Biblical commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, in continuation of the work of Olshausen

Front matter

OF THE

U N I VERS ITY Of ILLI NOI5

Presented 1917

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 /ac^-revelation and /acGprophecy formed the condition and the basis of the particular worcZ-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 womans 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.

A

INTRODUCTION.

After that judicial visitation by which the degenerate race of man was buried and baptised (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 last 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 wdiich 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 again 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 by any one.

INTRODUCTION.

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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, Solo¬ mon, 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 same time 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 Nathans 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 judg¬ ment. Redeeming grace is to go before judicial severity. The eye of hope was now turned to redeeming grace ; the promised

INTRODUCTION.

descendant 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 (H£>Sy) in 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. Hot 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 Malaclii, 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 of the 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 second opened up to David through Hathan (2 Sam. vii.), have found their termination. Matthew, too, refers to the same law of delay, when, in chap. i. 2 ff., he shows, that in place of the three JITTH, 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 Hew 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 develops 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 ?

Ho book of the Hew 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. C89.

INTRODUCTION.

a mere love of writing on tlie 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. — v., 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 Israelites 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 tl ie 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 Jewish 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 Hero may have emboldened the J ews ; 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.

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THE EXOKDIUM.

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 words , 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 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 reflection, — 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 of 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 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. f», v. 12. The persons there addressed form quite a definite circle of persons represented as undergoing a course of instruction. This, of course, (Joes 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 develop the ground idea of the epistle, form a sort of introduction to the principal parts which follow from verse 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 of the whole treatise. The revelation of Gocl in his Son is opposed to the revelations of God by the prophets , as the higher, as the one, undivided, absolute revelation. To con¬ firm this the person and ivork 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.” AoJ.sTv is used in the sense of to denote the 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 varies here are meant, of course, not merely the patri¬ archs, but all those former generations of Israel that have preceded the those at present living ; in a word : the forefathers.

The idea implied in *%o<pnrcu is to be understood in a similarly wide sense ; even in the Old Testament 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. n goffirai 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 verse 3, was more than a mere organ. It is doubtful, however, in what sense the preposition h is to be understood. The interpretation given by those who take rgopSjra/ to denote the writings of the prophets, and refer the h to these writings, is, on account of the parallel member h 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 h is to be taken in the strictest and most proper sense in which it is used in Greek. According to this, h cannot be referred immediately to XaXeft (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 wv 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

Tholuck, that the h here in both places has an instrumental signification, and is to be understood in the sense of the Heb. 3,

“ 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 icrote in Greek, however careful he was to construct his periods in genuine Greek ! And is not the use of oi a lung in verse 2 likewise a Hebraism ? But are not unconscious Hebraisms in the use of propositions 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 aiuvsg) genuine Greek expressions (o xotfiog, ra navru) were quite at hand ?

The adverbs oroXvasgZg and according to Tholuck

and others, have no specific intelligible meaning, because no a^Xobg or \pd~a% stands opposed to them, but are used merely for the sake of amplification. But a^Xug and 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, Limborcli, Capellus, J. Gerhard, Calov, and Bleek, explain ^oXv^spSjg as pointing to the different times and periods , no'kurgtoug 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. UoXv/ns^ug 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 be 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 Hew Testament revelation by Christ. HoXu^soZg means not “ many times,” but “ manifoldly,” “ in many parts.” In like manner, the Old

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Testament revelation is said to be one of many forms , in oppo¬ sition to that rpo-rrog which was not one among the many, but the one which outweighed the many, the absolute, which fully corresponded with the ouc/a. Thus we see how a dcrag or a*\ojg could not follow in the opposite member of the sentence. The real antithesis to vohv/uspZg and noXvrooncog lies in ver.

o o 4 o.

The time denoted by nd\ai 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, n akcu is rather explained simply from the antithesis far faydrov, &c., without supposing that a remote and heterogeneous allusion is made to the interval between Malachi and the Baptist.

But the expression In3 faydrov rZ v yfiscZv rovruv (that the reading faydruv is false may now be considered as fully estab¬ lished) 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 getas 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 of the prophets ? But these did not reach down to the time of Christ ; and ndXcu too would then form no antithesis. With reason, therefore, have Bleek and others explained In stydrov, &c., as equivalent to the Hebrew O’OTl nHPlfc'O. Conformably to the Old Tes-