskins and goatskins, suffering,
want, affliction, and every kind of evil, hved such men as Elijah
(1 Kings xix. 13 and 19 ; 2 Kings i. 8, ii. 8, ss.), and other
prophets (Zech. xiii. 4). — "Men, of -whom the world was not
worthy, wandered about in deserts and in caves" (comp. 1 Kings
xviii. 4 and 13, xix. 8 and 13 ; 1 Mace. ii. 28, ss ; 2 Macq. v.
27, vi. 11). Two ideas are indicated in these words; on the
one hand the greatness of the world's guilt, in rejecting men of
whom they had reason to be proud ; on the other, the heavenly
consolation, that this world is also in reality unworthy of such
souls. Let not any one who has to suffer for his faith forget this
consolation, when his displeasure arises at that guilt, and his
suffering appears to him as a wicked injustice on the part of the
world ; let him bear in mind -what honour those are counted
worthy to receive from ihe Lord, who, on the Lord's account,
are reckoned unworthy by the world.
Ver. 39, 40. And yet all these (those adduced in ver. 4 — 38)
had not (aor. for the pluperf.) obtained the promise (irrayyeXia,
as at ix. 15, x. 36, xi. 13), and nevertheless, were so strong in
faith. To the Christian readers who had already received so
much, and for whom, therefore, the hope in reference to the
future was so much easier, what a humbling motive was pre
sented in this strength of faith shown by the Old Testament
saints, who had to walk almost entirely in the dark, and had to
look for almost everything from the future ! — MaprvpyOivres Sid
tt}? rriarems — this expression has in itself (Bid), and, according to
the context, a different sense of course from ver. 2. In ver. 2 it was
said by way oi intimation : Already it was testified to the ancients
that they were believers. Here, mention is made retrospectively
tian. But then in-etpdo-drio-av ought to form the conclusion, and stand at
the end of ver. 38.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 345
of " all those who through the faith (which they displayed) have
gained a testimony (to their praise)." — In ver. 40 the reverse
side of the motive is presented. Do those Old Testament
believers present an example fitted to shame the Christian
readers, inasmuch as faith was made so difficult to them and
yet they believed, and does there already lie in this humbling
example a motive for the readers to strive after that strength of
faith, — so does a further motive lie in this, that the-Christians
have before them a glory so much the greater. In order, how
ever, rightly to understand these words of the 40th verse : —
" that God in regard to us has provided something better in
order that they should not be made perfect without us," — we
must keep in view the doctrine of the Holy Scripture on the state
after death (which in the evangehcal system of doctrine has not
been fully developed). The Scripture does not teach, that in
the case of all men the last and final decision takes place imme-*
diately after death, but very plainly teaches the contrary. The
consequence and punishment of sin is, according to the Holy
Scripture, not eternal condemnation (this is mentioned for the
first time in Is. lxvi. 24, and as the punishment of an obstinate
rejection of the Messianic salvation, consequently of positive
unbelief, and, in perfect consistency with this, the New Testa
ment teaches that the punishment of the eternal second death
stands connected with the positive rejection of the known and
offered salvation, or the falling away from the salvation which
had once been accepted. Comp. our remarks on chap. vi. 4 ss.,
and on chap. x. 27). The punishment of sin simply considered
is death, i.e., the separation of the man from God, and of nature
.from the man, and the body from the soul (which unhappy
separation would indeed last for ever, and would increase, if no
redemption had been offered ; now, howeATer, it lasts for ever
only in the case of those who despise this offered salvation).
The punishment of sin simply considered is that the soul goes
into Sheol, into the kingdom of the dead, and thither go and
have gone all who are born only of woman, who are only descend
ants of the first Adam, consequently all heathens who had not
opportunity to hear of the salvation, and, in like manner, all
Israelites who lived before Christ (with the exception of Enoch and
Elijah). It is not thereby denied, that, in this Sheol, there may

346 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2' — XII. 3.
be a difference, between the state of the penitent and pious who
longed for the salvation, and that of the bold and hardened sinner.
David hopes, that even in the valley of the shadow of death, God
will still be with him and comfort him (Ps. xxiii. 4), and the
second David has evidently taught us in the parable of the rich
man and Lazarus, that there is a gulf fixed between those who
suffer torment and those who are comforted with Abraham (Luke
xvi. 25, 26), and, accordingly, when he himself was about to enter
into Sheol, he promised to the penitent thief that to-day he would
be with him " in paradise." The entrance into the heavenly holy
of holies, on the other hand (Heb. x. 19 s. &c), i.e., into the
sphere of glorification and of glorified nature, was first opened up
by Christ's going before as the first-fruits through his resurrection
and ascension, and opened for those who are, not men together
with Christ, side by side with him, but, members of " the one
who is in heaven" (John iii. 13)— not the posterity of -the first
Adam, but, by regeneration, sons of the second Adam. This
the Old Testament believers were not. They had the subjective
longing for the promised salvation, and subjective faith in it ;
but the real objective regeneration, the germ of new life, proceed
ing from the exalted Christ, which is implanted in us by baptism,
and is nourished in the holy sacrament of the supper — this they
had not ; and we must be on our guard against losing sight of
the distinction which the Holy Scripture makes in this respect
between the old and new covenant. First with us were they to
be made perfect, and were they made perfect. Christ came to
them to set open for them the -gates of the place of the dead
(Rev. i. 18), and to lead them forth along with him (Matth.
xxvh. 53 ; comp. John viii. 56). From that time the souls of
all who die as living members of Christ go to him in heaven
(Phil. i. 23 ; John xiv. 20), in order, at his second coming, to
be united again to their bodies (Rev. xx. 4), and then to reign
with Christ in glorified body over the rest of mankind, finally,
however, to take not a passive (John v. 24), but an active part
(1 Cor. vi. 3), in the judgment of the world. Those who are
then still in Sheol are, in like manner, awaked at the judgment,
and judged " according to their works," according to the rule
laid down in Rom. ii. 6 — 8 ; Matth. xxv. 31 ss., i.e., those who
by patient continuance in well-doing have striven after an

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 347
imperishable existence will now be made acquainted with the
salvation in Christ (for in their case, too, the words will hold
good that there is salvation in no other than in Christ), and will
become Avhole through the leaves of the tree of hfe (Rev. xxii. 2),
the others, however, will fall into everlasting perdition. — It is
time, indeed, that this biblical doctrine of the state after death
were again preached to congregations ; for the common hard and
truly unscriptural doctrine which knows nothing further after
death than happiness or condemnation, is in its practical effects
equally mischievous with the Roman Catholic doctrine of Pur
gatory, in which a trace of the doctrine of Sheol, but only a
caricatured trace of it, is contained.
Chap. xii. 1 — 3. An exhortation is here drawn from all that
has been said in chap. xi. Toiyapovv occurs seldom in the New
Testament, as it expresses a fine emphasis more proper to 'classic
Greek. Toiydp serves, like the German " doch," to strengthen
the oSv. The New Testament authors, in the simplicity of their
style, generally use instead of this a mere dpa or ovv or Sto. —
Kal ypeh are the members of the new covenant in opposition to
the members of the old covenant, mentioned in the 11th chapter.
'Hpteis has for its apposition the words roaovrov eyovTe? irepiKei-
pivov ypiv vi(pos paprvpmv; vecpo? is used also by profane writers
as the poetic-figurative designation of a crowd. — The exhortation
itself: let us run with patience, &c, is expressed in a figure
taken from those prize contests which, being of Gentile origin,
were transplanted among the Jews also by the Herodians, and
which must have made a strong impression on the imagination
of that people, as Paul too makes frequent use of them as com
parisons. In order, however, to be able to come off well in the race, one
must lay aside oymv rrdvra, " everything that encumbers." It
is insipid to explain this figure of corpulence, which indeed cannot
be laid aside. Equally unsuitable is the interpretation by " bal
last ;" it is not indeed a race of ships, but a prize race of men
that is here sp'oken of ! The expression rather refers to the prac
tice among racers of laying aside whatever they had with them or
on them that was heavy, or might be a hindrance, even their
very garments, in order to be able to run without impediment.
If, however, it be asked what is meant by this figurative expres-

348 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2  XII. 3.
sion, the author cannot have understood by the 07K0? sin, as he
'immediately afterwards names this as a special and principal kind
of 07K0?. Hindrances in the straggle of faith and a- public pro
fession with the fear of persecution he not merely in sin, but may
also he in things which are themselves indifferent and allowed.
Intercourse and friendship with old Jewish acquaintances, the
relations formed by trade and merchandise, might be hindrances
of this kind for the readers, and, in such a case, it was right and
is still right to break entirely away from such relations, and to
get rid of the fetters which they impose as soon as they threaten
to become a snare, eAren though in themselves they should be
innocent. We, too, have many and various customs of life which
in themselves are quite innocent, but which through habit may
become bonds that threaten to fasten themselves round the heart.
It is required of us also that we be watchful and keep ourselves
unencumbered, in order that in the event of the profession of our
faith becoming again a thing for which we must pay dear, Ave
may not feel fettered by trifles, but may be able freely to sacri
fice all for our Lord.
Sin, however, is by all means the greatest hindrance in that
contest. Every bosom sin which we cherish is a handle by which
the tempter can lay hold on us, a price for which we are saleT
able. Hence our author gives to sin the predicate evireplararos,
" encircling us, wrapping us round." (The readings of two
codices : direplararov and evireplairaarov are in a critical point
of view of no significance.) The word is a airaf; Xeybp,evov,
and has been variously explained. Some derived it from rrepiia-
rypii in the signification " to draw from a purpose," and rendered :
" the sin from which one can be easily converted," a sense which
is here altogether unsuitable. Others, as Chrysostom, derived it
from irepilarypti in the signification "to encircle," but as an adj.
verb, with passive sense, and rendered : " the sin which can easily
be encircled," which is just as unsuitable. Kuster, Bohme, and
others appealed to the signification of direpiararos, " destitute of
spectators," and rendered : the sin which has many spectators and
admirers. It would thus be represented as a false ornament on
the racer, which attracted the admiration of the spectators, but
was an encumbrance to himself in the race. But this, too,
would be an artificial and far-fetched idea. Still more artificially

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 349
does Wetstein, following the same etymology, render ebrrepi-
ffTOTo? by " seen of many" = " which does not remain hid, but
comes at length to hght." The only two suitable explanations are
— that of Salmasius and Kypke, who take it as denom. from 7rept-
araats, " complication," and render " most complicated," and the
still simpler one of Oecumenius, Theodoret, Erasmus, Vatable,
Castellio, Tholuck, Bleek, &c, who derive it from the middle
rrepiiaraaOai, "to surround," as adj. verb, with active (middle)
sense, and render by insidiosus, " subtly encircling us."
Ver. 2. In that prize race we are to " look to Jesus, the leader
and perfecter ofthe faith." 'Atpopqv, like diroBXiireiv, denotes the
looking away from the nearest object upon which we unconsciously
look, to an object upon which the eye is consciously fastened.
Jesus is mentioned here as that object, and he is here further
called 6 dpxyybs Kal reXeimrys tt}? rriarem<;. 'Apxyyb<s signifies
not "beginner," does not therefore form an antithesis to TeXena-
tt}? (as if it were intended to designate Jesus as the begin
ning and end of faith.) He who does not, as an expositor,
practice that d<popqv in a Avrong way, who does not falsely look
away from what lies nearest, the simple sense of the words, and
seek in the distance what lies quite at hand, will have little
difficulty in finding out the signification of dpxyybs Kal reXeim-
tt;?. A long series of " witnesses" had been adduced in chap.
xi., beginning with Abel. The author and his readers along with
him look back into the past, and see, at the extremity furthest
back, Abel with his faith in the future and invisible as yet quite
undeveloped. This faith becomes ever clearer and more definite
in Abraham, Moses, and the subsequent individuals in the series ;
but the foremost in the line is Jesus, the leader who stands at the
head, and in whom that faith appears in full and perfected glory.
In that he renounced all the glory which he might have had if
he -had been disobedient to his Father and had followed the
seducer, and chose rather the shame of the cross — gave up the
peace and joy of life, gaAre up his little band of disciples to the
danger of being scattered and led astray— and, seeing before him
the apparent destruction of his person and cause, still remained
faithfal to the wonderful -will of the Father, followed his leading
in the dark, and stedfastly maintained, in spite of hell, the sure
expectation of faith that the Father Avould raise him up, and

350 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XI. 2 — XII. 3.
through death destroy death— in all this, he has displayed the
perfected faith, and leads in royal majesty the line of those
witnesses. That which is required in chap. xi. 1, Christ has
perfectly fulfilled. Nay, he not merely had but was the sub
stance of things hoped for !
Instead, however, of understanding this idea of the rrlans
in the general way in which it is spoken of in the context of
this section, a number of commentators have known no other
meaning to give to rrlan<; than that dogmatically defined idea
of " faith in justification through Christ," an idea which has its
place in the epistle to the Romans, but not here. They under
stand by it, therefore, that special form and manifestation which
the general state of mind denoted by rrlaris takes in ihe penitent
sinner, in relation to his Saviour. According to this explanation
it must appear incomprehensible how faith can be ascribed to
Christ the Saviour himself, as he neither required, nor was in
a condition, to believe in the forgiveness of sins for Christ's
sake. In order now to escape this absurdity, some (as Schleus-
ner, Knapp, Kuinoel) explained, that Christ is the " beginner" of
faith, because, by his redemption-work, he has made faith pos
sible for us and for him; others (as Chrysostom) that he is
called dpxyyb<;, because he himself, by his spirit, works the
beginnings of faith in us. In a similar way it was attempted
to explain reXeimry<;. (Schulz, Tholuck, and Bleek, who take
dpxyxos = exemplar (for us) approximate to the true expla
nation ; Olshausen, too, who indeed allows that Christ receives
those predicates in reference to his own faith, but renders
dpxyybs by "beginner," and, instead of referring both to the
series of witnesses, rather finds in them a reference to this, —
that it was necessary even for Christ himself, to struggle on from
the beginnings of faith to its completion.)
The relative sentence o? dvrl rf)<;, .&c. serves most fully to
confirm the explanation we have given of dpxyyb'i Kal reXeimry<;.
As in the case of all those individual examples of faith in chap.
xi. 4 — 31, there was always specified some visible possession which
they renounced, or some earthly privation and affliction which
they endured, but, on the other hand, a future reward which
they saw before them — so also was it with Christ. He has
endured the cross, and counted small and light the shame of this

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XI. 2 — XII. 3. 351
kind of death ; for this, however, he has sat down on the right
hand of God. In him the deepest ignominy was united with the
highest absolute exaltation. — The only question here is, how the
words dvrl tt}? rrpoKeipivy? %apo? are to be explained. Either
(with the Peschito, Luther, Calvin, Calov, &c.) ovti is taken in
the sense of " instead of," and by xaP^ 1S understood the earthly
joy which Christ renounced, or (with Itala, Aeth., Beza, Bengel,
Hunnius, Grotius, and the most of recent commentators) dvrl is
taken in the sense of " for the sake of, for," and by xaP^ 15 under
stood the heavenly joy for the gaining of which he endured the
cross. But as xaP^ nas tue attribute rrpoKeipiivy, and this is the
usual term for designating that which was " set before" the
runners in a race (and such are spoken of in ver. 1 — 3), i.e. the
prize set up at the goal, the second explanation is on this ground
to be preferred.
In ver. 3 ydp, because standing beside an imperative, is not
argumentative, but explicative : another side of that in which
the looking to Jesus consists is here described, Ver. 3 indeed
contains also an argument, namely, the idea which forms the
connecting link between vers. 1 and 2. " Let us run with
patience — while we look to Jesus the leader of the witnesses of
faith (in what respects he is so we are told in the relative
sentence who for the joy, ^-c.)— remember, namely, that he had to
endure so great a contradiction." This third idea serves to show
plainly, in how far the looking to Jesus is necessary and beneficial
for them in their own race. This was not as yet shown in ver. 2 ;
in ver. 2 Jesus was only compared with the witnesses, chap, xi.,
and the fact that he endured the cross and has sat down on the
right hand of God was stated only' objectively, to demonstrate
that Jesus has had the most perfect faith. On the other
hand, it is now shown in ver. 3, how the looking to this faith
(of the great leader of those witnesses, chap, xi.) stimulates
us also to a like faith. The expression who endured such contra
diction is no longer purely objective, but involves an implicit
comparison of that which Christ had to suffer, with what the
readers had to suffer. These (according to ver. 4, compared with
chap. v. 33 ss.) had not yet been persecuted unto blood. They
had at most endured nothing further than contradiction ; they
had been denied the right of fellowship with the Israelitish

352 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4  17.
theocracy and of worshipping in the temple : they had been in
various ways spoiled of their goods and insulted. By means of
a litotes, the author now exhorts them to remember that Jesus
who-has endured such contradiction (as was described in ver. 2),
a severer contradiction, therefore, than they have endured. The
train of thought therefore is this : Run with stedfast patience.
To the end of the course you must- look to Jesus, who, in his
death on the cross, has proved himself to be the absolute cham
pion of faith. And if you are required to look to him, then you
are required to consider that man who has endured such a contra
diction—truly a greater and severer than you have been called
to endure. Of this looking to Jesus and considering him, the
consequence (and therewith also it aim) will be, that the readers
do not become wearied through the flagging of their spirits. As
Kapvetv is generally used absolutely, Tot? i/ru^ot? vpimv will
therefore be dependent, not on Kapyre, but on e/cXvbp,evoi.
Kdptvetv and iKXveaOat, however, form no tautology. Kdptvetv
denotes the state, of being passively wearied and unable to do
anything more as the effect of the iKXveaOat ; iKXveaOat denotes
the being relaxed and careless as a culpable act and cause of the
Kaptveiv. 'EKXveaOai is not passive but middle.

SECTION FIFTH.
(Chap. xii. 4—17.)
FOURTH MOTIVE. THE BLESSING OF CHASTISEMENT.
Affliction and persecution have a twofold character ; on the one
hand, they may be regarded as trials of faith, as trials showing
how much of the new man there is in the Christian, and how
strong that new man is, on the other hand, however, they are also
chastisements and means of purification, which serve entirely to
destroy the old man — the latter, indeed, only when the trial of
faith is overcome, when there is an invigorated new man already
present, who, by bearing those trials, acquires new strength and

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4 — 17. 353
gains thereby new conquests over the old Adam. From this
point of view, the author regards the threatening persecutions in
this fifth section. He shows that that suffering has, at the same
time, the quality of a means of purification and discipline, but
shows also that it only then becomes a rratSela when the Christian
bears it in faith (ver. 4—11). He then (in ver. 12 — 17) repeats
the old exhortations (chap. x. 19 — 25, comp. chap. xii. 1 — 3), so,
however, as that he gives prominence to certain special points.
Ver. 4 forms the transition. The words 7rpo? tt)v dpapriav
are dependent on dvraymvt^bpevoi, not on dvriKariaryre, as the
latter is already determined by the accompanying expression pexp^
a'iparos, while the former would otherwise stand quite alone, and
be an aimless repetition of the idea already implied in dvri
Kariaryre. We have, .therefore, to render thus : You have not
yet in the straggle with sin resisted even to blood. — First of all,
the question presents itself what is meant here by sin, whether
the sin of the readers which was spoken of in ver. 1 — in which
case, the author in ver. 4 imputes it as a fault to the readers that
they were remiss in the internal strjiggle for sanctification, and
the expression unto blood must be understood figuratively = " you
have not yet striven to the uttermost against your sins." Or,
whether the objective power of sin is here meant, — sin as the
enmity ofthe world against the gospel and its professors, — conse
quently, the contradiction of sinners mentioned in ver. 3 — in
which case ver. 4 contains a simple statement of the fact, and the
expression unto blood can be taken in the proper sense = " you
have not yet needed to resist unto blood in the contest with
sinners." The words do not determine which of these interpre
tations is the right one. The former would certainly also be
suitable to the contest. The author would, in this case, set OA'er
against the exhortation, given in ver. 1, to cast away all sin from
them, the statement by way of a reproof, that the readers had as
yet not rightly done this. But then, we should have expected a
somewhat more detailed and pointed statement of what sins they
were, to which especially they as yet gave place. Instead of this,
the fault which he imputes to them in ver. 5, is not one having refer
ence to particular sins (as the hindrances in the straggle connected
with their profession), but only to their indolence in this struggle
itself (consequently, to the effect of these hindrances), namely,

35! EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XII. 4 — 17.
the fault that they did not consider the persecutions as a bles
sing and a benefit. Moreover, in ver. 1 the laying aside of sin
did not form the kernel of the exhortation — this lies in the words
run with patience. On these grounds it appears to me more pro
bable, that the second explanation of ver. 4 is the right one.
" You have not yet needed to resist unto blood in the struggle
against the power of sin, and (already) you have forgotten-, " &c.
This, at all events, is a less \iolent transition. That the author
says here against sin, and not as in ver. 3, against sinners, may be
simply explained by this, that men collectively might as " sinners"
(the class sinners) be placed in opposition to Christ, while, vice
versa, the enemies of Christianity could not be placed as " sin
ners " in opposition to the readers of the epistle to the Hebrews,
Avho were themselves sinners (dpaprmXoi).
In Ver. 5 — 6 the author complains that his readers, although
as yet by no means persecuted unto blood (comp. chap. x. 33 ss.),
nevertheless already shrunk back with fear from every suffering,
and must therefore have forgotten the truth (expressed in Prov.
iii. 11 — 12) that to endure suffering and persecution is not incon
sistent with standing in the relation of a child of God, and is no
token of the want of fatherly love on the part of God, but on
^the contrary, is a proof of his fatherly love. (The trifling devia
tions of the LXX. from the original text make no^ substantial
alteration in the sense.)
In Ver. 7 — 8 the author now expresses, first of all, the impor
tant truth, that one must bear the suffering in order that it may
bring blessing, and have the quality of being a means of instruc
tion. Eh rraiBeiav viropAvere. Only when it is borne in a Chris
tian spirit as coming from the hand of God, does it produce the
effect for which it is intended, i.e., the destruction of the old
man. " Be patient in order to your instruction."
Misunderstanding this fine sentiment, many commentators
have, however, rejected the genuine and fully authenticated
reading eh, found in the three uncial manuscripts A, D, E,
which are generally collated for the Epistle to the Hebrews, in
thirty other codd., in the Peschito, Vulgate, the Latin versions
of the codd. D, E, the Kopt., Sahid., Aethiop., Armen, &c, and
have preferred to it the entirely unauthenticated reading of some
versions et, which, it is held, yields a better sense. It gives a

