1:1 The book of Hebrews does not claim to have been written by Paul, but was for quite some time considered to be his work. However, even in ancient times, there were those who doubted that Paul was the author. Origen, who was active during the early 200s, wrote that the epistle to the Hebrews was written in “better Greek” and displayed differences in style from the known letters of Paul. (Quoted via Eusebius in Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, p.308.)
The letter also does not claim to have been written to any “Hebrews,” although this became its designation from a very early date. It is commonly held to have been written to a Christian congregation, possibly of Jewish origin, for the purpose of bolstering their faith at a time when they may have been tempted to drift away from the new religion. Note that it does not begin in the traditional letter style. There is no greeting and no identification of the addressees.
1:2 The author speaks of “a son,” not the son. The Old Testament speaks of multiple sons of God in Genesis 6:2, and in Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7.
To say that God created the world through a son recalls the prologue of John’s gospel, which, however, was most likely written after Hebrews. But the story of creation in Genesis contains nothing of any son or logos (Word) through whom God created the world. In Genesis, God himself is the sole creator. The idea that God acted through an intermediary is foreign to the entire Old Testament conception of God. See also Isaiah 45:5-6; Deuteronomy 4:39.
1:5 The author’s purpose here is to show that Jesus is of higher stature than the angels. He proves this by quoting first from Psalm 2:7 and then from 2 Samuel 7:14. Not only are these passages taken out of context, they have embarrassing theological implications. The passage from the Psalm (“Thou art my son; today I have begotten thee.”) implies that Jesus did not pre-exist with God from the beginning of time, but was begotten as his son at a particular point in time. The original verse referred to an earthly king to whom God will give great success, and continues by promising that this king will break the nations of the earth “with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Psalm 2:8-9, RSV) This hardly fits the image of Jesus as the meek and gentle savior of the world.
The passage from 2 Samuel also creates problems when viewed in its original context. After declaring that “I will be his father, and he shall be my son,” the verse continues: “If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.” Obviously the author of Hebrews does not intend for us to believe that God had a plan for how to punish Jesus if he should ever commit “iniquity.” But he has cherry-picked his quotations to serve his own purposes and ignored the original meanings of these Old Testament passages. Although Christian apologists often accuse skeptics of quoting the Bible out of context, the worst offenders in this regard are the very authors of the Christian scriptures in the New Testament.
1:6-9 The author continues to quote passages from the Old Testament in order to show Jesus’s superiority to the angels. The original verses are from Psalm 97:7, Psalm 104:4, Psalm 45:6-7.
1:10 This verse is from Psalm 102:25-27, but in the original context the words are addressed to God (Yahweh), not to any son, and certainly not to Jesus. The Greek translation of the Old Testament, which the author of Hebrews relied on, creates ambiguity in such passages by using the Greek word for “Lord” to refer to God, thus allowing Christian writers to claim that these are references to the “Lord” Jesus Christ. Modern English translations avoid this confusion by printing LORD in all capital letters when God’s proper name (Yahweh) is being translated.
1:13 Citing Psalm 110:1. This is the same verse that Jesus quotes in Matthew 22:44-45 to demonstrate that the expected messiah cannot be descended from David, in contradiction to Paul’s view in Romans 1:3.
2:2 The reference here is to the Jewish law, which the author considers to have been delivered by angels. A similar role for angels is expressed in Galatians 3:19 and in Acts 7:53. The reader is thus persuaded that if Christ is superior to the angels, then the law that the angels transmitted must be inferior to the new law of Christ. However, the Jewish law was handed down by God himself to Moses, who then transmitted it to the people. Although Moses might be considered as God’s messenger (the literal meaning of angellos), there is no hint in the books of the law that this method of transmission was inferior in any way to direct communication by God himself.
2:3 This verse alone is sufficient to refute the notion that Paul could have written Hebrews. The author declares that Christ’s message of salvation was first proclaimed by the Lord, and was “confirmed to us by those who heard him.” Paul, on the other hand, claimed to have received the gospel not from any human intermediary, but directly through a revelation of Jesus Christ himself. (Galatians 1:11-12)
2:6 The idea expressed in this quotation from Psalm 8:4 is used to ironic effect in Job 7:17-18, where Job’s meaning is, “Why, God, do you constantly stalk your poor, miserable creatures and harrass them by judging their every little action, when those actions have no effect on you?”
2:7-8 The original context of Psalm 8:5-6 refers to man – not Christ. It is man who was made a little lower than the angels, and to whom dominion was given over the creatures of the earth – as promised in Genesis 1:26-28. Once again, the author of Hebrews has ignored the original meaning of the passage he cites, and has forced a new meaning upon it to suit his argumentative purpose.
While quoting scripture in support of his claim that the Son was given dominion over everything, the author is immediately forced to acknowledge that “but now we do not yet see all things under his dominion.” The truth is, and always has been, that Jesus has never ruled over the world or any part of it.
2:9 Note that this is the first time the author has mentioned Jesus by name. Although he has admitted that all things are not yet subjected to Jesus’s authority, he claims that at least “we see Jesus . . . crowned with glory and honor.” But in reality, we do not see that, either – and neither did the author or any of the early Christians. There are several assertions that Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God (e.g., Acts 7:55-56; Colossians 3:1), but these expressions are formulaic, lacking in any detail, and do not mention anything about crowns of glory.
2:12 Again we have a misinterpretation of words from the Psalms. This one is from Psalm 22:22, and the words in the original context are spoken by a suffering man to God. In the interpretation given here in Hebrews, the words are spoken by Jesus to the human brethren to whom he brings salvation. But in the Psalm, the speaker also declares “I am a worm . . . scorned by men, and despised by the people.” (Psalm 22:6, RSV) One can hardly imagine the author of Hebrews believing that these words would apply to Jesus, but the only way to avoid that embarrassment is to selectively pick just those words that support his argument, and ignore the rest.
Note also the beginning words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” which were those spoken by Jesus on the cross, according to Mark’s gospel. (Mark 15:34)
2:14 The reasoning here is very obscure, if one can even call it reasoning. The idea is that Jesus conquered death by suffering death. It is like saying that we conquer illness by becoming sick, or that we conquer our enemy by being defeated. The author does not explain, but simply asserts that by suffering death, Jesus destroyed the one who had the power of death – i.e., the devil.
