Hebrews 1:5

For--substantiating His having "obtained a more excellent name than the angels."

unto which--A frequent argument in this Epistle is derived from the silence of Scripture (Heb 1:13; Heb 2:16; Heb 7:3, Heb 7:14) [BENGEL].

this day have I begotten thee-- (Psa 2:7). Fulfilled at the resurrection of Jesus, whereby the Father "declared," that is, made manifest His divine Sonship, heretofore veiled by His humiliation (Act 13:33; Rom 1:4). Christ has a fourfold right to the title "Son of God"; (1) By generation, as begotten of God; (2) By commission, as sent by God; (3) By resurrection, as "the first-begotten of the dead" (compare Luk 20:36; Rom 1:4; Rev 1:5); (4) By actual possession, as heir of all [BISHOP PEARSON]. The Psalm here quoted applied primarily in a less full sense to Solomon, of whom God promised by Nathan to David. "I will be his father and he shall be my son." But as the whole theocracy was of Messianic import, the triumph of David over Hadadezer and neighboring kings (2Sa. 8:1-18; Psa 2:2-3, Psa 2:9-12) is a type of God's ultimately subduing all enemies under His Son, whom He sets (Hebrew, "anointed," Psa 2:6) on His "holy hill of Zion," as King of the Jews and of the whole earth. the antitype to Solomon, son of David. The "I" in Greek is emphatic; I the Everlasting Father have begotten Thee this day, that is, on this day, the day of Thy being manifested as My Son, "the first-begotten of the dead" (Col 1:18; Rev 1:5). when Thou hast ransomed and opened heaven to Thy people. He had been always Son, but now first was manifested as such in His once humbled, now exalted manhood united to His Godhead. ALFORD refers "this day" to the eternal generation of the Son: the day in which the Son was begotten by the Father is an everlasting to-day: there never was a yesterday or past time to Him, nor a to-morrow or future time: "Nothing there is to come, and nothing past, but an eternal NOW doth ever last" (Pro 30:4; Joh 10:30, Joh 10:38; Joh 16:28; Joh 17:8). The communication of the divine essence in its fulness, involves eternal generation; for the divine essence has no beginning. But the context refers to a definite point of time, namely, that of His having entered on the inheritance (Heb 1:4). The "bringing the first-begotten into the world" (Heb 1:6), is not subsequent, as ALFORD thinks, to Heb 1:5, but anterior to it (compare Act 2:30-35).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For unto which of the angels ... - The object of this is, to prove that the Son of God, who has spoken to people in these last days, is superior to the angels. As the apostle was writing to those who had been trained in the Jewish religion, and who admitted the authority of the Old Testament, of course he made his appeal to that, and undoubtedly referred for proof to those places which were generally admitted to relate to the Messiah. Abarbanel says, that it was the common opinion of the Jewish doctors that the Messiah would be exalted above Abraham, Moses, and the angels - Stuart. There is a difficulty, as we shall see, in applying the passages which follow to the Messiah - a difficulty which we may find it not easy to explain. Some remarks will be made on the particular passages as we go along. In general it may be observed here:

(1) That it is to be presumed that those passages were in the time of Paul applied to the Messiah. He seems to argue from them as though this was commonly understood, and is at no pains to prove it.

(2) It is to be presumed that those to whom he wrote would at once admit this to be so. If this were not so, we cannot suppose that he would regard this mode of reasoning as at all efficacious, or adapted to convince those to whom he wrote.

(3) He did not apprehend that the application which he made of these texts would be called in question by the countrymen of those to whom he wrote. It is to be presumed, therefore, that the application was made in accordance with the received opinions, and the common interpretation.

(4) Paul had been instructed in early life in the doctrines of the Jewish religion, and made fully acquainted with all their principles of interpretation. It is to be presumed, therefore, that he made these quotations in accordance with the prevalent belief, and with principles which were well understood and admitted.

(5) Every age and people have their own modes of reasoning. They may differ from others, and others may regard them as unsound, and yet to that age and people they are satisfactory and conclusive. The ancient philosophers employed modes of reasoning which would not strike us as the most forcible, and which perhaps we should not regard as tenable. So it is with the Chinese, the Hindus, the Muslims now. So it was with the writers of the dark ages who lived under the influence of the scholastic philosophy. They argue from admitted principles in their country and time - just as we do in ours. Their reasoning was as satisfactory to them as ours is to us.

(6) In a writer of any particular age we are to expect to find the prevailing mode of reasoning, and appeals to the usual arguments on any subject. We are not to look for methods of argument founded on the inductive philosophy in the writings of the schoolmen, or in the writings of the Chinese or the Hindus. It would be unreasonable to expect it. We are to expect that they will be found to reason in accordance with the customs of their time; to appeal to such arguments as were commonly alleged; and if they are reasoning with an adversary, “to make use of the points which he concedes,” and to urge them as suited to convince “him.” And this is not wrong. It may strike him with more force than it does us; it may be that we can see that is not the most solid mode of reasoning, but still it may not be in itself an improper method. That the writers of the New Testament should have used that mode of reasoning sometimes, is no more surprising than that we find writers in China reasoning from acknowledged principles, and in the usual manner there, or than that people in our own land reason on the principles of the inductive philosophy. These remarks may not explain all the difficulties in regard to the proof-texts adduced by Paul in this chapter, but they may remove some of them, and may so prepare the way that we may be able to dispose of them all as we advance. In the passage which is quoted in this verse, there is not much difficulty in regard to the propriety of its being thus used. The difficulty lies in the subsequent quotations in the chapter.

Said he at any time - He never used language respecting the angels like what he employs respecting his Son. He never applied to any one of them the name Son. “Thou art my Son.” The name “sons of God,” is applied in the Scriptures to saints, and may have been given to the angels. But the argument here is, that the name, my “Son” has never been given to any one of them particularly and by eminence. In a large general sense, they are the sons of God, or the children of God, but the name is given to the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, in a special sense, implying a unique relation to him, and a special dominion over all things. This passage is quoted from Psa 2:1-12; - a Psalm that is usually believed to pertain particularly to the Messiah, and one of the few Psalms that have undisputed reference to him; see notes on Act 4:25; Act 13:33.

This day - see notes on Act 13:33, where this passage is applied to the resurrection of Christ from the dead: proving that the phrase “this day” does not refer to the doctrine of eternal generation, but to the resurrection of the Redeemer - “the first-begotten of the dead:” Rev 1:5. Thus, Theodoret says of the phrase “this day,” “it does not express his eternal generation, but what is connected with time.” The argument of the apostle here does not turn on the time when this was said, but on the fact that this was said to him and not to any one of the angels, and this argument will have equal force whether the phrase be understood as referring to the fact of his resurrection, or to his previous existence. The structure and scope of the second Psalm refers to his exaltation after the kings of the earth set themselves against him, and endeavored to cast off His government from them. In spite of that, and subsequent to that, he would set his king, which they had rejected, on his holy hill of Zion; see Psa 2:2-6.

Have I begotten thee - See this place explained in the notes on Act 13:33. It must, from the necessity of the case, be understood figuratively; and must mean, substantially, “I have constituted, or appointed thee.” If it refers to his resurrection, it means that that resurrection was a kind of “begetting” to life, or, a beginning of life; see Rev 1:5.

And yet though Paul Act 13:33 has applied it to the resurrection of the Redeemer, and though the name “Son of God” is applied to him on account of his resurrection (see notes on Rom 1:4), yet I confess this does not seem to me to come up to “all” that the writer here intended. The phrase,” The Son of God,” I suppose, properly denotes that the Lord Jesus sustained a relation to God, designated by that name, corresponding to the relations which he sustained to man, designated by the name “the Son of man.” The one implied that he had a special relation to God, as the other implied that he had a special relation to man. This is indisputable. But on what particular account the name was given him, or how he was manifested to be the Son of God, has been the great question. Whether the name refers to the mode of his existence before the incarnation, and to his “being begotten from eternity,” or to the incarnation and the resurrection, has long been a point on which people have been divided in opinion.

The natural idea conveyed by the title “the Son of God” is, that he sustained a relation to God which implied more than was human or angelic; and this is certainly the drift of the argument of the apostle here. I do not see, however, that he refers to the doctrine of “eternal generation,” or that he means to teach that. His point is, that God had declared and treated him as “a Son” - as superior to the angels and to human beings, and that this was shown in what had been said of him in the Old Testament. This would be equally clear, whether there is reference to the doctrine of eternal generation or not. The sense is, “he is more than human.” He is more than angelic. He has been addressed and treated as a Son - which none of the angels have. They are regarded simply as ministering spirits. They sustain subordinate stations, and are treated accordingly. He, on the contrary, is the brightness of the divine glory.

He is treated and addressed as a Son. In his original existence this was so. In his incarnation this was so. When on earth this was so; and in his resurrection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God, he was treated in all respects “as a Son” - as superior to all servants, and to all ministering spirits.” The exact reference, then, of the phrase “this day have I begotten thee,” in the Psalm, is to the act of “constituting” him in a public manner the Son of God - and refers to God’s setting him as king on the “holy hill of Zion” - or making him king over the church and the world as Messiah; and this was done, eminently, as Paul shows Acts 13, by the resurrection. It was based, however, on what was fit and proper. It was not arbitrary. There was a reason why he should thus be exalted rather than a man or an angel; and this was, that he was the God incarnate, and had a nature that qualified him for universal empire, and he was thus “appropriately” called “the Son of God.”

(No doctrine is advanced, by pressing into its service, such texts as sound criticism declares not strictly to belong to it. Yet, without doubt, many advocates of the eternal Sonship have done violence to this passage, with the design of upholding their views. That doctrine, however, happily is not dependent on a single text; and ample ground will remain for its friends, even if we admit, as in candor we must, that our author has fully made out his case against this text as a proof one. It seems clear, that neither σήμερον sēmeron nor its corresponding היום haayowm can denote eternity; of such signification there is no example. The sense is uniformly confined to limited duration, Psa 95:7; Heb 4:7. The order of the second Psalm, too, certainly does prove that the “begetting” took place after the opposition which the kings and rulers made to Christ, and not prior to it. Accordingly, the text is quoted elsewhere in reference to the resurrection of Christ, Rom 1:4; Act 13:33. Besides, the chief design of the apostle in the place is not so much to show why Christ is called the Son of God, as simply to direct attention to the fact that he has this name, on the possession of which the whole argument is founded. He inherits a name which is never given to angels, and that of itself is proof of his superiority to them, whether we suppose the ground of the title to lie in his previous existence, or, with our author, in his incarnate Deity. But on this question, it must be admitted, that the passage determines nothing.

All this is substantially allowed by Owen, than whom a more stanch supporter of the doctrine of eternal Sonship cannot be named. “The apostle, in this place,” says he, “does not treat of the eternal generation of the Son, but of His exaltation and pre-eminence above angels. The word also, היום haayowm, constantly in the Scripture, denotes some signal time, one day, or more. And that expression, ‘this day have I begotten thee,’ following immediately upon that other typical one, ‘I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion,’ seems to be of the same import, and in like manner to be interpreted.” On the general doctrine of the Sonship, the author has stated his views both here and elsewhere. That it is eternal or has its origin in the previous existence of Christ, he will not allow. It is given to the second person of the Trinity because he became God incarnate, so that but for the incarnation and the economy of redemption, he would not have had this name. But the eternal Sonship of Christ rests on a body of evidence, that will not soon or easily be set aside. See that evidence adduced in a supplementary Note under Rom 1:4. Meanwhile we would simply ask the reader, if it do not raise our idea of the love of God, in the mission of Christ, to suppose that he held the dear relation of Son previous to His coming - that being the Son, he was sent to prove what a sacrifice the Father could make, in yielding up one so near, and so dear. But this astonishing evidence of love, if not destroyed, is greatly weakened, by the supposition that there was no Sonship until the sending of Christ. See also supplementary note under Heb 1:3.)

“And again, I will be to him a Father.” This passage is evidently quoted from 2Sa 7:14. A sentiment similar to this is found in Psa 89:20-27. As these words were originally spoken, they referred to Solomon. They occur in a promise to David that he should not fail to have an heir to sit on his throne, or that his throne should be perpetual. The promise was particularly designed to comfort him in view of the fact that God would not suffer him to build the temple because his hands had been defiled with blood. To console him in reference to that, God promises him far greater honor than that would be. He promises that the house should be built by one of his own family, and that his family and kingdom should be established forever. That in this series of promises the “Messiah” was included as a descendant of David, was the common opinion of the Jews, of the early Christians, and has been of the great body of interpreters.

It was certainly from such passages as this, that the Jews derived the notion which prevailed so universally in the time of the Saviour that the Messiah was to be the son or the descendant of David; see Mat 22:42-45; Mat 9:27; Mat 15:22; Mat 20:30-31; Mar 10:47-48; Luk 18:38-39; Mat 12:23; Mat 21:9; Joh 7:42; Rom 1:3; Rev 5:5; Rev 22:16. That opinion was universal. No one doubted it; and it must have been common for the Jews to apply such texts as this to the Messiah. Paul would not have done it in this instance unless it had been usual. Nor was it improper. If the Messiah was to be a descendant of David, then it was natural to apply these promises in regard to his posterity in an eminent and special sense to the Messiah. They were a part of the promises which included him, and which terminated in him. The promise, therefore, which is here made is, that God would be to him, in a special sense, a Father, and he should be a Son. It does not, as I suppose, pertain originally exclusively to the Messiah, but included him as a descendant of David. To him it would be applicable in an eminent sense; and if applicable to him at all, it proved all that the passage here is adduced to prove - that the name “Son” is given to the Messiah - a “name” not given to angels.

That is just the point on which the argument turns. What is implied in the bestowment of that name is another point on which the apostle discourses in the other parts of the argument. I have no doubt, therefore, that while these words originally might have been applicable to Solomon, or to any of the other descendants of David who succeeded him on the throne, yet they at last terminated, and were designed to terminate in the Messiah - to whom pre-eminently God would be a Father; compare the introduction to Isaiah, section 7, iii. (3), and the notes on Isa 7:16.

(The promise, doubtless, had a special reference to the Messiah. Nay, we may safely assert, that the chief reference was to him, for in the case of typical persons and things what they adumbrate is principally to be regarded. So here, though the original application of the passage be to Solomon, the type of Christ, yet it finds its great and ultimate application in the person of the glorious antitype. However strange this double application may seem to us, it is quite in accordance with the whole system of things under the Jewish dispensation. Almost everything connected with it was constructed on this typical principle. This the apostles understood so well, that they were never stumbled by it, and what is remarkable, and of the last importance on this subject, “never for a moment drawn from the ultimate and chief design of a promise or prophecy” by its primary reference to the type. They saw Christ in it, and made the application solely to him, passing over entirely the literal sense, and seizing at once the ultimate and superior import. The very passage in question 2Sa 7:11-17, is thus directly applied not only here, but throughout the New Testament; Luk 1:32-33; Act 2:30, Act 2:37; Act 13:22-23. Now certainly the apostles are the best judges in matters of this kind. Their authority, in regard to the sense of passages quoted by them from the Old Testament, is just as great as in the case of the original matter of the New Testament. That Christ was indeed principally intended is further evident from the fact, that “when the kingdom had passed from the house of David,” succeeding prophets repeat the promise in 2 Sam. 7: as yet to be fulfilled. See Jer 33:14, Jer 33:26. Now connecting this fact with the direct assertion of the writer of the New Testament above referred to, every doubt must be removed.