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4  17. 355
more jejune and easier sense, and this accounts for its origin.
A really apposite sense, however, it does not give. For what
sort of sense is this : " If ye patiently bear your discipline (or
chastisement), then God deals with you as sons?" Surely God
already deals with them as sons in sending suffering, and not first
when the man patiently bears the suffering ; hence Grotius,
Limborch, Kuinoel, Bleek, &c, have in reality felt necessitated
to give vrroptiveiv here the weakened signification " to have to
suffer " (" if ye have chastisement to suffer," &c), but this is
contradicted by the context, in which viroptivetv and vrroptovy is
everywhere quite properly used as terminus technicus for the
idea of patience in suffering.
And what positive reasons can be adduced against the autho
rized reading et? ? Bleek asserts that discipline is not the end
of patience, but the object of it. He confounds here, however,
the idea of the 7rotSet'o with that of the rretpaapib<; or the OXlyjri<;.
Suffering certainly becomes then, and only then, a means of
instruction and sanctification, when the Christian receives it with
patience, and submits to it without resistance. This is precisely
what the author intends to say. The fact that suffering may
become rraiSeia to them, he mentions as a new motive which
should stimulate the readers to exercise viropovy. — It is said,
further, that if the words et? iratSeiav vrroptivere are taken as an
independent clause, there arises, between this and the following
clause, an asyndeton so harsh as to be inconsistent with the usual
style of our author. But what is there to necessitate our taking
w? here as an adverb, and referring it to the noun wot? ? We
take a>? as a conjunction either in the sense of " as " (as at Luke
iii. 23 ; Rom. i. 9 ; Heb. iii. 11) — " endure patiently in order to
discipline, as God then treats you as sons " — or, better still, in
the sense of time, "when," "so long as" (as at Luke iv. 25 ;
Gal. vi. 10) — " endure patiently in order to discipline, when
God treats you as sons."
The latter idea needs now an explanation, and this is given in
the words rh yap .... ical ovx viol. " Every son needs discip
hne ; he who enjoys no disciphne is no genuine son." — Ttot, as
at chap', ii. 10, is here used of Christians instead of the common
expression Te«vo. Comp. what is said in chap. i. 5.
yer. 9  10. The. author now proceeds to consider the subject
z 2

356 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4 — 17.
from a new point of view. We must be patient under the
divine discipline, and let it become indeed discipline to us, all
the more -that this disciphne is for our highest good, and to
train us for heaven. — EZto cannot be connected with the ques
tion iroXXm ptdXXov virorayyabpieOa, so as to make et%o/J.ev «ot
everperrbpeOa a parenthesis ; this is inadmissible partly, on ac
count of the harshness of the construction, partly, because etro
only occurs in questions of wonder or irony. Eito must rather
be taken in the signification " further," and referred to et^o/tev.
Further, we had our fleshly fathers as instructors and obeyed
them ; ought we not now rather to be in subjection to the Father
of Spirits, and (thereby) hve. In the expression Kal itfaopiev the
writer thought in Hebrew. Sop£ does not here, any more than
elsewhere, denote the body (hence Creatianism appeals unjustly
to this passage in support of the doctrine that the body alone
is begotten by the parents, while the soul is created by God) ;
but crap^ denotes there, as always, the natural life produced by
creature powers, in opposition to the life which is produced by the
saving gracious act of God in regeneration. By the natural genera
tion we become dvOpmiroi aapKiKol ; it is God who, by his Holy
Spirit, causes our yjrvxai to be deA'eloped into sanctified 7rvev-
para. (Comp. on chap. iv. 12.) True every soul, even that of
the ungodly, developes itself into a spirit, inasmuch as it unfolds
itself to a personality with a fixed character and being ; but as,
in our passage, it is not ungodly persons, but Christians that
are spoken of, whose •vjri^ot have, through the influence of
God, developed themselves into rrvevpara, the author can here,
Avith perfect propriety, name God as the father of the 7rvet'-
ptara. At all events, the expression rraryp rmv irvevp,drmv here
is to be explained from the antithesis ol rrarepes 'tt}? aapKos,
and is therefore not to be explained from the Old Testament
expression -\to-^^ niniin Tf'bii (Num. xvi. 22) (Bleek),
with which it has nothing at all to do. (In that expression the
principal idea " Father" is wanting, and fymW as the addi
tional words "^2Q hy? snow, stands in a much wider sense, and
does not as here form an antithesis to ^to.) It is, in hke
manner, a mistake to give to rraryp (with Bretschneider, Kuinoel)
the signification " preserver," by which the parallel with rraripes
rrj<; aapKos would be entirely destroyed.

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4—17. 357
In ver. 10 follows the idea which forms, as it were, the minor
proposition between the major et'^o/Aev, &c, and the conclusion
rrbam pRXXov, &c, a peculiarity which we have already often had
occasion to remark in the Epistle to the Hebrews (for example
chap. vii. 15 ss., ix. 15 — 23, &c.) The vis conclusionis in the
inference ver. 9, drawn a minori ad majus, lies in these two
ideas, first, that earthly parents too often educate their children
according to their blind judgment — without wisdom, from blind
partiality, to gratify their vanity, for the sake of their gains —
while God, who is love, has in view only the real profit of his
children ; and secondly, that the earthly fleshly fathers (of
sanctified Christian fathers nothing is here said) bring up their
children only for a period which is soon to pass away, i.e. for
this earthly life, and the earthly calling, while God educates
his children for the eternal life, for " participation in his own
holiness." Ver. 11 is a precious verse to which properly experience alone
can furnish the trae commentary. All discipline seems, during
the time of its continance, to be an object not of joy but of grief;
afterwards, however, it yields a peaceable fruit to those who are
exercised thereby, a fruit of righteousness. The gen. StKaioavvys
does not depend directly on Kapirbv elpyvitov (" peaceable fruit
of righteousness"), but another Kapirbv is to be supplied after
diroSiSmai as apposition to the first Kapirov. Thus the idea
"fruit of righteousness" is epexegetical of the idea "peaceable
fruit." ElpyviKos, however, is not to be explained from the
Hebrew usage of Q^aj = "health," so that elpyviKo'i is =
"wholesome" (Luther/ Castellio, Michaelis, Ernesti, Bretsch
neider, Kuinoel), but it is to be explained (with Calvin and
Tholuck) from its antithesis to the idea of the yvptvaapivov
etvai. Exercise in hard bitter conflict brings peace as its fruit.
From this, also, the idea of the BiKatoavvy explains itself. The
righteousness of which the Christian first becomes a partaker in
consequence of the finished conflict of purification and sanctifi
cation, cannot be the BiKatoavvy in the Pauline sense, the
justification before God; this we have not to gain ; it is already
gained (comp. chap. x. 19 s.) ; it is not the reward of the
struggle, but the coat of mail, which we must put on before the
struggle, and which qualifies us for the conflict. — On the other

358 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4 — 17.
hand, however, BiKatoavvy does not denote merely the perfected
subjective sanctification as such — just because our righteousness
does not lie in this — but the perfect sanctification, in so far as it
leads to the perfect undisturbed appropriation of justification ;
i.e. the (future) 'state of the new man completely purified from
the old Adam, who is therefore' free from all self-righteousness,
and therefore rests entirely on the merits of Christ, because he is
now entirely free from the old Adam, from sin. For it is not to
be forgotten, that it is not, our Holiness but our sin that makes us
self-righteous. The more disturbed the mirror is, the less do we
see in it the spots which cleave to us ; the purer the mirror of
conscience, the clearer does the smallest stain appear in it. The
man whose conscience is asleep and benumbed by sin, will rudely
repel the charge that he is a poor sinner as an affront ; the more
earnestly and successfully a man strives against his sin, so
much the more clear does his misery become to him, so much
the more does pride and self-righteousness vanish, so much the
more heartily does he lay hold on the merit of Christ ; and when
once we shall have finished the struggle, and, free from the last
motion of sinful inclination, shall enter into the Holy of Holies
of our Lord and Saviour, we shall then entirely acknowledge and
glory in this, that we are righteous before God only through him
and through him alone ; i.e. we shall reap that " fruit of peace,"
that " fruit of righteousness," the now entirely appropriated
righteousness in Christ, because we shall then stand and be willing
to stand entirely in Christ and no longer out of Christ.
In Ver. 12, 13 the exhortation of ver. 2 and 3 is repeated. The
readers, formerly strong in the conflict and zealous in the race,
had now become feeble in the hands and slack in the knees ;
it was their duty to collect their strength anew. The words
rpoxias bpOds rroiyaare rdh rroalv vpav form, as is well known,
a hexameter, certainly an unintentional one. The author rather
intended only an imitation ofthe passage in Proverbs iv. 26. Tot?
rroaiv cannot be taken as instrumental (" describe straight tracks
with your feet"), as this figure would have no reality to rest
upon, inasmuch as the feet describe no tracks, and even although
rpoxiat be taken in the wider sense (= footstep), the footsteps
do not properly make a line. Tot? rroaiv is rather the dative
proper, and Tpoy/at stands in the sense of " pathways." Prepare

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XII. 4 — 17. 359
straight, i.e. even paths for your feet. The opposition is not
between straight and roundabout, but between even and rough
ways, as appears from the clause 'iva pty rb %coXov, &c. which
expresses the end that is sought to be gained. The readers are
not themselves to throw hindrances (stones as it were) on the
way, "that that which is already lame may not be quite dislo
cated." By the ^wXov the readers themselves, of course, are
meant, in so far as they had already grown slack in the race, and
were thus (speaking figuratively) lamed. They are to take care
not to break entirely or to dislocate their limbs, i.e. to become
entirely incapable of going on in the race; they are rather to
strive to recover their original strength and vigour. (To ren
der iKrpirreaOai by " turn aside from the way" would give no
sense.) Vers. 14, 15. — The exhortation in ver. 14 to strive after
peace with all men, is referred by many to the relation of the
readers to the Jews. Bohme seriously thinks that the author
warns his readers against falling out with the Jews, so that they
may not have to expect persecutions from them ! The explana
tion of Grotius is more tolerable : Debetis quidem vobis, a
Judaismo cavere, attamen non odisse Judaeos ; but, in this case,
a more distinct and exphcit warning against Judaism must have
gone before in ver. 13, and even then the author could scarcely
have laid down so absolutely the injunction, follow peace with all.
It would be still better to understand BimKere elpyvyv as a con
cession ("you may indeed strive after peace with all, but only
Strive also, &c.) ; we should then, however, expect a ptev ....
Se . . ., and not holiness but faithfulness in their profession of
the truth, must have been specified as the antithesis to peace.
It is better, therefore, with Michaelis, Zacharia, Storr, Tholuck,
and Bleek, to refer the whole exhortation to the relation of the
readers to their fellow Christians, which is also spoken of in ver.
15. They are to guard against differences among themselves,
they are not to quarrel with one another, but every one is to be
earnestly intent on his own sanctification. It has appeared from
the observations we have made above at ver. 11, how indispen
sable this sanctification is in order to attain to happiness, in order
to see the Lord. In the 15th verse the two exhortations ofthe
14th verse are repeated, only in the inverse order. They are
carefully to see (each one for himself, and also the one for the

360 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 4  17.
other, by means of that irapaKXyais described in chap. x. 24 ss.)
" thaf no one remain behind the grace of God" (an expression
which is stiU to be explained from the allusion to a race towards
a goal.) . And they are likewise to take care " that no springing
root of bitterness cause disturbance, and thereby many be defiled."
For, in times when the Church is threatened and assailed from
without, nothing is more dangerous than those internal divisions
and factions, which usually arise from obstinately giving'to minor
differences of a merely relative value the importance of absolute
differences, as, for example, is done, when in times in which the
fabric of the Christian Church is everywhere in flames, and
people come with the fire-engines of the home mission to set
about extinguishing the fire, others appear, calhng out that
the Lutheran engines must not be placed among the United and
Reformed engines, in order that the Lutheran jets of water may
not mingle with the United and Reformed, and thus occasion a
union of works. Each party is rather to work according to its own
plan of operation, although these plans should even cross each
other, although an incalculable amount of power and success
should thereby be lost, although the house should burn down.
The opposition of confessions is regarded as absolute, and treated
as of greater importance than the opposition between Christ and
Belial. Those Jewish Christians, also, to whom the Epistle to
the Hebrews was addressed, in their relation to other Jewish
Christians and to Gentile Christians, may not have been free from
this disease. They, too, may have had their hearts and their
heads so filled and carried away with some difference, which
reaches not into the future life, that they had eyes only for this,
and cared not for the trouble and danger which they were pre
paring for the Church. They considered not that it is always a
subtle idolatry, which leads a man to treat a relative thing as if
it were the absolute. The purity of a creed even may be made
an eiSeuXov. — But wherever such perversity has found place, it
becomes a root of bitterness ; alienation, strife, bitterness, and
confusion grow out from it ; even those who stand on freer ground,
and are opposed to the divisions, are yet easily offended and led
to take a side and contend for it ; but wo to him who gives the
offence. In Vers. 16, 17 the author turns back to the principal ques
tion, whether the earthly or the heaA'-enly is most loved. ILbpvos,

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XII. 4 — 17. 361
in this pontext is, of course, to be taken in that familiar sym
bolical sense in which it so often occurs in the Old Testament
(especially Hosea i. — iii ; Ez. xvi. and xxiii.), and also in the
New Testament (James iv. 4), to designate those who violate the
spiritual marriage-covenant with their God. BiByXo?, as anti
thetical to 0710?, designates the same men in respect of their
profane, unspiritual character. A warning example of this
character" is presented in Esau, who cared so little for the
blessing of the first-born that he sold his birthright for a savoury
.dish, and in doing so frivolously exclaimed : " What profit then
shall the blessing do to me ?" (Gen. xxv. 32.) Not until God
in his righteous providence brought it about, that Jacob cheated
him out of the blessing, did he " cry aloud and was exceedingly
grieved," and wished to have the blessing which Jacob had
received. To this our 17th verse refers. Many commentators
(Beza, Gerhard, Carpzov, Storr, Michaelis, Bohme, Klee,
Tholuck, &c), rightly understand, therefore, by the pierdvoia
here, the' changing of Isaac's mind (Esau found no possibility
of changing Isaac's resolution). Against this it cannot (with
Bleek) be objected, that Isaac did really change his mind, for,
in what did this change show itself? He perceived his error,
but he adhered to the resolution that Jacob should keep the
blessing which had been given to him, and Esau could in
reality move him to no change in his purpose. To this also the
words rbirov pteravoias oi>x s5pe are quite suitable. He found
no more room (in his father's heart), where a change of mind
might have taken place. Nor was there any need of a irarpbi
at pteravolas, as, already at the verb direSoKipdaOy, a two rov
rrarpbs must be supplied. Only according to this explanation
also do the words Kaiirep pterd SaKpvmv iK&ryaas avryv (scil.
ryv pieravoiav obtain a meaning. These words contain a refer
ence to Gen. xxvii. 34. — If, on the other hand, we understand.
by pierdvoia Esau's own inward sorrow and repentance, then
the last words are meaningless and untrue; meaningless, be
cause he who seeks repentance with tears thereby already
manifests repentance; untrue, because in Gen. xxxiii. Esau
shows a changed heart, emptied of revenge and reconciled.
No other way remains, then, (except with Calvin, Bengel,
Bleek, &c.) to take the Avords pteravoias ydp rbirov ovx evpe as

362 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 18—29.
a parenthesis (but even then they give no tolerable sense), and
to refer the avrr]v which depends on iK^yryaas to evXoyiav — the
most unnatural construction that can be imagined !

SECTION FIFTH.
(Chap. xii. 18-29.)
FIFTH MOTIVE. THE CHOICE BETWEEN GRACE AND LAAV; A
CHOICE BETWEEN SALVATION AND JUDGEMENT.
The author here, once more, states in bold poetical language
the substance of that has been said, and again presents the dis
tinction between the law as preparatory, and the fulfilment in
Christ, in all its sharpness, but at the same time in all its great
ness and majesty. Both are divine, but the law is terrible ;
does it only terrify and shake into repentance the slumbering
deaf conscience, — it is intended for nothing else ; it is not given
to confer blessedness, it is terrible; the new covenant Avith its
redemption is lovely and attractive. We have here quite the
ground-idea of the Pauline system of doctrine, only, that Paul
has developed this psychologically from the subjective expe
rience, while our author, on the contrary, has developed it
historically from the objective facts. — He shows, however (ver.
18—24), not merely how attractive and glorious the new cove
nant is, but also (vers. 25 — 29) how much more terrible it is to
despise the grace of this new covenant, and how much more
terrible Christ will be when he shall come again as judge, to
those who have preferred the law to grace and have provoked
judgment upon themselves.
Ver. 18 — 24 is also remarkable in respect of its form, on
account of the exceedingly elegant (paratactic) structure of the
period. For ye are not come . . . but are come . . . are the two
main pillars upon which the other members of the sentiment
rest. The idea expressed in rrpoaipxeaOe is explained, on the
one hand, from Deut. iv. 11, on the other, from Heb. iv. 16 and

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XII. 18  29. 363
22. The Christians are not come to the place where a law is
given, but to the city or the kingdom of reconciliation. — The
description of the giving of the law from Sinai follows not
the more concise account in Ex. xx., but the more detailed in
Deut. iv. — v. With respect to the reading, opet, ver. 18, is
certainly spurious ; it is wanting in A, C, in the versions 17
and 47, in Chrysostom, in the Peschito, Copt., Aethiop., Latin
D and Vulgate. It is at once evident, how easily it might
find its way as a conjecture into those authorities which read
opet; the sentiment requires a opet on two grounds, partly,
as antithesis to the words Simv opei, ver. 22, partly, as noun
ti yfnjXatympievm, which, in' respect of its signification, cannot
possibly belong to rrvpl. Those transcribers who have inserted
opet by way of correction, were thus quite right ; they have
just rectified an original mistake in the autograph. The author
certainly had the word opet in his mind, but neglected to write
it. (For, only thus, is the omission of the word in all the old
authorities to be explained.) We have thus here the rare case
of a reading externally spurious, and yet internally genuine. — Wy-
Xa(pmptivm, touched, i.e. tangible (= ¦tyyXa<pyr6<;) designates the
mount (Sinai) as an earthly mount, consisting of masses of rock,
in opposition to the heavenly Jerusalem, ver. 22, the " mount
Zion," by which is meant not the earthly geographical hill Zion,
but the Kingdom of Christ symbolically called Zion. — KeKav-
pivm cannot be the attribute to rrvpl; for, to designate a fire as
one that is " burning" is superfluous, unless it were intended to
oppose a burning fire to a painted one, which is not the case
here. KeKavptivm is rather the second attribute to opet, and irvpi
is dependent on KeKavpevm : " to the mount that could be touched
and that burned with fire." Tvbcpm, &c., depends, of course,
again on rrpoaeXyXvOare and not on KeKavpivm. In addition to
these sensibly terrible appearances, blacknesSj^ darkness, tempest,
sound of trumpets, there was " the voice of words, which (voice)
they that heard refused that any word more should be added,"
Le. the Voice of words which was so fearful in its sound and
import, that the Israelites wished to hear no word further (Deut.
v. 24  26.) True, the ten commandments, themselves, had not
yet been spoken (comp. Deut. v. 26 ss. with Ex. xix. 17 and
20), but already the command (Ex. xix. 12, 13), that even no

364 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 18 — 29.
beast should touch the mountain, put the people in terror. The
words Kav Oypiov, &c, form the import of the SiaareXXop,evov.
The Kal which follows must belong to Mmvays elirev, and the
words ovrm <po/3epov yv rb tfiavratypievov must be parenthetical ;
otherwise, there would be an inexplicable asyndeton between
(pavratppevov and Mmvays. The circumstance here stated, that
Moses also said, " I exceedingly fear and quake," can hardly have
proceeded from oral tradition (Erasmus, Beza, &c), but is taken
from the passage Deut. ix. 19 (LXX.) True, in that place it is
not the moment before the giving of the. law that is spoken of,
but a point of time during the giving of the law, when Moses was
made aware ofthe golden calf (and this our author, who is so much
at home in the Old Testament, must have perfectly well known) ;
but his design, here, is not to speak particularly of what belonged
to the giving ofthe law, but in general of the severity and fearful-
ness of God as he appeared, on Mount Sinai. So terrible were
the appearances, so fearfully did God manifest his severity, that
even Moses himself — not on account of his own trespass, but
on account of the sin of the people — was thrown into fear and
trembling. (Knapp, Tholuck, &c.) — The Christians are not
come to that earthly mount, where the severity of God was mani
fested, but to mount Zion symbolically so called, which is the
city of the living G0(ij the heavenly Jerusalem. The kingdom
of Christ is so designated also at Gal. iv. 26. This (already
present) heavenly Jerusalem is different from the new Jerusalem
in the Apocalypse of John, which is not to be set up on the
earth till after the second coming of Christ. — The words which
follow are variously construed. Beza, Calov, Carpzov, Storr,
&c, make dyyiXmv dependent on ptvptdaiv, and take rravyyvpet
together with iKKXyaia, so that rrpmroroKmv depends on these
two substantives (" to hosts of angels, to the assembly and church
ofthe first born.") But, in this case, it is strange that the Kai
which unites all the other members is wanting before rravyyvpet.
Oecumenius, Theophylact, Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Grotius,
&c, likewise take dyyiXmv as dependent on ptvpidaiv, but under
stand rravyyvpet as apposition to pivpidaiv (" to hosts of angels,
an assembly, and to the church," &c. ;) but one has only to hear
this rendering, in order to be convinced of what a frigid sense
such an apposition would have. The only right construction is

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 18—29. 365
that of Wolf, Rambach, Griesbach, Knapp, Bohme, Kuinoel,
Tholuck, Bengel, Lachmann, De Wette, Bleek, &c, according
to which, dyyiXmv is dependent on rravyyvpet. It is then most
natural to take the two members : dyyiXmv iravyyvpei and iKKXy-
aia rrpmroroKmv as epexegetical of ptvpidatv. (" And to entire
hosts : to the host of angels and to the church of the first born.")
The irpmroroKoi are the first fruits of the regenerate, the mem
bers of the new covenant. As they are not described as " being
in heaven," but " written down in heaven" (Luke x. 20 ; Phil.
iii. 20; also Ex. xxxii. 32 s.; Dan. xii. 1 ; Phil. iv. 3 ; Rev. iii. 5,
xiii. 8, xvii. 18, xxi. 27, xxii. 19), we are to understand here
not those Christians alone who were already dead, but those
also who were yet alive, and the ptvptdBes comprehends both, the
ecclesia pressa or militans, and the ecclesia triumphans. In the
new covenant heaA'en and earth are united and reconciled (Eph.
i. 10), while in the giving of the law from- Sinai, a gulf was
fixed between the trembhng people and the terrifying ministering
spirits (Heb. ii. 14.)
Kal Kptry 0e& TrovT&rVj-^-Primasius, Theophylact, &c, have
understood these words of Christ, which is altogether inadmissible,
as Christ is afterwards specially named. God the Father is
certainly meant. In no case, however, can we (with Eras
mus, Michaelis, Knapp, Bleek, &c.) take Kptry as a predicate
idea (" and to the God of all as the Judge"), for the Christians
do not come to God as their Judge, but as their reconciled
Father. We must rather either (with Peschito, Vulgate,
Luther, Kuinoel, De Wette, &c.) take rrdvrmv as depen
dent on Kptry (" and to God, the Judge of all "), or connect
Kptry as an adjectival idea with Gem (" and to the judging God
of all"), which yields substantially the same sense. The nerve
of the idea hes in this, that the believers of the new covenant
may come near with boldness to the Judge of the world, while
the Israehtes could not come nigh to him, although he was their
own special lawgiver. — The Christians can come nigh to him, for
they find with him already the spirits of the just made perfect
(through Christ), and the Mediator himself through whom these
were made just. TeXeiovaOai does not denote death, as if in it
the being made perfect consists (Calvin, Kuinoel, &c), but is
used, as at chap. vii. 11—19, x. 14, xi. 40, to denote the accom-