2:17 If Jesus was made like his human brethren “in all things” then he must have been sinful as well. But the author claims later on that Jesus was “holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” (7:26) This clearly contradicts his claim that Jesus was like his human brethren “in all things,” because no human is blameless. (Romans 3:23) Also, no human has the power to raise the dead (John 11:43-44), or to turn water into wine (John 2:9), or to wither a fig tree by the power of his words (Matthew 21:19). So the author’s claim that Jesus was like men in all things, is not supported by the gospel accounts of his life.
3:1 Jesus is named as the “high priest” of the Christian faith. There’s a touch of irony in this designation, given the role of the high priest as an enemy of Jesus and the early Christians in the gospels and in Acts. See for example Matthew 26:65 where the high priest condemns Jesus for blasphemy, and in Acts 23:2, the high priest orders Paul to be struck in the mouth.
The high priest analogy fails on another ground as well. The priest is one who offers sacrifice, but is not himself sacrificed. Jesus, on the other hand, was himself the sacrifice – i.e., the unblemished lamb – and could not at the same time be the priest who offers up the lamb.
3:2 Having demonstrated that Jesus is superior to the angels, the author will now try to show that he is also superior to Moses. Here he begins by stating that both Jesus and Moses remained faithful to their appointed tasks. But Jesus was not always a willing participant in God’s scheme for salvation, if the gospel accounts can be believed. In the hours preceding his arrest, Jesus lamented, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.” (Mark 14:34) And although he agreed that God’s will should prevail, Jesus’s own will obviously wished for a different outcome. (Mark 14:36; Matthew 26:39). Luke 22:44 may be a later addition to that gospel, but it, too, reports that Jesus was “in agony” before his arrest, to the point of sweating blood when he prayed. And Jesus’s final cry on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” shows that Jesus did not accept his sacrificial role with total equanimity. Thus, the argument here in Hebrews that Jesus was faithful to his appointed task, is not fully supported by the gospel record.
3:6 Christ’s superiority over Moses is established, by his status as God’s son, while Moses was a mere servant.
3:8 The author quotes Psalm 95:8 to warn his readers against hardening their hearts. But it is God himself who hardens hearts, and he does so specifically for the purpose of preventing people from perceiving the truth. (John 12:40) Jesus spoke in parables for the same reason – not to help people understand, but to prevent them from understanding. (Mark 4:11-12)
3:13 Once again, it is not only the deceitfulness of sin which may harden the heart, but God himself. (See comment to 3:8.)
3:19 The conclusion which the author draws out of the quotation from Psalm 95 is that the Israelites were prevented from entering the promised land because of their disobedience and unbelief. He goes on to warn his own readers not to fall victim to the same fate. However, if we read Exodus 17:1-7, which is the basis for the quotation from Psalm 95:8-11, we find that the people had protested to Moses that they had no water in the desert, and had asked whether he had led them out of Egypt merely to die of thirst in the wilderness. After Moses relayed the complaint to God, God provided water, but one is left with the impression that he may have neglected to provide the water if not for the complaint. The author of Hebrews interprets this natural desire for water as disobedience and putting God to the test.
4:4 The rest promised to God’s people is likened to the rest that God himself enjoyed after he created heaven and earth. The author uses verbal similarity to make an argument by analogy between Genesis 2:2 and Psalm 95:11. However, the argument “works only on the basis of the Greek texts” and not the Hebrew. (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.102.)
The vagueness of the author’s quotation as coming from “somewhere” or “in a certain place” rather than specifying the chapter and verse, should not be taken as evidence that the he did not know his Bible. The division of the Bible into distinct numbered verses did not occur until the mid-16th century, so at the time Hebrews was written, citing chapter and verse would have been impossible. (See Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus, p. 80.)
4:8 The name “Joshua” is, in the original Greek text, “Iesous,” which of course is the name usually rendered into English as “Jesus.” “Jesus” is merely the Greek version of “Joshua.”
The author is switching his analogies here. Having argued that the Israelites did not enter God’s rest (i.e., the promised land of Canaan) because of their disobedience, he now needs to establish that the people still have not attained God’s rest. Otherwise, there would be nothing for his readers to aspire to. But the awkward fact is that the Israelites did reach the promised land, not under Moses, but under Joshua. Therefore, the author now seeks to argue that Joshua’s occupation of Canaan did not count – that it was not the “rest” that God spoke of. For the Israelites in the wilderness, Canaan represented “rest.” But for Joshua and his followers, the definition needs to be changed in order for the argument to proceed. The way in which the author justifies this is to point out that Psalm 95 was written after the conquest of Canaan, and yet speaks of an unfulfilled rest. But this can only be persuasive if the reader takes the Psalm passage as referring to the time when it was written, rather than to a time past, which it clearly does.
4:12 The “word” of God is described as “living and active,” which again recalls the logos (Word) of John’s gospel. But, unlike John, the author of Hebrews never identifies Jesus with the Word.
4:13 If no creature is hidden from God, then why did God have to ask “Where are you?” when looking for Adam in the garden of Eden? (Genesis 3:9)
4:15 The author claims that Jesus is a worthy intercessor for mankind, because he was “tempted in everything in the same way as we are.” But there is no description in the gospels or anywhere else in the New Testament that portrays Jesus as being tempted in the same way that humans are. The temptation by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11) was a temptation especially focused on Jesus as Son of God, and not a temptation like that experienced by actual human beings.
There is, however, a very serious theological trap for the Christians in this verse. If Jesus was tempted in every way that humans are tempted, that must mean that he had thoughts and desires which he then controlled and did not act upon, so thus remained sinless. But Jesus himself taught that the thought alone is enough to count as sin. For example, in Matthew 5:28 he said that a man who feels lust in his heart for a woman has already committed adultery with her. And in Matthew 5:22, angry feelings alone are sufficient to make one liable to judgment. Thus, Jesus did not accept the distinction between the thought and the act. Thoughts of sin were just as damning for him as the action itself. But one cannot be tempted without first having the thought of sin in mind. So if Jesus was tempted in the same way that humans are, he must have had thoughts of sin, including adultery, which are already sufficient to count as sin. Thus, the idea of Jesus as tempted, leads inescapably to the idea of Jesus as sinner, because the distinction here in Hebrews between the thought (which is innocent) and the act (which is sinful), finds no support in the teaching of Jesus.
Finally, we have already shown elsewhere in this commentary that Jesus was not without sin, in contradiction to the claim made in this verse. See the comment to 2 Corinthians 5:21 for a list of the sins of Jesus.