It will be alleged, however, that while the direct application to the Messiah, of this and other prophecies, is obvious and authoritative, it is yet desirable, and they who deny inspiration will insist on it as essential, to prove that there is at least nothing in the original places, whence the citations are made, inconsistent with such application. Such proof seems to be especially requisite here; for immediately after the words, “I will be his Father and he shall be my Son,” there follows: “if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men,” 2Sa 7:14; which last sentence, it is affirmed, cannot, in any sense, be applicable to the Messiah. It has been said in reply, that though such language cannot be applied to Christ “personally,” it may yet refer to him as the “covenant head” of his people. Though there be no iniquity in him, “such fallings and transgressions as disannul not the covenant, often fall out on their part for whom he undertaketh therein.” In accordance with this view, it has been observed by Mr. Pierce, and others after him, that the Hebrew relative pronoun אשׁר 'asher should be translated “whosoever;” in which case, the sense is, whosoever of his “children,” that is, the Messiah’s, shall commit iniquity, etc. And to this effect indeed is the alteration of the words in Psa. 89, where the original covenant is repeated, “if his children forsake my law - then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.”

Perhaps, however, the better solution of the difficulty is what at once admits, that the words in question cannot apply to the antitype but to the type only. It is a mistake to suppose, that in a typical passage every thing must necessarily have its antitypical reference. The reader will find some excellent and apposite remarks on this subject in Dr. Owen’s commentary on the place. “No type,” says that judicious writer, “was in all things a type of Christ, but only in that particular wherein he was designed of God so to be. David was a type of Christ, but not in all things that he was and did. In his conquests of the enemies of the church, in his throne and kingdom, he was so; but in his private actions, whether as a man, or as a king, or captain, he was not so. Nay, not all things spoken of him that was a type, even in those respects wherein he was a type, are spoken of him as a type, or have any respect unto the thing signified, but some of them may belong to him in his personal capacity only. And the reason is, that he who was a type by God’s institution, might morally fail in the performance of his duty, even then and in those things wherein he was a type. And this wholly removes the difficulty connected with the words ‘if he sin against me;’ for those words relating to the moral duty of Solomon, in that wherein he was a type of Christ, namely, the rule and administration of his kingdom, may not at all belong to Christ, who was prefigured by God’s institution of things, and not in any moral deportment in the observance of them.”

These observations seem to contain the true principles of explication in this and similar cases. The solution of Prof. Stuart is not materially different. “Did not God,” says he, “engage, that David should have successors on his ‘earthly’ throne, and also that he ‘should’ have a son who would sit on a ‘spiritual’ throne, and have a kingdom of which David’s own was but a mere type? Admitting this, our difficulty is diminished if not removed. “The iniquity committed is predicated of that part of David’s seed, who might commit it,” that is, his successors on the ‘national’ throne, while the more exalted condition predicated of his successor, belongs to Him to whom was given a kingdom over all.”)

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

2. Proof of this transcendence from Old Testament texts, Heb_1:5-14.

5. For—To prove this superiority of the eternal Son over the angels, our author now quotes six texts from the Old Testament. The modern interpreter, especially of the rationalistic type, finds not a little difficulty in applying these passages to Christ. But if, as in our Introduction we have indicated, the very purpose of our inspired apostle is to take the Alexandrian interpreters at their own word, and confirm all their brightest ascriptions and descriptions of the eternal Word, and affirm them of Christ, and thence show with what a glory even his humiliations are thereby irradiated, little difficulty need be felt in the interpretations here given. Says Delitzsch, “This epistle forms a link between the later Pauline epistles and the writings of John, and excels all others in the New Testament in the abundance of what cannot be merely accidental resemblances to Alexandrine modes of thought and expression. To us, indeed, it seems indisputable that the Jewish theology of the last few centuries before Christ, in Palestine, and more especially in Alexandria, did manifest many foregleams of that fuller light which was thrown on divine things in general, and on the triune nature of the Godhead in particular, by the great evangelical facts of redemption; nor can the admission that so it was prove a stumbling block to any but those who think that the long chain of divine preparations for the coming of Christ, on which the whole outward and inward history of Israel is strung, must have been broken off abruptly with the last book of the Old Testament canon. Is it, then, possible that the Book of Wisdom (Heb_7:26) should speak of the Sophia as απαυγασμα φωτος αιδιου—a beaming forth of the eternal light (Philo, De Cherub) of God—as αρχετυπος αυγη, archetypal splendour; and now our author of Him who was manifested in Jesus as απαυγασμα της δοξης αυτου, without these several terms having any internal historical connexion?”

At any time—Though angels are incidentally called sons, this is not their permanent name as significant of their nature. No one angel is ever mentioned or addressed as Son.

Thou—Quoted from Psalm ii, where see notes. The psalm was applied by the Jewish commentators to the Messiah as well as by the Jerusalem Church. Act_4:25.

This day—As addressed by the Author to a human Son, anointed to be king in Zion, the phrase is of course temporal. It means “This day [it stands true that] I have [from eternity] begotten thee.” Even here, therefore, it does not mean that the exaltation and anointing are identical in time with the begetting. And this seems to refute those who in its higher application to Christ refer the begetting to his resurrection or to his incarnation.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE SON SUPERIOR TO THE ANGELS. Heb_3:1 Here the argumentation of the Epistle begins, the thesis of the first section of the argument having been given, as aforesaid, in the preceding verse, that "the SON is superior to the angels." The second section begins at Heb_3:1, the thesis being that "the SON is superior to Moses." Through angels and Moses the Law was given: "Ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator", (Gal_3:19) the "mediator" being Moses. To show that the Son, in the Old Testament itself, is represented as above both, is to show, what it is the main purpose of the whole Epistle to establish, that the gospel, given through the SON, is above the Law, and intended to supersede it. The conclusion is that the gospel stands in the same relation to the Law as does the Son to angels, who are but "ministering spirits," and to Moses, who was but a "servant." With regard to the agency of angels in the giving of the Law, we do not find it so evident in the Old Testament as might have been expected from the references to it in the New. The "angel of Lord," who appeared to (Exo_3:2) and went before the people, (Exo_14:19 Exo_23:20, etc.) seems in the earlier books of the Bible to signify a certain presence and manifestation of the Lend himself, rather than a created minister of his will; (see Gen_16:7, 13 22:15, 16 Exo_3:2, 4 23:20, 21; of Act_7:31, Act_7:35, Act_7:38) and this has been identified by theologians with the Word, not yet incarnate, through whom all Divine communications have been made to men. It is to be observed, however, that, after the sin of the golden calf, a distinction seems to be made between the presence of the Lend with his people and that of the angel to be thenceforth sent before them. (Exo_33:2, Exo_33:3) Ebrard sees in the "angel of the LORD" generally, though understood as signifying a Divine presence, a justification of the statement that the Law was given "through angels," on the ground that, though God did so manifest himself, it was not a direct manifestation, as in the Son, but through forms borrowed from the sphere of the angels. It was an angelophany, denoting an unseen Divine presence, not a true theophany. The only distinct allusion to "angels," in the plural, in connection with the giving of the Law, is in Deu_33:2, "He came with ten thousands of saints;" with which comp. Psa_68:17. But there is no doubt that it came afterwards to be the accepted rabbinical view that the dispensers of the Law were angels whether as attendants on the Divine Majesty, or as agents of the fiery phenomena on Mount Sinai (natural operations being often attributed to angels), or as the utterers of the voice that was heard. "Locutus est Deus per angeles" (Bengel). And the writers of the New Testament plainly recognize this view. (see below, Heb_2:2 Act_7:53 Gal_3:19) Hence our author takes for granted that his readers will understand and recognize it, and so implies it in his argument, expressing, as it does, a true conception of the nature of the Mosaic dispensation, and especially of its relation to the gospel. To resume our view of the argument that follows. The first section (as aforesaid) is from Heb_1:5 to Heb_3:1, having for its thesis the superiority of the SON to angels. The second section is from Heb_3:1 to Heb_5:1, having for its thesis the superiority of the Son to Moses. Each section consists of two main divisions, between which in each ease an appropriate exhortation is interposed; the first division in each ease treating of what the Son is in his own person, the second of his work for man; and both sections leading separately to the conclusion that he is the High Priest of humanity. Then, in Heb 5, the subject of his priesthood is taken up. Ebrard happily illustrates the symmetrical plan of the argument thus: "The author, having thus been led from these two different starting-points to the idea of the arciereuv , now proceeds to place on the two first parts, which may be viewed as the pillars of the arch, the third part, which forms the keystone." In this third part it begins to be shown, at Heb_5:1, how Christ fulfilled in his humanity the essential idea of priesthood. But, for reasons that will appear, the full doctrine of his eternal priesthood is not entered upon till Heb 7:1-10:19, which may be called the central portion of the whole Epistle. The remainder Heb_10:20 end) may be distinguished from the rest as being the distinctly hortatory part (though her-ration has been frequently interposed in the argument), being mainly devoted to practical application of the doctrine that has been established. The following plan of the argument of the first two sections, showing the parallelism between them, may assist us in entering into it as it proceeds:

SECTION I

Thesis: Christ superior to the angels.

Division 1. (Heb_1:5-14; Heb_2:1)

The name SON, as applied to the typical theocratic kings, and in its final reference and full meaning (as you all acknowledge) pointing to the Messiah, expresses a position altogether above any assigned anywhere to angels. The Son is represented as one associated with God in his majesty, a sharer of his everlasting throne. Angels are referred to only as ministering spirits or attendant worshippers at the Son"s advent.

Interposed exhortation. (Heb_2:1-5) This being so, beware of not appreciating the revelation now given in the Son. In transgression of the Law given through angels was so severely visited, what will be the consequence of neglecting this, accredited to us as it has been?

Division 2. (Heb_2:5-18; Heb_3:1)

The Son also, but never angels, is denoted in prophecy as Lord of the coming age. For the eighth psalm (based on and carrying out the idea of the account in Genesis of the original creation) assigns a supremacy over all created things to man. Man, as he is now, does not fulfill the ideal of his destiny. But Christ, as Son of man, in his exaltation, does. And in him man attains his destined dignity forfeited through sin. His humiliation, suffering and death were for the purpose of thus raising man. His humiliation with this and was a design worthy of God, and in accordance with the purport of Messianic prophecy. For such prophecy intimates association and sympathy of the Messiah with his human brethren. Thus Christ, the SON, is the sympathizing High Priest of humanity.

SECTION II

Thesis-Christ superior to Moses.

Division 1. (Heb_3:1-7)

Moses is represented in the Old Testament as but a servant in the house of God. The SON is lord over the house.

Interposed exhortation. (Heb_3:7-19; Heb_4:1) This being so, beware of hardening your hearts, like the Israelites under Moses. If they failed, through unbelief, of entering into the rest offered to them, you may similarly fail of entering into the rest intended for you.

Division 2. (Heb_4:1-16; Heb_5:1)

A rest, symbolized by that of the promised land, is still offered to you, and you may enter into it. The ninetieth psalm shows that the rest into which Joshua led the Israelites was not the final one intended for God"s people.

The true rest is the rest of God himself (" my rest," Psalm 90), spoken of in the account of the creation the sabbath rest of eternity. Christ, after sharing our human trials, has passed into that eternal rest, and won an entrance into it for us. Thus, again, a renewed exhortation being interposed, Christ, the SON, is again set forth as the sympathizing High Priest of humanity.