366 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XII. 18 — 29.
plished realized reconciliation. Perhaps the author in these
"just made perfect" has had specially in his mind that host of
Old Testament behevers described in chap. xi. — The culminat
ing point in the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem is Jesus, ihe
Mediator himself, with his blood of reconciliation, which speaks
better than the blood of Abel (comp. chap. xi. 4). Abel's blood
cries for vengeance ; Christ's blood cries for grace.
Ver. 25. With this is connected the exhortation not to refuse this
Jesus who by his blood cries for grace to us. When the Israelites
at Sinai (ver. 19) refused to hear God's voice and to fulfil his
commands, they were punished. He, moreover, who refuses to
hear the voice of grace is lost. — El yap iveivot ovk eepvyov, — to
this must be supplied tt)v ripmpiav ; true, it is nowhere said
in the Pentateuch that the Israelites had been punished because
they dared not to hear the words of God : they are rather com
mended for this (Deut. v. 28, -29.) But the idea of the rrapai-
reiv involves here not merely that praiseworthy fear, but also the
subsequent actual transgression of the commands of God (Ex.
xxxii.), which was already noticed in ver. 21. At 7roXX&> ptaXXov
ypeh is to be supplied, of course, ov (pev^bpieOa. The expression
o drr ovpavmv sell. XaXtSv finds a simple explanation in the
XaXovvra at the beginning of our verse, and this, again, is
explained from ver. 24. It is Christ, who in heaven cries for
grace to us, and thus offers us grace from heaven. (Not : Christ
in so far as he descended from heaven and became man, not
God the Father.) As now, it is said of him (Christ) in ver. 26,
that he shook the earth in the time of Moses (for ov can of course
be referred only to tov air' ovpavov), we must also understand by
the eirl 7>}? xPrlrLaTI'^03V Christ (as God the Son, God as reveal
ing himself, comp. 1 Cor. x. 1, ss.), not Moses, nor God the
Father. Ver. 26, 27. The same Christ who has already revealed himself
on Sinai as the Lawgiver, and who now speaks from heaven as
Mediator, will come again as Judge. In proof of this the passage,
Hag. ii. 6, is adduced, which, in its original import, really refers to
the coming of Christ to set up his kingdom in glory. Our author
plainly lays emphasis on two points in the passage, first on this,
that at the second coming of the Messiah, not merely are local
appearances of nature to take place on a part of the earth, but

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII. 367
heaven and earth, the whole visible created world, is to be shaken
and unhinged ; secondly, on this, that the shaking is to take
place en dira%, consequently, is to be such a shaking as makes
any repetition superfluous, such therefore as is to unhinge and
change everything that, generally speaking, is in its nature
changeable. The eVt oVaf is, indeed, not so explicitly expressed
in the original text as in the LXX. ; but it is quite clear that
the prophet meant a last final shaking of the world, which was
at one time to take place, so that the LXX. has substantially
rendered the sense quite correctly.
Ver. 28, 29. That which cannot be shaken, which does not
go down in the universal change, is the kingdom of Christ. For
this is no rroiovpevov, does not belong to the creature, but is the
organic assemblage of those who are born of, and filled with, the
Son of God and the Spirit of God. The Kingdom of God is
the body of Christ. — UapaXapBdveiv signifies not to take actively,
but to receive passively. As we have received such a Idngdom,
as we have become partakers of it, let us " have gratitude" (not
" hold fast the grace," this must have been expressed by Kari-
%o)/Aev ryv ^aptv), and serve God acceptably with reverence and
awe. (A, C, D, and versions read per evXafielas Kal Biovs, others
perd Seou? «at euXo/Qeta?. The readings pier alSovs Kal evXa8eia<i
and per ebXaBela<; Kal (poBov haAre very little authority on their
side.) On ver. 29 comp. chap. x. 31.

SECTION SEVENTH.
(Chap, xiii.)
CONCLUDING EXHORTATIONS.
These exhortations are not abrupt and unconnected, but are
most closely related to each other, and to the import and aim of
the entire epistle. They are also of such a kind, as to cause us
no perplexity in the view we have taken, that the epistle is not

368 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII.
for a church, but for a circle of catechumens ; for they all refer
to the individual, not to the church hfe.
First, in ver. 1 — 6 we have exhortations respecting the indi
vidual life as such, then, in ver. 7 — 17, respecting the relation of
the individual to the doctrine and the profession, and finally, in
ver. 18 — 25,. the conclusion ofthe writing.
Ver. 1 — 6. The first virtue which is required is brotherly love,
by which is not meant the common Christian love of man in the
relations of the natural life, at least not it alone, but chiefly, that
love of the Christian to the Christian as a member with him of the
body of Christ, which forms the antithesis to the root of bitterness,
chap. xii. 15. That brotherly love which does not in the first
place inquire : " Art thou a Jewish Christian ? art thou a
Gentile Christian ? art thou Roman or Grecian ? United or
Lutheran ? Angelican or Presbyterian ? what doctrine and view
dost thou hold of the Sacrament ?" — but which first and fore
most asks : " Art thou become by the act of the Sacrament a
member of the body of Christ ? (for -the church rests on the
Sacrament, and not on the doctrine of the Sacrament ; on the
latter rests merely the confession) — and dost thou stand as a
member of Christ in the life of Christ and in his love ?" He
who can answer this in the affirmative is a brother, a brother by
regeneration, although I may have a purer knowledge on many
points than he ! — An essential manifestation of that philadel-
phian feeling is hospitality (ver. 2), of which we have still, in
these days, the finest illustration in the practice of the .Phila-
delphians. The motive, for thereby, &c, is explained from Gen.
xviii. — xix., and its applicability from Matth. xxv. 44 — 45. If the'
Christian is to exercise love even towards brethren who are
strangers,how much more towards suffering andpersecuted brethren,
ver. 3. Such exercise of brotherly love the readers 'required, in
order most firmly to settle them in Christianity — more firmly than
by arguments. Chiefly must they, although not yet persecuted
themselves, exercise themselves and prepare for the future perse
cution, by actively receiving those who were already persecuted.
He who was afraid of doing so showed by this act, that he would
shrink with still more cowardice from his own persecution. This
admonition the Christians of our own day may well lay specially
to heart. For, in our day, it has become quite the. fashion, even

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII. 369
among believers, to disown every brother, who by taking a firm
and determined stand, has brought inconveniences upon himself,
and carefully to inquire whether something not quite prudent or
quite justifiable may not be discovered in the way in which he
has conducted himself, and then to exclaim : " Yes, but he has
not done right in this and that. " When the pastors of Waadt-
land would not acknowledge as "bishop" a college of state
councillors which tolerated and encouraged the most blasphemous
abominations, there were not wanting wise people who demon
strated to a nicety, that those men had committed a mistake,
that- they ought to have delayed for some days. May God grant
us all the grace to commit such mistakes ! — Ver. 4 cannot be
understood as a warning against an ascetical rejection of marriage
(for then he must at least have said : rlptio'i b yaptbs, dXX' dptlavros
y Koiry), but the author exhorts that marriage be maintained in
honour (and thus honourable), and the marriage bed undefiled.
He warns against those sins which, according to John viii. 1 ss.,
were at that time so fearfully prevalent among the Jewish people,
that all idea of punishing them had to be given up. The same cor
ruption of the national life has spread through all Europe. The
members of Christ are not to be led by such a state of things
to think lightly of, and easily to excuse, such sins ; for let him
who has one member belonging to hell take care lest he do not
altogether belong to it. He is like a bird whose foot the fowler
has bound with a thread ; he can fly about apparently free, but
still he is in the fowler's power, and if he does not break the thread
while it is yet time, the fowler draws him to himself by means of
it at the fitting moment, catches him and kills him. Every bosom
sin is a stone which the devil has in the board1 ; a poison which,
chiefly in times of persecution, paralyses the strength of faith. —
Nor is it otherwise in respect to avarice, ver. 5, that national sin
of the Jewish people, the disposition to traffic which they have
inherited from the natural life of their ancestor Jacob (comp.
Gen. xxv. 31 ss. ; xxx. 31 — 43). He whose heart cleaves to
earthly possessions, will be faint-hearted in persecutions. And,
in general, a family whose chief concern it is to do the will of
God, and which commits the care for daily bread to Him who
1 'A German proverb meaning " to be in favour with."
2 A

370 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII.
will not leave nor forsake us, will lead a very different life
(for example, in the sanctification of the Sabbath) from a
family whose chief impelling motive is the striving after earthly
possessions and wealth, and which goes along with Christianity,
only in so far as it will not interfere with worldly convenience.
Ver. 7 — 9. According to ver. 7, yyovptevoi (not teachers but
overseers — presbyters or apostles of the Church at Jerusalem to
which the readers belonged) had already suffered martyrdom (for
the readers are to consider their e/e/3o <rt? and the faith thereby
attested). However, during the period subsequent to the con
version of the readers no more bloody persecutions had taken
place, according to chap. xii. 4. We shall therefore have to
understand a reference to such men as Stephen, James the son
of Zebedee, and James the younger who was stoned in a tumult
in the year 62, men whose death was known to the readers,
and whom they even now doubtless acknowledged as yyovpxvot.
Wiesler thinks, there is a reference to the deaths of the two
apostles, Paul and Peter, which followed close on each other in
the year 64. These two events had certainly made a great
impression on the whole society of Christians, and if Paul,
although not labouring in the Church of Jerusalem, was yet
reckoned among the yyovp,ivot<; vpimv, this is to be explained
partly, from his universal apostolical authority, partly, from the
sympathy with which the Christians .of Jerusalem must haAre
regarded his imprisonment in Jerusalem and Caesarea, partly,
from his close connexion with Peter in Rome during the period
immediately preceding his death.
Ver. 8 is not to be connected with ver. 7 by placing a colon
after rriariv, and supposing that ver. 8 states what is the import
of the irlarK ; for, by iriarK is meant, in the whole hortatory
portion of the epistle, not faith in so far as it is an acceptance of
definite doctrinal propositions, but faith as that disposition of
mind which holds fast on the future, and in this aspect alone can
faith be spoken of in ver. 7, when it is said that the yyovptevoi
had attested their rrlarK in "their death. Ver. 8 is rather to
be understood as an explanation of the author's, intended as a
motive to enforce the exhortation in Arer. 7. " Imitate their faith ;
(for) Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." ('0
avrbs is predicate.) The same Christ, trusting in whom those

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII. 371
died, still lives to-day, and is also our consolation (Calvin.)
Such explanations as the following are wrong : the Christian
religion is everlasting, and will not be abolished in favour of the
JeAvish (Vatable, Michaelis, Kuinoel, &c), or : the eternity of
the X070? as such is here spoken of (Athanasius, &c.)
To the statement that the Christ in whom those men died still
lives, and that the readers are to place their entire confidence in
him, corresponds the warning in ver. 9 not to let themselves be
led away by various and foreign doctrines. From the clause, for
it is good, &c, we perceive that the author must especially
have had in his mind casuistic external doctrines regarding the
lawfulness or unlawfulness of meats. These doctrines were
iroiKiXai ; one maintained that in the Christian freedom and
dehverance from the ceremonial law they might go so far,
another, somewhat farther, a third, not so far ; every one drew
a different line of limitation. The being occupied in general
with such investigations, the fixing of the attention and interest
on such questions, was, however, injurious and dangerous ; for
those doctrines were also " foreign," they related to a point
wliich was irrelevant to Christianity, and led away from the
main concern to things of secondary moment, which ought to be
entirely beyond the care of the Christian. " For it is good, if
the heart be established in grace, not in meats." Thus and only
thus are the datives xaptri and Bp<*>p-aat to be understood (this
use of the dative in answer to the question in what or in refer
ence to what an act takes place, occurs frequently, for example
1 Cor. xiv. *20 ; Rom. iv. 20 ; Acts ii. 37, &c. ; comp. Winer's
Gramm. § 31, 3). By taking these datives, as is generally done,
in an instrumental signification (" by. grace not by meats"), all
logical connexion with the first member of the sentence is
destroyed. Ver. 10 — 14. The sentiment is expressed in a much higher form
in these verses. Hitherto, it was shown, in the entire epistle, that
the Levitical worship and the Levitical purity obtained by it, is
dispensable ; that it is no misfortune to be without it ; and, accord
ingly, it had just been shown at ver. 9 that the care of the Chris
tian is to be directed to this, that he be settled as regards grace, not
as regards ordinances about meats, which profit nothing. The
author now rises higher ; he leaps, as it were, from the defensive to
2a2

372 EFISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII.
the offensive; he says : it is not ill with us in this respect, but with
the Jews ; not we but they are the excommunicated party ; we
eat of the trae sacrificial meat on which everything depends, and
from this the true, the Messianic, our piacular meal, the Jews
are excluded. This is the simple and clear statement in ver. 10.
" We have an altar, of which they are not at liberty to eat, who
still perform their worship in the tabernacle (the Old Testament
sanctuary)." The author evidently has in his mind the holy
supper, the meal of spiritual life-fellowship and union with the
for us dead and now exalted Saviour. . It is now shown in ver.
11 — 12, how that very Jesus who was rejected of the Jews, not
withstanding that he was rejected, nay, because he was rejected,
is the true sacrifice, and in ver. 13 s., that consequently, that very
company of those who believe in him which is rejected of the
Jews, notwithstanding that, nay, because, it is so rejected, is the
true Israel. The confirmation of this is profound, yet clear
throughout. According to Lev. xvi. 27, the Adctim on the day
of expiation, because it was (symbolically) laden with the un
cleanness and guilt of the whole people, and was consequently
unclean — not in itself, but by that transference of the guilt of
others — must be taken without the camp, and there burned. This
was done to the victim, although it was the same animal whose
blood had atoning efficacy, and was carried into the holiest of
all ! Nay, still more, because this was done to it, because this
animal was regarded as unclean on account of the guilt of others,
and as unclean was cast outside the camp, it had atoning
power. Now the same thing, only not symbolically, but really,
is true also of Christ. With respect to him also, we are not at
liberty to infer from his having been regarded as unclean, and
cast out as a malefactor, and killed at the place of execution,
that he can be no trae sacrifice, and that his blood cannot be the
true blood of atonement. But just as that goat, Lev. xvi., was the
true symbolical atoning sacrifice, although it was regarded and
treated as unclean, nay, because it was reckoned unclean on
account of the guilt of others, so is Christ the true substantial
atoning sacrifice, although, nay, because, he was led without the
gate as a criminal, and cast out and killed by the Jews. — From
this, now, it follows, ver. 13, that those who are his have not
to seek the trae sacrifice in the camp of the Jews, but on

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII. 373
Golgotha ; that they are not to mourn, and be cast down with
sorrow and anguish, although, like their Lord, they should be
cast out and treated as unclean ; their hope, ver. 14, is not
directed towards an earthly citizenship in the earthly Jerusalem,
but towards the heavenly citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem,
(chap. xii. 22), the everlasting city.
And accordingly it follows from this, lastly, that the Christians
do not need, as the Jews, to continue to offer animal sacrifices ;
they are not to bring Levitical sacrifices along with the sacrifice
of Christ, but are only spiritually to reproduce, in the manner
described at ver. 13, the sacrifice of Christ, by which they have
once for all received atonement. Hence there remains no other
sacrifice for the Christian to offer, but the sacrifice of thanks
giving and praise.
Ver. 15 — 17. This idea is further developed in ver. 15, 16.
The sacrifice of praise and of stedfast profession (just that repro
duction ofthe sacrifice of Christ described in ver. 13), in addition
to this, beneficence and communication of gifts, are the sacrifices
with which God is well pleased. Koivmvia in this usage (which
first arose in the sphere of the Christian literature) occurs also
at Rom. xv. 26 ; 2 Cor. ix. 13 ; Phil. i. 5.— With love to fhe
brethren is connected by a natural association of ideas, ver. 17,
obedience to the leaders ofthe Church. Thus the ideas from ver.
7 to ver. 17 describe in their succession a complete circle. The
author at ver. 7 began with the yyovptevoi, and he returns to
them again at ver. 17. He began with the mention of those
leaders of the Church who had suffered martyrdom ; he had
brought them forward as an example of faith, from them he
passed to faith itself, as opposed to foreign doctrines, then to the
obligation above all to be estabhshed in grace, to the grand
development of the idea that the Jew is the excommunicated
party, while the Christian, precisely when he is excommunicated,
then first truly enters into the trae Holy of Holies, finally, to the
doctrine, that the internal reproduction of the sacrifice of Christ
— the bearing the reproach of Christ — together with love to the
brethren, are the only sacrifices which God desires from the
Christian (not as atoning sacrifices but as thank-offerings), and
love to the brethren leads him back, at last, to the duty towards
the yyovptevoi, those, namely, who are still living.— Directly, ver.

374 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII.
17 contains the truth, that the member of the church, if he has a
faithful shepherd and does not follow him, is lost through his own
fault. Indirectly, there hes in it also the other truth, that it is
the duty of the shepherd to watch over the souls committed to
his care, and that he must render an account of them all, of those
also who have been lost through his fault. This is a solemn
word. Let every minister of the word consider, that he has
voluntarily undertaken this awfully responsible office. No one
can excuse his indolence and negligence in this office by saying,
that he has been compelled to undertake it. How, moreover,
will the thieves (John x. 10) justify themselves before God,
who have undertaken and forced themselves into the office of
those who are called to administer the means of grace in Christ's
stead, and have not as messengers of Christ preached His word
and gospel, but their own conceits, or what might tickle the ears
of the people.
Ver. 18 — 19 forms the transition to the conclusion. "Pray
for me." This should be done at all times ; the pastors should
be borne upon the prayers of their people ; and it is weU when
the people are on the Sundays reminded of this duty, as is done
for example in the Liturgy of Zurich, before imparting the bless
ing in the words; "Pray for us, as we do also for you." — " For we
think that we have a good conscience, as we endeavour to walk
uprightly in all things." He who possesses a good conscience in
such a manner, has a right to demand intercessions on his behalf.
But the author has special occasion for desiring these interces
sions, inasmuch as he is in a situation which makes it not a matter
depending on his will whether he will return to his readers again.
His hoping " to be restored " to the Jewish Christians in Jeru
salem points to an earher personal relation to them. We do not
need to suppose, on this account, that the author must have had
the official charge of a congregation in Jerusalem ; it needs only
to be supposed, that th*e author had been in Jerusalem during
the first conversion of those people ; so that the authorship of
Paul would not be excluded by this verse.
Ver 20 — 21. The epistle, properly speaking, closes with the
invocation of a blessing upon the readers. " The God of peace,"
he is such to the Christian, who, by faith in the sin-forgiving
grace of the Saviour, has attained to peace with God. " Who

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII. ? 375
has brought back from the dead the Shepherd of the sheep, the
great one, in the blood of an everlasting covenant." The words
ev a'iptan do not belong to dvayaymv ; for the raising of Christ
from the dead was not done in the blood of the everlasting cove
nant ; nor does the position of the words suit this ; the words in
question rather belong plainly to rbv pieyav ; Christ is the great,
true, chief and superior shepherd, inasmuch as he has made an
everlasting covenant by his blood (comp. chap. xi. 11 ss.). The
best commentary on these words is found in John x. He is the
good shepherd because he has given his life for the sheep. — Now
the God who has raised up this chief shepherd, and has crowned
his faith (chap. xii. 1 — 3), has also power, strength, and will to
make the members of Christ's body perfect. He is to make them
exercised in every good thing to the doing of his will. This,
however, is not effected by God's giving us new commandments
which we must now fulfil without him, but by himself fulfilling
his will in us through Christ. Da,, quod jubes, et jube, quod vis.
In the new man, his own doing and the working of God are not
to be separated ; Christ himself living within us is identical with
our sanctification. A hateful caricature of this truth is presented
in Pantheism, in which the will of the natural sinful man is
identified with the administration of God, and the unsanctified
energy of nature is viewed as the manifestation of the absolute
energy of God.
Vers. 22 — 25 is a postscript. It comes, at all events, from
the same hand that wrote the epistle ; the question, however, is,
whether only from the same hand (so that perhaps the amanu
ensis to whom the epistle had heen dictated now added the post
script in his own name, and no longer in the name ofthe proper
author, as Tertius, Rom. xvi. 21 — 24), or whether from the same
subject and author.- The one as well as the other might say, ver.
22, that he had made use of few words in the epistle ; the amanu
ensis might also say. this, if only we suppose that the epistle was
not verbally dictated to him, but that it was left to him to carry-
out the ideas. — On account of this brevity he hopes that the
readers would take his exhortations in good part ; not as if a
short epistle would be more welcome on account of its smaller
quantity of matter as such, but because in condensed diction the
author is entitled to reckon on being excused for many a harsh-