5:1 The author will now seek to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills the qualifications for being a high priest, by reasoning from analogy with priests chosen from mankind. (Actually, only from the Jews, but the author does not seem to take non-Jewish practices into account.) In pressing this analogy, the author comes very close to heresy, if indeed he does not cross the line entirely, by emphasizing Jesus’s thoroughly human traits to such an extent that any divine nature which Jesus may be supposed to have possessed becomes obscured, if not denied altogether.
5:4-5 Verse 4 notes that the honor of priest is only bestowed through a call from God, not by one’s own choice. Similarly, Christ was called by God, as the author tries to show in the quotation from Psalm 2:7, which he has used before. (See 1:5.) There are a number of problems that arise from this analogy:
5:6 The mysterious Melchizedek, whom we will meet again in chapter 7, is introduced in order to establish that there is an order of priesthood which is older and higher than that of the Levitical priests established under Moses. The author wishes not only to identify Jesus as high priest, but also needs to show that his authority is superior to those priests who already existed among the Hebrews. Otherwise, he would just be another in the line of traditional priests, but nothing special.
5:8-9 The obedience of Jesus is a key element in Paul’s theology, as the means through which salvation comes to all. (Romans 5:19) But the wording here in Hebrews explicitly states that Jesus had to learn obedience, and was thus “made perfect.” The clear implication is that Jesus did not previously know how to be obedient and was not perfect. Again, the author insists on endowing Jesus with traits that are incompatible with divine perfection.
In verse 9, we have yet another view of how people can be saved. Here it is not through faith (John 3:16; Acts 16:31), nor by works (James 2:24), nor yet by God’s arbitrary grace (Romans 3:24), nor by repentance (Luke 13:3; Acts 2:38), but by obedience to Jesus that one can achieve eternal salvation. Despite being the central concept in the Christian religion, the path to salvation has no consistent, coherent expression in the New Testament.
5:12 The readers are not yet ready for the full, mature truth. They need milk, not solid food, because they have become dull of hearing and do not even grasp the elementary principles of God’s word. This is the same assessment made by Paul of the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 3:2. Oddly, even though his readers are not yet ready for maturity, the author tries to lead them there anyway, as he continues the presentation in chapter 6. We can hardly believe that his readers will understand, though, given their ignorance of elementary principles.
6:4-6 These verses express what is perhaps the most significant theological teaching of Hebrews: There is no second repentance. Once a person has partaken of the holy spirit and become a member of the Christian community, if they fall away from the faith, there is no possibility of returning to a state of repentance and salvation. Some commentators, following the RSV translation of “fall away” as “commit apostasy,” try to argue that the restriction does not apply to mere sinners, but only to those former believers who utterly reject the Christian religion. But the actual text is not so extreme. The impossibility of a second repentance is not limited to those who “commit apostasy,” but applies to all who “fall away,” which can encompass mere neglect and apathy as well as active rejection.
The theological point is one that is lost on most modern Christians, who think they can sin at will, as long as they repeatedly ask forgiveness. But the author of Hebrews is clear in his message: Christ died once for your sins, and you get one chance to accept his gift. But if you accept it and then fall away, you in effect crucify him again, and become ineligible for the salvation you once had.
6:10 The author reassures his readers that because of their good work in serving the faithful, God will not overlook their efforts. He seems to suggest that works do, after all, play a role in salvation, if not in obtaining it, at least in keeping it, in contradiction to the teaching of Paul, who taught that faith, not works, brought salvation. (Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16)
6:11 The readers are urged to maintain hope “until the end.” But until the end of what? The end of their lives? Or does the author suggest that the end of the age is approaching and will arrive while his readers are still alive?
6:16 If men indeed swear by a greater than themselves, then they are not following the teaching of Jesus, who commanded: “Do not swear at all.” (Matthew 5:34) The author of Hebrews seems unfamiliar with this maxim of Jesus.
6:18 Here we are told that it is “impossible” for God to prove false on his promises. Yet Jesus said that “with God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27)
6:19 The author no doubt intends to conjure up an image of awe and majesty around the inner shrine, but anyone who is familiar with the Wizard of Oz knows that what goes on “behind the curtain” may be much less impressive than outward appearances would suggest.
6:20 The author now returns to the high priest Melchizedek, in order “to prove the existence of another order of priesthood, older, superior, and so superseding both the Levitical priesthood and the law which rests on it.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.11, p.660.) The TIB commentary is very revealing as it goes on to say, “The author’s statement of purpose (4:14-16) and the summary closing our chapter (vss. 26-28) contain no mention of Melchizedek for the very good reason that the scriptural sources (Gen. 14:17-20; Ps. 110:4) afford no basis for his central thesis, i.e., that Jesus is the priest for us because of his sympathy perfected through temptation and suffering.” The scriptural details about Melchizedek are sparse indeed. Other than Genesis 14:17-20 there is only the brief reference in Psalm 110:4 which adds no new information. While original and ingenious, the argument suffers from many factual errors and logical flaws, as we shall see. One of these flaws is the fact that God offered the priesthood to the sons of Aaron as a “perpetual priesthood” (Numbers 25:13) which rules out its replacement by Jesus or anyone else.
7:1-2 These verses essentially repeat the details of Genesis 14:17-20. Abraham had defeated several kings in battle, and Melchizedek, a priest of “God Most High” (note he is not identified as a priest of Yahweh), came out to meet him with bread and wine, and blessed Abraham, who then offered Melchizedek a tenth part of the spoils of war.
The author’s first error is in the translation of Melchizedek’s name. It does not mean “King of righteousness.” The etymological conclusions drawn by the author of Hebrews are “technically incorrect. Melchizedek’s name is an ancient theophoric formation meaning ‘Zedek [a Canaanite deity] is my king.’ (The Oxford Bible Commenary, p.1246.) Zedek is certainly not to be identified with the Hebrew god Yahweh. “The cult of Zedek appears to have been well-established in pre-Israelite (Jebusite) Jerusalem.” (K. van der Toom and Bob Becking, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p.930. Google books excerpt) Thus, the author of Hebrews bases the priesthood of Jesus Christ on the priesthood of Melchizedek, who served a false (i.e., non-Jewish) god.
“Salem” was the original name of Jerusalem. See the Catholic Encyclopedia article, “Jerusalem”, as well as Psalm 76:2. As for the title “king of peace,” it would be ironic indeed for a king of peace to receive a share in the spoils of war.
7:3 The lack of details in Genesis allows the author to claim that Melchizedek had existed from the beginning of time. Since the scripture does not mention any father or mother or genealogy, the author concludes that Melchizedek therefore had none. Melchizedek is even “like the Son of God” in this respect, and continues as a priest forever.