Ver. 5. For to which of the angels said he at any time. Observe the form of the question, which has been already noticed. It is not, "When were angels ever called sons?" but to this effect: "To which of them did he ever speak (individually) in the following remarkable terms?" The first quotation is from Psa_2:7; the second from 2Sa_7:14. The second having had undoubtedly a primary reference to Solomon, and the first presumably to some king of Israel, probably to David, we may here properly pause to consider the principle of the application of such passages to Christ. It must be allowed that, not only in this Epistle, but in the New Testament generally, sayings which had a primary reference to events or personages in the past, are applied directly to Christ; and in some eases where the justness of the application may not be to all of us at first sight obvious. With regard to this usage, Bengel says, "Veri interpretes verborum divinorum sunt apostoli; etiamsi nos sine illis talem sententiam non assigneremur." But such applications are plainly not arbitrary. They rest on a principle of interpretation which it is of importance for us to understand. First, we may observe that the method was not originated by the New Testament writers; it was one received among the Jews of their time, who saw throughout the Old Testament anticipations of the Messiah. This appears both from rabbinical literature and also from the New Testament itself. For instance, the priests and scribes consulted by Herod (Mat_2:5) referred Mic_5:2 as a matter of course to the Messiah; and the Pharisees (Mat_22:44) never thought of disputing the application of Psalm 110. to him. And not only so. The Old Testament itself suggests and exemplifies such applications. For students of the prophetic writings must be aware how utterances that had a primary fulfillment in one age are sometimes taken up in a subsequent one as though yet to be fulfilled, their scope enlarged, and their final reference often thrown forward to "that day the Messianic age which alone terminates the view of the later prophets. Now, it has been said, in explanation of this mode of treatment, that prophecy often had a double meaning, referring partly to one thing and partly to another; or several meanings, with reference to several different things. But this way of putting the matter is unsatisfactory. Bacon better hit the mark, when, in a well-known passage in his "Advancement of Learning" (bk. 2.), he spoke of "that latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto Divine prophecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, and therefore are not fulfilled punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplishment throughout many ages; though the height or fullness of them may refer to some one age." We may put it thus: It was of the nature of prophetic inspiration to lift the seer above and beyond his immediate subject to the contemplation of some grand ideal, which it suggested to his vision, and more or less perfectly fulfilled. He has, for instance, as the basis of his vision, a David, a Solomon, a Hezekiah, or a Zerubbabel; he has as its framework the circumstances of his own time or of the time near at hand; but we find his language, as he proceeds, rising far above Iris vision"s original scope, and applicable to those comprised within it only so far as they embody and realize the ideal which they represent to his mind. Hence the taking up of old prophecies by succeeding prophets, their enlargement and reapplication to new fulfillments; and this, too, in terms transcending the reality of these new fulfillments; as, for instance, when Isaiah, taking up the idea of Nathan"s message to David, (2Sa 7) applies it apparently to a son and a reign to be looked for in his own age, but at length in language which can have no other than a Messianic reference. (Isa_9:6, etc.; 11:1, etc.; of. Jer_33:15) Hence, lastly, the application in the New Testament of all such ancient utterances at once to Christ, as being the final and complete fulfillment of the ideal of prophecy, the true Antitype of all the types. A clear perception of this view of the drift of prophecy will remove difficulties that have been felt as to the application of many quotations from the Old Testament, in this Epistle and elsewhere, to Christ. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee; a quotation from Psa_2:7. This psalm is expressly quoted as David"s in Act_4:25, and has internal evidence of being his, and of having had primary reference to his reign. For the mention of Zion (ver. 6) precludes an earlier date, while the circumstances of warfare alluded to do not agree with the peaceful reign of Solomon, nor the picture of undivided empire with any period after the secession of the ten tribes. Further, the rising and consequent subjugation by David of subject races, described in 2Sa 8, presents to us a state of things very likely to have suggested the psalm; and to this period of David"s reign it is usually referred with probability by modern commentators. But the question of date and authorship is not material to our view of the prophetic meaning of the psalm. Taking it to be David"s, we find as follows: There is a rebellious confederation of subject kings against the dominion of the King of Israel, who is spoken of as "the Anointed" of the LORD. In view of their hostile preparations, the LORD in heaven is conceived as laughing to scorn their devices against him whom he himself had enthroned on Zion. Then the king speaks, "I will declare the decree or, "I will tell of a decree; the Load said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and for thy possession the ends of the earth." Then follows an admonition to the rebels to do homage to this SON, submission to whom is submission to the Loan, and whose anger is as the LORD"S anger. Now, it is evident that the language used transcends literal application to any earthly king. Hence some commentators have been led to suppose that it had no even primary reference to one, being simply prophetic of the Messiah, though suggested by the circumstances of David"s day. Thus Ebrard, supporting his view by the assumption (which is usually made) of the message of Nathan to David (2Sa_7:14) being the "decree" referred to in the psalm, and the foundation of the confidence expressed in it. He argues that it was not to David, but to his posterity (rz), that the position of sonship was assigned, and eternal dominion promised; and hence that David in this psalm (which he considers to have been certainly by him) must have been speaking, not in his own name, but in that of his seed after him, looking adoringly forward to the fulfillment of that glorious hope in the distant future. (2Sa_7:19) Thus, he concludes, the insurrection of the Syrians forms merely the occasion, but not the object and import, of the second psalm. But, even if the message of Nathan were certainly the basis of the idea of the psalm, we find an instance of the express application of that message to David himself; as well as to his posterity, in Ps 89. (see vers. 20-28). It may be, however, that the reference in the psalm is to some Divine intimation, possibly to some prophecy or oracular utterance, delivered to David himself at the time of the inauguration of his own sovereignty, and long before Nathan"s message. In any case, it is in accordance with the genius of prophecy, as above explained, that the words should have had a primary reference to David himself, so far forth as he imperfectly fulfilled their meaning. The main thing to be observed is that they represent an ideal of sonship and unlimited sovereignty beyond any that could, as a matter of fact, be considered as fulfilled in David. And this view of its meaning, suggested by the psalm itself, is confirmed by the use made of it in later Scripture. For it is evident that this psalm, together with the passage from 2Sa 7 (to be cited next) is made the basis of a long series of Messianic prophecies. (of 2Sa_23:1, etc.; Ps 110 Ps 89 Ps 132 Isa 7-9 11:1, 10 Jer_23:5 Jer_33:15 Mic 4-5 Zec_6:12, etc.) Its application to Christ in the New Testament is distinct and frequent. (cf. Act_4:25 Act_13:33 Rom_2:27 Rom_12:5 Rom_13:1-5) As to the phrase, "This day have I begotten thee," there is a difference of view among both ancient and modern expositors. The word "begotten" (gegennhka) naturally suggests monogenhv , and is hence taken by some as referring to the eternal generation of the Son; in which case it can have had no application in any conceivable sense to the human type. "This day" has also in this case to be explained as denoting the ever-present today of eternity. So Origen, in a striking passage, "It is said to him by God, to whom it is always today. For God has no evening, nor (as I deem) any morning, but the time which is coextensive with his own unbegotten and eternal life is (if I may so speak) the day in which the Son is begotten, there being thus found no beginning of his generation, as neither is there of the day." Athanasius takes the same view; also Basil, Primasius, Thomas Aquinas, and many others. The main objection to it is the inapplicability of such a meaning of the words, even in a subordinate sense, to David or any other king of Israel. Alford, indeed, urges that this meaning agrees best with the context in the Epistle, on the ground that the eternal being of the Son, having been stated in the exordium, might be expected to be referred to in the proof. But this is hardly to the point. The writer has now begun his argument from the Old Testament, and is engaged in showing the idea involved in the term Son as applied therein to the Messiah. This, therefore, and not what he has said previously, is what we have to regard in our interpretation; and the most obvious view of the phrase, as it occurs in the psalm itself, is to regard it as a figure denoting forcibly the paternity of God; of. Jer_2:27, "They say to the wood, Thou art my father; to the stone, Thou hast begotten me." It expresses the idea that the "Son of God" spoken of derives his existence as such from him, and not from human ancestry. Chrysostom, among the ancients, understands the phrase as thus referring to the sonship assigned to the Messiah in time, and not to his eternal being. This view being taken, "this day," in reference to the king, may mean the day of the "decree," or that of his enthronement on Mount Zion. In reference to Christ it has been variously understood of the time of his incarnation, or resurrection, or ascension. If it be thought necessary to assign any definite time to it in its application to Christ, the view of its being the day of the resurrection is supported by such passages Col_1:18, prwtotokov ek twn nekrwn : and Rom_1:4, tou orisyentov uiou Yeou en dunamei ... ex anastasewv nekrwn : of. Act_2:30 and Act_13:32, etc., "The promise that was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again: as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." This last text, be it observed, is almost conclusive against the eternal generation being understood as referred to; as is also the application of the same text infra, Heb_5:5, where it is quoted in proof of Christ"s appointment to the eternal priesthood. "The title of begetting is ofttimes in sacred language to be measured, not by the scale of philosophers" or naturalists" dialect, but of moral or civil language or interpretation. For they that are sons by adoption only, or next heirs by reversion to a crown or dignity, are said to be begotten of those which adopt them, or of whom they be the immediate heirs or successors: and in this sense in the sacred genealogy (Mat_1:12) Jeconiah is said to have begotten Salathiel. So that David upon his own occasions (whether upon his anointing to the crown of Judah in Hebron, or of Israel in Zion) might in the literal sense avouch these words of himself, "I will preach the law whereof the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." For David to call the day of his coronation, or of his designation to the crown of Judah, or of all Israel, his birthday, or begetting of God, by whose special power and providence he was crowned, is not so harsh as some haply would deem it that either know not or consider not that it was usual in other states or kingdoms beside Judah to celebrate two natales dies, two solemn nativities or birthdays in honor of their kings and emperors: the one they called diem natalem imperatoris, the other diem natalem imperii; the one the birthday of the emperor when he was born of his natural mother, the other the birthday of him as he was emperor, which we call the coronation day. The reason might hold more peculiar in David than in any other princes, because he was the first of all the seed of Abraham that took possession of the hill of Zion, and settled the kingdom of Judah, prophesied of by his father Jacob, upon himself and his posterity Thus Ego hodie genuite, with submission of my opinion to better judgment, is a prediction typically prophetical, which kind of prediction, as hath been observed before, is the most concludent; and this one of the highest rank in that kind; that is, an oracle truly meant of David according to the literal sense, and yet fulfilled of Christ, the Son of God, by his resurrection from the dead, both according to the most exquisite literal and the mystical and principally intended sense" (T. Jackson"s "Works," bk. 9: Heb 31:6, Heb 31:7, Oxford edition, 1844, vol. 8. p. 411). And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son; (2Sa_7:14) from Nathan"s message to David, which has been spoken of above. The words do not in themselves express so unique a sonship as those used in the psalm; but, viewed in connection with the psalm, with their own context, and with subsequent prophecy, they suggest the same meaning. David had formed the design of building a temple; Nathan, by the word of the Loire, forbids his doing so, but tells him that his "seed" after him should build a house for the LORD"S Name, and that the Load would establish the throne of his kingdom for ever." Then comes the text," I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son;" followed by, "If he commit iniquity, I will chastise him with the rod of men... but my mercy shall not depart away from him And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever." Now, there can be no doubt that there was a primary and partial fulfillment of this promise in Solomon, who built the temple after David"s death. He took it to himself, so far as it was applicable to him, after his completion of the temple. (1Ki_8:17, etc.) But it is equally evident that its meaning could not be exhausted in him. The eternity assigned to the throne of the kingdom points to a distant as well as an immediate fulfillment, and the word translated "seed" (Hebrew, rz), though applicable in a concrete sense to an individual offspring, (1Sa_1:11) is properly a collective noun, denoting "posterity," and thus naturally lends itself to a far-reaching application. The consideration, however, of especial weight in support of such application is that psalmists and prophets cease not to make this original promise the basis of Messianic prophecy. See, not only Ps 2, which may or may not refer to it, but also Ps 89, and Ps 132, together with other passages which have been referred to in connection with the second psalm. Thus we may properly apply to this particular passage the view of the meaning of prophecy which has been set forth in general terms above, according to which we must regard Solomon, with respect to the sonship assigned to him as well as to his kingdom and the house which he was to build, as but a type and imperfect realization of a grand ideal to be in due time fulfilled.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Heb_1:5. Angels.—Properly, any living being carrying out the Divine will is an angel, a messenger, a servant. But the word “angel” is precisely kept for such messengers as belonged to other than the earthly sphere. The angelophanies of the Old Testament were foreshadowings of the revelation in the “Man Christ Jesus.” Said He.—The interrogation is intended to be a strong negation. Begotten Thee.—Constituted Thee; but the term is designed to indicate the different relation in which Christ stands to God and the angels stand to Him. To angels He is Creator; to Christ He is Father. Three references of the term have been assigned:

(1) the eternal generation of the Son;

(2) His incarnation;

(3) His full manifestation, as the obedient Son, in His resurrection. “The idea of the eternal generation of the Son is the pure offspring of the metaphysics of the Greek Fathers, rather than of New Testament teaching” (Barker).

Heb_1:6. Again.—Read as R.V. “when He again bringeth.” First-begotten.—R.V. “firstborn.” Another expression for Son, but adding to Son the right of primogeniture. Son and Heir. Only Son and only Heir. See Rev_1:5; Col_1:15; Col_1:18; Rom_8:29; Heb_12:22-23. The quotation may be from Psa_97:7, or Deu_32:43. The latter is the more probable source, as the LXX. Version reads, “Rejoice, ye heavens, along with Him, and let the angels of God worship Him.”

Heb_1:7. The difficulty of this verse lies in its setting inanimate things after animate. Delitzsch renders, “Who maketh His messengers out of winds.” The writer’s point appears to be this: As even material objects may be the messengers or angels of God, so to be an angel in the higher sense is to be no more than a minister of the Divine will. But the Son is one with the Divine will, and in doing that will does His own. Dr. Moulton explains in another way: “The meaning appears to be that God, employing His messengers for His varied purposes, sends them forth in what manner He may please, clothing them with the appearance of the resistless wind or the devouring fire.”

Heb_1:8. Sceptre of righteousness.—Lit. “rod of straightness.”

Heb_1:10. The 102nd Psalm is not so clearly Messianic; but if the consciousness of the original writer was aware of nothing more definite than a description of the eternity of Jehovah, it is yet competent to an inspired New Testament writer to tell us that this language is applicable to our Lord.

Heb_1:14. The word for ministering, λειτουργικά, is not classical, but it is used in the LXX., and it implies “sacred service.” Heirs of salvation.—Because salvation is conceived as both a present state and a final fruition: “Made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit_3:7). The Jewish conceptions of angels need not be made into a Christian angelology.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_1:5-14

The Service of a Servant and the Service of a Son.—The essential dignity of Christ is seen in a contrast between a servant and a son. Angels are taken for the first contrast because they are the highest form of servants that man can conceive, because their work was in the world before that of Moses, and because they were directly associated as ministers with the earlier dispensation. Angels have a very prominent place in the Old Testament Scriptures. They are the servants of the Divine house, agents who do the Divine Master’s bidding, “ministering spirits.” The contrast of angels, the servants, with Christ as the Son is a fair one, because Christ is Himself one of God’s angels, a ministering spirit. He said of Himself: “I am among you as He that serveth”; “I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” But the contrast between the Angel-Christ and other angels is very striking and impressive. “To which of the angels has God said at any time, Thou art My son; this day have I begotten thee?” Of the angels this kind of thing is said, “Who maketh winds His angels, and flames of fire His ministers.” Of the Son this unique kind of thing is said, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom.”

I. Ministry to others is common to a servant and to a son.—The Scripture is full, from Genesis to Revelation, of the ministering of the angels to the sons of God. They kept the way of the Tree of Life, lest our erring first parents should stamp immortality upon their sin. They visited the patriarch Abraham, to give him knowledge of the Divine thought concerning Sodom. They went up and down that ladder of help between earth and heaven which Jacob saw in his night-visions. One mysterious angel wrestled with the anxious patriarch on Jabbok-side, through the long night unto the breaking of the day. He who came down to Sinai to give His fiery law was attended by thousands of angels. Grieved at the sin of His people, Jehovah almost withdrew His promise to go with them, and offered Moses to provide an angel-guide instead. An angel-form cheered Joshua with assurances as he entered on the invasion of Canaan. To Manoah the angel brought the tidings of the coming hero who should be born in his house. Angel-help was so fully realised by the psalmist that he could assure his heart in this—“He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways: they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” An angel with a drawn sword stood over Jerusalem when David’s presumption must be punished. An angel kept three Hebrew youths safe from harm in the very midst of the fire, and the prayerful man unharmed among the lions. Angels brought the promise of a forerunner, and of a Messiah; and with their joy-songs angels heralded Messiah’s birth. Angels waited on Jesus in His time of temptation. Angels watched the place where they laid Him dead. Angels spoke the promise of His coming again. Angels led apostles out of their prison-house. Angels brought revelations in lonely Patmos. And angels are to be with Jesus when He cometh in His glory. Everywhere we may find illustrations of the many-sided truth, that God uses agents to carry out His purposes of wisdom and grace. Sometimes He uses men; sometimes the various forces of nature; sometimes He calls for the service on our behalf of these creatures of His who belong to other spheres than ours, and yet can come into our spheres, exert influence on us, and even become apprehensible to our senses. There seem to be in some of these angel-manifestations of the Old Testament foreshadowings and suggestions of the glorious incarnation of the Son of God. It is not unreasonable that we should reverently recognise the Angel-Jehovah in Abraham’s visitor, and in Jacob’s night-wrestler. But the work of ministering is not the work of angels alone. It is the noble side of all relationships, human and Divine. It gives the distinction between the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God. The spirit of the world is “getting”; the Spirit of God is “serving.” Seeking the good of himself is man’s temptation to sin. Seeking the good of others is the sure indication of man’s recovery to virtue. Only as he becomes an angel, a “ministering spirit,” does man enter into full kinship with God, with God in Christ. Angels are our helpers; but it is also true that angels are our teachers, our examples. We learn from them what is the noble life, what our life would become if, from us, the self-seeking of our sinfulness were wholly taken away. “Ministering “—that is the Divine idea, for the Divine Being Himself, and for all the creatures that are made in the Divine image. We can rise no higher than that, for that is the sublime height of God Himself. God works. That is true, but His work is a ministry of blessing for His creatures. He is always about our path and our lying down—the infinite Angel, ever doing us good. Call nature-forces by some grand name of law, which takes the living will and beating heart out of them, and you make our human life poor and low indeed. Let the winds be God’s angels, and the storms God’s angels, and the spring-breathings God’s angels, and the gentle rain God’s angels. Winter snow, and spring sunshine, and summer rain, and autumn heat are God Himself ministering—they are His own angel-service to His creatures. When God takes upon Him our human nature, shadows Himself in human form, then we see an angel, a ministering spirit—the Angel of the Covenant. The angel-mark is most plain on all the human life of Jesus. He “went about doing good.” Service was the characteristic of His most blessed life. His lesson on ministering was given in the upper room, when He went round and washed the disciples’ feet. We may call that the great angel-lesson. For the work of Christ’s Church will go into these few words, “ministering unto the necessities of saints.”