376 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREAVS XIII.
ness in the exhortations, which would not so easily have been
committed if he had time and leisure to be more full. But the
writing is indeed concise and compressed, even in its theoretical
parts. The saying truly applies to it : quot verba tot pondera.
Every little sentence, nay, every member of a sentence, contains
an exponent which might be developed into an entire series.
Even in the choice of the themes and sections the strictest mea
sure is observed. The author has purposely omitted much that
he might have brought within the scope of his consideration.
How well, for example, might he ha\-e carried out a comparison
of Christ also with the Passover. But this he has only faintly
indicated in chap. xiii. 10. He was evidently pressed by time
and circumstances. Accordingly, he was obliged also in the
hortatory pieces (chiefly in chap. vi. and x.) often to lay down
solemn warnings shortly and almost unconnectedly. For this he
begs to be excused in ver. 22 ; he could not do otherwise ; he
wrote shortly and could not but write so.
In ver. 23 he notices that Timothy has been set free. Timothy
then had been imprisoned. When ? on this see the appendix.
When now he says, that in case (idv) Timothy shall come soon
he will see the readers together with Timothy, this seems to
imply, that he himself was not in prison, and that the hindrance
to his return (ver. 19), for the removal of which he asks his
readers to pray, cannot have consisted in an imprisonment. For
had he been in prison, he must first have waited for his release,
and then it had not depended on Timothy's coming soon, whether
he would see his readers with Timothy or without him. — The
23d verse, therefore, leads us to the supposition that the author
was free, was already about to set out on a journey, and would
have taken Timothy, who had just been released from imprison
ment along with him, on condition that he would come soon
enough to his house, and fetch him away.
Nevertheless, a number of difficulties open themselves up here.
How then could the author exhort the readers in ver. 19 to pray
for him that he might be restored to them, if he was so free and
ready for a journey ? — Further : why in general does he write
at all, if he intends to come himself to them ? — I find that the
commentators, hitherto, have passed too easily over this difficulty.
I can see only two solutions of it. Either we must suppose, that

EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII. 377
the author wrote the postscript at a time somewhat later than
the epistle ; when he wrote the epistle he was still in prison ; not
till after his release did he add the postscript. But then, we
should certainly have expected that, in this postscript, he would
make grateful mention of his own lately and unexpectedly
obtained deliverance. (Such as : But God be thanked who has
done above what we ask or think, and has delivered me.) Or
better, we suppose that the proper author of the epistle was
really in prison (yet according to ver. 19 not without hope of
obtaining his freedom), but that the appendix vers. 22 — 25 pro
ceeds not from him, but from that helper, to whom he did not,
perhaps dictate the epistle, but gave him only the ideas, with
whom he had talked over the substance of it, leaving the con
ception to him. This helper had then, indeed, reason to ask
excuse for himself (ver. 22). on account of certain harsh expres
sions. This helper relates the deliverance of Timothy. This
helper is free and prepared for a journey — still, neither he nor
Timothy can have gone direct to Jerusalem, in order to carry
the epistle ; otherwise, the entire postscript or (if Timothy was
the bearer) at least the notice respecting him had been super
fluous. But that helper hoped indeed to come soon to Jerusalem
with Timothy, went, however, somewhere else before this, so
that the epistle was transmitted through some other person.
From Ver. 24 it appears, that the helper was in Italy ; for
he writes salutations from the Christians of Italy. The expla
nation "those who have fled from Italy" (Bleek, &c.) cannot
well be admitted, because then it had been strange that only
these and not also the other Christians who lived in the place
where the epistle was written, should have sent by the writer
salutations to the readers. The drrb is easily explained ; with
less propriety could he have said e'v, if he himself was in Italy ;
if he had said " the saints in Italy," he would thus have desig
nated these so objectively, as to make it appear that he himself
was not also in Italy. Hence he chooses the preposition dirb.
" The saints of Italy salute you ;" those who are natives of
Italy, those who are ¦ there at home, as opposed to himself, who
indeed was in Italy, but was not of Italy. Thus the Greek
says (comp. Tholuck on the passage) ol dirb yy^i and ol dirb
OaXdaay;, " the travellers by land, the travellers by sea," so

3 78 EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS XIII.
Polyb. 5, 86, 10, ol dirb tt}? ' AXe%avSpela<s BaaiXeh, the Alex
andrian kings. Comp. also Acts xvii. 3. Tholuck, indeed,
has still a difficulty. Why does the author not say drrb 'Prnpiys ?
First, because he would write salutations from all the churches
of Italy ; secondly, because he himself, as we will afterwards
see, was not at Rome.
The concluding verses of the Epistle lead us naturally to
the critical inquiry respecting its date, aim, and author, which
inquiry, having now made ourselves familiar with the contents
of the Epistle, we intend to conduct in an appendix.

( 379 )

APPENDIX.

ON THE DATE, DESTINATION, AND AUTHOR OF THE EPTSTLE
TO THE HEBREWS.

CHAPTER FIRST.
THE CIRCLE OF READERS.
In the want of a superscription or address, in the highly
systematic distribution of the matter into very distinctly defined
sections, the themes of which are in every case formally inti
mated, as well as in the marked separation of the hortotary
sections from the theoretical, finally, in the difficulty of the
diction, the terseness of the sentiments, and that subtlety of
argumentation in which much is really only indicated, and con
necting links are left to be supplied by the reader's reflection
(and his diligent comparison of the Old Testament with the
epistle) — in all these respects the Epistle to the Hebrews is
distinguished from all the other New Testament epistles, and
considering all these peculiarities, we may well say (what Berger1
has said with substantial truth, although in a wrong way), that
the Epistle to the Hebrews is no epistle in the true and proper
sense, or at least is no epistle in the ordinary sense. The author
on his part has not surrendered himself to the free and unre
strained effusion of his thoughts, cares, wishes and feelings in
this writing (as Paul does even in the most systematic of his
epistles, that to the Romans), but he has worked out and
1 Gbttinger Theol. Bibl. part iii. p. 449 ss.

380 APPENDIX.
elaborated it according to a well-considered plan, so that he
evidently subordinates the subjective flow of his thoughts and
feelings to this objective plan. The strict order of his argu
mentation is never broken in upon by overflowing emotions (as
is done for example in Rom. i. 22 ss. ; ii. 1 and 3 ss, and 24 ; iii.
5 and 9 ; vii. 24 ; xi. 33, &c). The readers on their part could
not possibly have understood the Epistle to the Hebrews if, like
the rest of the NeAV Testament epistles, it had been read a
single time before an assembly of the Church ; the Epistle to
the Hebrews, in order to be understood, must be gone through
section by section, slowly, carefully, and repeatedly, with continual
comparison of the Old Testament passages cited in it and their
connexion. Upon this the author has evidently reckoned.
It was theii no ordinary epistle ; it was more than an epistle,
it had in reality something of the nature of a theological treatise,
and in so far Berger is certainly right. But he evidently went
too far when he thought that the Epistle to the Hebrews was a
mere treatise written not at all for a definite circle of readers, but
for the entire Christian, br at least Jewish Christian pubhc
(something in the same way as the Gospel of Matthew). He
found himself in this case driven to the unnatural supposition,
that the appendix chap. xiii. 22 — 25 was first added supplemen-
tarily by one who was sending the treatise on to some other
churches. But by this nothing is gained. For not merely in
the appendix, but also in the epistle itself (chap. xiii. 19) personal
relations of the author to the readers are presupposed, and more
over, the style of the exhortation points to a quite definite class
of readers. Not only is it a very special error or spiritual
malady that is counteracted throughout the entire epistle, not
only must an exact acquaintance with the spiritual state of the
readers be presupposed in the hortatory parts, but in the passage
chap. v. 12 it is even indicated that the readers collectively had
passed over to Christianity together at one and the same time,
and in chap. vi. 10 and chap. x. 32, ss., reference is made to
their former conduct, their former fortitude in the faith as con
trasted with their present faintheartedness, — limitations of so
definite a kind that we cannot suppose a whole church to be
addressed, but only a very narrow and definite circle of indi
viduals.

APPENDIX. 381
The Epistle to the Hebrews, then, deviates from the nature of
an epistle, in so far as relates to the manner in which its contents
are represented ; but it is an epistle in so far as relates to ihe
destination for a definite circle of readers.
That we are to seek for this circle of readers among the
Jewish Christians is, in the main, self-evident from the con
tents of the epistle ; nay more, we are at liberty to seek these
Jewish Christians only in Jerusalem. The import of the epistle
as a whole, and in its particular parts, has indeed the one practical
aim of convincing the readers that it was no misfortune, and in
no way dangerous as regards the salvation of their soul, to be ex
cluded from the temple and the temple worship, and to make it clear
to them that the central point for the Israelite who believes in the
Messiah does not he in Israelitism or Leviticism, but in Mes-
siaism. The readers, therefore, did not only participate with
many Jewish Christians living out of Jerusalem in the common
erroneous notion that the Jewish theocracy with its ritual was
the main concern, and that the Messiah was sent only on account
of it, and therefore for those who have part in it, not indeed
as a secondary thing, but still only, so to speak, as a reward
and a gift testifying complacency with this theocracy. Not
only had they not yet comprehended that the Jewish theocracy
was rather established on account of the Messiah, and the
Messiah sent on account of the whole world. But to this theo
retically erroneous view there was added, in their case, the
practical danger of being really and truly shut out from the
temple-worship ; nay, it was this danger, evidently, that first
awakened and called out the theoretical error. For the whole
polemical aim of the epistle is directed not against conscious
heretics and blameable heresy (as, for example, that of the
Epistle to the Galatians), but against an aberration which had
its root in daOiveia. — The readers were too weak, too unde
veloped in faith and knowledge to be able to bear and to over
come the terrible feeling of being shut out from the old theocratical
sanctuary. Hence the theoretical statements of the epistle have
an altogether unpolemical thetical form, they are milk for the
weak (chap. v. 12) ; what of polemical is in it is directed solely
against the sin of faintheartedness, never against intentional
error.— -But that practical danger could exist in this form only

APPENDIX.
with such Jewish Christians as lived in Jerusalem itself. Else
where in Palestine and among the dispersion errors might arise
similar to that in the Galatian Church, but never could those
circumstances exist out of which such an involuntary fear of
exclusion might spring. For where no temple was, there the fear
of exclusion from the temple could not praciically be felt. To
be excluded from a local synagogue could in itself be regarded
as no misfortune, as the constitution of synagogues was entirely
a matter of freedom (they arose in Jerusalem between 460 and
480), and the Jewish Christians very soon everywhere separated
themselves from the synagogal communion; besides, nothing is
said in the Epistle to the Hebrews of an excommunication from
Jewish synagogues, but of exclusion from the temple and altar
and the Israelitish theocratic church as a whole. Such could be
practically felt only in Jerusalem itself. (Comp. Bleek i. p. 29.)
True, in one respect the excommunication from the temple
might affect Jewish Christians out of Jerusalem, namely, when
they came to Jerusalem to any of the three great festivals and
then found the temple closed against them. But if the author
had had such Christians in Anew, he would certainly have given
more prominence in the epistle to the feast of the Passover, of
Pentecost, and of Tabernacles, and have shown that these were
dispensable, while he rather puts the ritual of those feasts quite in
the background, and places in the foreground only the sacrifice
of atonement. The readers, then, are certainly to be sought for
in Jerusalem.
But again, it cannot have been the entire church in Jerusalem
for which the epistle was intended. Already do the passages
chap. vi. 10 and chap. x. 32 ss. forbid this; for it is scarcely con
ceivable that a church, the number of whose members extended
at all events to thousands, should formerly have been together as
one man bold and true to their profession, and should afterwards
have collectively as one man become weak and fainthearted.
Besides, the passage chap. ii. 3 leads us to think only of such
readers as had been converted subsequent to the time of Christ's
ascension, who, in general, lived at a later period, and who there
fore had not themselves been witnesses of the pubhc labours of
Jesus. Moreover, the passage chap. v. 12, in particular, forbids
our supposing that the epistle was addressed to that entire church

APPENDIX. 385
which was the mother church of all, which numbered among its
members at all events many who had grown grey in Christianity,
many who had been the personal, disciples of Jesus, and again
many who had been added at a later period from year to year.
How could it be said to such a church : " According to the time
ye ought already to be teachers, but yourselves need again to
be instructed?" As regards the time, the members of this
church were not like each other in respect to the time of their
conversion, but different to the extent of perhaps thirty years ;
then it could not be presupposed of several thousands that they
ought to be teachers ; still less would this be said of a church in
whose bosom there existed in reality many teachers ; least of all
can it be supposed, that such a church should as a body have so
retrograded that it again needed milk. All these circumstances,
taken together with the whole style of representation which
characterises the epistle, must induce us to understand the words
chap. v. 12, ye have need that one teach you, as implying that the
readers were in reality again taken under instruction,1 i.e. that the
epistle was intended for a limited circle of neophytes in Jerusalem,
who had become timorous lest they should be excluded from the
temple worship, threatened to withdraw themselves from Chris
tianity (chap. x. 25), therefore were taken anew under instruction,
and for whose instruction ihe Epistle to the Hebrews was to form a
sort of guide.

CHAPTER SECOND.
TIME OF COMPOSITION.
When this epistle was written can be determined only in
directly and by approximation, and this too only by the most
careful consideration both of the import of the epistle as a whole,
and of its particular intimations. The import of the epistle as a
whole leads, as has been already shewn, to the conclusion, that
1 This teaching cannot be referred to the doctrines contained in the
Epistle to the Hebrews itself. For it has for its object the <rTotX«a,
which are not taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

384 APPENDIX.
access to the temple and temple worship was either rendered
difficult or altogether forbidden to the readers. This circum
stance, however, yields a pretty certain terminus a quo, a point of
time before which the epistle can certainly not have been written.
We learn from Acts xxi. 28 — 29 that in May 58, when Paul
came to Jerusalem from his third mission tour, the Jews
charged him with having taken into the temple along with him
a Greek, an uncircumcised person, namely, the Gentile Christian
Trophimus, and thereby haAdng profaned the holy place. Now,
whether this was an intentional pretext, or, as appears, from
ver. 29 (ivbpti^ov), a mere mistake, so much, at all events, may
be inferred from the nature of the accusation, as also chiefly
from ver. 24, that at that time Jewish Christians, as circumcised
and as native Israelites, were not prohibited from going into the
temple. Tlie Epistle to the Hebrews must therefore have been
written after the year 58, but it cannot have been written very
soon after the event recorded in Acts xxi. There must have
been an interval during which the hatred of the Jews against
Christianity rose to a degree considerably higher.
As the extreme terminus ad quem, the year 66 offers itself,
which was the first year of the Jewish war. That the Epistle
to the Hebrews was written before the destruction of Jerusalem
appears not only from those particular passages in which the
Levitical ritual is spoken of as still subsisting (chap. ix. 8, x. 1),
but, even if we had not. those passages, might be inferred, with
undoubted certainty, from the import and the practical aim of
the epistle. We must evidently come down a series of years
from that extreme terminus ad quem ; it is not probable that the
epistle was written immediately before the beginning of the war,
when the external fermentation and decomposition of the Israel
itish national hfe had already come to a height. The circum
stances presupposed in the epistle resemble much more the
first beginning of that fermentation than its completion.
Certain yyovpevot had already, we know, suffered martyrdom
(chap. xiii. 7) ; the readers themselves, also, had already suffered
loss in their earthly possessions (chap. x. 34), and many of their
fellow-believers had, been imprisoned ; they themselves, howeA'er,
had not yet needed to strive even unto blood (chap. xii. 4, comp.
our remarks on the passage). On the other hand, it is taken

APPENDIX. 385
for granted everywhere in the hortatory portions, that severer
persecutions may come, nay, will come ; the readers are systemati
cally prepared for these, and exhorted to submit to the sufferings
that were before them as a discipline from God (xii. 5 ss.), not
to become fainthearted (x. 38 s.), to persevere in patience (x.
36), to imitate the faith of the martyrs (xiii. 7), and, like Christ
and all the Old Testament saints, to keep fixedly and alone
before their eye the future goal, the entrance into the holiest of
all (chap. xi. and chap. xii. 1 — 3). Do we find, now, traces of
the condition of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem growing
worse after the year 58 ? First of all, the persecution under
Nero in July 64 may be mentioned, which, although it did not
extend over the orbis terrarum, must yet have reacted also on
Palestine. Were the Jews already full of bitterness against the
Christians, and was their fury restrained from arbitrary out
breaks only by the power of the Romans, then the Neronic
persecution would certainly be a signal for them which would
not require to be given a second time. To persecute these
Christians who were now held to be criminals against Caesar,
was no lenger wrong, and would bring with it no danger. These
Christians, whose leaders, Peter and Paul, had been murdered
so shortly after each other as criminals and rebels, had no claim
to, and no hope of, protection on the part of the Romans. Cer
tainly, then, there began in the summer or harvest of the year
64 a season of aggravated persecution for the Christians of Jeru
salem. But this aggravation was not the first since the year 58.
Already, under the procuratorship of Porcius Festus (60 — 62),
according to the accounts of that period which Josephus has
left behind him, the unbridled spirit of the Jews rose to a height
hitherto unknown. Already in the year 57 (comp. Wiesler's
Chron. d. Apgsch., p. 79) a first attempt at insurrection on a
large scale was made, that of the Sicarii, but was put down
(Acts xxi. 38 ; Jos. Antiq., xx. 8, 5 s. ; bell. jud. ii. 13, 3 s.) ;
under Festus, again, arose the multitude of Goetes and false
Messiahs ; the fever of false Maccabeism raged widely, and ate
into the vitals of a people become inwardly corrupt and morally
dissolute. The Roman scourge came down ever more heavily
on the subdued rebels (Jos. Antiq. xxiv. 5 ; xxv. 8). We can
2b

386 APPENDIX.
easily see now, how the Christians as " adherents of a Messiah"
must have been exposed to the suspicion of the Gentile magis
trates, Avho it can hardly be supposed would imrestigate with any
great care into the nature and character of each particular
Messiah, but in whose eyes all hope of a Messiah and all speak
ing of a Messiah must soon have been stamped as unlawful, and
scouted as a Jewish association for treasonable purposes, after some
dozen of Messiahs had, one after another, put themselves forth
as agitators and rebels. How easy in these circumstances must
it have become for the- Jews to blacken the Christians in the
eyes of the Romans, or to obtain a bill of indemnity for any
arbitrary persecutions of the Jews ! It is certain, then, that the
year 60 or 61 formed an epoch of increased trouble to the
Christians, and Josephus expressly relates (Antiq. xx., ix. 1)
that after the departure of Festus, and before the arrival of his
successor Albinus, the Apostle James, the son of Alphaeus, Avas
stoned at the instigation of the high priest, Annas the younger.
This murder was certainly the signal for something further.
Accordingly in the year 62, the difficulties of the Christians
in Jerusalem began to increase, and in the harvest of 64 there
was a second and still greater aggravation of them. We can
suppose, therefore, that the epistle to the Hebrews was written
either late in the summer of 64 — in which case the passage chap.
xiii. 7 will refer to the death of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
which, as we have seen, is not absolutely impossible — or it might
have been written in the year 62 or 63, after the death of James
the son of Alphaeus — in which case the passage chap. xiii. 7
would have to be referred chiefly to James the son of Alphaeus,
whose mere name must of itself, however, have reminded the
readers of the earlier death of J ames the son of Zebedee. We
may, in the meantime, choose either of these two dates, although
the passage chap. xiii. 7 is certainly capable of a simpler explana
tion according to the latter supposition, for then the author would
allude to the martyrdom of men who had actually suffered death
before ihe eyes of the readers, and were therefore patterns to them
of faith in the proper sense of the term, and AA'ho also in the
strictest sense had been yyovptevoi in the church at Jerusalem.
(The readers might thus have witnessed the death even of James
the son of Zebedee, although they were still at that time Jews.

APPENDIX. 387
And he, too, might be reckoned among the yyovpevoi vpmv be
cause he had laboured in the church with which the readers had
since become connected, and as one of the Apostles whose divine
calling they acknowledged since their conversion.)
Let us see, now, whether the passage chap. xiii. 23 gives any
more definite information as to the time when the epistle to the
Hebrews was written. Timothy had been in prison, and had just
recovered his freedom when the epistle was written, or at least
Avhen it was sent off. At the same time, Ave have gathered from
the passage chap. xiii. 23 — 24 that the person who wrote or
worked out the' epistle was free, was in Italy, in a different
place, however, from Timothy (if Timothy, who has just been
set free, comes to him soon he will set out with him to the east),
that, on the other hand, the proper author of the epistle from
Avhom the material (but not the diction, comp. chap. xiii. 22)
emanates, and in whose name the epistle on to chap. xiii. 21 is
written, was by no means so independent as to be able to set out
as soon as he might please to Jerusalem, but was so, restrained
by the circumstances of some kind or other in which he was
involuntarily placed, that he exhorted his readers (chap. xiii.
19) to pray God that he might be again restored to them.
Now, when could Timothy have been in prison in Italy f — During
the imprisonment of the Apostle Paul at Rome, several of his
helpers were involved in the judicial procedure against him and
detained for a while in custody ; so Aristarchus (Col. iv. 10) and
Epaphras (Philem. xxiii.) It is not impossible that Timothy,
also, might have been kept in confinement at that time. When
the Apostle Paul wrote the epistles to the Colossians and Philip-
pians Timothy was actually with him (Col. i. 1 ; Phil. i. 1 ; ii.
19). Trae, the Apostle does not precisely designate him as his
fellow-prisoner, and makes no precise mention of an imprisonment
of Timothy ; but even the circumstance that the epistle to the
Philippians was written precisely in the name of Paul and
Timothy (i. 1), and that Timothy, thereby, joins in the thanks
giving for the gift which was sent eh XPe*-av — this circumstance
almost warrants the reference, that Timothy was imprisoned
together with Paul. Just because the Apostle throughout the
whole epistle speaks in his own person, addresses his exhortations
in his own name, speaks chap. iii. 4 ss. of his own — exclusively

388 APPENDIX.
of his own — former circumstances, because, in a word Timothy
has no part in the contents of the writing, — that superscription
Paul and Timothy servants of Jesus Christ would properly have
had no meaning if it did not point to this, that the occasion of
the epistle — the gift which had been received— equally concerned
Timothy and Paul,1 and this, indeed, is only conceivable on the
supposition that Timothy shared in the fate of Paul as a prisoner.
The analogous passage Col. i. 1 would then have a similar expla
nation. This supposition is confirmed, however, by the passage
Phil. ii. 19. Paul hopes that he will be able soon to send Timothy
into the East. Why is this an object of hope to him ? If Timothy
was free, then he might simply have determined to send him
thither. He hopes to send him, so soon as he knows how it may
go with his own case (ver. 23), and, in the same way, he hopes
or "trusts" (ver. 24) that *he Lord will soon procure free
dom for himself " also." These words, that I also myself shall
come shortly, are so parallel with the words / hope to send Timothy
shortly unto you, that it is not too bold to suppose, that Timothy
also, who " as a son with the father hath served with me" (ver.
22), and who alone of all has not sought, his own (ver. 20, 21),
was involved in the procedure against Paul and imprisoned. If
Timothy had been free, why did not Paul send him at once with
Epaphroditus, or rather why did he not send him instead of Epaph-
roditus, who (ver. 27) had just recovered from a deadly disease ?
It is not to be supposed that we adduce these passages as
affording a conclusive proof that Timothy was at that time in
prison with Paul, but we think we have only shown from them
the possibility that he may have been at that time in prison. The
Epistle to the Philippians was written in the year 62, at all events
before the third year of Paul's imprisonment at Rome, where his
situation became worse. Now, if the setting at liberty of Timothy
recorded in Heb. xiii. 23 is identical with that which Paul hopes
for in Phil. ii. 19, then the Epistle to the Hebrews was written
somewhere towards the end of the year 62, therefore just after
the death of James the son of Alphaeus.
1 The circumstance that Timothy may, perhaps, have written the
epistle to the Philippians as To^irypo(po? does not suffice to explain
the superscription Phil. i. 1. The tachygraphist never wrote his name in
the superscription along with that of Paul.