Christians are fond of saying that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Thus, the absence of genealogical information does not imply that Melchizedek had no ancesty, or that he existed eternally from the beginning of time to the end. The emperor Tiberius also is mentioned in the Bible (Luke 3:1) with no genealogical information. Does this mean that Tiberius existed from the beginning with God and that his imperial rule exists forever? The author’s extrapolation from the meager details in Genesis to the conclusion that Melchizedek represented a heavenly and eternal order of priesthood is unjustified and unconvincing.
And if Melchizedek was indeed heavenly and eternal and “like the Son of God,” yet was also resident on earth as a man in the form of king of Salem, what was the point of Jesus? The sacrificial role could just as easily have been performed by Melchizedek as the representive of this same priesthood that predated the Levitical order.
7:6 This remark that Melchizedek “does not share their genealogy” reminds us that Melchizedek was not Jewish and did not serve the Hebrew God, but a rival pagan god. (See the comment to 7:1-2.)
7:7 The author offers no support for his allegedly indisputable claim that “the lesser is blessed by the greater.” (NASB) Given his penchant for supporting his points with scripture, the absence of scriptural evidence grabs our attention. But when we look for supporting passages, we find many instances where the lesser does indeed bless the greater, in contradiction to the general claim made by the author. See Deuteronomy 8:10; Psalm 16:7; 2 Samuel 14:22; 1 Kings 1:48. No wonder the author neglected to provide any scriptural quotations for his claim.
7:10 Here the author’s scientific ignorance is on display. It is, of course, factually incorrect to say that Levi was “in the loins” of his great-grandfather Abraham at the time that Abraham met Melchizedek. Levi was three generations removed from Abraham, and there could have been nothing “in the loins” of Abraham that could possibly be identified as Levi, considering that any genetic material constituting Levi would have to be contributed by his mother also, and this DNA would not have been in the loins of Abraham or any of his progeny. Note that the literal Greek here is “in the loins of his father.” But we must take “father” to mean “ancestor” (with the RSV), because to take it literally as “father” makes the claim even more absurd, because Levi’s father (Jacob) also did not exist at the time Abraham met Melchizedek.
The reason for the author’s absurd claim is that he wants to be able to say that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek just as Abraham did, thus establishing Levi’s subordination to Melchizedek and the priestly order he represents. He also has to justify priesthood for Jesus, who was not from the priestly tribe of Levi. (v.14)
7:11 We might ask this same question of the Levitical priesthood. Given that Melchizedek represented the perfect and eternal heavenly priesthood, why was the priestly order of Levi established at all? And then the question of why Jesus had to appear also becomes moot.
7:12 This claim is asserted but not substantiated. The author makes the law serve the priesthood, rather than the other way around. His goal is to eliminate the Hebrew law, and by claiming that a change in the priesthood brings about a change in the law as well, his argument about Melchizedek kills two birds with one stone. Of course, there is no basis in the Old Testament that the law is dependent on the priesthood. Instead, we read that the commandments of the law were to be “perpetual statutes” binding on the Hebrew people. (See Exodus 27:21; Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 23:31, etc.)
In addition to the statutes themselves being perpetual, the priestly status of the tribe of Levi was also to be perpetual, as we read in Numbers 18:23 and 25:13. So the author’s basic premise is shattered by scriptural evidence. There is no scriptural support for the notion that another priestly order – either of Melchizedek of or Jesus - would ever arise to replace that of the Levites. And there is clear evidence that it would not.
7:14 The author must not be familiar with the stories of Jesus’s virgin birth, because he believes that Jesus was descended from the tribe of Judah. The conflicting genealogies of Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38, which both break from the tribe of Judah to allow Jesus to be fathered by the holy ghost, thus conflict with the descent assumed in Hebrews. Paul is on the side of Hebrews, however, in saying that Jesus was born a descendant of David “according to the flesh.” (Romans 1:3)
7:15 Again we must ask, if Jesus arose “in the likeness of Melchizedek” what was the purpose of his appearing at all? Why could not Melchizedek have performed all the priestly functions of this non-Levitical priesthood? Because of the exalted status given to Melchizedek, Jesus himself seems redundant and pointless.
7:18 As we have noted in the comment to 7:12, the Old Testament does not support the notion that the commandments are to be set aside. Instead, they are perpetual, as is the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. But this verse is also contradicted by Jesus himself, who did not “set aside” the commandments of the Hebrew scriptures. Instead he confirmed them (Matthew 5:17) and in some cases made them even more strict. (Matthew 5:28; 5:32; 5:34)
7:21 This swearing was opposed by Jesus in Matthew 5:34, as previously noted.
7:22 The author claims that Jesus represented a better covenant, but the old one was perpetual, and not to be replaced by a newer, better one. (Exodus 31:16; Numbers 18:19)
7:26 In contradiction to the description given here, Jesus did not separate himself from sinners, but ate and drank with them. (Matthew 9:11; 11:19; Mark 2:16-17; Luke 15:2) And as we have already observed, Jesus was not totally blameless and free from sin himself. See the comment to 4:15, as well as the comment to 2 Corinthians 5:21.
7:28 The author is again contradicted by the Old Testament scriptures. It was not the law that appointed men as priests, but God himself. (Numbers 18:23, 25:10-13)
8:1 The point of the argument is that the new priesthood of Christ has supplanted the old inferior priesthood of Aaron and the Levitical priests. The reason that it is inferior rests on an idea borrowed from Plato’s philosophy. The author of Hebrews may not have read Plato, or any of the philosophers who followed him and disseminated his ideas, but the notion of an ideal eternal world and an inferior copy of that ideal world was widely held in Hellenistic times even by those who did not read philosophy. Our author argues that the sanctuary built by the Hebrews under the direction of Moses was but an earthly copy of the pure and eternal sanctuary which exists in heaven and which requires a pure and eternal priest in order to prepare the way for mankind to enter and become close to God.
8:2 The true heavenly “tent” (or “tabernacle”) is contrasted with the one set up by men. The author portrays the ancient Hebrew tabernacle as being an imperfect human creation. However, it was built according to very detailed instructions from God himself. (Exodus chapters 25-27)
8:5 The Platonic idea is here made explicit. The earthly priests serve in a sanctuary which is but an imperfect “copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.” (RSV) This notion derives from God’s instruction to Moses to make the tabernacle according to the “pattern” which God will give him. (Exodus 25:9; 25:40) The author obviously has in mind a two-world view of reality: the perfect, ideal, heavenly, eternal world on the one hand, contrasted with the imperfect, material, earthly, transitory copy on the other. But this is reading too much into the word translated as “pattern,” which need not refer back to another, more perfect original. The fact that God himself made this material world seems to have escaped the author's notice, even though by disparaging the material world, he thus denigrates God’s own handiwork.