II. The ministry of a servant is doing another’s will.—It is the characteristic of a servant that he does not share in his master’s counsels; he “knoweth not what his lord doeth.” He does not understand the plan into which his work fits. Enough for him to receive definite commands without questioning, and to fulfil them without hesitation. The Lord Jesus Christ, recognising this as the characteristic of servants, lifted His relations to His personal disciples into a higher plane. He said to them, “I have called you friends; for whatsoever I have heard of the Father I have made known unto you” (Joh_15:15). But confidential servants are still servants who take their commands from another. Even if they are permitted to consult with their master, the decision rests wholly with him, and his will is done, not theirs. Even angels cannot be thought of as doing their own will. There are vague allusions to some who “lost their first estate” because they resolved to follow their own wills. Servants are not inventive: they make no plans; they only carry out plans. Their essential attitude is figured in the seraphim of Isaiah’s vision: “Each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly”; or, twain he held poised ready in a moment to fly, when a command came from the throne (Isa_6:2).

III. The ministry of a son is doing his own will.—Not as distinct from, or opposed to, his father’s will, but as being his father’s will. Ideally, in relation to the exercise of authority, the son’s will is the same as the father’s; and our Lord continually asserted the absolute identity of His will with the Father’s. The servant puts his own will aside in order to do the master’s will. The Son does His own will in doing his Father’s. This indicates an essential distinction between angels and Christ. Some help may be gained from an illustration of the sentiments entertained on a great landed estate. All the officials and servants, even up to the steward, have simply to do the nobleman’s will. But the son and heir is treated with the same respect as the father, and is recognised as having the same unique authority. Applying this distinction between servant and son to the mission of redemption, we see that angels and prophets executed certain parts of the mission that were entrusted to them, but were not in the secret of the connections of the parts, or of the Divine purpose; but Christ, the Divine Son, carried out a mission which was His own design, because His Father’s—the expression of His own love, because of His Father’s love; and it was wrought by His own authority, which was His Father’s. Thus in so many ways the writer of this epistle presses on attention the superiority of the Christian dispensation, in that it was administered by One who occupied so unique a position, who belonged to so different a range of beings.

The highest conception of life, then, is ministering service. However exalted in rank and station a man may be, and whatever his degree of authority may be, his true dignity lies in being, as Christ was, an angel-helper, ever “waiting on his ministering.”

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Heb_1:5. Figurative Use of the Term “Begotten.”—God’s appointment to an office, or, more exactly, His removing of all obstacles and putting a man actually into the office He has appointed for him, is called “begetting him.” Thus David was Divinely begotten when he was set by God as king upon the holy hill of Zion. “I have this day established thee as My chosen king, and thus constituted thee My son.” When this figurative use of the term is clearly apprehended, we are relieved from anxiously endeavouring to understand, what never can be understood, the mysterious eternal relations of the Divine Father and the Divine Son. Our Lord was “begotten” when the fulness of times had come, when preparations were completed, when obstacles were removed, and He could be put into His office, and could begin His work as Messianic Saviour. “Begotten” rather suggests “giving birth to” than “conceiving.”

David’s Son and Lord.—Wonder not to find one and the same to be the Prince and Priest, God and man, the rod and root, the root and the offspring of David his son, and yet his Lord; for these things belong to one Person, who is both God and man; some of them as He is God, and some of them as He is man, and some as God-man.—Jerome.

The Worship of the Angels.—Often the idea of worship in Scripture is not “offering religious homage to,” but “solemnly recognising the dignity of.” It is often what may be understood by “worthship,” or recognising and acknowledging the worth or superiority of a person. That appears to be the idea of the word “worship” in this verse. It is not necessary to the writer’s argument to show that angels offer the Divine Son religious homage; it is to the point to show that they recognise His unique person, His transcendent worth, His special rights, and His extraordinary commission. There may be ranks and orders of angels, as servants, but they never for one moment think of classing Christ even with any in their highest ranks. They worship Him as one altogether beyond the angel, the servant, range.

Fatherhood apprehended through Sonship.—“I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son.” As Son, “the express image of [the Father’s] person.” When Christ came into the world, He said plainly to His disciples, who were supposed to understand Him, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” We may then say that it is the work of every man to find the Father in Christ. No man has truly seen the Son who has not found the Father in Him. And if we may think of God as our Father, we shall surely have the truest and most trustful view of Him. If God is pleased to reveal Himself to any of His creatures, He must do so through the nature of those creatures. If God determined to show Himself to man, He must not come to him as a cherub or as an angel, but as a man. So we are told, “Verily He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.” But there are varieties of aspects under which man may be viewed, according to the relationships in which he stands; and besides coming as a man, God must show Himself in some particular form of man. Men are kings, or prophets, or judges, or husbands, or fathers, or sons, or brothers; and God must make choice of the one among the many forms of relationship—forms of manhood—which shall most perfectly represent Him. We need not assume that God has restricted Himself to just one aspect. He is indeed represented as Shepherd, Husband, Friend, Prophet, Priest, and King; but we can have only one feeling—that if God should be pleased in a special manner to choose the form and term of Father, He would come nearest to us, and give us the very tenderest and holiest suggestions concerning Himself. Many try to persuade themselves that they are bound to think of God chiefly as a King. Certain exigencies of Christian doctrine absolutely demand the conception of a Moral Governor. But surely it should not be difficult for us to recognise that the term Father involves all the righteousness, authority, and government included in kingship, and is altogether a higher and profounder conception. None of us can say that we feel our hearts at all stirred by the mention of a king. A king is a person to be feared, obeyed, and served, but not necessarily a person to be loved. But there never has been age or land in which the dearest thoughts, and tenderest memories, and most reverent feelings of men’s hearts, have not gathered round the idea of father and of mother: for men everywhere parents have presented the ideals of all that was pure, and true, and reverent, and good. It must be that we shall come near to God, if He be indeed the “Everlasting Father.” It is sometimes said that the term “Father” will not do for God, because it makes Him out to be all kindness and indulgence, and shrouds all His awful attributes with a veil of love, making Him indeed to be all love. But if it does, what could be more deeply true? Do we not read, “God is love”? When men realise what an uncompromising, searching, holy thing love is, they will never be afraid to say of Him, “God is love.” But this representation of the Fatherhood of God is most imperfect and unworthy. We never for a moment think of passing by justice and authority in order to exalt love, when we call God “our Father.” Would it be fair to say of any good earthly father, “He is all love, all indulgence; there is no justice, no reverence, no government in him”? The better father he is, the more authority he exercises, the more holy fear he demands. What is God to you when you think of Him as King? Do you not feel as if He were shifted right back, out of sight, out of reach—seated on a glorious throne, and you outside the gates, the great shut gates? Thoughts of majesty, glory, august power, and exact judgment, oppress you. You feel that, as a King, tremendous considerations, wide as the infinite creation, sway His decisions, amidst which you may easily become a forgotten trifle. But what is God to you in those moments when you can realise that He is a Father indeed? Is there any failing of reverence for Him? Is your sense of justice, righteousness, law, authority, weakened when you think of Him as Father? You may try to make God great by describing His Kingship; we will sit at the feet of Christ the Son, and learn from Him how rightly to know the true God and eternal life. And Christ shows us a weeping prodigal, pressing his face into a father’s bosom; heart is beating to heart—the one in all the anguish of penitence, the other in all the anguish of pitying, fatherly love. Now the father’s arms are round the restored boy; and who shall say that all highest law is not vindicated, when that father wipes away the tears, and calls for music and dancing, the best robe and the fatted calf? How deep to our hearts it goes if we may call God our Father! Who ever saw weeping rebels lying on kings’ bosoms? It must be that we are deeper, far deeper, into the very heart of truth about God, if He will let us think of Him as our “Father in heaven.” And is this truth of the Divine Fatherhood one which must be put under limitations and restrictions? Must it be anxiously guarded from possible misconceptions, and shielded round as belonging to men only under certain conditions? It is enough to reply, Christ never fenced it off. Christ never limited its application; then why should we? Christ never seemed afraid of preaching it freely everywhere. He evidently expected to bless men, to awaken a new spirit in men, the true spirit, the child-spirit, by telling them of their Father in heaven. If we follow Christ, we too will show men the Father-God everywhere in Christ’s life and teaching; the Father-God especially in death, sacrifice, and atonement. Believe then in the Father. Learn of Christ the Son so to believe. Then the Spirit of the Son will grow strong in you; and from Jesus, your brother, you will learn well how to be a son of the heavenly Father.

Heb_1:6. Christ’s Incarnation.—The doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is as important as any in the whole Bible, and it stands not on one or two doubtful passages of Scripture, but on the plainest and almost numberless declarations of the inspired writers. In the passage before us the apostle is showing the infinite superiority of Jesus above the highest orders of created beings; and he adduces a whole series, as it were, of testimonies in proof of this point. The one which we have now read is taken from the 97th Psalm, and confessedly relates to Jesus.

I. Christ is a proper object of Divine worship.—

1. The command contained in the text is itself decisive upon the point. God is a jealous God, and claims Divine worship as His inalienable prerogative; yet He at the same time requires it to be given to His Son. Therefore the Son is worthy of that high honour.

2. The practice of the Christian Church confirms it beyond a doubt. Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and addressed himself to Jesus. St. Paul under buffetings of Satan applied to Jesus for relief, and was answered; for from that time he “gloried in his infirmities.” The whole Church of God worships Christ.

3. To worship Christ is the highest act of obedience to the Father. Every knee shall bow to Jesus. All must “honour the Son, as they honour the Father.”

II. His incarnation affords a special call to all, both in heaven and earth, to worship Him.—

1. His incarnation affords the brightest discovery of the Divine perfections. The angels had seen God’s wisdom, power, and goodness in the creation and government of the world. But the Incarnation revealed His condescension and grace. The angels sang “Glory to God in the highest,” and so should we.

2. It opens a way for our reconciliation with God. When Christ was manifested in the flesh, His mediatorial work commenced; and that course of sufferings and obedience, which is the meritorious ground of our acceptance, was begun.

3. It reunites men and angels under one Head. Jesus, by becoming man, gathers together again both men and angels under Himself as their common Head. In heaven saints and angels join in one general chorus, ascribing “salvation to God and to the Lamb.” To enforce the injunction we would say:

(1) Welcome Him. Be not indifferent. Sing hosannas. Captious Pharisees may condemn; but if we keep silence, the very stones will cry out against us.

(2) Submit to Him. Jesus has set up His kingdom. “Kiss the Son.” Present your offerings before Him, in token of your allegiance and unreserved subjection to His will.

(3) Depend upon Him. Let His vicarious sufferings and obedience be the stay and support of your souls.

(4) Glory in Him. Since He is the boast of all in heaven, let Him be the boast of all on earth. Let the frame of your hearts be joyous. Exulting and triumphant, worshipping Him here, you shall be brought to worship Him for evermore in heaven above.—Charles Simeon, M.A.

Heb_1:7. Material Angels.—The Hebrew words for “angels” and “spirits” (Psa_104:4) have double meanings; the former denoting also messengers, the latter “winds.” The psalmist thought of those subtle but powerful agents, wind and fire, as created by God, and employed to execute His will. And in perfect accordance with the spirit of the psalmist, the verse is applied here to angels, whose inferiority to our Lord Jesus Christ is indicated by the fact that they are ranked as messengers with these subordinate physical agencies. Sir Harry Vane has this quaint remark, “As man in his bodily state was made dust of the ground, so the angels were made a flame of fire in their natural constitution.” “The force of the passage lies in the vividness with which it presents the thought of the Most High served by angels who ‘at His bidding speed,’ untiring as the wind, subtle as the fire.”

Angels.

I. The nature of angels.—Spirits.

II. The Lord of angels.—“Who maketh,” etc. What must His own spirituality be who maketh spirit?

III. The ministry of angels.—

1. Their office. “Ministers.”

2. Their activity or zeal. “A flaming fire.”

3. Their dependence. Made ministers.—G. Rogers.

The Psalmist’s Figures.—“Who maketh His angels ‘into’ winds, His ministers ‘into’ flaming fire” (Psa_104:4). It is a poet who writes. His spirit, at the moment that we listen to him, is in one of its loftiest moods. His language is by no means intended to be strictly scientific or tamely prosaic. It glances, representatively, at the phenomena of storms, and especially of thunder-storms, which have always excited among men a profoundly ethical interest. The rapidity of movement in the perturbed elements, the fury of the gale rising into the hurricane or the tornado, the lurid grandeur of the flashes as they fitfully illumine the over-arching darkness, strike into an attitude of solemn and religious awe every unsophisticated spirit. The psalmist spoke as a true hierophant of nature, and of human nature, when he assumed that in these storms there is the presence and agency of God. And not His solitary presence and agency alone. He is surrounded with His spiritual attendants. And when He has designs of retributive providence to fulfil, He sends them forth on His errands, investing them for the occasion with what phenomena may be befitting—the phenomena of the hurricane, the thunder, or the gleaming bolts of fire. That is, “He makes His angels tempests, His ministers a flame of fire.” When we gaze on the storm-drift, and feel awed by the flashes that leap out from the darkness, lo, God’s ministers are there! His servants are working there!—J. Morison, D.D.