APPENDIX. 389
If this were the only time when an imprisonment of Timothy
in Italy is conceivable, then would the choice which was left open
above, between the year 62 and the year 64, be thereby already
determined. But Timothy, after having been actually sent by
Paul into the East, was urgently entreated by Paul (2 Tim. iv.
21), whose case in the meanwhile (during the first half of the
year 63) had taken a very serious turn, to come back to him
before the harvest of 63. We may be sure that he complied
with this request of his " father." Then, however, it is possible
that he himself was involved in the procedure against Paul, —
possible also, that after Paul's death he was taken prisoner in the
persecution under Nero (July 64.) In short, an imprisonment of
Timothy in Italy may likewise be conceived of as possible in. the
year 64; only, that his being again set at liberty is less probable
on this occasion than in the year 62.
We have therefore not yet got beyond the alternative between
the harvest of 62 and late in the summer of 64. The Epistle to
the Hebrews might have been written at. either of these two points
of time. The inquiry as to the author will, perhaps, be the first
thing to throw a clearer light on the question.

CHAPTER THIRD.
WHETHER WRITTEN ORIGINALLY IN GREEK.
Before we can proceed to the inquiry respecting the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews there is still a preliminary question
which must be settled, namely, whether this epistle was really
written originally in Greek, or whether it is not merely a transla
tion or a reproduction of an Aramaic original. There is nothing
in the epistle itself that could lead to the raising of such a ques
tion ; but a series of Church Fathers speak of an original Aramaic
writing, and therefore we are not at liberty entirely to evade the
question. The most ancient of these Fathers is Clemens of Alexandria,
of whom Eusebius relates (vi. 14), that in his Hypotyposes he

390 APPENDIX.
has undertaken iirirerpypivas Stnv^o-et? (investigations) respect
ing all the books of the Holy Scripture, and in regard to the
Epistle to the Hebrews has come to the conclusion : HavXov pev
eluat, yeypd<j>0ai Be 'E/Spo/ot? 'EBpaiKy (pmvfj, AovKav Be (piXo-
ripms aiirrj pieOepptyvevaavra e'«SoOvat roh "EXXyaiV O0ev rbv
avrbv XP&Ta evplaKeaOai Kara tt)v eppiyvelav ravrys re tt}? e7rter-
toXt}? ko.1 rmv rrpd^emv. But the last words of this citation show
clearly enough how Clement arrived at this view. It is not a tra
dition which he follows, but a scientific conjecture which he raises.
The dissimilarity in style between this epistle and the epistles of
Paul, and its similarity to the writings of Luke, struck him
(justly) j he perceived that the epistle cannot have come from Paul
in this form ; but as the general tradition of the East (as we shall
see in the following chapter) named Paul as the author, Clement
was led to ask : May not the epistle in its present form in reality,
perhaps, have proceeded from another — from Luke ? Wherefore
not, he thought ; how very possible is it that Paul wrote1 to
those Aramaic speaking Jewish Christians in their own language,
and that a disciple of Paul (for example Luke himself, whose
style so much resembles that of the Epistle to the Hebrews)
afterwards worked out the epistle for a wider circle of readers. —
But that Clement here in reality gives only a subjective conjec
ture, and not an ecclesiastical tradition, appears most clearly
from this, that his disciple Origen departs from the supposition
of an originaily Aramaic writing, although he retains the sub
stance of Clement's A>iew. He, too, notices (in Euseb. vi. 25) the
difference in style between the Epistle to the Hebrews and the
Pauline epistles ; he, too, does not venture to carry back that
epistle in its present form directly to Paul ; but he can explain
this phenomenon, by a simpler (and indeed a far more probable)
conjecture, namely, by the supposition that Paul did not verbally
dictate this epistle, but only delivered in free oral discourse the
thoughts and the development of the thoughts, the composi
tion and elaboration of which he left over to one of his disciples
(to ptev voyptara rov airoaroXov iariv' y Be (ppdais Kal y avvOeats
diropvypovevaavrbt tivo? to diroaroXtKa Kal mairepel axoXioy-
1 'Efipa'iKr) (pavr) denotes here of course not the ancient Hebrew, which
indeed was intelligible only to the learned Jews, but the Aramaic.
Comp. Acts xxii. 2.

APPENDIX. 391
poifnio-avTO? to elpypeva virb rov SiSaaKaXov.) Origen would
certainly not have fallen upon this method of solving the ques
tion, if there had been in existence a tradition in any degree to be
depended on in favour of an originally Aramaic writing ; for then
he would not have at all needed this new conjecture. That he
thought it necessary to modify the opinion of Clement can be
explained only on the ground that this was only an opinion,
only a subjective supposition. We certainly meet this supposi
tion also in later Church Fathers. Eusebius himself also repeats
it (iii. 38) ; he speaks, however, so entirely in the same way as
Clement — in like manner adducing the internal grounds which
are in its favour — that it is apparent he is there only stating the
conjectures of others. ('.E/3patoi? yap Bid tt}? rrarplov yXmrrys
iyypdcpms mpuXyKoros rov HavXov, ol ptev rbv ivayyeXiaryv
AovKav, ol Be rbv KXypevra — Clement of Rome — ippyvevaai
Xiyovat tt)v ypa(pyv b Kal piaXXov e'iy dv dXyOes rm rov bptotov
tt}? (ppdaem<; xaPaic'rVPa '!">lv Te T0^ KXy pernor imaroXyv Kai ryv
rrpbs 'EBpalovs diroam^eiv K-r.a.) That this conjecture was one
which he had adopted from others and not the one which was
familiar to Eusebius, Bleek has already justly inferred from the
fact that Eusebius elsewhere speaks as if the Greek Epistle to the
Hebrews comes from Paul. (In his Comm. on Psalm ii. 7 he
says that Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, has made use of
the LXX., with which as a vop,opa0y<; he was well acquainted.)
Jerome, too, (Script. Eccl. 5) says : scripserat Paulus, ut Heb-
raeus Hebraeis, Hebraice, ut ea quae eloquenter scripta fuerant
in Hebraeo, eloquentius verterentur in Graecum ; but Jerome
also adds : et hanc causam esse, quod a ceteris Pauli epistolis
discrepare videatur. (Later, also, we meet the same view in
Oecumenius, Theophylact, and Johannes Damascenus.) But it
is always evidently the old conjecture of Clement which in every case
recommended itself on the simple ground, that every one noticed
the dissimilarity in style between the Epistle to the Hebrews and
the Pauline epistles.
The Church Fathers inform us respecting another book ofthe
New Testament that it was written originally in Aramaic, namely,
the Gospel of Matthew. But we must beware of placing these
two accounts parallel with each other. In the case of Matthew

392 APPENDIX.
the tradition respecting its Aramaic origin begins with the
Presbyter John (comp. my Kritik. der evang. Geschichte p. 767
ss.), and continues through the whole series of the Church
Fathers without being encumbered by the faintest trace of an
opposite tradition ; nay, it is confirmed by the abundant traces
of the existence of a " Gospel to the Hebrews" distinct from the
Greek one of Matthew, which was still used without hesitation
in the first centuries even by the Catholic Church, and only
gradually came to be the sole possession of the Nazarites and
Ebionites, and in their hands was greatly vitiated ; finally, even
the Greek Gospel of Matthew bears, throughout, an Aramaic
colouring, and has quite the nature of a reproduction of an
Aramaic original (although not of a verbal translation). Thus
for example it has only one paranomasia (Matt. vi. 16), and
this, too, of such a kind as that it may have arisen uncon
sciously (comp. my Kritik. der evang. Geschichte p. 764 —
766). It is altogether different with the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The scanty series of notices respecting its Aramaic original
begins, as we have seen, very late, and begins with an evident
conjecture, which was afterwards readily adopted by others on
internal grounds. There is nowhere the faintest trace of an
Aramaic original of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and our Greek
Epistle to the Hebrews is, in fine, so original throughout, so
evidently thought in Greek, both in form and import, that the
supposition of its having arisen from an Aramaic original
becomes at once an impossibility.
To begin with what is most external, we would refer to the
multitude of Greek paronomasias and plays upon words, of
which only some (for example virord^ai and dvvrrbraKrov, ii.
8 ; dirdrmp, dpiyrmp, vii. 3 ; eyyitppev, eyyvos, vii. 19 and 22 ;
rrapaptiveiv, ptiveiv, vii. 23 — 24 ; yyyadpievos, yyidaOy, x. 29,
&c.) could have arisen unconsciously in the hands of a trans
lator, while the most are certainly intended (for example
rroXvpiepm<i Kal rroXvrporrms, i. 1 ; epaOev d<p' mv erraOev, v. 8 ;
KaXov re Kai kokov, v. 14 ; Bpmpaat Kal rrbpaai, ix. 10 ; dbap-
rov, bpmv, xi. 27 ; ptivovaav, piiXXovaav xiii. 14, &c). All that
can be directly inferred, indeed, from this mass of paranomasias

APPENDIX. 393
isj that our epistle cannot be the literal translation of an
Aramaic original; that it may have been a free reproduction
of such an original is not thereby set aside.
This reproduction, however, must have been executed in so free
manner that, in the form and structure of the periods, as well
as in the transference of the ideas, the writer has not bound
himself down to the original; for the construction ofthe periods
is so genuinely Greek, so rich, so fine, the language is so select
and expresses modifications of ideas so delicate (for example
perptoiraOeiv, evrreplararbs, ptiaOairoBoala, &c), that there are
no Aramaic ideas and words whatever to which these Greek
ones would correspond. The writer must, therefore, have en
tirely recast his original — and that not merely as regards the
form, but also the matter. AU the argumentations are so
fine, so closely knit and interwoven with the grammatical
form of the finely constructed period, that if this form was not
possible in the Aramaic original, then must also the entire
development of the . thought have been different. Compare
for example Heb. chap. i. 1 — 3 ; chap. ii. 2 — 4 and 9, 10, and
14, 15; chap. hi. 1, 2 ss ; chap. iv. 9 and 6, 7; chap. v.
7 — 10 ; chap. vii. 5 — 12, and ss. Let any one only try to
render back these passages into the poor Aramaic language, and
he wiU be convinced that more than the half of the sentiments,
but chiefly and entirely their fine connexion, would be lost.
To this is to be added, finally, the use which is made of the
LXX. We have seen in the particular passages that the
argumentations based on Old Testament citations are substan
tially correct, and really founded on the sense which those
citations have in the original. But we have in like manner
seen, that those argumentations, in respect of form, correspond
to the words and expressions used in the LXX, even in those
instances in which the Septuagint, although rightly rendering
the sentiment as a whole, yet does not correspond to the most
direct grammatical sense of the Hebrew original. Thus, for
example in chap. vii. 8, the argumentation is based on the
word vrrordaaetv, which does not occur at all in the Hebrew
original of the psalm. In like manner chap. iv. 5 s. ; -chap. x.
5  7 &c. These argumentations also the writer must have
entirelv recast.

394 APPENDIX.
In short, the entire Epistle to the Hebrews is in form and'
matter thought out in Greek. Granted that it really had an
Aramaic writing for its basis, our Greek Epistle to the Hebrews
would still not be a reproduction of this original writing, but an
entirely new and original writing, to which the Aramaic writing
bore the relation of a mere preparatory work, and we should not
be at liberty to say : " The Epistle to the Hebrews was ori-
ginaUy written in Aramaic," but more correctly would have to
say : " The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews made use of
another writing of similar import, which happened to be written
in Aramaic, as a preparatory work." But herewith the whole
conjecture vanishes. For there are no positive grounds for this
conjecture, and, thus modified, it would not even serve the end
which it was intended to serve by Clement of Alexandria. If Paul
had intended- to dehver in writing to the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews a scheme of contents for the epistle which was to be
written, in order that this author might carry it out, he would at
least not have written this scheme in the Aramaic language. If,
however, Paul or any one else had written and sent an Aramaic
epistle to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and some other
(Luke or any one else) had set himself to translate it into Greek
for the more general use of all Christians, he would have really
translated it, and not have made something quite different out
of it.
The conjecture of Clement, therefore, is mere conjecture, and
indeed it is not even fitted to explain the coincidence of the un-
Pauline style and the oriental tradition of the Pauline author
ship. In no danger of being misled by this conjecture, we can
now pass to the inquiry respecting the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews.

CHAPTER FOURTH.
THE WRITER. A) EXTERNAL TESTIMONIES.
On directing our view, first of all, to the external testimonies
respecting the Epistle to the Hebrews, Ave encounter the striking

APPENDIX. 395
phenomenon, that the entire Eastern Church decidedly and from
the A'ery first holds the epistle to be Pauline, while the Western
either makes no use of it until the time of the Arian controversy,
or, if it uses it, does not reckon it among the Pauline epistles, or,
finally, declares it to be decidedly un-Pauhne. The Eastern Church
had no other opinion than that Paul was the author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews. As the first witness Clemens R'omanus (a.d. 96)
is wont to be adduced, who has certainly a greater number of
allusions to the Epistle to the Hebrews than to any other epistle
of the New Testament. (In the 36th chapter of his Epistle to
the Corinthians he gives pretty large and literal extracts from
Heb. i. 4, ss. ; more than once he repeats the words Heb. iii. 2,
&c. &c. See the passages in Kirchhofer's " Quellensammlung zur
Geschichte der neutestamentlichen Kpnons," p. 233 — 238.)
But nowhere does Clement name the Epistle to the Hebrews,
nowhere does he name Paul as its author. Now, as there is no
necessity for supposing that his partiality for this epistle was
occasioned by his partiality for ihe person of its author, seeing that
the contents of the epistle might quite as well account for this
partiality — further, as the person of the author might have been
especially dear to Clement even although he had not been Paul
himself, but one of those fellow-labourers mentioned in Phil. iv. 3,
it follows that no certain conclusion can be drawn from Clement's
partiality for the Epistle to the Hebrews, that he recognised this
epistle as Pauline. Still less, indeed, can any inference be drawn
against its having been written by Paul from the fact that
Clement does not name the title and author. For, in his allu
sions to the Epistles to the Thessalonians (Clem. 1 Cor. xxxviii.),
Galatians (1 Cor. xlix.), Romans (chap, xxxiii. — xxxv. — xxxviii.
— xlvi.), Colossians (chap, xxi.), Ephesians (chap, xlvi.), Timothy
(chap, xxix.), &c, he also names not the title and author ; only
(in chap, xlvii.) when he cites the first of Paul's epistles to the
Corinthians does he remind the Corinthians — having special
occasion to do so— of that which Paul had already written
to them.
The series of properly Oriental witnesses for the Pauline
authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews begins with Pantaenus.
Clement of Alexandria appeals to him, the pMKapios irpeaBv-
repos, for the information that Paul had put no inscription to the

396 APPENDIX.
Epistle to the Hebrews, because he did not wish to urge his
apostolical authority on the Jewish Christians. ("HStt Se to? o
paKapios eXeye rrpeaBvrepo<;, errel, b Kvpto^ drroaroXos mv rov
iravroKpdropos, drreardXy rrpbs 'EBpalovs, Bid pterptoryra o
ZToOXo?, o>? ov et? to eOvy direaraXptivos, ovk eyypa<f>et eavrbv
EBpalmv dirbaroXov, Bid re tt)v 7rpo? rbv Kvpiov npyv, Bia re rov
iK irepiovaias Kal roh 'EBpaioti iiriariXXeiv iOvmv KypvKa ovra
Kal dirbaroXov.) In like manner Dionysius of Alexandria (in
Euseb. vi. 41 : 'E^ixXivov Be Kai vrravexmpovv ol dSeX<po.i" Kal
ryv dpirayyv rmv virapxovrmv, optoim<; e'/cetvot? oh Kal Ilav-
Xo? ipaprvpyae, pterd xaP^^ irpoaeSeffavro, comp. Heb. x>
34.) In like manner, Alexander of Alexandria (in Socr. i, 3,
-Theodoret. h. e. i. 4.) Methodius of Lycia (a.d. 290) conviv.
decern virginum, oratio 10, pag. 96 and 116, cites the passages
Heb. x. 1 and xii. 1 with the words Kara rbv dirbaroXov and
Kara rbv StBdaKaXov IlavXov. A Synod held in Antioch about
the year 264 against Paul of Samosata, cites in its Synodal
writing '(in Mansi coll. cone. torn. i. pag. 1036) the passage
Heb. xi. 26 as the words of Paul. That Clement of Alexandria
held Paul to be at least the original author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, nay, that it was just the tradition respecting the
Pauline authorship that induced him to devise that conjecture
about an originally Aramaic Avriting in order to explain the dif
ference in style, we have seen from the passage already adduced
(in Euseb. vi. 14), in which, indeed, he appeals also to Pantaenus
in support of its having been written by Paul. In another
passage, also (Strom, vi. p. 645), he cites the Epistle to the
Hebrews as Pauline (^Eirel Kal UoOXo? iv rah eiriaroXah
oil <pikoao<plav SiaBdXXmv (jialverai  *H 7raXtv, (fyyal,
Xpelav exere rov BiBdaKeiv vpas, nva to aroixeia, &c. Heb. v. 12
— maavrm<; Kal roh ef; 'EXXyvmv eiriarpe<povat KoXoaaaeiiaf
BXeirere &c. — Col. iv. 8.) — Origen likewise cites the epistle as
Pauline (comm. in Joh. opp. iv. p. 60 : Kalev rfj rrpb'i 'EBpaiovs
b avrbs IlavKos <pyatv — then follows Heb. i. 1 — 2 ; — in like
manner in his comm. in ep. ad Roman, opp. iv. p. 579 and 659.)
Origen too was driven only by this general tradition, of the Pauline
authorship to that conjecture which has been formerly mentioned,
and which (in Euseb. vi. 25) he expresses in the following words :
'OxapaKryp tt}? Xifjems tt}? rrpbs'EBpaiov; imyeypaptpiivy; eiria-

APPENDIX. "397
toXt}? ovk eyet ro iv Xoytp, iBtmriKov rov drroaroXov, bptoXoyyaav-
ros avrbv IStmryv eivat r& Xbym, rovrean ry (ppdaef dXXd ianv
y eiriaroXy avvOeaet tt}? Xi^ems iXXyviKmripa, 7ro? 6 iiriardptevos
Kplveiv (ppdaemv Sto^opa? bpoXoyyaai dv. UdXiv Be aS, on rd
voypiara tt}? e7rto-ToX>}? Oavptdaid ean, Kal ov Beiirepa rmv diroa-
roXiKmv bpoXoyovpivmv ypapiptdrmv, Kal tovto dv avptobyaai elvat
aXTi#e? 7ra? 6 rrpoaexmv ry dvayvmaei Ty diroaroXlKy. — 'Eym Be
diro(paivbp,evos eiroip dv, on rd ptev voypiara tov drroaroXov iarlv
y Be <ppaa-t? Kal y avvOeais drropvypMvevaavro<i twos rd drroaro-
XiKa, Kai mairepet axoXioypa<pyaavrbs rd elpyptiva virb rov
SiSaaKaXov. El Tt? ovv eKcXyaia e^et ravryv tt)v irrtaroXyv a>?
HaiXov, avry evSoKiptelrm Kal iirl rovrm' ov ydp e'iKy 01 dpxaiot
dvSpes ft)? IlavXov avryv rrapaSeBmKaai. All the following
Greek Church Fathers name the epistle as Paul's : Eusebius
places it in his canon among the Pauline epistles (Euseb. iii. 25,
see farther on this below), in like manner Antonius, Athanasius,
Didymus, Theophilus of Alexandria, the two Gregories, Basilius,
Epiphanius, James of Nisibis (in Galland. bibl. patr. torn. 5. p.
16 and 53), Ephraim of Syria, the two Cyrils, Chryrostom, &c.
Nevertheless, some have ventured to call in question the
antiquity and unanimity of this oriental tradition. Bleek (i. p.
108) thinks that by the dpxaiot dvSpes to whom Origen refers
might also be meant merely, Pantaenus and Clement of Alexan
dria; not only, however, is it improbable that Origen should
have designated these his immediate predecessors and teachers by
so vague an expression, but the usus linguae is directly against
this. (For example, Eusebius ii. 1, where he narrates the death
ofthe Apostles, says: Kal ravra ptev oj?e|f dpxatmv laroplai
elpyaOm ; in hi. 24, he says, the Gospel of John has had the
fourth place assigned to it rightly by the dpxaiot.) Chiefly,
however, is the context conclusive against that interpretation.
For Clement of Alexandria had not imconditionally held that
Paul was the immediate author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ;
how then can this Clement be brought forward among those to
whom those churches might appeal which held the epistle to be
directly Pauline ? The sense of the passage is plainly this : The
Alexandrians cannot, indeed, believe that this epistle, with this
style, was thus composed by Paul himself ; but whosoever will yet
hold Paul to be the immediate and proper author (therefore in

398 APPENDIX.
opposition to Clement !) we can do nothing against him, since even
the ancients have handed down the epistle to us as one of
Paul's. "
And, accordingly, a second objection also is herewith refuted
(Bleek p. 107). In the words et rt<; ovv iKKXyaia e%et ravryv
ryv iiriaroXyv co? IlavXov there evidently hes the presupposition,
that only a few churches at that time held the epistle to the
Hebrews to be a work of Paul. But the question treated of in
the context of this passage is, not at all, whether the epistle was
written by Paul or came into existence without Paul having any
thing to do with it. That the ancient tradition imputed it to
Paul was a settled point, and only the certainty of this tradition
could induce Clement and Origen to form those two conjectures,
by which the un-Pauline style at variance with the tradition might
be explained.1 — The question with Origen is rather, whether the
epistle, precisely as we have it in Greek, can have come directly
from Paul. The old tradition called,it Pauline ; the un-Pauhne
style had, however, justly struck the Alexandrians ; it had become
the settled opinion among them that the epistle in its present
form could not be directly from Paul ; either it is a translation
of an Aramaic original (as Clement wrongly supposed), or, ac
cording to the preferable conjecture of Origen, Paul did not
dictate the words of it but gave only the vof)pora for it. These
views, under the influence of the catechist school in Alexandria
and the neighbourhood, may have been generally spread ; hence
Origen carelessly mentions them ; but then it may have struck
him, that this hypothesis might give offence, that there might
possibly be churches which would zealously maintain the imme
diately Pauline origin ; against these, he says, we cannot take any
steps as the ancient tradition names the epistle simply as one of
Paul's. That the words e'^et avryv ob? IlavXov, according to the
context, form the antithesis, only to the view of Origen, and not to
an opinion according to which the authorship of Paul would be
absolutely denied, is indeed clear as the sun.
1 How altogether untenable is the opinion of Bertholdt (Einleit. iv.
2914 ss.), that the Alexandrines — those who observed and always so
strongly urged the un-Pauline character ofthe style — were the first who
raised the conjecture of a Pauline authorship and that " on exegetical
grounds."