8:6-7 How could any new promises be better than those made by God himself to Abraham? The author has already acknowledged in chapter 6 that these promises were from God. (6:13-18) He claims in v.7 that the first covenant was faulty, but here again, God made it, so how could it have been faulty? He is not saying here that the Hebrew people were at fault (although he suggests that in v.8), but that “if the first covenant had been faultless” there would be no need for a second.
Our author cannot walk the narrow line he has drawn for himself. He cannot exalt Jesus as the eternal high priest, without devaluing the promises and commandments of God himself, as set forth in the Old Testament. And despite his careful selection of Old Testament passages to bolster his argument, the passages he ignores – such as Genesis 17:7 and Exodus 27:21 – show that the God of the Old Testament intended the covenant with Abraham, and the priesthood which he established through Aaron, to last forever.
8:8 According to the quotation here from Jeremiah 31:31-34, God will establish a new covenant, but it will not be with the non-Jewish nations. Instead it will be limited to the same “house of Israel” that figured in the old covenant. Christians try to get out of this trap by re-defining the Christian community as the “new” Israel, so the old promises can apply to them. But this blatant ad hoc solution cannot hold up. If words do not have a stable meaning, then they have no meaning at all. If we can arbirarily assign new meanings to old words, then we can “prove” anything we wish.
8:10 Again, any new covenant which is made will be with “the house of Israel,” not with the Gentile nations. This, at least, is consistent with what Jesus himself said when he declared, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24)
8:11 Under the new covenant, according to Jeremiah 31:34, there will be no need for anyone to teach his fellows about God, because “all shall know” him. But Jesus must not have known about this new covenant, because he commanded his followers to preach the gospel to all nations. (Mark 13:10; 16:15; Matthew 24:14; 1 Corinthians 1:17) And God himself appeared in a vision calling Paul to preach the gospel in Macedonia. (Acts 16:10) So v.11 is either a false prophecy, or the author of Hebrews has misused it to further his argument.
8:13 Although the author treats the first covenant with Abraham as “obsolete,” a covenant and a priesthood which God has called “perpetual” (Genesis 17:7; Numbers 25:13) can never become obsolete.
9:3-4 In this description, the altar of incense is incorrectly located in the inner sanctuary (Holy of Holies) with the ark of the covenant. According to Exodus 30:6, the altar of incense “should be in the outer sanctuary” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1248), not inside the Holy of Holies. See also The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.11, p.686.
9:5 To say that “we cannot now speak in detail” about the aforementioned items may simply mean that the details are not relevant and would take us too far from the author’s intended purpose. There is no suggestion that the author could not speak in detail about them if he so wished.
9:9 The author continues to denigrate the ancient Hebrew practices, declaring that these rituals cannot make perfect the conscience of the worshipper. But this view would not have been shared by Jews of the time. “Late Judaism stressed repentance and forgiveness; sacrifice was indeed essential in theory . . . but it did not avail without an inner change of mind and heart.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.11, p.688.)
9:15 The new covenant is only for those who are called. Thus, the “promise of eternal inheritance” is not for all, and cannot be freely chosen by any individual. It is only those lucky enough to be called who will share in the inheritance. But this contradicts what the author told us earlier in Hebrews 5:9, where salvation is for those who obey Jesus. Salvation as a result of God’s calling is also the position of Paul in Romans 9:11, but there are many conflicting theories of salvation throughout the New Testament, as the comment to 5:8-9 points out.
9:19-21 The author’s description of how Moses sealed the first covenant with blood does not coincide in all details with the events related in Exodus 24:5-8. The Hebrews author refers to the blood of calves and goats, but Exodus 24:5 speaks of only the blood of calves (in the Septuagint translation). The “water and scarlet wool and hyssop” which our author speaks of, are nowhere to be found in the Exodus version. And in Exodus 24:7, Moses reads the book of the covenant, but does not sprinkle it with blood, as claimed in Hebrews.
9:22 The shedding of blood is declared to be a necessary condition for the forgiveness of sins. But God’s desire for blood sacrifice is called into question by other passages. In Psalm 40:6, the psalmist speaks to the LORD: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire. . . . Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.” And in Isaiah 1:11, God disdains blood sacrifices, asking “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me? . . . I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.” (NASB) In this Isaiah passage, God goes on to promise that Israel’s sins shall become “white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18) in spite of, and not because of, the fact that their hands are “full of blood.” (Isaiah 1:15). Finally, on more than one occasion during Jesus’s ministry, he forgave sins without requiring any type of blood sacrifice. (Matthew 9:2; Luke 7:47-48)
Furthermore, the Old Testament provides numerous examples of atonement that did not require blood to be shed. Atonement can be obtained by offering money (Exodus 30:15); jewelry (Numbers 31:50); or flour (Leviticus 5:11-13). So there is no scriptural basis for the claim that blood is required for atonement of sins.
In some English translations, the placement of the phrase “according to the law” or “under the law” may give the impression that it is the law which makes shedding of blood a condition for forgiveness. But this impression arises only from the English word order. In the original, it is clear that the final clause stands on its own as a statement of the Hebrews author, and is not attributed to the requirments of the law, which as we have seen, provided for other forms of atonement.
9:23 This is a very bizarre statement. The author very clearly implies that the heavenly things needed purification, but only a “better” sacrifice could accomplish this. The dual reality that he has been following would suggest that the copy (i.e., the created world) would be imperfect, but the pattern (i.e., the ideal) would be perfect by its very nature. Why a perfect heavenly pattern would need purification at all is a question that we would naturally like to put to the author. Or does he really mean to imply that heavenly things are not perfect? Either way, he leads himself into a conundrum.
9:24 Christ here is compared to the earthly high priest, who entered the earthly sanctuary to commune with God, while Christ has entered the true heavenly sanctuary to appear before God on behalf of sinful mankind.
9:26 If Christ’s mission was to “put away sin” then he has failed miserably, considering the behavior of the human race since that time. It is also embarrassing for the author that the “end of the age” (RSV), or “end of the world” (KJV), when Jesus appeared and was sacrificed, has turned out not to be the end of anything at all, but merely one more episode in the history of humankind.