Heb_1:8. The Son’s Kingdom is Spiritual.—To convince men of this was the apparently unsuccessful endeavour of our Lord’s public teaching, but more especially of His esoteric teaching of His disciples. The keynote of His kingdom was “righteousness.” The force of His kingdom was moral goodness; and the triumphs of His kingdom were triumphs over moral evil. His dealings with physical and material evils were strictly illustrative of His true work. His kingship and kingdom are indicated in His answer to Pilate: “To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice” (Joh_18:37). Righteousness belongs to character. To work righteousness is to work in man’s moral and spiritual nature. The kingdom of a son is a kingdom of obediences, submissions, and services, and these are things of character—spiritual things.

(1) The Son’s kingdom is a kingdom of spiritual beings.

(2) The Son’s rule is a spiritual rule.

(3) The Son’s aim is a spiritual aim.

(4) The Son’s acceptance with the Father is based on His spiritual work of “bringing sons unto glory.” But the redemptive, regenerative, restorative, and sanctifying work which the Son does in souls will be sure to reach out its influence so as to embrace the body and the earthly relations. The spiritual proves to be the all-inclusive. “The kingdom of God is within you.” Then it is you, wherever you may be found, and in whatever relations you stand.

Heb_1:10. The Quotation from Psalms 102.—If the writer had deemed it necessary to account for the use that he makes of the passage, he might have unfolded his idea in some such manner as the following: “And in truth, since it is the Son, who, as we have seen, is the manifestive effulgence of the Father’s glory, and the manifestive impress of the Father’s hidden substance; and since, consequently, it is the Son, who, in manifestation of the Father, acted in the creation of the universe, and still acts in the maintenance of all things by the word of His power,—the grand words of the 102nd Psalm are truly and admirably descriptive of His super-angelic glory.” We need to divest our minds of the stiff artificialities of logic which we are too apt to bring with us when we come to the unsophisticated representations of Scripture.—J. Morison, D.D.

Heb_1:10-11. The Agency of the Divine Son in Nature.—The writer sees a distinct reference to the Second Person of the Divine Trinity in the allusion of the psalmist. But this must involve a Christian reading of the Old Testament Scriptures, as it would be impossible to prove that the Jews ever thought of their expected Messiah as the Second Person of a Divine Trinity. Indeed, so intense was the Jewish jealousy of their nation’s truth—the unity of God—that it is not conceivable that they ever accepted any formulated doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. We may find intimations of the threefoldness of God in the Old Testament, but it is important that we should recognise the doctrine of the Trinity as a Christian creation. It would seem to have been a prevailing thought of the age of the apostles, that the Divine Son was the agent in the creation of the world; for Philo represents his Logos to have been the instrument in creation. And the apostle Paul (Col_1:15-16) makes an important point of this relation: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation: for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things have been created through Him, and unto Him: and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” We have to be equally jealous of the two truths, that of the Divine Unity and that of the Divine Trinity. We have to watch carefully lest Tritheism should get into our conceptions, under some subtle guise. Relative to the material world we may think in this way: We may associate God the Father with the design of it; God the Son with the execution of the design; God the Spirit with the quickening of the life in it, which was a part of the design. Or it may be put in this way: God, the one, is the Creator of all things. But when we think of the design of creation, it is God absolute we think of. When we think of earth actually taking shape, it is God acting in the sense-sphere we think of. When we think of that unseen, mysterious thing as associated with material beings, it is the Spirit-God, breathing life, that we think of. The distinctions in God are in our apprehension of Him, whatever else they are.

Heb_1:12. His Unfailing Years.—“And thy years shall not fail.” We are asked to adore and to trust this changeless One. But can we? Is He not too unlike ourselves? Must there not be some congeniality of nature, some touch in Him of oneness with us before we can enter into such a fellowship of love and trust? Yes, we do crave a real sympathy; and a real sympathy can only be felt by one who is truly, or who has been truly, in the human conditions. As we are constituted, if we knew God simply as abstract Deity, as infinite Being, with Divine qualities, but without the living, breathing, human presentation of them—if He were God indeed, but not “God manifest in the flesh,” He would not be to us so fully and perfectly, and so much to our hearts’ satisfaction, “the Lord our God.” We need some one unlike ourselves—some one who does not change or pass away; and yet we need some one like ourselves, with all our best affections, our greatest qualities, perfectly realised and enshrined in himself. This we have in Jesus of Nazareth, and alone in Him. Who is it whose “years” shall not fail? He who was born into a human home, who grew up from childhood to manhood like us—He it is whom we are asked to trust. Here is our refuge, and we find a perfect security in it—a security which we need at all times as mortal and as sinful creatures, but of which we feel the need especially when, by common consent, we make a barrier in our thought between the years. Where can a fountain of consolation be found for human weariness, distress, solicitude, sorrow, if not in Him who sounded all depths of mortal misery, travelled through the wide expanse of all human need, died our human death, and rose victor for us in life immortal?—Alex. Raleigh. D.D.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1

Heb_1:11. God ever the same.—On every Mohammedan tombstone the inscription begins with the words, “He remains.” This applies to God, and gives sweet comfort to the bereaved. Friends may die, fortune fly away, but God endures—He remains.

Contrast of the Created and the Uncreated.—The heavens and the earth—those who know them best have them most, for they know best their glory; but they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and when they shall have served their purpose God shall fold them up and lay them by, and as a vesture shall He change them, and they shall be changed, but He is the same for ever and His years shall not fail. Why should they? What are years to God? Time did not make Him. He made time, and can unmake it, and then it will be eternity, not time, and a thousand years will be as one day, and, what is more, one day will be as a thousand years.—C. Kingsley.

Heb_1:14. The Ministry of Angels,—“Are they not all ministering spirits,” says St. Paul, “sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?” In this passage we are plainly taught that ministering to the saints is a standing employment of angels throughout the ages of time. Accordingly they are exhibited in Jacob’s vision of a ladder as “ascending and descending” from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven continually in the discharge of this great duty. According to this declaration also we are furnished by the Scriptures with numerous examples of their actual ministry to the children of God. Thus angels delivered Lot from Sodom, Jacob from Esau, Daniel from the lions, his three companions from the fiery furnace, Peter from Herod and the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the nation of the Israelites successively from the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Assyrians. Thus they conducted Lot, Abraham, and the Israelites in seasons of great difficulty and danger to places and circumstances of safety and peace. Thus they conducted Gideon to the destruction of the Midianites, Joseph and Mary to Egypt, Philip to the eunuch, and Cornelius to Peter, to the knowledge of the gospel through him, and to the salvation of himself, his family, and his friends. Thus angels instructed Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah, Daniel, Zechariah the prophet, Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, the apostles, and their fellow-disciples. Thus they comforted Jacob at the approach of Esau, Daniel in his peculiar sorrows and dangers, Zechariah in the sufferings of his nation, Joseph and Mary in their perplexities, Christ in His agony, the apostles and their companions after His resurrection, Paul immediately before his shipwreck, and the Church universally by the testimony and instruction given in the Revelation of St. John.—Dnight.

Two Kinds of Angels.—The Rabbins have a beautiful bit of teaching buried among their rubbish about angels. They say that there are two kinds of angels—the angels of service and the angels of praise, of which two orders the latter is the higher, and that no angel in it praises God twice, but having once lifted up his voice in the psalm of heaven, then perishes and ceases to be. He has perfected his being; he has reached the height of his greatness; he has done what he was made for: let him fade away. The garb of legend is mean enough, but the thought it embodies is that ever true and solemn one without which life is nought: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God.”—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Angels.—Curious and extravagant notions have been entertained about the angels. The Rabbins taught the strangest things. They say that the ministry of angels may be divided into two parts—that of praising God, and that of executing His behests. In regard to the praising there are six hundred and ninety-four thousand myriads who daily praise the name of God. From sunrise to sundown they say, “Holy, holy, holy,” and from sundown to sunrise, “Blessed be the Glory of God from His place.” Every day ministering angels are created, whose apparent destiny is only to raise the praises of God, after which they pass away into the fiery stream whence they originally issued. A new angel is created to execute every behest of God, and then he passes away. It is characteristic of the Oriental, and especially of the Semitic mind, to see in every event, even the most trivial, a direct supernatural interference, wrought by the innumerable unseen ministers—both good and evil—of the Divine will.

The Sight of the Angels.—As it is given us in the night of this world to behold the heavens studded with stars, great, glorious, and beautiful, in like manner has Scripture opened to our view a sight of the blessed angels. They appear as stars around us, but no unconcerned spectators in their silent watches. Michael, “who is as God”; Gabriel, “the strength of God”; Raphael, “the healing of God” (so their names signify). They are ministering spirits sent by Him, shadows of His presence. He has revealed to us their deep concern for our welfare, their active ministrations about us day and night, and especially their peculiar regard for those who are of a meek spirit, and despised of the world. What a dignity does this shed on our daily life!—Isaac Williams, B.D.

Every Man’s Angels.—In a Turkish allegory every man is said to have two angels—one on his right shoulder, and another on his left. When he does anything good, the angel on the right shoulder writes it down, and seals it, because what is done is done for ever. When he does evil, the angel on the left shoulder writes it down. He waits till midnight. If before that time the man bows his head and exclaims, “Gracious Allah! I have sinned; forgive me!” the angel rubs it out; and if not at midnight, he seals it, and the angel upon the right shoulder weeps.

The Angels of the Grass.—The Talmud says, “There is not a thing in the world, not even a tiny blade of grass, over which there is not an angel set.”

Ministering Angels.—

They are evermore around us, though unseen to mortal sight,

In the golden hour of sunshine and in sorrow’s starless night,

Deepening earth’s most sacred pleasures with the peace of sin forgiven,

Whispering to the lonely mourner of the painless joys of heaven.

Seeing all our guilt and weakness, looking down with piteous eyes,

For the foolish things we cling to and the heaven that we despise;

They have been our guardian angels since the weary world began,

And they still are watching o’er us for His sake who died for man.—Anon.

The Angel-helper.—How sentimental ideas of angels cling about us, and may helpfully cling, is illustrated in the story of one Theodorus, a martyr who was put to extreme torments by Julian the Apostate, and dismissed again by him when he saw him unconquerable. Rufinus, in his history, says that he met with this martyr a long time after his trial, and asked him whether the pains he felt were not insufferable. He answered that at first it was somewhat grievous, but after a while there seemed to stand by him a young man in white, who with a soft and comfortable handkerchief wiped off the sweat from his body (which through extreme anguish was little less than blood), and bade him be of good cheer, insomuch as then it was rather a punishment than a pleasure to him to be taken off the rack. When the tormentors had done, the angel was gone.

Ministrant Spirits.—Angels are “all,” without exception, ministrant spirits. Their duties are ever “liturgical,” never lordly or regal. They render the service of lieges to the Lord of the universe, and are busied on the footstool, while Jesus sits on the throne. Even when charged with their highest behests, they but help, in some minor respects, the disciples of our Lord. They are sent forth to minister “for them”—that is, “for their benefit.”—J. Morison, D.D.

Heaven a Place of Universal Ministry.—Dr. George Macdonald makes a quaint character in Thomas Wingfold, Curate, dreamily figure the heavenly state, and, behold, all things seem to go on there even as here on earth. There is buying and selling, but there is no getting gain, because every one has learned the glory of “ministering,” and so each one just serves his brother—each one hoping for nothing again, each one getting everything by getting the service of his brother. Could there be a sublimer, or a more enchanting conception of heaven, the home of God, of whom we may reverently think as the “infinite Angel,” the glorious and eternal Ministrant, who ennobles ministry for all His creatures by His own unceasing service?

Heb_1:14. Angel-service.—Service is not an incident in the history of angels; it is their whole history. This category suits the nature of angels so far as we have the means of knowing it. They are associated with the elements and powers of nature—are these under another name. They are changeable in form, appearing now as winds, now as fire. They are perishable, transient, as the pestilence and the storm, as tongues of flame, or the clouds, or the dew. They are one and many in turn: the one splitting up into the many, and the many recombining into one. They are impersonal, or imperfectly personal, lacking will and self-consciousness. Thinking, deliberating, resolving, is not their affair, but execution: “Ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure.” They are incapacitated for rule by the simplicity of their nature. The angel-princes cannot take a wide survey of a nation’s character and desert, like the prophets. They are blind partisans, mere personifications of national spirit. As a matter of course each angel-prince takes his nation’s side in a quarrel. A prince of Persia is on the side of Persia, and the prince of Greece on the side of Greece. A human will is the meeting-place of many forces brought into harmony; an angelic will is a single force moving in a straight line towards a point. Angels are mere manifestations or expressions of the will of God. To impute to them dominion were to infringe on the monarchy of God, it were to reinstate paganism. Angel-worship is nature-worship under another name, not improved by the change of name. No wonder the author of this epistle is so careful to connect angels with the idea of service. It is his protest against the angelolatry which had crept into Israel from Persian sources.—A. B. Bruce, D.D.

Angel-succour.—

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,

And come to succour us who succour want!

How oft do they with golden pinions cleave

The flitting skies like flying pursuivant,

Against foul fiends to aid us militant!

They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant,

And all for love and nothing for reward.

Oh! why should heavenly God for men have such regard?—Spenser.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

II

Scripture proof of the elevation of Jesus Christ as Son of God, and being above the Angels

Heb_1:5-14.

5For to which of the angels said he at any time: Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again: I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a 6 Son? And again: When he bringeth in [and when he shall a second time6 have introduced ὅταν δὲ πάλιν εἰσαγάγῃ, 2 Aor. Subj.=Perf. Fut.] the First-begotten into the 7 world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. And of [in respect, indeed, to] the angels he saith, who maketh his angels spirits [winds] and his ministers 8 a flame of fire; but unto [in respect to] the Son he saith: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a [And1: a] sceptre of righteousness [rectitude εὐθύτητος] is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 9Thou hast loved [lovedst ἠγάπησας] righteousness, and hast hated [hatedst ἐμίσησας] iniquity7; therefore God, even thy God, [O God, thy God] hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 10And, thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid [didst lay] the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thy hands: 11they shall perish, but thou remainest,8 and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, 12and as a vesture9 shalt thou fold [roll]10 them up, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. 13 But to [and in respect to] which of the angels said he at any time [hath he ever said εἴρηκέν ποτε], sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool? 14Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation [for ministration for the sake of those (διὰ τούς) who are to inherit salvation?]

[Heb_1:6.—And when he shall have again introduced, etc. Both the position of πάλιν, and the connection of the thought, point decidedly to this construction. The reference is (de W., Lün., Ebr., Del., Alf., Moll.) to the re-introduction of Christ into the inhabited world (ἡ οἰκουμένη) at His second coming. It may be rendered again, a second time, or back; both ideas being in fact included.

Heb_1:7.—In respect indeed to=while in respect to. The force of the part, μέν, making Heb_1:7 preparatory to Heb_1:8 is lost in Eng. ver., as in many other passages in the Epistle. In Heb_1:8 πρός with τὸν υἱόν should be rendered as in Heb_1:7. In respect to the Son. So also I think it should be (with Moll) at Heb_1:13, and so I think (as against Moll, and nearly all the Intpp.) at Heb_11:13, πρὸς ὃν ἐλαλήθη—τνεύματα clearly here winds, not spirits, as demanded by the connection.