APPENDIX. 399
Origen, certainly, also presupposes an absolute denial of the
Pauline authorship as possible, but only as possible, when (in
Matth. xxiii. 27) he says : Sedpone, aliquem abdicare epistolam ad
Hebraeos, quasi non Pauli . . . sed quid faciat in sermones
Stephani, &c. ? The learned Father may have heard something
of the Western views concerning the epistle to the Hebrews; at
all events, he would not have spoken thus (pone, aliquem) if (as
Bleek will have it) there had been around him entire churches
and countries which held the Epistle to the Hebrews to be^un-
Pauline! He there also as well as in adAfric. chap, ix., distinctly
takes it for granted that some might feel themselves compelled
to doubt the authority of the Epistle to the Hebrews on internal
grounds, namely, on account of the passage Heb. xi. 37 (where
i prophets are spoken of who were sawn asunder, while no such
case is recorded in the canonical books of the Old Testament).
Again, reference has been made to the fact that Eusebius
reckons the Epistle to the Hebrews among the antilegomena,
inasmuch as he relates of Clement of Alexandria that in his
Strom, he made use of proofs also dirb rmv avnXeyopivmv ypa(pmv,
namely, from the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and the epistle of Clemens Rom., Barnabas and Judas.
But that the epistle to the Hebrews is here reckoned among the
antilegomena is very simply explained from this, that Eusebius
himself (vi. 25) knew and mentions that some held Luke, others
Clement of Rome, to be the proper and immediate author of
it, and that (Euseb. iii. 3 ; vi. 20) the whole western church
entirely denied it to be Paul's. In this sense he might call it an
dvnXeybpevov. But how firmly settled that tradition of the
Pauline authorship in general was in the east is evident from this,
that Eusebius in his principal passage on the Canon (iii. 25)
does not adduce the Epistle to the Hebrews among the antilego
mena, and was therefore conscious of having already included it
among the " imaroXais IlavXov ;" accordingly, the same Euse
bius cites it as Pauline in not less than twenty-seven passages.
(Comp. Bleek, p. 149—150, Anm. 173.)
Finally, the learned and extensively read Jerome, who made
use of the library of Ca?sarea, and therewith of the entire
Christian literature of the first centuries, says, that the Epistle
to the Hebrews was ascribed to the Apostle Paul non solum ab

400 APPENDIX.
ecclesiis orientis, sed ab omnibus retro ecclesiasticis graeci sermonis
scriptoribus (ep. ad Dard. p. 608).
Thus, then, the thesis is fully confirmed — that the primitive
and general tradition of ihe East is in favour of the Pauline
authorship. It is also confirmed by the remarkable circum
stance, that the Epistle to the Hebrews, as is still evident from
the numbering of the Kephalaia in the cod. B, originaUy stood
between the Epistle to the Galatians and that to the Ephesians,
and was not till a later period in the fourth century placed after
the Epistle to the Thessalonians (as in cod. A and C), and still
later, after the Pastoral Epistles.
It was altogether different in the West. That bishop of
Lyons, Irenaeus, Avho was among the first to follow the prac
tice of citing the New Testament writings by their titles and
authors, has, as is commonly supposed, not at all cited the
Epistle to the Hebrews, at least not by its title and author;
nay, there is a notice, certainly a very late one, to the effect that
Irenaeus held the Epistle to the Hebrews to be un-Pauline.
Meanwhile, these points would need a special examination.
Only the second, viz., that Irenaeus never names the Apostle
Paul as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, is beyond all
question true. There are serious doubts, on the other hand,
against the first, that Irenaeus was not at all acquainted with
the epistle, and did not make use of it. Eusebius (v. 26)
notices a writing (now lost) of that Church Father with the '
express remark, that in it Irenaeus " mentions also the Epistle
to the Hebrews." 'AXXd ydp rrpb<i roh diroSoOeiaiv Elpyvaiov
avyypdptpaai Kal rah imaroXah (peperai Kai BtBXiov ti Sta-
Xi^emv Sta<pbpmv, iv m tt)? irpb<; 'EBpalovs imaroXys Kal tt}?
Xeyoptivys ao<pla<; XoXoptmvros ptvyptovevei, pyrd nva if; avrwv
irapaOiptevo?. These words may have a twofold sense. Either
the apposition irapaOipevos serves to state more precisely how
and in how far he mentions the Epistle to the Hebrews (" he
mentions it by adducing passages from it ") — and then Irenaeus
may not, perhaps, have so much as named the title " imaroXy
rrpbs 'EBpalovs, but only have cited particular passages of the
epistle — or irapaOiptevos serves to specify the occasion on which
he has really " mentioned " the Epistle to the Hebrews as such,
i.e., has named it (" he mentions it on the occasions on which he

APPENDIX. 401
adduces passages from it") — and .in this case Irenaeus must in
those citations have actually called the epistle by its name
" Epistle to the Hebrews." In favour of the latter interpretation
is the circumstance, that a mere making use of pyrd from the
Epistle to the Hebrews, without naming this epistle, occurs also
in the writing adv. haer., and could not be adduced as an
exclusive peculiarity ofthe writing " SiaXi^eis ;" meanwhile,
those mere allusions are so few in number, and, besides, so
doubtful, that they may easily have escaped the notice of Euse
bius. However this may be, little, on the whole, depends on
which of those two interpretations is held to be the correct one.
According to each of the two, Irenaeus at least knew ihe Epistle to
the Hebrews ; but from neither can it be inferred that he must
have held it to be Pauline. That he knew the epistle, is certainly
confirmed in some measure by those allusions in the writing
adv. haereses. True, indeed, when he describes God as faciens
omnia, et Arisibilia et invisibilia, et sensibilia et insensata, et
coelestia et terrena, per verbum virtutis suae, there might be in
this latter designation (certainly a very unusual one) an acci
dental coincidence with the pypa tt}? Bvvdpems avrov, Heb. i. 3.
As little can it be with any certainty inferred from the words :
brrov ye 'Evmx evapearrjaas rm 0e& iv amptan ptereriOy, tt)v pterd-
Oeaiv rmv BiKaCmv irpoptyvvmv (v. 5, 1) that the Bishop of Lyons
was acquainted with Heb. xi. 5, as these words might quite as
well be explained from our acquaintance with Gen. v. 24
(LXX). On the other hand, in a third passage (iv. 11, 4) : Quae
(munditiae exteriores) in figuram futurorum traditae erant, velut
umbrae cujusdam descriptionem faciente lege, atque dehneante de
temporalibus aeterna, terrenis coelestia, it would be difficult not
to see a recollection of passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(x. 1, aKidv yap e^tov 6 vbpios rmv pteXXovrmv dyaOmv ; comp.
viii. 5, aKid rmv irrovpavimv ; ix. 23, rd viroSeiyptara rmv ev Tot?
ovpavois). The supposition that the Epistle to the Hebrews was entirely
unknown to Irenaeus is therefore quite untenable. On the other
hand, there is not the slightest trace of his having ever declared it
to be Pauline. On the contrary, it is thought that there is a trace
of his having held it to be un-Pauline. Stephanus Gobaras (living
in the sixth century) records (in Photii bibl. cod. 232, ed. Bekk.
2 c

402 APPENDIX.
p. 291) that Irenaeus and Hippolytus held the Epistle to the
Hebrews to be un-Pauline. Hippolytus has manifestly (Phot.
cod. 121) denied the Pauline origin of the epistle ; but whether
this saying of Stephanus in reference also to Irenaeus is founded
on definite positive statements, may be very much doubted. For
had such statements been to be found in the writings of Irenaeus,
then Eusebius would assuredly have adduced the substance of
these statements, in the passage (v. 8) in which he brings together
all that Irenaeus had expressed respecting the biblical books. It
is therefore far more probable that Stephanus presumed, from the
rare and scanty use which Irenaeus makes of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, from his silence respecting the author, and, finally,
from the view entertained by his disciple Hippolytus, that his
teacher also, Irenaeus, must have held the Epistle to the Hebrews
to be un-Pauline. Was this conjecture right ? I beheve we
shall have to decide this question by a docta ignorantia. It is
certainly not impossible that Irenaeus held our epistle to be
un-Pauline ; but it is quite as possible that he had brought with
him from Asia Minor to Lyons the tradition respecting the
Pauline origin, but that he was unwilling to urge this on the
Western Church. He may, therefore, have cautiously avoided
citing the Epistle to the Hebrews as Pauline in contradiction to
the universal opinion and tradition of the East ; for an ecclesias
tical tradition so general demanded respect and forbearance,
according to Irenaeus' own principles (comp. his second fragment
on the Passover controversy in Eusebius v. 24.) As he was,
nevertheless, unwilling to deny the tradition which he had
brought with him from Asia Minor, he therefore in general
avoided making any particularly frequent use of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and he might do so all the more easily as the point
of this epistle was directed against Judaism, whereas the point
of his own polemics was directed against Gnosticism, so that the
Epistle to the Hebrews was in reality for him not so indispensable.
But that in the West this epistle, at the time when tradition,
even that respecting the canon (i.e. respecting the books to be
read in the churches), was fixed, i.e. shortly after 100, was as
yet by no means generally known and spread, is apparent from
numerous facts. In the Novatian controversy (from 251 onwards)
Novatian could have found in the whole of the New Testament

APPENDIX. 403
no more convenient proof of his principle, that Christians who in
persecution had denied the faith ought not again to be received
into the fellowship of the Church, than the passage Heb. vi. 4
ss. As Novatian, notwithstanding, makes no use of this passage
in his writings (see these in Galland. bibl. patr. iii. 287 ss.), he
must, therefore, either have not at all known the Epistle to the
Hebrews or have held it to be no authority. Victorinus (a.d.
303), the Muratorian Canon, and the presbyter Gajus (about
190), count only 13 Pauline epistles. (On Gajus comp. Euseb.
6, 20 s.) Cyprian says in two passages (adv. Jud. i. 20 and de
exhort, mart. 11) that Paul wrote to seven churches; besides
Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Colosse, Philippi, Thessalonica, and
Galatia, there remains here no place for the " Hebrews." And
no weight is to be given to the consideration, that Cyprian may
not have counted the Epistle to the Hebrews because its readers
(as we saw) formed no church ; he reckons the province of Galatia
as a church ! Tertullian, in a passage (de pudic. 20) where
everything depended on his being able to confirm the authority
of the Epistle to the HebreAvs, with great decision and candour
names Barnabas as its author. From the second to ihe fourth
century, then, in Italy as in Africa, the Epistle to the Hebrews
was held to be un-Pauline. As yet at the time of Eusebius, at
least in Rome, the doubt as to the Pauline authorship .had not
entirely disappeared, as Eusebius (iii. 3) records ('On ye piyv
rives yOeryKaai tt)v 7rpo? 'EBpaiovs, irpb<; tt}? 'Pmpaimv iKKXy-
o-t'o? co? p,y JTavKat oftaav avryv dvnXiyeaOat (prjaavres, ov BiKaiov
dyvoetv. Comp. Euseb. vi. 20 : iirel xal els Sevpo rrapd 'Pm
paimv rialv ov voptHjerai rov diroarbXov elvai.) For, of earlier
opponents of the Pauline origin of the epistle (yOeryKaai) he
says, that they had appealed to " the Roman Church ;" of his
own time he says, that some in Rome held the epistle to be un-
Paulihe. First in the time of the Arian controversy, then, "there took
place a revolution of opinion on this question in the West, and
a complete victory over the Western tradition by the Eastern brought
about, doubtless, through the influence of the oriental Nicenes,
who now indeed found their most faithful allies and fellow-suf
ferers in the Western Church, and came into the most active
contact with it. Hilarv of Poictiers (a.d. 368), Lucifer of
2 c 2

404 APPENDIX.
Cagliari, Ambrose (398), Philastrius, Gaudentius, Jerome, &c,
consider the Epistle to the Hebrews as a work of the apostle
Paul. Now, just as the attempt has been made to overthrow the fact
that the primitive tradition of the East declared the epistle to be
Pauline, so, on the other hand, it has also been attempted to do
away with the equally certain fact, that the West, in the fourth
century, held the epistle to be un-Pauline. Stuart has conjectured
that the West was originally at one with the East on this ques
tion, and that Marcion, who came to Rome in the time of the
presbyter Gajus, first infected the West with his doubts as to the
Pauline authorship — a conjecture which needs no refutation.
Tertullian, the energetic opponent of Marcion, who in his opposi
tion to the Gnosties, never fails to impute to Marcion as a crime
his every doubt respecting the authenticity of a biblical book,
does not in a single syllable charge him with holding the Epistle
to the Hebrews to be un-Pauline (adv. Marc v. 20), and he
himself declares the epistle to be a work of Barnabas ! Assuredly
he would not have adopted this view from Marcion ! — Hug like
wise thinks that the Western Church originally possessed the
Epistle to the Hebrews, but when the Montanists appealed to
Heb. vi. 4 ss. (Hieron. adv. Jovin. ii. 3), from opposition to
them, it was first ignored (as was done by Irenaeus), and then
declared to be spurious. But Tertullian also, who was himself a
Montanist, or had been, had no other opinion than that the epistle
proceeded from Barnabas ! And how, in general, would the
whole immense church of the West have declared an epistle
to be spurious, which according to tradition was apostolical,
merely in order to be able to get rid of a single argument of a
sect ! It might, on the same principle, have declared the entire
New Testament to be spurious, on account of the Gnostics and
Ebionites I
These two theses then may be considered as thoroughly con
firmed, that the tradition of the East held ihe epistle to be Pauline,
that, on the other hand, the West came to know it in general at a
later period, and then very decidedly held it to be un-Pauline. The
question now arises, what critical inferences are to be drawn from
this phenomenon ? Not a few draw from it the simple result, that
" the external testimonies contradict each other, and conse-

APPENDIX. 405
quently, that the internal reasons alone must decide." Such a
procedure, however, deserves to be characterized as hasty and
groundless. The eastern and the western traditions are not two
equal, but opposite, mathematical quantities which cancel each
other and reduce each other to nothing, but they are facts which
are to be weighed, nay more, which are to be explained.
In weighing the two traditions against each other, that of
the East is the heaver in the scale. First of aU, it is reasonable
to expect a surer and more general knowledge concerning the
author of an epistle in the district to which that epistle was
written, than in that from which it was written. In Jerusalem,
whither the epistle had been sent, it must have been known and
learned who the author was ; for, although he does not name
himself in the inscription, the bearer of the epistle would cer
tainly not deliver it with the words : " Here I bring you an
epistle out of Italy from somebody ; who that somebody is however
you must not know" — for then had the authority of the epistle
been but ill cared for ! but the bearer must, in all probability,
have brought to the teacher of that circle of readers an additional
private writing, and to the circle of readers themselves have
mentioned and. certified the name ofthe author. From thence,
along with the epistle (which soon indeed came to have a high
significance for the whole of oriental Christendom, being, as it
were, a divinely authenticated document for the loosing of the
band between Christianity and Judaism), the knowledge of its
author, too, must have spread — first, and most surely, to Lesser
Asia, Syria, Egypt ! What we learn there respecting the
Epistle to the Hebrews we shall have to consider as the surest
information. It was altogether different in Italy, where the author wrote.
True, he writes salutations from the Italian Christians, but this
surely does not necessitate the supposition that he first sent
round, everywhere to the Christian churches of Italy, an
nounced his intention to write to some Jewish Christians in
Jerusalem, and obtained authority from them to send their
salutations. The salutation, chap. xiii. 24, is in so vague and
general a form as to lead to the supposition, that the author
ventured to write it at his own hand. Let it be granted, how
ever, that in the author's immediate neighbourhood the notice
9

406 APPENDIX.
would be spread that he was writing to Christians in Jerusalem^
this notice would be forgotten in the next months, years, decades.
The Western Church did not happen at first to see the epistle
itself. "Very natural ! The epistle, in respect of its import, had
an interest only where there were Jewish Christians who still
from piety observed the Levitical law; such there were in
Palestine, Syria, Alexandria, doubtless also in Lesser Asia. In
Italy the Jewish Christians were small in point of numbers, and
gradually decreasing ; there they were from the commencement
more mixed with Gentile Christians. The Epistle to the He
brews came also into the Western Church, but late and slowly ;
it was not, so to speak, waited for and read with avidity as
a practically important writing. It came thither slowly, by
means of copies. No Paul had named himself in the inscrip
tion ; it was therefore not at all imagined that the epistle was
Pauline. In the beginning of the second century it was not
yet received into the ecclesiastical coUection of books prescribed
to be read (the canon) of the Western Church ; now as from
the beginning of the second century, from the death of the
last apostle, the Church clung with tenacity to all old tradition,
the Western Church also made no change in its canon ; the
Epistle to the Hebrews indeed gradually spread, but the old
tradition ofthe West had not reckoned it among the canonical
epistles ; consequently it was allowed to stand outside the canon,
and, least of all, was there any inclination to acknowledge it as
Pauline. Now, that in the fourth century the Western Church
followed the oriental tradition so soon as that Church came into
more lively contact with it, can only be explained from the fact,
that the Eastern Church must have had weighty positive reasons
in support of it. In general, the Eastern differs from the Western
tradition as regards the Epistle to the Hebrews in this, that the
former bears a positive, the latter a negative character. The
former went out from the knowledge that the epistle was
Pauline, and only afterwards were doubts awakened (in the
Alexandrians) on account of the style, which, however, could
not overthrow that tradition, but only led to attempts to recon
cile them with it. Nor was there any doubt in Alexandria as to
who was the first and proper author, but only as to who was
the translator, or who had worked it out, whether Clement of

APPENDIX. 407
Rome or Luke. It was a settled point, that Paul was the
proper author. The tradition of the Western Church, on
the contrary, went out from an ignorance of the epistle, an
ignorance of the author, and we meet nowhere any positive
statement respecting the person of this author, with the single
exception of that of TertuUian. True, when he names Bar
nabas, Tertullian seems to express not a subjective conjecture
but a tradition ; at aU events, however, this tradition was only a
local one, and in all probability rested, in its first origin, only
on a conjecture. Origen, (in Euseb. vii. 25), when he brings
together all the opinions respecting the Epistle to the Hebrews,
knows nothing of that of Tertullian ; Jerome (cat. 5) adduces
it as "juxta Tertullianum," and has therefore regarded it. as
entirely a subjective view of this Church Father.
xhese considerations wDl suffice to convince us, that the
critic — let him, if he will, form an opinion respecting the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews only on internal grounds — is, at
aU events, not at liberty to set up any hypothesis which leaves it
unaccountable, how the Eastern Church came to the consciousness
of having got this epistle as one sent by Paul.
And now if, in the second chapter, it was left an open question
whether the Epistle to the Hebrews was written in the year 62
before — or in the year 64 after the death of Paul, the decision
already inclines to the first of these dates. For, let it also be
granted, that the Eastern Church had actually erred in con
sidering the apostle Paul as the author, even this error would ,
cease to be explicable, if the Epistle to the Hebrews generally
speaking came first into the east after the death of the apostle.
Think only of Heb. xiii. 19.

CHAPTER FIFTH.
CONTINUATION, b) INTERNAL REASONS.
Let us now look at the epistle itself ; let us inquire whether it
contains any special intimations respecting the person of its

408 APPENDIX.
author ; let us consider its doctrinal import, its diction and style,
that we may see whether the epistle can be Pauline.

A) PARTICULAR INTIMATIONS.
Against the possibility of the Pauline authorship of the Epistle
to the Hebrews is generaUy adduced the passage chap. ii. 3,
where the author distinguishes himself from the Apostles, while
Paul is elsewhere wont studiously to lay stress on his apostolical
authority (Gal. i. ; 2 Cor. xi. — xii.) — But unjustly. The author,
in that passage, does not distinguish himself from the apostles
as one who is not an apostle, but, as one who was not an eye
witness he distinguishes himself from the eye-witnesses of the
hfe and labours of that Son of God who brought the salvation.
The author is not addressing those who cast doubts on his
authority, and the question in the Epistle to the Hebrews is not
whether Paul derives his office as immediately as the twelve
from Christ, or whether he has it from men ; but the antithesis ,
in that passage is between the word of the law, which was spoken
by angels on Sinai, and the word of the New Testament salva
tion, which has been made known "to us" first by the Lord
himself and then by ear-witnesses (therefore is perfectly 6ure —
comp. iBeOaimOy.) Paul himself could not have written other
wise here ; he too could and must include himself, along with his
readers, among those who had not themselves been witnesses of
the life of Jesus. Accordingly, on the supposition of the Pauline
authorship, the yp,eh explains itself admirably even when taken
as the 1 plur. communicative which is not even necessary. For
j?/iet? is said in opposition to the cotemporaries of Moses, and
only denotes generally the Christians ; and if the author, in the
course of the period v. 3, continues in the 1 plural with which
he had begun, he had in view there certainly, as appears from
the context, not so much himself as his readers. " How can we
escape," &c. is only a milder form of : " How can ye escape ?"
and the 1 plur. is not so much communicative as insinuatory.
This passage, then, nowise presents any hindrance to the suppo
sition of the Pauline authorship. Quite as little does the passage
chap. xiii. ver. 19 ; comp. our remarks on that passage.