9:27 Here we read that men are appointed to die once, after which the judgment follows. But our author contradicts himself on this point in 11:5 by pointing out that Enoch did not die but was taken up alive directly into heaven. (The OT reference is Genesis 5:24.) The same happened to Elijah (2 Kings 2:11). Paul writes that some of the Christians alive during his time would not die, but would be swept up alive into the sky to meet the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). So the author’s claim that men are appointed to die once is contradicted by these counter-examples from scripture.
10:2 The fact that the sacrifices prescribed by law must be repeated is taken as evidence of their inefficacy. The author then concludes they are not effective because they take place in the shadow world, and not in the real (i.e., eternal, heavenly) realm. If these sacrifices were effective, they would have become unnecessary after turning the worshipers away from sin. Thus, the author demonstrates (to his own satisfaction) the inferiority of the Jewish law to the new law of Christ. But it is easy to counter his argument, by simply noting that the sacrifices had to be repeated because people continued to sin. The sacrifice was to atone for sins already committed, but it did nothing for sins that might be committed later, in which case the sacrifice had to be repeated. So, in the eyes of the Jews, the repetition of sacrifice indicates not that the sacrifices were worthless and ineffective, but that men were incorrigibly sinful.
10:4 Having acknowledged that forgiveness requires the shedding of blood, the author now argues that the blood of animals cannot bring forgiveness. But the whole basis for the shedding of Christ’s blood is that blood atones for sins. Not just Christ’s blood, but blood in general, as illustrated by the ancient sacrifices. If the ancient blood sacrifices had no power to atone for sins, then there is no basis for claiming that Christ’s blood should be able to do so.
In any event, the author is simply wrong when he says the blood of animals cannot bring forgiveness, at least if he adheres to the ancient Hebrew scriptures which he uses to support his arguments. Exodus 30:10 shows that the blood of the sin offering was for the atonement of sins. This was not Christ’s blood, but the blood of animals. Leviticus 4:13-20 also describes how the blood of a bull was to bring about forgiveness of sins for the Israelites. The claim that the blood of animals cannot take away sins has no support in the scriptures. The author of Hebrews is striking out on a new theological direction of his own.
10:5-7 This quotation is from Psalm 40:6-8. They are not the words of Christ, and certainly not Christ’s words when he entered the world. But as is customary with New Testament writers when they quote the Old Testament, our author has chosen only those lines that support his claims. Here, if Psalm 40:6-8 is in Christ’s words, then so is the rest of the psalm, because the speaker does not change. This means that it was also Christ speaking when he said that God “drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog.” (Psalm 40:2, RSV) Is this what the author of Hebrews has in mind for how Jesus came into the world?
But there are even more problems with the author’s use of this psalm, because his interpretation depends on the Greek Septuagint translation which was popular at the time. The original Hebrew does not support the notion that “a body” was prepared for the speaker. In place of this line, the Hebrew has “thou hast given me an open ear.” (Psalm 40:6, RSV) The idea of “body” is critical to the author of Hebrews because he is trying to show that the Old Testament foretold Christ’s incarnation into bodily form, for the purpose of offering this body as a sacrifice for sins. But the whole notion depends on a mistranslation into Greek, and is not present in the original Old Testament scripture.
10:9 Doing God’s will has replaced sacrificial offerings in the new covenant. However, there is another point being made here that causes additional difficulties for the Christians. It is often noted that God allows much suffering and evil in the world, but Christians excuse this by saying that God wants us to have free will, so that following his commandments will be our free choice. This supposedly explains why God did not create man with a better nature to begin with. But free will is never extolled as a value in the Bible. Doing the will of God is always a higher priority than exercising one’s own will, as this passage implies. And this is not the only one. Psalm 40:8, Matthew 6:10; and Matthew 26:42 all emphasize God’s will as supreme. So it cannot be claimed that God allows evil in the world because he holds freedom of human will as a higher value than happiness and virtue.
10:16 The author repeats the quotation from Jeremiah 31:33-34. See the comments to 8:8 and 8:11 for a critique of this usage.
10:24 The author mentions love here, but it is not a strong theme in Hebrews, and is seldom mentioned. Contrast this with the letter of 1 John, where love is the overarching theme and is repeated throughout the letter.
10:25 The “day drawing near” refers to the day of judgment. But how “near” could it have been if two thousand years later it still has not arrived?
10:26 Returning to the theme of verses 6:4-6, the author once again emphasizes that there is only one opportunity to be saved. Those who deliberately sin after receiving salvation, can no longer benefit from Christ’s sacrifice, but will suffer God’s wrath and will face his “fiery indignation.” And this ominous fate is not just for those who explicitly reject the Christian faith, but for anyone who was previously saved and who willingly commits a sin. How many Christians are there today who think they can be repeatedly forgiven for their sins, and who have no idea that they are just as damned as the most unrepentant atheist – at least according to the theology of Hebrews? By this standard, Peter himself would be doomed, because after following Jesus during his ministry, he denied him at the critical moment of his arrest. (Mark 14:72)
10:30-31 Could this wrathful and threatening God who punishes those who reject him be the same one mentioned in 1 John 4:8, where we are told that “God is love”?
10:34 Recalling past days of persecution, the author praises his readers because “you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.” (RSV) Christians of the right-wing who loudly complain about contributing their share to the nation’s tax revenues are obviously not impressed by the author’s point in this verse.
10:37 Once again, we are told that it will be only “a little while” before Jesus returns. Could his readers ever have suspected that “a little while” would mean two thousand years (and counting)?
11:1 This is a famous definition of faith, and it underscores the anti-intellectual viewpoint taken by the New Testament writers. But in reality, what one hopes for is not necessarily sure, and things not seen often are not seen because they do not exist. However, reliance on evidence and reason is not a feature of Christian theology, as Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:19-20 also confirm.
The author will devote this chapter to presenting examples of faith from the Old Testament for the purpose of inspiring his readers to hold firm in their own faith. However, as we shall see, some of the examples are misstated and do not illustrate what the author is trying to show. Indeed, throughout Hebrews we find that the “application of OT passages to Christ or to the contemporary situation usually involves taking them out of their original literary or historical contexts and construing them within a framework of the author’s own devising.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.102.)
11:4 This example is from Genesis 4:3-5. But there is no evidence in Genesis that God accepted Abel’s offering over Cain’s because of Abel’s superior faith. Faith is not mentioned in the Genesis story. God’s preference for Abel’s animal offering over Cain’s offering of grain appears totally arbitrary, based on the information in Genesis. As such, it is not an example of faith as the author claims.