Heb_1:9.—[“O God, thy God,” ὁ θεός, ὁ θεός σον. Even Del. is doubtful whether in Heb_1:9 the first ὁ θεός should be rendered, as in Heb_1:8, as Voc. ‘O God’, or, as in apposition with the following: ‘God, thy God.’ With Lün., Moll, etc., I think we are clearly to prefer the former construction.

Heb_1:14.—Εἱς διακονίαν for service or ministration, not to men, but to God. Their ministration or service is to God; but in His service they are sent forth on account of, for the sake of (διά) men.—K.]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

To which of the angels said he at any time.—The position of the words τίνι γὰρ εἷπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων shows that the emphasis is to be laid immediately upon τίνι and τῶν ἀγγέλων, and that ποτέ does not belong to τίνι as a strengthening particle, to whom I pray? Cui tandem? (Chr. F. Schmid, Kuinoel, etc.), but is a particle of time. The subject is God. This, however, is not so much to be drawn from Heb_1:1, as to be supplied from the connection of the thought according to usage in citing from the Old Testament. It cannot be urged in refutation of the author’s reasoning, that in the Old Testament alike men and angels are sometimes called Sons of God. Schlicht., Michael., and Böhme have pointed out the difference between a collective appellative, and the name applied to an individual. This, however, does not meet the case, although the τίνι would seem to favor it. Bleek’s explanation that the LXX. cited exclusively by our author, read in the Cod. Alex. Gen_6:2; Gen_6:4; Job_1:6; Job_2:1; Job_38:7; Dan_3:25, not Sons (υἱοί) but Angels (ἄγγελοι) of God, is insufficient from the fact that in the Psa_29:1; Psa_89:7, we find the expression “Sons of God,” and we are not at liberty to suppose that the author forgot or left out of the account these passages. The remark, too, of Primasius that, as applied to other beings, the name stands only abusively, only in a subordinate sense, explains not the real relations of the case (since the real connecting links of the thought remain unmentioned), and evades the objection, as does also the remark of Tholuck that the author presupposes that his readers would take the appellation given specially to an individual in a more exalted sense=πρωτότοκος. More relevant to the context is the explanation of Braun that men and angels bore the name not as a rightful inheritance entailed upon them in accordance with their nature, but as received only by adoption; yet even this is partly erroneous, partly imperfect. The decisive consideration is suggested by Ebr. and Del. There is, at the outset, an essential distinction between the dwelling of heavenly, yet still created beings, with Elohim, and being begotten by Jehovah. This latter form of expression which never occurs in reference to angels, indicates the relation in question as resting not on a natural, but on a theocratic basis. Precisely for this reason Jehovah can say, “My Son, my first-born is Israel” (Exo_4:22), and: “My Father, shall ye call to me,” Jer_3:14; Jer_3:19; Jer_31:20; Isa_1:3; Deu_14:1. Israel’s exodus was the day of His birth (Hos_2:5); and the days up to the formation of the covenant on Sinai, those “days of old,” and of the “years of many generations” (Deu_32:7; Isa_51:9), constitute the youthful period of the Church (Hos_11:1), in which Jehovah bore the Israelites as the father the son; in which He led them, and “taught them to go,” as a mother does her child (Hos_11:3; Amo_2:10); in which He delivered the people from the house of bondage, and brought them to His own house that they might be closely united with Him forever, Exo_3:7; Exo_20:2. This is the time of bridal tenderness and of youthful love, when Israel became the Lord’s possession and His first-fruit, Jer_2:2-3; Eze_16:8; since Jehovah has Himself brought His people to Himself, and borne them on eagles’ wings (Exo_19:6; Deu_32:12), so that they became at once an independent nation and a church of the Lord, Exo_19:3; Eze_16:4; Eze_20:5. Granting that thus not merely pious servants of Jehovah in general (Deu_14:1; Psa_73:15; Pro_14:26), but pre-eminently theocratic rulers (Psa_89:27), and specially those springing from the seed of David (2Sa_7:14) are called Sons of God, (nay, that even heathen Princes (Psa_82:6), over whom God exercises judgment, are, in their official position, called “Gods” and “Sons of the Most High”), it follows, on the one hand, that, in the theocratic sense, the name in question has never been given to an angel; and it is clear, on the other, that on this theocratic basis the specific relation of Christ to God might disclose itself as a fact of revelation, and that a Christological interpretation of the Old Testament is possible without disturbing the historical foundation of the Messianic passages.

My Son—shall be to me a Son.—Through the two passages Psalms 2. and 2 Samuel 7. cited by him with like application, the author goes back to the germ of the Messianic prophecy in the narrower and stricter sense. When David designed the building of a temple on Mount Zion in fulfilment of Exo_15:17; Deu_12:5, he received, through the prophet Nathan, the divine declaration that not he, but his son, after him, was to build a temple to Jehovah; nay, that for this seed God would, on His part, build a house, and establish His throne forever; that Jehovah would be to him a father, and he should be to Him a son, 2Sa_7:14. In a prayer of David accompanying this prophetic assurance, David expresses the conviction that the complete fulfilment of this prophecy is reserved to the remote future. The following words, however (2Sa_7:19), mean not: “and this in a man who shall be the Lord Jehovah Himself” (Ebr. and the older interpreters), but: “And this (hast Thou, spoken) after the manner of man (or as man speaks with man), Thou who art God the Lord.” In this condescension of God so fully does David recognize a prerogative bestowed upon him that in the parallel passage (1Ch_17:17) he says: “Thou hast regarded me as a man of very high degree.” Thus a filial relation is described as that which the posterity of David will sustain to God, and this posterity conceived not merely in its aggregate or collective character, but individually. We hence refer the language immediately to Solomon who, with express reference to this prophecy, undertakes the building of the temple (1Ki_8:17 ff.), and regards himself as this promised Son (1Ki_5:5; 2Ch_6:9), as does also David, 1Ch_22:9 ff; 1Ch_29:19. But through this seed the royal dominion is to be established forever to the house of David, 2Sa_7:16. And Solomon immediately declares (1Ki_8:26-27) that this temple reared by him is not a house in which God may properly dwell, Men must of necessity, therefore, while David slept with his fathers, direct their eye farther into the future; as in of fact David himself, 1Ch_17:17, beholds the promised seed in a long and blessed succession, and there is here no mention, as 2Sa_7:14 of transgressions, which God will visit with a paternal chastisement. For the question is not of the form, as such, of the kingdom, however glorious it might be, in fulfilment of the prediction Num_24:17 : “A star shall arise out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel, and will dash in pieces the corners of Moab, and will destroy all the children of pride;” nor is mere descent from David sufficient to ensure the receiving of the everlasting kingdom, Psa_61:7 ff., which God has confirmed to David with an oath, Ps. 18:51; Psa_89:50 ff.; Psa_132:11 ff. We have here rather to do with a theocratic kingdom under a theocratic ruler, who goes forth to battle amidst the offerings and prayers of his people (Psalms 20.), and who, with God as auxiliary, will annihilate all his enemies, but will righteously administer the princely gifts and prerogatives with which he has been entrusted, Psalms 21. Of this ruler David stands as a type, and he himself, at the close of his life, makes the declaration, 2Sa_23:4; “A righteous ruler in the fear of God is as the light of the sun which arises in a morning without clouds, like the tender grass which after the rain springs forth from the earth.” For this reason God builds again the fallen tabernacle of David as in the ancient times, Amo_9:1, after Israel has been sifted out as one sifts out grain, Heb_1:9. And the ruler through whom the dominion returns back to the “tower of the flock” of David, and to the “strong hold” of Zion, Mic_4:8, will not merely have his historical descent from the house of David, Mic_5:1, but as “the branch,” the “shoot,” “the stem from the root of Jesse,” Isa_11:1; Isa_11:10, the righteous branch (Isa_4:2; Jer_23:5; Jer_33:15; Zec_3:8; Zec_6:12), whom God will raise up to David (Jer_30:9; Eze_34:23; Eze_37:24), is called even by the name of David, Jer_30:9; Eze_37:24-25; comp. Hos_3:5; and “the sure mercies of David,” Isa_55:3, are a designation of the Messianic salvation. As now this Majestic one, who issues from the nation itself, as a ruler from its midst, is to draw near unto Jehovah Himself, Jer_30:21, nay, is to bear the name “Jehovah our Righteousness” (Jer_23:6; Jer_33:16), it is clear that in the view of prophecy the Messianic salvation is linked to a son of David who is an “Anointed One” not merely in the sense in which even foreign kings as Cyrus, Isa_45:1, and Hazael, 1Ki_19:15, receive this name as being instruments of Jehovah, and in which the theocratic kings in general bear it, 1Sa_2:10; Psa_20:7; Psa_132:10, etc., but in a special sense which includes, besides the kingly, also the prophetic, Isa_61:1, and the priestly anointing, so that Zechariah (Heb_6:12-13) may say: “Behold a man, Branch is his name, who will spring up in his place and build the temple of Jehovah,—he will bear kingly adornment, and will sit and rule upon his throne, and will be priest upon his throne, and there will be harmony between the two.” When, now, this Messiah is regarded as standing to God in the relation of Son to the Father, we can see in this only the full perfection of the Theocratic relation. The designating of the stock of Ephraim, Jer_31:9, as the dear son and confidential child of God, shows that this language points to an intimate relation of communion and love. But that the term referred primarily not to subjective excellence, but to an objective relation, appears from Zec_13:7, where the wicked Pekah is styled by God “the man that is my fellow;” and while Exo_4:22 shows that at the same time the origin of the nation in this, its peculiar relation to God, is, in the expression, “First-born Son,” referred back to God Himself, so Psa_89:27-28 brings out with special clearness at once the dignity of the relation, involving the manifold prerogatives of the first-born, and also the traits of trustful devotion and hope, in the language: “He (David) will cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my strength, and the rock of my salvation. And I will make him my First-Born, supreme above the kings of the earth.” In the application of these expressions to the Messiah, their form, indeed allows the possibility of a deeper conception of His origin and of His issuing forth from God. But this deeper conception, which finds expression in the New Testament, we are not directly to transfer to the words of the Old. We find nowhere in the Old Testament a clearly developed and conscious apprehension of the eternal and immanent relation of the Son to the Father. Even Mic_5:1 scarcely declares definitely the preëxistence of the Messiah, or His eternal destination in the purpose of God; but from the completely humbled condition of the house of David, it simply assures us that beyond any known and historical record of the life and lineage of the Deliverer, who is to be born in the humble Bethlehem, we must go indefinitely back for His issuing forth, or origin, which is from ancient times, from “the days of old.” In a manner equally indefinite as to chronology, but significant and fraught with ominous import as to the facts, is in that passage indicated the time of His coming. For it is immediately added that Jehovah will give over the Israelites until the time when she who is with child shall bear her offspring. Among the attributes of the Messiah, too, is found, Isa_9:5, the title, ‘Father of eternity,’ but not the ‘Son of eternity.’ The ‘Son,’ Isa_9:8, stands parallel to the ‘child’ whose birth is to be looked for. Yet, on the other hand, the profounder New Testament conception has not merely the formal right of an external connection with the Old Testament form of expression, but the higher and essential right of an unfolding of those germs which the veil of the Old Testament only so conceals, that in their intrinsic nature they at the same time point beyond themselves and those present circumstances in which they had their origin. This is shown particularly in Psalms 2, here cited, which presupposes as an historical fact the prediction of Nathan, and displays its early acknowledged Messianic character in the fact that it speaks of a world-subduing power of the King whom Jehovah Himself has established upon Zion (erroneously translated by earlier scholars: ‘anointed at Zion’) and placed in the relation of Son to Jehovah—the King whom the author of the Psalms, Heb_1:12, styles “the Son”—and that this Son appeals for this relation, on which the futile endeavors of Princes and nations that rise up against Jehovah and His Anointed (Heb_1:2) will dash themselves to ruin, to an inviolable decree (חֹק), Heb_1:7 : “Thou art my Son: I have to-day begotten Thee.” Whether David (Act_4:25), or some other prophetic bard, be the author of this anonymous Psalm, at all events the author distinguishes himself from the Anointed One of Jehovah, and makes the latter come forward personally and speak in the full consciousness of his relation (Heb_1:7-9), just as previously do the raging insurgents (Heb_1:3), and the Lord enthroned in heaven, who, kindling in wrath, will thunder down upon them the voice of His indignation (Heb_1:6). We may not, therefore (with Hupfeld), regard the Psalm, “whether originating in some definite historical event (as perhaps a triumphant military expedition), or, (as an independent product of the general spirit of the Theocracy), as a poetical glorification of the Israelitish kingdom in its peculiar Theocratic character, and with all the proud hopes which the national feeling associated with it,”—and appeal in support of our view to the Lyrico-dramatic character of the Psalm. In the view of the Psalmist the several speakers have the significance of real personalities. They express ideas, but are not personifications of ideas.

Inasmuch, now, as the prophecy of Nathan, which was given to David before Solomon was begotten (2Sa_12:24), is no fabricated declaration of God, but an actual fact of His historical revelation, and as the Anointed One in Psalms 2 appeals to an inviolable ordinance or decree of Jehovah, we are naturally led to look back to that prophecy, and to refer the ‘to-day’ in its historical import to that day in which that ‘seed’ was promised to David, who was to stand to God in the relation of Son, and who then on that day received his procreation, or, still better, his birth (יָלַד, rarely meaning ‘beget,’ but generally, ‘to be born’) as the Son of Jehovah. This destined seed of David is the “Anointed One” of the Psalmist, and expresses the consciousness of having been in the actual course of events introduced by Jehovah into this relation. It would not be a whit more unnatural to suppose that we have here a mere personified Messianic ideal employed in celebrating its own Divine origin, than to regard the “to-day” as a mere poetic element of figurative speech, or an expression indicating the certainty and reality of the Messianic idea. But neither does the “to-day” point to the day of the coronation of an Israelitish Prince, either Solomon (Bl.) or the Maccabean Alexander Jannæus (Hitzig), appealing in these words to the Divine right of the Theocratic dominion claimed by him. It points originally to the day of the introduction of the Messiah as the Theocratic ruler from the seed of David into the knowledge and recognition of God’s people through His word of revelation. From this historical connection we may understand how Paul, Act_13:33, could apply this passage to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, especially if we compare Rom_1:4, τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως τῶν νεκρῶν (“who was constituted Son of God in power,” etc.); and with this remember, on the one hand, that the anointing as Theocratic king presupposes the bestowment of the Holy Spirit (1Sa_10:6; 1Sa_10:10; 1Sa_16:13), and that on the influence of the Spirit of God rests the Sonship, and, on the other, that Rev_1:12 conceives the issuing forth of Christ for the conquest of the kingdoms of the world, as a birth from the church in which he has his abode. From this, now, it is clear that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is justified in citing this passage to prove a special Sonship of the Messiah such as has been attributed to no angel. This is here the specially important point with the author. To refer the “to-day” to an eternal and “metaphysical” generation of the Son on the part of God (Orig., Athan., Basil, Theoph., August., Primas., the older Lutheran Intpp. generally, Stein, Lün.), or to the day of the conception of Jesus with a reference to Luk_1:31 ff. (Chrys., Theod., Œc., Kuin., Böhm., Hofm.), or to the entrance of Jesus Christ into His kingly life of super-terrestrial glory, whether by His resurrection or by His ascension (Hil., Ambr., Calv., Grot., Schlicht., Calm., von Gerl., Del.), is partly an interpretative application, partly a deduction which the author himself, however, has not here made. [And yet, when we consider that in the application of the Psalm in question to our Lord, it applies to no event in His career so naturally as to His glorification after His resurrection, in fact applies, properly speaking, to no other period; and that Paul so applies it, Act_13:33, as above noticed; and that the author, in the verse immediately preceding refers definitely to Christ’s taking His seat at the right hand of God after His resurrection, as in that immediately following he refers definitely to His second coming, it seems by no means improbable that he had in his mind that definite period in which the exalted and glorified Christ was proclaimed, and, as it were, constituted Son of God in power.—K.].