APPENDIX. 409
On the other hand, again, no inference can be drawn that the
Apostle Paul was the writer, from the circumstance that in chap.
xiii. 23 the author speaks of his "brother Timothy." Paul
certainly gives him the same designation in Col. i. 1. But why
may not another helper of Paul, for example a Luke, a Mark,
have given to Timothy as his fellow-helper the name " brother ? "
Only so much can be inferred from the postscript chap. xiii. 20
ss., that the author must have been a man who belonged to the
specially-Pauline circle, and was in Rome either in the year 62 or
in the year 64.

b) the doctrinal import.
The argument which some have founded on the doctrinal con
tents of the epistle against the authorship of Paul will not stand
the test. It is maintained that there is no trace of such an alle
gorical interpretation of the Old Testament in the Pauline epistles.
There is already a mistake here, however, in speaking of an
" allegorical " interpretation. That interpretation is called alle
gorical in which a symbolical sense is arbitrarily sought in a
passage which is to be understood in the simple natural sense.
When, in the account which is given of -the feeding of the five
thousand men, the twelve baskets full of the remaining fragments
are explained of the twelve apostles whom Christ left over, or left
behind to the world, as the twelve bearers of that bread of life
which he himself had not yet distributed — this is an allegorical
interpretation. Such interpretations are certainly not found in the
Pauline epistles, but as little are they to be found in the Epistle
, to the Hebrews. We have to distinguish the objective type from
the subjective arbitrary allegorical interpretation. Types must
arise from this, that preliminary and imperfect fulfilments precede
the final perfect fulfilment of the promises of salvation. The
deliverance from Egypt was really a fulfilment of the promise
given in Gen. xv., but it was not yet the trae fulfilment ; the
promise that all nations should be blessed in the seed of Abra
ham was not yet fulfiUed. The kingdom of David was really
a higher and more perfect step in the possession of Canaan than

4 1 0 APPENDIX.
the conquests of Joshua, but still not yet the last. Here, then,
the preliminary fulfilment is really in itself, and objectively, a
type of the perfect, just because both refer to one promise, and
correspond to one promise. Thus, the intercourse between God
revealing his presence in the Holiest of all, and the people repre
sented by the Levitical priests and sacrifices, was really a type
of the perfect reconciliation of God Avith the New Testament
Israel, that divine community into which all nations of the earth
were to be received, in order to be blessed in it ; but the one
was a type of the other, just because, in the former, there was
only an imperfect fulfilment of what was perfectly fulfilled in the
latter. The supposed " allegorical interpretation" of the Old
Testament in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or, more correctly, the
typology in this Epistle, consists simply in the author's showing,
that ihe types were only types, i.e., in other words, that no pro
phecy found a perfect fulfilment in the old covenant, that all
fulfilments rather pointed always again to a further future. It
was, for example, no arbitrary allegorizing, but pure objective
truth to say, that the state of separation between God and the
people under the old covenant, the~ existence of two compart
ments in the tabernacle, a Holy of Holies and a rrpmry aKyvy,
the necessity of ever-repeated sacrifices, pointed to a relation of
man to God which was not yet established. This typology,
however, we find also in Paul's writings. When Paul, Gal iv.,
sees in the two wives of Abraham and their sons — of whom the
one was by nature the elder, and yet was rejected, while the
other, as the possessor of the promise of grace, was the heir — a
typical foreshadowing of the relation between the natural pos
terity of Abraham, the legally righteous, natural Israel, and the
New Testament Israel holding fast the promise, this is just such
a typology as we find in the Epistle to the Hebrews, nay, a
bolder instance of it. But the fact that such typologies occur
seldom, and by the by, in Paul's writings, while in the Epistle
to the Hebrews they form the substance of the writing, is natu
rally accounted for by the aim and object of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, which is, to consider the Old Testament institutions
with the intent to discover whether, and in how far, they point
forwards to something more perfect. But a difference which can

APPENDIX. 411
be explained by considering the object of a writing, ought not
logically to be made a ground from which to infer a different
author. Nor is it otherwise with reference to a second consideration,
viz., that ihe doctrine of the resurrection, which plays so important
a part in Paufs writings, is not treated of in the Epistle to the
Hebrews. It was necessary that Paul should develope this doc
trine in detail when writing to the Corinthians, because they
disputed it, in like manner to the Thessalonians, because they
had false apprehensions of it. But in what part of the Epistle
to the Galatians, for example, has Paul even made mention of
the resurrection ? The objection would only have any force if,
in the Epistle to the Hebrews, there was some indication of the
non-existence of the resurrection being presupposed. But, in
deed, the antithesis between the humiliation and exaltation of
Christ, the suffering and glorification of believers, forms rather
the ground tone upon which the whole symphony of ideas in the
Epistle to the Hebrews is built ! Comp. Heb. i. 3, ii. 5 — 9, and
10—15, x. 19, ss., xi. 5, xii. 1—3, and 18—24, and 26—29,
xiii. 14.
A third objection is founded on the circumstance of the
Pauline doctrine, that ihe Gentiles also are called to the gospel,
not being found jn the Epistle to the Hebrews. Very naturally !
This question had been settled in the year 51 in Jerusalem
(Acts xv.) ; and in the year 55, in opposition to the Galatian
false teachers. From the fact that this question is not again
touched in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the only reasonable
inference that can be drawn is, that the readers of the Epistle to
the Hebrews did not doubt the lawfulness of the baptism of
uncircumcised persons ; only the emancipation of native Israel'
ites — of the circumcised, the Jewish Christians — from the ritual
of the temple, was not yet clear to them. But that the author,
on his part, must have been convinced of the right of the uncir
cumcised to be received into the Church, follows, as the most
necessary consequence, from the whole doctrinal position of this
epistle ! If even the Jewish Christians are to go out from the
rrapepiBoXy (xiii. 13), how much less could he expect the Gentile
Christians to enter into this irapeptBoXy ? — But why does he, in
chap. ii. 16, place the "seed of Abraham" in opposition to the

412 APPENDIX.
angels, and not humanity as a whole ? Just because the " seed
of Abraham " forms here the antithesis to the angels, and not to
the Gentiles, it follows, that this expression (which is therefore
used there in reality not in the empirico-historical sense, but
with evident reference to Gen. xxii. 18, consequently, in the
prophetico-ideal sense) must embrace the entire Messianic Church,
the spiritual seed of Abraham,1 and is used therefore quite in the
Pauline sense (Rom. iv. 16).
A fourth objection, that the opposition between epya and rrla-
nsis not developed, has more apparent reason. But neither, for
example, is this opposition developed, nay it is not even touched,
in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. Tholuck, indeed, thinks that
we were entitled to expect that antithesis precisely in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, as the error of the Hebrews consisted in an
unintelligent cleaving to the works of the law. But this may be
very much doubted. The Levitical ritual acts might certainly
be designated as works of the law ; but this could be done properly
only in so far as any one considered these to be meritorious
services on his part. This the Galatian false teachers did. Thev
were proud of their extraordinary perfect fulfilment of the ritual
and ceremonial ordinances, and thought that they could thereby
acquire righteousness before God, and deserve heaven. The
readers to whom this epistle was addressed appear in a quite
different position. Their malady was not pride and self-righteous
ness, but fear and scruples of conscience. They thought not
that they did and deserved something great when they kept the
law, but they believed that they needed the Old Testament means
of atonement in order to be free from guilt. They were not
work-righteous, on the contrary they were earnestly desiring
atonement (nowhere does the author find it necessary to prove to
them that an atonement is necessary), but they could not yet
beheve that the one sacrifice of Christ was sufficient. Thus, in
their case, the opposition could not be that between ep7o vbpiov
1 Those are ceTtainly wrong, who think that the idea of a spiri
tual seed of Abraham is there expressed explicite ; but it would, in like
manner, be wrong to understand the wordin the empirical sense (=people
of the Jews). The idea is evidently this : God has not given such pro
mises as Gen. xii. 15, 22, &c. to the angels, but to the seed of Abraham,
therefore to men.

APPENDIX. 413
and rrlaTK, but only that between the aKid vbpov and the TeXet-
cocrt?. In dealing with such readers Paul also could certainly not
write otherwise than is written in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
For no one wiU fail to perceive, that the difference between the
doctrinal system of the Epistle to the Hebrews and that of the
Epistle to the Romans is only a formal one. The Epistle to the
Hebrews represents precisely the same thing in its objective-
historical aspect as is treated in the Epistle to the Romans in its
subjective-psychological aspect. Moreover, the latter is not alto
gether wanting even in the Epistle to the Hebrews. We refer to
chap iv. " the word which did not mingle itself in faith with those
who heard it," and the " living word with which we have to
do" (ver. 2 and ver. 12 — 13). Further, comp. our concluding
remark at Heb. x. 15 — 18, and our introductory remark to the
section Heb. xii. 18 — 29.
The last objection rests on this, that Paul always represents
Christ only as the sacrifice, not as the priest, while it is precisely
the reverse in the Epistle to the Hebrews. But, here also, there
is no material difference. For if Paul in Eph. v. 2 teaches that
Christ gave himself an offering and sacrifice (in like manner Gal.
ii. 20), and if the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of a priest who
offered himself (vii. 27, &c), then Paul certainly considers Christ
not merely as the offered but also as the offerer, and the Epistle
to the Hebrews considershim notmerely as the offerer but also as
the offered. One might really suppose that the two propositions :
Christus sacerdos immolavit se ipsum, and : Hostiam immolavit,
Christus sese ipse, come pretty much to the same thing ! There
remams, therefore, at most only the question why Paul does not
elsewhere also designate Christ as the true " priest," why he
has not applied the word tepevs to him, if (as Tholuck says)
" he had become conscious of the idea of the Messiah's priesthood
in the lofty form in which it appears in our epistle." — But
whether or not Paul might use the word tepevs, he at all events
opened up the view and the representation of a priesthood of
Christ when in Eph. v. 2 ; Gal. ii. 20 he wrote : Christ offered
himself as a sacrifice. Here certainly he did not think of Christ
as a lay person, who offered himself to another priest instead of
an animal ! And in Rom. viii. 34 he ascribes also the priestly
work of intercession to Christ. — But that the word lepew is used

414 APPENDIX.
precisely in the Epistle to the Hebrews finds its natural expla
nation in this, that the point froni which the author of the Epistle
to the Hebrews started in his argumentation was the priestly
institution, and he proved that this institution of the Old
Testament also is fulfilled in Christ. In Eph. v. and Gal. ii. on
the contrary he starts from the work of Christ, and touches only
slightly and casually on the, analogy between it and the Old
Testament sacrificial ritual — just as much so as, for example in 1
Cor. v. 7, he touches on the analogy between Christ and the Old
Testament passover lamb.
There is, therefore, in ihe doctrinal system of the Epistle to ihe
Hebrews no peculiarity which forbids us from ascribing its author
ship to the Apostle Paul.
On the contrary, there are in ihe Epistle to ihe Hebrews a mul
titude of most peculiarly Pauline ideas. The designation of God
as the one by whom and for whom are all things, is Pauhne
(with Heb. ii. 10, ss. ; comp. xi. 36 ; 1 Cor. viii. 6) ; the idea of
the Son as the exact image of the Father (with Heb. i. 1, ss. ;
comp. 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col. i. 15, s.) ; the exaltation of Christ
above the angels (with Heb. ii. 9 ; comp. Phil. ii. 9, ss.) into
heaven (Heb. iv. 14, vii. 26, and Eph. iv. 10), besides, the
remarkable and quite special idea that God" the Father alone is
excepted in the subjection of all things to Christ (Heb. ii. 8, 9 ;
1 Cor. xv. 27) ; that the exalted Christ intercedes with the
Father for his own (Heb vii. 25 ; Rom. viii. 34) ; that he has
destroyed death and its power (Heb. ii. 14 ; 1 Cor. xv. 54, s. ;
2 Tim. i. 10) ; again the remarkably special combination of ideas,
that Christ, having died once, cannot die again (Heb. ix. 26, ss.,
x. 12 ; Rom. vi. 9, s.) ; farther, that Christ died for every crea
ture (Heb. ii. 9 ; Eph. i. 10 ; Rom. viii. 22) ; that when he
comes again, he will come not as a Saviour but as a Judge
(Heb. ix. 27, s. ; Tit. ii. 13 ; 2 Tim. iv. 1 and 8 ; Rom. viii. 24,
xiii. 11); that, till then, he rules and reigns at the right hand of
God (Heb. i. 3, x. 12, 13 ; 1 Cor. xv. 25). — In hke manner,
that the law cannot save, and is destined to be abrogated (with
Heb. iv. 2, vii. 16—19, ix. 9 — 13, viii. 7, x. 14, xvi. 20, comp.
Rom. ii. 29 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6, s. ; Gal. hi. 3, iv. 3 and 9). The
designation of the law as a shadow (Heb. viii. 5, x. 1 ; Col. ii.
17). The putting together of the eX7rt? with the irlan<} and

APPENDIX. 415
with the dydrry (Heb. vi. 10 s., x. 22, ss. ; comp. 1 Thess. v. 8 and
1 Cor. xiii. 13). The request to be interceded for (Heb. xiii. 18,
s. ; Phil. ii. 14, i. 25 ; Philem. xxii.), and the antithesis between
TeXeto? and vyirio<; (Heb. v. 13, 14; 1 Cor. iii. 1, xiii. 11 ; Rom.
ii. 20; Eph. iv. 14).
Especially remarkable, however, is the agreement of the Epistle
to the Hebrews with Paul in the reference to the second psalm
(Heb. i. 5, ss. ; comp. Acts xiii. 33, ss.), and in the inference,
drawn from Abraham's readiness to offer up Isaac, that Abraham
believed in the possibility of a resurrection of Isaac.
This Pauline complexion of the doctrinal systeni does not,
indeed, necessitate our coming to the conclusion that Paul was
the author of the epistle, but still leaves room for the possibility
of another author; this other, however, must at aU events be
sought for among the disciples and helpers of the Apostle Paul ;
our epistle must have emanated from this circle ; only thus can
the recurrence of Pauline ideas and combinations of ideas — even
in the minutest particulars — be accounted for.

0) WORDS AND PHRASES.
Many dogmatical expressions peculiarly Pauline are also found
in our epistle. The doctrine that Christ intercedes for us with
the Father (Heb. vii. 25 ; Rom. viii. 34) is expressed by the
same word ivrvyxdveiv, that of his having destroyed death by
the same verb Karapyeiv (Heb. ii. 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 10). Further,
the phra"se o Oebs t,mv (Heb. x. 31, used elsewhere only by Paul),
the expression St'/coto? Kara rrlartv (Heb. vii. 25), the use of
KavxaaOat (Heb. iii. 6 ; otherwise, for example, Jam. iv. 16).
Further, comp. Heb. ii. 4 with 1 Cor. xii. 4 — Heb. xiii. 20
with Rom. xv. 33, xvi. 20; 2 Cor. xiii. 11 ; Phil. iv. 9 ; 1 Thess.
v. 23— Heb. xii. 1 with 1 Tim. vi. 12 ; 2 Tim iv. 7.— Finally,
the genuine Pauline expression rrepiaaoripm<i, Heb. xii. 19, and
rrirroiOa, Heb. xiii. 18.
There are again indeed dogmatical expressions which do not
recur in other Pauline epistles. The frequent use of reXetovv
can scarcely be adduced as belonging to this class, as the word is
also found in Phil. iii. 12 ; the frequency of its occurrence in the

416 APPENDIX.
Epistle to the Hebrews is to be explained from the object of the
writing, namely, to shew the fulfilment of all the Old Testament
types, and does not therefore point to a different writer. In like
manner, the designation of Christ as the drrbaroXos Oeov to men
(iii. 1) is explained from -the context, as we have seen in the
interpretation of the passage, and Paul himself would have been
able to find no other word to express the appellative idea of ;-j*)pp
-r^^TO without, at the same time, expressing the Gentile idea
" angel." — On the other hand, reference may justly be made to
the use of bptoXoyla (iii. 1, iv. 14, x. 23), iyyltjeiv rm Oem (Heb.
vii. 19) and the allusion to John x. 1 (Heb. xiii. 20). These,
however, are still no conclusive proofs against the Pauline author
ship. Particular expressions not occurring elsewhere are found
in every epistle of Paul, and it must have been a strange and net
very accountable solicitude on the part of the apostle, if, in any
epistle, he had set himself to avoid all such expressions as he had
not already used in former epistles.
If, now, we look at the remaining phrases, in a dogmatical
point of view indifferent, we are at once struck with a great
dissimilarity from the Pauline style consisting in this, that far
fewer and weaker Hebraisms occur in the Epistle to the Hebrews
than elsewhere in the Pauline epistles. Hebraisms are, indeed, not
altogether wanting also' in our epistle ; but they are found, partly,
only in those passages in which reference is directly made to Old
Testament declarations and expressions1 (for example Koiry, vii.
1, peculiar to the usage ofthe LXX. ; ev ry ba<pvt elvat, vii. 10),
or they are phrases which were entirely naturalised in the speech
of the Christians, and whose foreign origin was no longer felt by
any one (yeveaOai Oavdrov, ISeiv Odvarov, oi>x evplaKero, XoXetv
= ^3-t, pypta = prophecy.) Or finally, but only seldom, there
are loose connexions of sentences which are indeed conceived in
Hebrew, but are, at the same time, also tolerable for the Grecian
ear, and cannot be said to be not Greek, as for example chap.
xii. 9, Kal tyjaopiev for 'iva ^mptev. There occur also the eirpressions
Aapmv, XepovBip, 'Iepixm used indeclinably ; finally, also, geni
tives of quahty, for which the classical Greek would rather have
1 Hebraisms in the citations properly so called from the LXX. (for
example chap. vi. 14) are, of course, not at all taken into view.

APPENDIX. 417
used adjectives. All these single instances, however, are very
far from giving to the writing as a whole that Hebrew colouring
which belongs to the Pauline epistles; in it all is thought in
Greek, in the writings of Paul the Semitic connexion of the
thoughts is everywhere apparent. Now this can scarcely indeed
be explained by the circumstance, that Paul has, in this writing,
carefully elaborated a treatise, and not surrendered himself as
elsewhere to the impulse of his feelings. . It would be wrong to
deny that a man of the mind of Paul, if he had made it his aim
to write good Greek, such Greek as that of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, might have accomplished it. But it will be all the
more difficult to perceive, why he should have studied to attain
so fine a Greek style in writing precisely to the Hebrews.

d) the style.
This leads us now to the style as a whole. No small portion
of the pecuharities which are commonly adduced as arguments
against the Pauline authorship may, more correctly considered,
be reduced to this, that the Epistle to the Hebrews is written in
a more select style than the Pauline epistles. To this belongs the
use of sonorous compounds as ptaOarroBoaia, bpKmptoala, then
such turns as oaov — roaovrm, Koivmveiv with the genitive of the
thing (while in Rom. v. 17 ; 1 Tim. v. 22 it is used with the
dative), a kotos as masculine (while with Paul it is always neuter),
farther, the frequent use of the elegantly connecting adverb oOev
(for which Paul uses Sto, Sid tovto), idvirep (for which Paul uses
evye and e'iirep), et? rb BtyveKes, Sid rravrbi (for which, except in
Rom. xi. 10, Paul always uses the more homely rrdvrore, while
this occurs only once in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. vii.
25.) Now, this more select style affords certainly an indirect
argument against the Pauline authorship ; for, although the
circumstance that the Epistle to the Hebrews has the nature of
a treatise and was worked out with more scientific composure
and care, may in some measure account for the author's having
paid more attention to the diction than he did in other epistles
properly so called, it still remains unaccountable, as has been
already observed, that Paul should have aimed in so high a
2d

418 APPENDIX.
degree at a fine style when writing precisely to the Jewish Chris
tians in Jerusalem, while he gives himself free scope in writing
to the Ephesians, Corinthians, Romans, &c. That so elegant
a structure of period as we find, for example, in chap. i. 1 — 3 ;
chap. x. 19 — 25 ; xi. 32—38 ; xii. 18—24 — that so elegant an
arrangement of the words as we find, for example, in Heb. vii.
4 (Oempeire Be, iryXiKO<; outo?,- to Kal BeKaryv 'ABpadpt eSmKev
eK rmv aKpoOivlmv, b iraTpiapxyi) was not natural to the apostle
Paul, is but too apparent from the Pauline epistles ! In such
passages he must not merely have written more composedly and
carefully, but must have made the style precisely the subject of
artistical study, and that he should have done so is in the least
degree credible in the case of a missive intended for the Jewish
Christians in Palestine.
In addition to this, there are certain expressions of a more
trifling kind, which are aU the more important precisely because
they cannot be reduced under the general head of style, but have
their origin, doubtless, in unconscious habit. The author ofthe
Epistle to the Hebrews uses in comparisons 77opo with the accu
sative (four times), which never occurs in Paul's writings ; he
uses the word ptaKpoOvptia (vi. 12 and 15) to designate an idea
for which Paul always employs the proper favourite expression
vrropiovy ; he uses KaOl^eiv intransitively, which Paul, with the
exception of the single passage 2 Thess. ii. 4, always apphes
intransitively in the sense of " set ;" he says in seven passages
'Iyaov<s (especially remarkable in chap. xiii. 20), and Tyaovs
Xpiarb<; only in two passages (xiii. 8 and 21), while Paul never
says Typovs alone, but (according to Stuart's enumeration)
'Iyaovs Xp(crTo? 68 times, and Xpiarbs 198 times, and 6 Kvptof 147
times ; finally, he cites Old Testament passages Avith the words
irvevpta Xiyei, or, merely Xiyet, while Paul usually introduces
citations by yiyparrrai (only in 1 Tim. i. 4, and Gal. iii. 16 by
rrvevpia Xiyei). The Rabbinical controversial formulas, too, so
common in Paul's writings (for example when an objection is
introduced with the words orXX' ipei Tt?) are entirely wanting in
the Epistle to the Hebrews.
That the Epistle to the Hebrews always strictly follows the
Sept. in the citations, while Paul often cites freely, is a circum
stance to which, considered in itself, no weight can be attached.

APPENDIX. 419
To account for this it has only to be remembered, that the
author of this epistle wrote with the Sept, in his hand, and with
the intention that his writing should- be formally studied by his
readers and compared with the Sept. It is a circumstance of
more importance that the citations of our epistle follow the
recension which is contained in the cod. Alex., while those of
Paul, when he follows the Sept., for the most part agree with the
cod. Yatic. (Bleek p. 369 ss.)
But what seems more significant than all this is the manner in
which the thoughts themselves are arranged, and the proofs adduced.
The method of passing, immediately at the conclusion of a sec
tion, to the theme of a new section, and in this way intimating
that theme, is nowhere to be found in Paul's writings. (With
the transitions Heb. i. 4 ; ii. 5 ; iii. 2 ; iv. 1 and 14 ; v. 10, &c,
comp. the abrupt transitions Rom. iii. 1 ; v. 1 ; vi. 1 ; vii. 1 ;
vhi. 1 and 12 ; ix. 1 ; xii. 1 ; 1 Cor. v. 1 ; vi. 1 ; vii. 1 ; viii. 1 ;
ix. 1 ; xii. 1 ; xv. 1, &c.) Paul generally adduces his proofs
immediately, by appealing to the inner experience (for example
Rom. vii.), or when he actually deduces propositions from propo
sitions, he simply makes ono proposition follow another with a
" because," and carries forward the chain of ideas without logical
arrangement, now looking backwards now forwards (comp. for
example, Rom. i. 19, 20 ; ii. 14 — 16 ; iii. 4 — 8), and often
interrupts himself by accessory ideas (for example, Rom. v. 13
— 17.) In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find everywhere a
strictly syllogistical arrangement of the members composing the
proof, and that generally in such a form as that the conclusion
is forthwith inferred from one of the two premises, while the
other connecting premiss is brought in afterwards (comp. our
remarks on Heb. xii. 10.)
All these considerations are so forcible, and conclusive that
we can say nothing else than this : By how much the spirit and
doctrine of the epistle is Pauline, by so little can it be supposed that
this diction should have come from the hand of the Apostle.