11:5 The story of Enoch is told in Genesis 5:21-24. It is not much of a story, but simply a paragraph in an otherwise unremarkable genealogical list. Enoch is said to have been taken up by God alive into heaven, and so did not die. The author of Hebrews wants us to believe that Enoch escaped death because of his faith, but again, there is no mention of faith in Genesis and no scriptural basis for the author’s claim. There is also nothing in Genesis to support the allegation that Enoch was pleasing to God. To add to the embarrassment, the story of Enoch being taken up into heaven contradicts the principle set forth in 9:27, that all men are appointed to die once.
11:7 According to Genesis 6:22, Noah did indeed follow God’s instructions to build the ark, so we must count this one as an example that illustrates the author’s point about faith in the unseen.
11:8 Abraham did indeed journey out as God told him (Genesis 12:4) but Abraham’s faith in the word of God is highly questionable. When God told him that his old wife Sarah would conceive and bear him a son, Abraham fell on his face laughing at such a ridiculous idea (Genesis 17:17), which hardly indicates a great deal of confidence in the truth of God’s words.
11:11 Neither did Sarah display much faith in God’s promise when he told her she would conceive a child in her old age. Like Abraham, she too laughed in disbelief at what God had told her. (Genesis 18:12) So again, the author of Hebrews has misstated the Old Testament passage on which he relies to make his point about faith.
11:12 The claim is that Abraham’s descendants were as numerous as the stars in heaven. Although the exact number of stars is unknown, observation indicates that in the Milky Way galaxy alone the number is in the hundreds of billions, and we must multiply that by many millions of galaxies to get the total number of stars. (European Space Agency, “How Many Stars are there in the Universe?”) Since the current (2009) population of the world is estimated at less than 7 billion, there is no possible way that Abraham’s descendants could have numbered as many as the stars at the time when the author of Hebrews was writing. Note that he claims that all these descendants had already been born at the time he wrote, so Christians cannot escape from this one by arguing that Abraham’s descendants are still multiplying and may yet reach the astronomical goal.
11:13 Here we are told that all of the people in these examples died without receiving what God had promised them. This does not make God a liar, according to the author’s viewpoint. It simply means that fulfillment of the promise must take place elsewhere, at a later time. Thus, the promise is pushed off into a future heavenly realm. But the statement that all died without receiving what was promised is contradicted in 6:15, where the author noted that “Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise” (RSV) of a multitude of descendants.
11:17 The author of Hebrews again is incorrect in his use of Old Testament scripture. Isaac was not Abraham’s “only begotten son.” Abraham had a previous son Ishmael (Genesis 16:15) whose mother was a slave in Abraham’s household. Ishmael and his mother were later cast out of the house because of Sarah’s jealousy, and Christians like to use this as an excuse for not counting Ishmael, in order to avoid this contradiction. But in speaking to Abraham, God clearly says of Ishmael, “he is your offspring.” (Genesis 21:13, RSV) Thus the contradiction remains between Hebrews and Genesis.
11:20 The supposed “blessing” invoked on Esau was more of a curse. (Genesis 27:39-40) The author also neglects to mention that Isaac’s blessing of Jacob was obtained through trickery, in that Jacob, the second born, tricked the blind old Isaac into thinking he was blessing Esau, the first born. (Genesis 27:15-29) Ironically, this example of deceit is called out in Hebrews as an example of “faith.”
11:21 This verse pictures Jacob (aka “Israel”) “leaning upon the top of his staff.” However, Genesis 47:31 has Jacob bowing over the head of the bed, not his staff. That Jacob was in the bed is shown from Genesis 48:2, which has him struggling to sit up in bed. The reference in Hebrews to “staff” instead of “bed” is due to the author’s reliance on the Septuagint, i.e., the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, on which most of the New Testament authors relied when quoting the Old Testament. However, the Septuagint version of the Genesis passage “has introduced wrong vowels into the unpointed Hebrew text” to come up with “staff” in place of “bed,” which stands in the Hebrew original. (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.11, p.730.)
11:22 In Genesis 50:25 and Exodus 13:19, we find no instructions from Joseph regarding his place or manner of burial. He only tells his brothers to “carry up my bones from here.” Joshua 24:32 tells us that Joseph was buried at Shechem, but contrary to the claim here in Hebrews, there are no such burial instructions from Joseph in the Hebrew scriptures.
11:23 The author of Hebrews continues his misstatement of Old Testament stories by claiming that the parents of Moses were not afraid of the Egyptian king’s order to kill all the Hebrew baby boys. But if they were not afraid, why would they hide the baby Moses? According to the author here in Hebrews, they hid him because he was beautiful, but this makes no sense. The Oxford Bible Commentary notes that “the detail that his parents ‘did not fear’ is unbiblical.” (p.1252.)
11:26 There is no evidence anywhere in the Old Testament that Moses chose to “suffer for the Christ.” (RSV) “How Moses might have understood his sufferings to be ‘for the Christ’ is obscure.” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1252.) It is somewhat doubtful that Moses’ own theological understanding was so advanced that he anticipated the coming of Christ as the world’s savior, because Moses himself did not even know who God was, until God introduced himself. (Exodus 3:13-14)
11:27 The allegation here is that Moses was not afraid of the king’s anger, but left Egypt “by faith.” However, Exodus 2:14-15 tells a different story, describing how “Moses feared, . . . and fled from the face of Pharaoh.” (KJV)
11:28 Here is yet another inaccuracy in referring back to the Old Testament heroes. Moses ordered the Israelites to sprinkle blood on their doorposts at the first Passover, but there is no record of Moses doing so himself, as is claimed here.
11:30 This is another way of saying “by faith thousands of innocent men, women, and children were massacred by the Israelites, as commanded by their God.” See Joshua 6:21, as well as Joshua 8:24-25 for a similar massacre at the village of Ai.
11:35 Perhaps the author has in mind the raising of a woman’s son by Elijah in 1 Kings 17:17-24. However, to say that women in the time of the ancient Israelites “received their dead raised to life again” (KJV) contradicts Acts 26:23, which proclaims Christ as “the first that should rise from the dead.”
11:39 The author still wants to show that the fulfillment of God’s promise is in the future, so he claims here that all these examples of “faith” from the ancient Israelites resulted in no promise being fulfilled on earth. But the examples don’t all show this. In fact, they show Joshua conquering the promised land and winning overwhelming victories against the indigenous population there, as promised by God.