Heb_1:6. And when he shall again have introduced the first-born into the world, he saith.—The usage of our Epistle does not allow us to transpose πάλιν and make it the introduction of a citation, as even Bleek (recently followed by Reuss, L’épître aux Hebr., p. 199 ff.) maintained after Carpz., overlooking at the same time the correspondence of the Aor. Subj. with ὅταν to the Lat. perf. Fut. (Winer Gr., 6 Ed., p. 275 ff. [Hadley Gr. Gr., 747 a]). The language refers to the second introduction—yet in the future—of the First-born into the world (Lün.). The οἰκουμένη (world) is the inhabited earth on which the Son has already previously lived and labored. As the author has already spoken of this sojourn, and, at the same time, expressly testified of the preëxistence of the Son, the mode of expression is perfectly clear and unobjectionable. Even Greg. Nyss. (Contr. Eunom. Orat. III., p. 541) recognized the reference of the passage to the Second Coming, while Grot., Schlicht, Wetst., &c., refer it to a public and formal presentation of Christ after the Ascension; Bleek [Stuart] and Reuss to some otherwise unrecorded and like presentation previously to the incarnation; Chrys., Primas., Calv., Calov, Beng., to one accompanying the incarnation. The term πρωτότοκος is not identical in meaning with μονογονής (Primas., Œcum.). The latter epithet represents this as an exclusive relation which no being sustains to God, except the Messiah. The former specially signalizes His preëminence in the relations belonging essentially to the Messiah, whether to the creation (Col_1:15) or to the Theocratic children of God (Rom_8:29; Col_1:18; Rev_1:5; Heb_2:10), partly in respect to the mode and time of His entrance on the stage of being, partly in respect to position, dignity and power. As the word stands here with no limiting epithet, it is to be taken without any special reference as a terminus technicus, founded on Psa_89:28. To this Messianic King and Son of God, the angels, by Divine command, are to render adoring homage. Presupposing the certainty of the Second Coming, and referring exclusively to this, the author announces what God then ordains (λέγει, he saith). The Pres. tense brings before the eye as present that which is actually future, and springs from the conviction of its certainty. In the Parousia the author sees the final fulfilment of the prophecy, Deu_32:43, in which Jehovah, after a long withdrawal and concealment, when at length the power of the ungrateful people has utterly disappeared, revealing Himself in His compassion for their deliverance, is, at the same time, depicted as the God who brings fearful judgment on the heathen. To the words of the Heb. text, “Praise, ye heathen, His people; for He avenges the blood of His servants, and repays vengeance to His enemies, and brings expiation to His land, His people,” there is subjoined in all the MSS. of the LXX. a clause made up from Isa_44:23; Psa_97:7, and Psa_29:1 (springing probably from the liturgical use of the Song of Moses, Del.) in which the words here cited are found strictly after the Cod. Vat. and the Collection of the Old Testament Cantica appended to the Psalter in the Cod. Alex. (which in the text of Deut. has υἱοί instead of ἄγγ.)—for that the words are here given as a citation appears undeniably from the retention of the particle καί (‘And, Let all the angels, &c.’). The reference of the αὐτῷ to the Messiah, springs not from the fact that Jehovah Himself appears previously as the Speaker (Lün.); nor is it to be explained from the fact that Israel, who has previously been mentioned as the object of the praise of the heathen, bears elsewhere the designation of First-born, and thus what applies to Israel might, with abundant ease, be transferred to its Messianic King. It has its ground rather in the view, common to all the New Testament writers, that we are to apply to Christ as Sovereign of the Kingdom of God, all that in the Old Testament is in this relation declared of Jehovah. Προσκυνεῖν, with Dat. only in the later classical writers: earlier with Acc. (Bernh. Synt., p. 113, 266).

Heb_1:7. And in respect to the angels, indeed, he saith.—In contrast with the Messiah (μέν—δέ) the subordinate position of the angels is brought out by a declaration of God in the Scripture, in a twofold relation: 1, in that they are servants; 2, in that they are changeable and perishable (Lün.). Πρός, in reference, in relation to; so frequently (Win. Gram., § 49 h. [It is one of the most familiar usages of πρός with the Acc.; see Dem. 1 Ol. 4.—K.]. The connection in Psa_104:4 seems to warrant our understanding it as affirming that winds and lightnings, like nature in general, are merely servants of God. As, however, עָשָׂה with double Acc. usually signifies not making into something (עָשָׂה לְ), but, making out of something, it were properly translated, “making His messengers out of winds, and His servants out of flaming fire.” Still we can hardly suppose that the Psalmist meant in this to express the idea that “God, in accomplishing the work which is wrought in the world through angelic agencies, gives to the angels the elemental wind and fire as the material in which they are, as it were, to embody themselves and assume a visible form,” Del.). It can, however, also be translated: “making winds out of His messengers, and flaming fire out of His ministers.” This reading is adopted in the Sept., which, by placing the Art. before άγγέλ. and λειτ., shows that it thus regards the angels; and our author, who, perhaps, with reference to Exo_3:2, writes πυρὸς φλόγα, instead of the πῦρ φλέγον of the Sept. (the πυρὸς φλόγα of the Cod. Alex. is probably a later correction from our Epistle), evidently regards the passage as teaching that the angels have so little of substantive existence that they are obliged sometimes to clothe themselves in the changing garment of natural phenomena for the execution of the Divine commands, and, under the form of elemental agencies, to act with dynamical efficiency. Substantially parallel are Psa_34:8; Joh_5:4. Also the Rabbins call the angels כּוֹחוֹת=δυνάμεις, and the Targum at Psa_104:4 paraphrases “who maketh His messengers swift as winds, His ministers strong as flaming fire.”

Heb_1:8. But in respect to the Son, etc.—The Son is not directly addressed (Bengel), but the πρός is to be taken as in the verse preceding. And as matter of fact the words, Psa_45:7, are not spoken to the Messiah, but were simply at an early period, as shown by the admission of the Psalm into the temple liturgy (לַמְנַצֵּחַ), referred to Him. The Psalm designated in the inscription as a song of love, and celebrating the marriage of Solomon or Joram with a foreign princess, is presented by an Israelite to the king (Psa_45:2), who is addressed in Psa_45:3-10, while in Psa_45:11 ff. the discourse changes to the bride. The minstrel conceives the king, in his Theocratic position and function, as commissioner and vicegerent of Jehovah, who, by righteous and wise government, is to effect the destined coming of the Kingdom of God. Inasmuch as by the king in question this was but partially or not at all effected, the Psalm early past over as a mystical bridal song, to the marriage of the Messiah with His Church. The Messianic references also appear in the Psalm itself, in that it is said (Psa_45:7) that His throne is Elohim=Divine forever and ever, or better, that His Divine throne is forever and ever: [or, better still, I think, even in the original Heb.: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” This is certainly the most natural construction of the sentence, and need not be shrunk from, as it is in perfect keeping with the context; and as, at all events, the idea is substantially contained in the context—K.]; in that it is said further that God (Psa_45:17) will render His posterity princes over the whole earth, so that they should eclipse the splendor of their ancestors, and all nations should praise the King on account of His glory; and finally, in that some characteristic expressions of this Psalm are used in Isa_9:5; Isa_61:3, directly of the Messiah as the Servant of Jehovah—a fact the more important, as אֵל גִּבּוֹר, mighty God, is elsewhere a customary designation of God Himself, e.g., Deu_10:17; Jer_32:18; Neh_9:32; Psa_24:8. Since, therefore, the Theocratic King “sat on the throne of Jehovah” (1Ch_29:23)—and the throne of God is eternal, Lam_5:19,—and Zech. prophesies (Heb_12:8) that the house of David shall yet be at the head of the nation, as Elohim, as a messenger of Jehovah (יְהוָֹה כֵּמַלְאַךְ ,כֵּאלהִים), the author of our Epistle is entirely justified in interpreting the Psalm not as typically or indirectly, but as prophetically and directly Messianic, and in finding a proof of the Godhead of the Messiah in the fact that He who as King was, for His love of righteousness, exalted above all His fellows, received the appellation of Elohim. For while, indeed, the Kingly government, as representative of God ruling in majesty, is sometimes named Elohim (Exo_21:6; Exo_22:7; Psalms 82.) the individual person never elsewhere receives this name. And he would all the more naturally infer the Godhead of the Messiah, inasmuch as love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity are special characteristics of the holiness of God, Psa_5:5; Isa_61:8. Διὰ τοῦτο many erroneously explain (with August. and Thom. Aquin.) of the purpose and result of the anointing, referring it to the anointing of the Holy Spirit made in order that the anointed one might love righteousness. In the Heb. text it is a quality of the King that He loves righteousness; and this forms the ground for that fulness of joy which, as an anointing, has been poured over Him in richer measure than over His companions or fellows, i.e., the other kings of the earth. As this love of righteousness is to be conceived not as a state of passive repose, but as an active attribute, the Sept. employs the Aor. ἠγάπησας, ἐμίσησας (didst love, etc.), and from this it is still more clear that διὰ τοῦτο points back to this as the ground of the anointing, which also our author understands not of the crowning of Jesus, after His accomplished earthly career, as Heavenly King, and His exaltation thus above the angelic dwellers in heaven (Peirce, Olsh., Bl., Ebr., Alf., Lün.), but, in accordance with the original text, of the fulness of bliss which He, long since anointed as King of the Kingdom of God, has above His fellows. ‘Fellows’ Klee erroneously refers to “all creatures;” Chrys., Theoph., Œc., Beng., to “all men.” The ‘fellows’ (μέτοχοι) of the Messiah must certainly be anointed ones. Thus they are either Christians (Theodor., Calv., Camero, Schlicht.), or the prophets, high-priests and kings, anointed as types of Christ (Wittich, Braun, Cranm.), or, which seems best suited to the connection, Princes in general (Kuin., Ebr., Del.). The author does not develop the individual features of the passage in their possible application, but lays the whole emphasis on the repeatedly recurring term, “God,” which, in an equally exclusive manner with the term “Son,” is given in the Divine word of Scripture to the Messiah.

Heb_1:10. And: Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay, etc.—The καί introduces in the closest connection of thought with the preceding, a citation from Psa_102:26-28 illustrating the point that all aid to the people of God must come, not through any creature instrumentality, but through God the Creator. The Psalm is a lamentation, written at a late period of the exile, in which the poet, profoundly penetrated by the wretchedness of his people, expects and entreats deliverance and preservation from God, who, as the eternal one, even amidst that change and revolution of things over which He presides, still approves Himself as unchangeably the same, as הוּא, αύτός. The Psalmist is hence so sure of deliverance that he declares that it “will be told to coming generations,” how God looked down from heaven, and heard the groaning of the captives (Psa_102:19 ff.). In the fact that help comes only from the eternal and unchangeable God, while even the heavens, as they were originally formed by Him, are also transformed by Him, lies our author’s warrant for referring the cited words to the Son by whom God hath made the worlds. The author is not merely expressing in scriptural phraseology what, in his own belief, and, in the presumed belief of his readers, may be justly said of Jesus (Hofm., Schriftb., I. 150). There would then be wanting the connecting link which, according to the tenor of Scripture, warrants his statement. We are not at liberty to transfer to the Son all the attributes ascribed to the Father. Hence we do not say with Theod. of Mops. (ed. Fritzsche, p. 162) that the Old Test. Scripture when it speaks of God, always speaks of the Father without exclusion of the Son. Equally unsatisfactory is the explanation that the interpolated κύριε of the Sept. (wanting in the Heb.) has, as being the customary designation of Jesus in apostolic times, seduced the author into his interpretation (Böhm., Lün.); for Heb_8:8 ff; Heb_12:6 ff. forbid our charging the author with any such ignorance. The link of connection is found rather (as in all the other citations), in the fact that the original Psalm itself expressed a positive hope in that earnestly longed for revelation of the salvation of Jehovah which was to be accomplished only in the Messiah. (Similarly Hofm., “Prophecy and Fulfilment,” II. p. 33, Del.). Κατ̓ ἀρχάς, Ps. 119, 152 is not=ἐν ἀρχῇ, but corresponds to ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς, and expresses also in the classics extension downwards in time (Kühn., § 605, 1. Jelf, II. § 629, 2). In Heb. we have the more general לְפָנִים=formerly. Διαμένειν indicates the abiding in one condition through all the vicissitudes of time, Psa_119:90; 2Pe_3:4. περιβόλαιον denotes anything thrown around (1Co_12:15, probably a veil), commonly the garment thrown around like a mantle. Storr finds in ἀλλαγήσονται the idea that the heavens, which are works of God’s hands or fingers (Psa_8:4), will be exchanged like a garment, in that God will make a new heaven and a new earth. This form of conception is certainly made prominent Isa_65:17; Isa_66:22; 2Pe_3:13; Rev_21:1; for the Scripture, while indeed it teaches a τέλος of the world, Mat_24:14, a change of its present σχῆμα, 1Co_7:31, a passing away of heaven and earth, Mat_5:18; Luk_21:33; 1Jn_2:17; Rev_20:11, a dissolving of the elements, 2Pe_3:12, yet by no means teaches an annihilation of its existence, but rather a regeneration, a new birth of the world, with the transformation naturally attending it. Yet here the other form of conception seems the preponderating one, which makes heaven an apparent tent-cloth spread out over the earth, Isa_40:22; Psa_104:2, without, however, requiring us with Heinrichs to resolve the ἔργα into the products of the loom. Here their transformation consists in their becoming antiquated, Psa_102:27. The reading ἑλίξεις, then, involves the thought that they are rolled up, and laid aside. This rolling up, Isa_34:4; Rev_6:14, is compared with that of a book; and Isa_34:4 it is said of the heavenly hosts that they fall off as the leaves of the vine, and as the withering of the fig-tree; while in like manner in Isa_51:6 they are said to pass away like smoke. But the Lord is unchangeable in His being, and absolutely imperishable. In the Hebrew we have: “And Thy years have no completion,” i.e., their end never comes. In the Greek: “Thy years shall never fail,” i.e., they shall never cease or discontinue. Ἐκλείπειν is used as intransitive also in the classics.