2d2

420 APPENDIX.
CHAPTER SIXTH.
conclusion, the particular hypotheses.
After having without prejudice ascertained the particular
phenomena external and internal, which fall to be considered in
the question respecting the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and after having carefully examined every one of them, it will
now be an easy matter to test the different opinions which have
been put forth concerning the person of its author. We may
divide these opinions into three classes. First, that of those
who hold the apostle Paul to have been the immediate and
proper author of the epistle (as Gelpke, Hug, Klee, Paulus,
Stein) ; a second class embraces the Aaews of those who exclude
the apostle Paul from all share in the production of the Epistle
to the Hebrews ; a third class is formed by the conjectures of
those who, as already Origen, hold that the epistle was written in
the name of and by commission from the Apostle Paul, under his
authority, nay under his special influence, but not written with
his own hand nor verbally dictated by him.
The view which belongs to the first class has commonly been
too roughly handled, and set aside as insipid. That no argument
against it can be drawn from the external testimonies, we have
already seen at the end of the fourth chapter of this inquiry, and
have come to the conclusion, that precisely in the supposition
of a Pauline authorship does the positive tradition of the East, in
like manner as the negative tradition of the West, find its expla
nation. The inference also which is wont to be drawn from
Heb. ii. 3 against the Pauline authorship, has already (chap. v.
at the beginning) appeared to us to be of no weight. One
argument only remains in full force against that view — viz. the
peculiarities of style. Only by a forced process may these pecu
liarities be broken down, and in this state, one by one, weakened
of their effect ; in fact, it cannot be proven with mathematical
certainty that it was absolutely impossible for the Apostle Paul
to throw himself, for once, into a different kind of style ; but no
positive reason can be discovered, by which the Apostle Paul

APPENDIX. 421
should have been induced to write in a style so different from
that to which he was accustomed, and a sound critical mind
will be ever and again forced into the conviction, that in the
Epistle to the Hebrews another hand than that of Paul held the
pen. Nor is it otherwise with the second class of hypotheses, how
great soever the number of those whose views are to be ranked
under it. Already must reasonable doubts be awakened by the
single circumstance, that criticism has arrived at no judgment in
any measure certain as to who the author can have been if it
was not Paul. Criticism has split itself into many hypotheses
on this point, against every one of which there are substantial
doubts. The most untenable of these is the conjecture which
makes Clement of Rome the author ; it remains untenable even
when separated from the auxiliary conjecture with which it
appears in ancient times to have been connected (in Euseb. iii.
38), namely that Clement only translated the epistle from an
Aramaic original (it is so separated by Eusebius and Calvin,
who, besides, expresses himself hesitatingly). This conjecture
as a whole evidently rests on the circumstance that many ideas
of the Epistle to the Hebrews recur in the Epistle to the
Corinthians of Clement. But we have already seen (chap.
iv.) that the relation between these two epistles does not re
semble that between Paul's Epistle to the Romans and his
Epistle to the Galatians, or that between the Epistles to the
Ephesians and the Colossians — in other words, that it is not
one spirit and one doctrinal system from which the two epistles,
our Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of Clement, have
proceeded with equal originality — but rather that Clement, in
particular passages of his epistle, alludes to particular passages of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, cites them, and thus places himself
in a relation of dependence on the Epistle to the Hebrews, just
as he places himself in dependence on the particular Epistles of
Paul. The spirit of Clement's epistle— in so far as Clement does-
not give citations but writes independently — is altogether dif
ferent from the spirit of the Epistle to the Hebrews. His relation
to it was evidently the relation in which one stands to the writing
of another.
In like manner untenable is the opinion that Mark was the

422 APPENDIX.
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; not because Mark, as
belonging to Jerusalem (Acts xii. 13), must have been better
acquainted with the temple than our author, from a false exegesis
of chap, ix., is made out to have been, but because Mark did not
belong to the Pauline circle1 either in the course of his outer life
(comp. Acts xv. 37 — 40; 1 Pet. v. 13), or in his inner character, —
because he did not stand in the near relation to Timothy described
in Heb. xiii. 23, and, moreover, as regards his style, deviates still
more than Paul from the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Nor can Aquila be thought of as the author, inasmuch as he
was not living in Italy in the years 62 ss. but in Ephesus (2 Tim.
iv. 19), while the Epistle to the Hebrews was written in Italy
(comp. our explanation of xiii. 24).
With greater confidence have J. E. Chr. Schmidt, Twesten,
Ullmann, and recently Thiersch declared Barnabas to have been
the author. But, as we have already seen (chap, iv.), appeal
can be made in support of this hypothesis to anything but ancient
ecclesiastical tradition, with the exception of Tertullian. On the
other hand, it is not to be objected to this hypothesis, that such a
supposed Want of acquaintance with the temple as is found in the
Epistle to the Hebrews would not be conceivable in the case of
a LeAate (Acts iv. 36). Nor can any argument against it be
drawn from the so-called " epistle of Barnabas," which is alto
gether unlike the Epistle to the Hebrews, as this epistle/although
written by a man of the name of Barnabas, can hardly have been
written by that Barnabas who is mentioned in the New Testament.
With more reason is reference made against this hypothesis to
the circumstance, that Barnabas (according to Acts xiv. 12),
was inferior even to Paul in the gift of eloquence, while the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews far surpassed Paul in skill
in the use of language. To this is to be added, that Barnabas,
from the time spoken of in Acts xiv., completely retires from
notice, and disappears from history. In the Pauline epistles
written from Rome mention is nowhere made of him.
Titus also was at that time in Dalmatia (2 Tim. iv. 10). Even '
on this account, we are not at liberty to suppose that he can have
been the author, nor has any one in reality suggested him.
1 He was, however, for a while in Rome at the same time with Paul,
according to Col. iv. 10 ; Philem. 24.

APPENDIX. 423
On the other hand, Luther, Clericus, Semler, Dindorf, Zeigler,
De Wette, Tholuck, Olshausen, and Bleek have conjectured that
Apollos was the author. He was, indeed, an eloquent man and
mighty in the Scriptures (Acts xviii. 24 ; comp. 1 Cor. i. 4),
who from the very first was wont to dispute with the Jews
(Acts xviii. 28). And as exceedingly little is known of him, a
number of conjectures are possible in regard to him ; he may
have laboured in Palestine, he may have acquired great influence
there ; he may have had in view in the expression my brother
Timothy, Heb. xiii. 23, merely the general brotherly relation ofthe
Christian to the Christian ; for, he cannot have stood in a special
relation to Timothy before the year 64, which is the latest date
that can be supposed for -the composition of the Epistle to the
Hebrews ; nor can he have been in Italy at the time of Paul's
imprisonment, as Paul never mentions him. And there are
certainly no inconsiderable difficulties which stand in the way
of this hypothesis, and which can be obviated only by a A^ery
unnatural explanation of the passage Heb. xiii. 24. Besides, it is
not very probable that Apollos can have coincided so thoroughly
with the Pauline system of doctrine, from the intimations which
Ave find in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistle to the
Corinthians. With much more reason may it be supposed that Silas or Luke
was the author. The former view has been defended, although
but weakly, by Bohme and Mynster, the latter by Grotius.
Against Luke, something has been made of the circumstance
that he was a Gentile Christian (Col. iv. 14, comp. with ver. 10, s.),
while the Epistle to the Hebrews must of necessity have been
written by a Jewish Christian. This latter is inferred from the
fact that the author in chap. i. 1, speaks of the " fathers," where
it is evidently the people of Israel that are meant, and that in
chap. xi. 2 he caUs the believers of the old covenant ol rrpeaBv-
repot. Had he spoken of " our fathers," then there would be some
ground for the inference ; but it is difficult to see why an author,
writing to Jewish Christians, should not have been able so far to
forget himself or his readers as to say : " Beforetime God has
spoken to the fathers by the prophets." Surely the Gentile
Christians, too, had with Jesus the Messiah, received also the
word of prophecy ; surely they, too, had entered into the right

424 APPENDIX.
and relation of children among the people of God ! And that same
Luke speaks ofthe events which happened to Jesus among the
Jewish people as irepl rmv rrpayptdrmv ev ,yp,iv ireirXypotpopy-
pivmv. Such passages, therefore, as Heb. i. 1 ; xi. 2, cannot be
made to bear against the authorship of Luke. On the other
hand, the circumstance speaks for Luke, that from the year 62
onwards he was with Paul in Italy, and a fellow helper with
Timothy (Philem. i. and 24) ; Silas stood in the same relation
to Timothy (comp. 1 Thess. i. 1) ; true, in the year 62, Silas was
not in Italy, but he was certainly there with Peter " e'v BaBvXmvt"
in the year 64, immediately after the death of Paul (comp. 1 Pet.
v. 12). Now, as the Epistle to the Hebrews must have been
written either in the year 62 or in the year 64 (see above chap.
ii.), in the former case Luke might be held to be the author, in
the latter case Silas.
This hypothesis would certainly, so far as we have gone, be
the most tolerable ; but there is one reason also for rejecting it,
the same by which this entire second class of hypothesis is over
thrown. The firmness and unanimity of the oriental tradition
remains altogether inexplicable, if it be not supposed that the Epistle
to the Hebrews came to Jerusalem, under the name and the authority
of Paul. (See above chap. iv. at the end.) And thus, indeed,
there is not wanting the " occasion" demanded by Bleek (p. 393)
for supposing, that " precisely Paul" was, at least, the indirect
author of the epistle.
This brings us to the third class of conjectures, which, however,
has received but small accessions since the time of Origen, so that
we are spared the trouble of enumerating various particular
hypotheses, and instead of this, can immediately pass to a positive
construction of the right view.
The data at which we have arrived in chap. iv. — v. form the
starting point :
(1.) The tradition ofthe East is capable of explanation only
on the supposition, that the epistle was handed to the readers
under the name of Paul.
(2). That the Western Church was at first unacquainted with
the epistle, is fully accounted for by the circumstance of its
having been designed for the Jewish Christians of Palestine, and
the ignorance of that Church, at a later period, respecting its

APPENDIX. 425
author, is explained by the want of an inscription, and the un-
Pauline style.
(3). The author stood in a near personal relation to Timothy.
(4). The doctrine is Pauline, the diction un-Pauhne.
Let us now call to mind a very remarkable circumstance
already hinted at in the explanation of chap. xiii. 19 and 22, ss.,
but which has as yet been entirely unobserved, viz., that chap.
xiii. 22 — 25, cannot have been written in the name ofthe person
who wrote chap. i. 1 — chap. xiii. 21, nevertheless, that it must
have been written by the same hand. The postscript is not in the
name of him in whose name the epistle was written ; for the
person in whose name ver. 19 is written was, against his will, so
situated as to be prevented from setting out on a journey to the
readers. This did not depend on his own wiU ; nor did he by
any means hope to be shortly set free, but he admonished the
readers to pray that he might be restored to them ; he therefore
took it for granted that he would be still in confinement when
the readers should have received the epistle into their hands. On
the other hand, the person in whose name ver. 22 — 25 is written
is already about to set out on a journey, and it depends only on
the speedier or later coming of Timothy, who had just been set
free, whether he wiU set out towards the East along with him or
alone. And yet, the postscript is written and composed by the same
hand that wrote and composed the epistle. For, in ver. 22, the
author of the postscript apologizes for several harshnesses in his
admonitions, and asks the readers to excuse these on account of
the short and compressed character of the writing. The post
script, therefore, does not proceed from an amanuensis to whom
the epistle had been verbally dictated, but from one to whom the
material had been given while the diction was left to himself.
Who then was the author ? who the composer ? The com
poser was a friend or feUow-helper of Timothy (xiii. 23), but was
not, precisely at that time, in the same place (xiii. 23, lav . . .
epxyrai) in which Timothy had, up till about that time, been
imprisoned. Now, we found (see above, chap, ii.) in the Epistle
to the Philippians, the clearest traces of an imprisonment of
Timothy. Paul would like to send Timothy into the East, but
cannot yet do so ; he hopes, however, to be able shortly to send

426 APPENDIX.
him thither. When Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians, in
the year 62, Timothy was accordingly in prison, but with the hope
of being soon released. At that time Luke was not precisely in
Pome itself; for Paul sends no salutations from him to the Phi
lippians, who were so well known to him. Shortly afterwards,
we suppose the Epistle to the Hebrews to have been finished,
certainly a few days after the departure of Epaphroditus, (Phil.
ii. 25,). Paul we suppose, intended to have fully talked over the
subject with Luke, perhaps to have given him a scheme or pre
paratory work in writing ; he himself was deprived of the leisure
necessary for the composition by the legal procedure against him,
which precisely at that time (Phil. ii. 23) had passed into a new
stage. Luke worked out the epistle for Paul, and as in his name,
not however in Rome, where perhaps he himself might have been
involved in the procedure against Paul, but in another place in
Italy, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Theophilus. When
the work was finished, the news reached him that Timothy had
been set free in Rome. He himself purposed to set out for the
East, though not directly to Palestine (for, in xiii. 23, he takes it
for granted that the Epistle to the Hebrews would be in the
hands of the readers before he should see them personally) ;
Timothy, too, in company with whom he wishes and hopes to
make the journey (ver. 23) was (according to Phil. ii. 23) shortly
to direct his course to Lesser Asia. How exactly do the most
particular, the most trifling notices harmonize here !
I think I am even warranted in saying that this hypothesis
leaves nothing unexplained. First of all, it completely explains
the internal phenomena of the epistle. Commissioned by the
apostle Paul to work out the writing, Luke wrote in the name of
Paul (xiii. 19), only, however, in that part where he added the
personal concluding requests (which had possibly been given to
him in writing by Paul) ; nowhere did he affect to speak in the
name of Paul or to allude to events in the life of Paul ; nowhere,
indeed, with the exception of chap. xiii. 19, does a first person.
singular occur, while the omission of an inscription becomes also
perfectly inteUigible. On the other hand, it becomes also per
fectly intelligible how Luke, writing in virtue of a commission
from Paul, might speak of the members of the Old Testament
covenant simply as " the fathers," the " elders." This hypothesis

APPENDIX. 427
explains the combination of thoroughly Pauline ideas and doc
trinal forms of expression with the un-Pauline diction ; it explains,
also, the circumstance that of all the New Testament writings,
precisely those of Luke have most similarity in point of style
with the Epistle to the Hebrews (in so far, namely, as Luke
has not interwoven notices prepared by others into his Gospel and
Acts of the Apostles). How similar in style are the two introduc
tions, Luke i. 1 — 4 and Heb. i. 1 — 3 !
Secondly, the origin of the ecclesiastical tradition becomes
intelligible on this hypothesis. The bearer of the epistle, who is
unknown to us, delivered it to the readers as an " epistle which
Paul sends to them," and thereby as a Pauline epistle. Assuredly
he did not fail to communicate to them what was necessary
respecting the peculiar manner in which it had been prepared,
to tell them that the epistle was written by the hand of Luke,
and at the same time not verbally dictated to Luke. Without
such a notification none of the readers could have understood the
postscript, especially ver. 22 and ver. 23. But, in a way which is
easily conceivable, the notification was soon lost.
What the readers found in the epistle was kept and considered,
with reason, as the teaching and the admonitions of the apostle.
And thus the epistle was regarded as one of Paul's ; it was written
auctoritate Pauli, and, in reality also, Paulo autore, — wheresoever
the epistle spread, it carried with it the information that Paul
was its author. And how highly important did this epistle,
designed at first only for a very limited circle of readers, become,
even in the course of the next ten years, for the whole of Pales
tine, Syria, Egypt, for Asia Minor, too, in short, for all quarters
where were parties of Jewish Christians who had not yet raised
themselves to the Pauline stand-point. This epistle was, indeed,
a document which contained a divine warrant for the complete
severance of Christendom from the mother's lap of the bodily
Israel ! For the Western Church, which from the first was
entirely under Pauline influence, the epistle for the same reason
did not possess this practical importance ; it had long before been
rendered superfluous here by the Epistle to the Romans ; the
state of things as a whole which occasioned the necessity for an
Epistle to the Hebrews in the East, had been obviated long before
in Italy by the Epistle to the Romans. What wonder, then,

428 APPENDIX.
that the Epistle to the Hebrews should have spread there late
and slowly ; and if it did not spread there until after the Church
of the West had closed its canon (in the beginning of the second
century), if it did not spread until the period when every Church
carefully adhered to ancient tradition, it is then easy to compre
hend, how hesitation should have been shown in opening up
again the closed door of the canon for the Epistle to the Hebrews,
till then unknown ; it is perfectly conceivable how this epistle,
which had no inscription and was un-Pauline in its style, should
not have been acknowledged as Pauline ; and if, now, there had
actuaUy been preserved, say in Rome, from the time of Clement
onwards, a notice of the existence of this epistle, but at the same
time also a notice that Paul had not composed it himself — does
not the opposition of the Western Church to the Pauline author
ship become doubly intelligible ?
In the third place, the conclusion to which we have come
respecting the circle of readers for whom this epistle was intended,
beautifully harmonises with our hypothesis, that Paul was, at
least indirectly, the author of it. The question indeed has been
asked, why precisely the apostle of the Gentiles should have
come to write to Jewish Christians in Palestine. We know,
however, that the epistle was not written to churches, not even
to a church, not to the Church of Jerusalem, but to a limited
circle of individual Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, whose conver
sion had taken place not very long before. May it not have been
such Jewish Christians as had been converted just about the time
when Paul was taken prisoner in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. ss.), who
perhaps were first awakened by Paul himself, during those seven
days when as yet he went out and in in freedom (Acts xxi.
27), and were brought to embrace Christianity by his powerful
address (Acts xxii.) ? What a great and profound crisis arose
in 'those days among the Jews themselves, is evident from Acts
xxiii. 9 ; even in the company of Paul's bitterest enemies there
were those who sought to frustrate the plot which was formed
to murder him, by betraying it to the nephew of Paul (Acts xxiii.
16). But, be this as it may, Paul was from that period so firmly
rooted in his love for the Church in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 17),
and he so identifies his cause with that of this Church, that this of
itself already suffices to explain, how he may have addressed a

APPENDIX. 429
writing to individuals among the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem.
For, let it be granted also, that these individuals Avere not gained
over to Christianity precisely through Paul's personal influence,
still Luke remained those two years in Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 15,
ss. ; xxvii. 1, ss. ; comp. Luke i. 3, rrapyKaXovOyKon irdaiv
aKpiBSy;), and thus the readers were certainly well enough
acquainted at least with him, so that at his suggestion, and
through him, Paul might address a writing to them. The notice,
too, respecting the former zeal of these readers (Heb. vi. 10 ; x.
32, ss.) thus obtains a sufficient explanation.
Finally, this hypothesis throws light on the passages which
refer to an impending persecution, as well as the reference to the
martyrdom of the yyovptevoi (xiii. 7.) The Epistle to the Philip
pians had been written in the year 62, and the Epistle to the
Hebrews sent soon afterwards to the East. Just at that time the
apostle James, son of Alpheus, had been stoned ; the news of
his death would just have reached Italy when Luke was writing
the epistle. — Shortly afterwards, Luke, as well as Timothy, set
out on a journey eastward, first to Asia Minor, but Luke (Heb.
xiii. 23), certainly, also to Palestine. Luke returned back to
Paul earlier than Timothy (2 Tim. iv. 11), standing faithfully
by his spiritual father even to his death. Timothy also received
a pressing charge to return (2 Tim. iv. 21), and would doubtless
comply with it. Paul suffered martyrdom in the beginning of
64. Among the revelations of the Holy Spirit, whose instrument
he was, and which he has left behind him as an everlasting
legacy, the Epistle to the Hebrews occupies a very important
place. It is the knife which completely severed and delivered the
new-born church of the New Testament Israel from the maternal
womb of the Old Testament theocracy. And therefore, it not
merely had a significance for the Christian Church at the time
when the Lord visited with judgment the unbelieving seed^ of
Abraham, but it has a permanent significance, as a writing which
will be lighted up anew in flaming characters every time the
attempt is made again to drive back the Church, which has been
perfected for ever by one sacrifice, within the limits of a Levitical
sacrificial service and a slavish hierarchy, and again to hide
behind a veil the access to the sacrifice of Christ, which stands
freely and directly open to every individual.

430 APPENDIX.

LITERATURE.

In the Patristic period we find, in Origen, only fragmentary
explanations. The commentary of Theodoret is well known,
and in many respects justly celebrated ; but Chrysostom, in his
34 homilies, penetrates still deeper into the spirit of the Epistle
to the Hebrews.
In the Reformation period Erasmus has furnished, in his
Annotations (1516) and his Paraphrasis (1522), an excellent
preparatory work for the grammatical interpretation of the
epistle ; Zuingle, Calvin, Beza, Piscator, have, each in his own
way, handled the Epistle to the Hebrews along with the rest of
the New Testament writings ; there are special commentaries
by Oecolompadius (explan. ad Epist. ad Ebr. 1734) and Breuz
(1751.) After that, it was especially Reformed theologians who
applied their exegetical labours to the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Chiefly to be named are Hyperius (Zurich 1587), Junius (1590),
Drusius, Ludwig de Dieu, Jac. CapeUus the elder, Ludwig
CapeUus, Cameron (Adnot. in Ep. ad Hebr. 1628, op. posth.),
Heinsius, then Cocceius (Leyden 1659), together with a whole
series of Federalists, in England Hammond and Whitby, the
Armenians Limborch (Rotterd. 1711), Clericus, Wetstein, and
Grotius. Of the Lutheran theologians only Hunnius (Frankf.
1589), Joh. Gerhard (Jena 1641), Seb. Schmidt (Strasb. 1680),
Sigm. Jac. Baumgarten (Halle 1763), and Calov (in the Bibl.
iUustr.), are to be noticed in connection with the Epistle to the
Hebrews. In the Rationalistic period : Morus (Leipzig 1776), J. D.
Michaelis (Frankf. and Leipz. 1780)), Zacharia (Gott. 1793),
Heinrichs (Gott. 1792), Hezel (Leipz. 1795), Ernesti (Lect.
Academ. ed. Dindorf, Leipz. 1795.)
Belonging to our own century, are Storr (1809), Bohme
(Lepz. 1825), Kuinoel (Leipz. 1831), Klee (Mainz. 1833),
Paulus (1833), Menken (special commentaries and homilies on
Heb. ix.— x., and Heb. xi., 1821 and 1831), Tholuck (Hamb.
1836), especially, however, the profound and copious commen
tary by Bleek (Berlin 1828—1840).

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