12:2 How can Jesus be the “author” of their faith, when a list has just been cited where those who came before Jesus were given as examples of the faith which should be imitated? And it will not work to claim that Jesus pre-existed all these, because it is Christ who allegedly pre-existed, not Jesus the man. The Greek word translated as “author” also carries the meanings “founder” or “originator.”
12:4 This verse would seem to indicate that the audience being addressed had not suffered martyrdom, or any physical torture.
12:6-7 Quoting Proverbs 3:11-12, the author argues that God disciplines those whom he loves, and scourges every son he receives. Apparently he sometimes crucifies them as well. The Greek verb also includes the meanings “to beat” or “to whip.” This is indeed perverse. The author justifies this cruel treatment by analogy with human parents, but since when do we praise God for following the practices of humans? Furthermore, human parents urge discipline upon their children in order to prepare them for a harsh world which neither they nor their parents can control. If human parents had as much control over their world as God does over his creation, we would no doubt see a lot less discipline, and less need for it.
12:14 This advice to pursue peace with all men conflicts with the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 10:34-35, where he gives notice that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword, and that he has come to set a man against the members of his own household.
12:16 Once again the author misleads us as to the meaning of an Old Testament story. He disapproves of Esau for selling his birthright for a meal. But Genesis 25:29-34 tells us that Esau came in extremely hungy from working in the fields, and asked Jacob to share his porridge with him. But Jacob refused to give Esau any food, unless he first sold him his birthright. Esau, feeling himself about to die from hunger, agreed, but obviously made the agreement under duress. Jacob, hailed by the author of Hebrews as an example of faith, thus violated the principle expressed by Jesus in Matthew 25:35-46, where the heavenly king says, “I was hungry and you gave me no food.” By Jesus’s standards, Jacob would be one of those who go away into eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46) for failing to give food to his hungry brother. So which was worse: Esau selling his birthright, or Jacob’s selfishness?
12:17 As was already noted, the reason Esau did not get the blessing of his father Isaac was that Jacob and his mother tricked Isaac into giving the blessing of the firstborn to Jacob instead. However, it was Isaac’s intention all along to give the blessing to Esau as the first born. (Genesis 27:4)
12:21 Moses is quoted as saying “I am full of fear and trembling.” (NASB) But this quotation is taken from a different context (Deuteronomy 9:19), where Moses fears not the "terrible sight," but the wrath in store for the Israelites because of their sinful behavior.
12:23 The author suggests here that God is the judge of all. But this is contradicted twice: by John 5:22, where we are told that God the Father judges no one, but has given judgment to the Son, and 1 Corinthians 6:2, which tells us that the saints will be the ones who judge the world.
12:26 The readers are warned that God will “shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.” This is quoted from Haggai 2:6, where this shaking is predicted to occur “in a little while.” It has not occurred yet, and the meaning of “a little while” is stretched beyond recognition if it can encompass a period of two thousand years. But the world is actually not supposed to shake at all, according to 1 Chronicles 16:30, where we read that “the world stands firm, never to be moved.” (RSV) (See also Psalm 93:1; 96:10.)
13:1 “Let brotherly love continue”? This author has just cited, with approval, an extreme example of brotherly deceit in the case of Jacob’s treatment of Esau. (See comment to 11:20 and 12:16.)
13:2 The motivation for showing hospitality to strangers seems to be not that they are our fellow human beings, but that they might be angels.
13:4 The author of Hebrews may hold marriage in high honor, but Paul considered it a poor second to remaining single. (1 Corinthians 7:38) In Paul’s view, the married person would be concerned with how to please their spouse, while the unmarried would be focused on pleasing God. (1 Corinthians 7:32-34) Here in Hebrews, the author seems to be unaware of this conflict of interest.
13:5 The advice to be content with what one has may be sound counsel, but it is not original with Christianity. Such guidance was also given by the Stoic philosophers, before any of the Christian texts of the New Testament were written. (See, for example, Seneca’s “On Tranquility of Mind,” and other writings. Also, for a later example, the Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.)
13:6 This quotation is taken from Psalm 118:6.
13:9 Of course the proto-orthodox strand of Christianity considered any position other than their own to be a “diverse and strange doctrine.” Paul even went so far as to invoke a curse upon anyone who taught a different doctrine than his own, even if it should come straight from an angel of heaven. (Galatians 1:8)
13:14 We see here a continuation of the dualistic thinking in which the earth is viewed as a vile and corrupt place, while the heavenly city is held out as the proper abode of God’s faithful, which they will eventually inherit. But Jesus had no such negative view of the earth, for the kingdom of God was to be an earthly kingdom, ruled by divine power. And Jesus preached that the meek would inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5), not some heavenly city.
13:16 We must once again point out that this advice to share what you have was not the followed by Jacob, one of the examples of faith set forth by the author earlier. See the comment to 12:16.
13:17 In counseling his readers to obey their leaders and submit to them, one might think the author is surely referring to church leaders, although the Greek word he uses is not specifically a church term like bishop or elder, but a more general term for “leader,” which could encompass political and military leaders as well. He goes on to say that these leaders are “watching out for your souls.” This still does not necessarily imply that he is talking about religious leaders, because Paul taught that all earthly powers were established by God and every “soul” must be subject to them. (Romans 13:1) Yet Jesus established separate realms for the political and the religious leadership structure when he advised his followers to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) Thus, the counsel here in Hebrews is ambiguous. Is the author advising his readers to obey and submit to the leaders in their church? Or is he advising them to submit to the pagan leaders of the society at large? The distinction is of great importance, as we realize when we consider that many Christians suffered martyrdom for refusing to participate in the pagan sacrifices required by the Empire. But the advice here in Hebrews, and certainly that of Paul, could be interpreted to mean that participation by Christians in such pagan ceremonies was permitted after all.
13:20 To call God the “God of peace” is to ignore the massacres at Jericho and Ai, which were previously mentioned (see comment to 11:30), as well as many other similar examples where God either ordered or encouraged war and mayhem. Nor did Jesus come to bring peace to the world, as is shown by Matthew 10:34-35. And this appelation in Hebrews is directly contradicted by Exodus 15:3, which proclaims: “The LORD [Yahweh] is a man of war.”
13:22-25 Hebrews ends with a traditional letter closing, although there was no greeting at the beginning, nor any indication of who the recipients were. There have been those who surmised that a greeting has been dropped, or that the closing has been added, to the original text, but no decisive arguments have been offered for either hypothesis. (See Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.98.) In any event, whether Hebrews was composed as a letter or a sermon has no bearing on the many contradictions and misinterpretations which it contains.