Heb_1:13. Sit on may right hand, etc.—Εἶπε (Heb_1:5) used of the declaration made absolutely, and once for all, (he said), and λέγει (Heb_1:6) of the declaration which is now or continuously being made (he saith, he is saying), are here exchanged for εἴρηκε of the declaration which stands before us as fixed in Scripture (he hath said). Del.

The metabatic δέ which stands in the third place after a preposition with its case (Hartung, Partikellehre I. p. 190) introduces as the last proof—challenging in its interrogative form the assured assent of the reader—the elevation of the Messiah to a joint sovereignty with God in absolute triumph over His foes, in contrast with angels who, though spiritual beings, have but the place and destination of servants. True, the angels, as inhabitants of heaven, also enjoy the immediate presence of God, and the proverbial expressions, “he is good as an angel of God,” 1Sa_29:9; “he judges righteously as an angel of God,” 2Sa_14:17; “he is wise as an angel of God,” 2Sa_14:20; 2Sa_19:27, point to their extraordinary intellectual and moral endowments. But organized as an heavenly host, 1Ki_22:19; 2Ch_18:18,—whence we are told of an encampment of angels (Gen_32:1-2), and find chariots and horses assigned to them (2Ki_6:17),—they encompass the throne of Jehovah—partly in the form of an advisory assemblage (Job_1:6; Job_2:1; Psa_89:8); partly praising God and His works in holy joy, Psa_29:1; Psa_103:20; partly as servants standing ready to execute His commands, Job_4:18; Job_15:15, as heroes of strength, Psa_103:20; Psa_148:2, and as Jehovah’s (Jos_5:14) “host of the high ones,” Isa_24:21. But to the Messiah is ascribed not merely sitting beside or in presence of the all-ruling God, but sitting at His right hand. The former expression would have designated Him only as theocratic ruler; as David, after the removal of the ark of the covenant to Mount Zion, had his throne in immediate proximity to the throne of Jehovah. But the latter elevates Him above every species of principality and dominion to participation in the divine majesty itself. The historical incidents in which this typical Psalm had birth, stand connected apparently (Heb_1:5 ff.) with the victory of David over the Syrians and Ammonites. But the promise of the elevation spoken of (Heb_1:1) appears as an oracular or prophetic utterance (נְאֻם) of Jehovah, whose fulfilment is still in the future (Heb_1:4), and is directed to the Lord of the minstrel (אֲדֹנִי, my Lord); we are, therefore, entirely justified in assuming a widening of the prophetic view beyond the historical and typical incidents, and in finding in the “Lord” not the David sung by the people (Ewald), but the Messiah whom David recognized as at once his Lord and his Son (Mat_22:41 ff.); especially as this king, whom the people, born like dew from the womb of the morning, clad in sacred garments, are to follow into the conflict (Heb_1:3), is not merely to conquer His enemies upon the whole earth (Heb_1:6), but as priestly king (Heb_1:4), is to stand in a relation (to be hereafter more fully considered), such as could be predicated of no historical ruler of Israel. The custom of setting the foot on the neck of a conquered enemy, belongs to earlier Israel, Jos_10:24; 1Ki_5:17. To later Greek belongs ὑποπόδιον, and the frequent Hellenistic formula ἐκ δεξιῶν which implies the rising conspicuously above that which is on the right hand.

Heb_1:14. Are they not all ministering spirits, etc.—In this summing up of the series of thoughts developed from Heb_1:4, the emphasis lies partly on πάντες, all, which includes even the angelic leaders, partly on λειτουργικά, which designates these spirits as standing in sacred service. For the term points, not in a general way, to service obligatory by virtue of public office, but specially to that connected with the public Levitical worship, Exo_31:10; Num_4:12; Num_7:5; 2Ch_24:14. Hence also the Rabbins frequently designate certain angels as םַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת. No allusion to the heavenly sanctuary can be inferred from the choice of the expression: it simply refers back to Heb_1:7. The Pros. Part. ἀποστελλόμενοι habitually sent forth, commissioned, brings out the proper characteristic of the angels, or that habitus, that habitual form of action, which springs from their nature, and corresponds to their destination. The term διακονία refers not directly to their rendering service to men; (for, apart from the fact that the angels are not placed in subordination to men, the construction would require the Dat. τοῖς μέλλουσι (Act_11:29; 1Co_16:15), but to the ministerial relation in which they stand to God, and in which God employs them for the good of those who are to inherit the salvation procured by His Son. This special signification of σωτηρία (though without the article) is implied alike in the context, and in the verb κληρονομεῖν, inherit. It implies neither deliverance from danger in general (Michael., Schleusn., Böhm., Kuin.); nor again the actual conferring of eternal salvation upon its inheritors through the ministrations assigned by God to the angels (Lün.); but simply the proper office of the angels, as those whom God sends forth for the benefit of godly men. The term σωτηρία, employed in designating this salvation, presupposes a deliverance from ruin wrought by “the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Tit_2:13.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. God has not merely communicated His word to the prophets in the manifold forms of His revelations of Himself: nor has He merely in the prophets and by their mouth spoken formerly to the fathers. He also speaks to us in Holy Scripture. The development of the precise doctrine of inspiration is yet a problem for theology; but the church has to confess that in the Holy Scripture she hears God Himself speak, and that she feels herself bound, in all that respects salvation, to adhere implicitly to the Word of God as uttered in the Scripture.

2. The old canon of Scripture interpretation: Novum Testamentum in vetere latet; Vetus Testamentum in novo patet, springs from a correct apprehension of the true essential relation of the two parts of the economy of salvation. The sacred writers constantly emphasize the divine purpose, as that which determines the events of history; yet this not formally as mere purpose, which might seek its end irrespective of the course of things; but as that divine determination, which of itself, in a concrete manner, brings about its result. When this determination is prophetically uttered, this prophetic word is an expression of the divine counsel, thought and will, which is already stamped with the impress of human history, but primarily as but a form, which awaits in the future its ultimate fulfilment, and reaches this by an actual carrying out in history of the divine purpose. The historical facts which gradually lead to this final and proper fulfilment of prophecy, bear, for this reason, a typico-prophetic character. They represent typically, and for precisely this reason, but partially and defectively, the idea that is to be realized; yet they must be regarded as evidences of its truth, and of its infallible and already incipient realization. They are interwoven with historical conditions which as yet contain no adequate realization of the divine thought. It might hence be half suspected that nothing but the caprice or the unwarranted fancies of a later time had discovered this relation of purely historical facts, or of earlier oracular utterances, to those later events which they typify and predict. Unquestionably, too, we are warranted in insisting on the historical foundations of prophecy, and on its direct reference to immediate events, as against an unhistorical and, as it were, soothsaying prophecy. But the exaggeration of this feature leads to a mode of dealing with events which knows no prophecy, to a history with no positive divine guidance and control, with no real ideas, with no true future of redemption. The New Testament writers, on the other hand, see bursting through these enveloping folds of history the germs and tendencies of divine ideas, and, in their illustrative citations, mainly exhibit the symbolical facts, in a direct and immediate application to the fulfilment already effected through Christ. Hence they, on the one hand, neither take the facts and statements of the Old Testament, in their original import as referring to immediate events, nor on the other, put upon them an allegorical and mystical interpretation, which rests upon no sure basis; but so interpret them that they appear as members of that system of divine ideas and acts, by which, in the progress of revelation, the original Gospel which announced “the seed of the woman,” is gradually, step by step, announcing and accomplishing itself until its final and complete fulfilment in the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. The occasional use of Rabbinical forms of citation and modes of interpretation in no way destroys this essential relation, but stands connected with the national position and special culture of the respective writers: compare (from earlier times) Andr. Kesler de dictorum V. T. in N. allegatione 1627; also in Hackspan dispp. theol. et phil. syllogæ, p. 563 sq.: Oporinus, demonstratio N. T. ex. V. T. p. 60 sq., and Surenhusius, Βίβλος καταλλαγῆς, in quo, secundum veterum theol. Hebr. formulas allegandi et modos interpretandi, conciliantur loca V. in N. T. allegata, Amst. 1713.

3. The true and perfect deity of Jesus Christ is to be proved a. from the name “Son of God,” bestowed on Him in an exclusive sense, and as designating a specific relation, which, along with essential unity, points to a hypostatical distinction of persons, for which reason He is also directly called “God:” b. from His works of creating, upholding, redeeming, governing, and renovating the world: c. from the perfection of the metaphysical, intellectual and moral attributes involved in that specific relation to God, and attesting themselves in all these several spheres of action: d. from the adoring worship which belongs to Him, and is rendered Him even by the Princes among the heavenly angels, a fact which, within the sphere of the monotheistic faith, is of the utmost significance.

4. The doctrine of the eternity of the world is equally to be repudiated with that of its future annihilation. Its transformation into a new and nobler form of existence is effected by means of the same Lord through whom it was created, and that according to divine purpose and will, so that its destruction also is to be referred to no exhaustion of originally supplied powers, wrought by age and the natural decay of years, nor to any regularly recurring cycles of revolution, by which, at definite intervals and according to unchangeable laws, creation is resolved into its elements, and again remoulded into new forms and combinations for other destinies.

5. The anticipated reintroduction of the First-born into the inhabited world forms the goal of the ways of God in history, and promises a revelation of glory to which, in hope and faith, we are to look; which, in the patience of the saints, we are humbly to await, and for which, in the sanctification of our persons, as children of God born anew to be brethren in Jesus Christ, and called to be fellow-heirs with Him, we are earnestly to prepare, that we may join the adoring worship of the angels.

6. The invocation of angels, as ministers to our need and mediators of salvation, is no less irrational and absurd, than the denial of their existence and of their employment in the service of God for the benefit of the heirs of salvation, is unscriptural. The position here assigned to them excludes any rendering to them of worship, and, on the other hand, their spiritual nature remits to the province of imagination and art all sensible representations of their form; while yet their employment in the service of God renders possible their transient appearance and agency on earth in the most various forms.

7. The means which God employs for the protection and support of the pious in this wicked world, are numerous in proportion as He is unfathomable in wisdom, unlimited in power, and inexhaustible in love. Besides the forces, creatures, and instrumentalities, which belong to the sphere of earth and human action, He has equally at command, for the exigencies of even our temporal life, heavenly and angelic agencies, and that in unmeasured abundance and untold variety.

8. The establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth in the form of a kingdom of grace under the regal dominion of the Messiah, who, after accomplishing the mission assigned to Him below, is now forever exalted above all powers to the throne of God, is, on the one hand, a fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies; on the other, a preparation for the consummated dominion of God over all the world, and itself again a prophecy of the kingdom of glory. The Christocracy is the fully unfolded, world-embracing form of the Theocracy; and in His consummated glory the Exalted One becomes, for all eternity, the medium of that communion with God which, as the Humiliated One, He originally procured. “The language, ‘Sit at my right hand,’ means, in a word: exalted highly and placed as glorious King—not over the towers of Jerusalem, nor over the empire of Babylon, Rome, Constantinople, or the entire earth—which were indeed a great power;—nay, not over heaven, stars, and all that our eyes can behold, but exalted to a power far higher and wider. Seat thyself—such is His language—beside me on the lofty seat where I sit, and be equal to me. For by sitting beside Him, he means not, sitting at His feet, but at His right hand, in the same majesty and power with Himself, which is nothing less than a Divine power” (Luth. at Psalms 110.).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The consolation of the Church of God in troublous times is: 1, God’s words of encouragement in the Holy Scripture; 2, the Government of Jesus Christ on the throne of God; 3, the inheritance of blessedness to which it is destined.—The right which Jesus Christ has to us as, a. our Creator; b. our Saviour; c. our Ruler.—The worship which we owe to Jesus Christ: 1, on the ground of the Divine command in the Holy Scriptures; 2, after the example of the heavenly spirits; 3, as citizens of the Kingdom of God.—What summons us Christians ceaselessly to living gratitude to God? 1, the destination to bliss, which God’s word vouchsafes to us; 2, the protection which He bestows upon us by powers and servants sent forth from heaven; 3, the gracious aid which He renders to us in the Church of His Son.—The dominion which Jesus Christ exercises: 1, in its character, a. as a Divine dominion; b. for the conquest of the world; c. by employing the powers and resources of the heavenly realm; 2, in its establishment by His peculiar relation, a. to God, as Son; b. to the world, as Lord of all things: c. to the Church, as Saviour.—The high dignity which we Christians have: 1, as children of God, who are ransomed from the perishable nature of this world; 2, as brethren of Christ, who, as First-born, sits upon the throne of God; 3, as heirs of blessedness, for whose good angels are sent forth in the service of God.

Von Bogatzky:—As God has anointed Christ for His threefold office, so are we also anointed by Christ with His Spirit: 1, that as priests of God, we may offer up ourselves, and pray for one another; 2, that as kings, we may conquer all our enemies; 3, that in the fellowship of the prophetic office of Christ we may teach and admonish one another.—Laurentius:—Eternal life is an inheritance, and is thus not obtained by works.—If the holy angels minister to believers, how shall not one believer much more minister to his fellow?—Hiller:—The Church with which the Lord would betroth Himself in faith, had, in the word, the plighted vow of His eternal love and truth; in His Spirit the bridal pledge, and in the shadowy rites, the image and portrait of its King.—The Sacred Scripture is God’s testimony of His Son, a. who will come into the world; b. who has come into the world; c. to bless and save sinners.—This testimony of Scripture must be believed, a. because it is a testimony; b. because it is God’s testimony; c. because it is such a testimony of the Son of God.

Rieger:—The more righteously a kingdom is administered, the greater is its permanency.—He whose heart God inclines to righteousness, and whom He inspires with a disposition to hate unrighteousness, even though it may find a lurking place, as it will, in his own members, is by the one rendered fit for the inheritance of God’s Kingdom, and by the latter gains enlarged space for the Spirit and its glad anointing.—As from the beginning of the ways of God in the creation, so also from the goal and end in which all will issue in the ultimate deliverance and renewal of the creation, we can derive much that appertains to the glory of the Son of God.

Starke:—As we mortals have a changeful nature, not only material, but immaterial, which latter, in the waste and repair of sense, must experience daily an ever increasing change, we should strive all the more industriously after the true unchangeableness which Christ has brought to light by His Gospel, 2Ti_1:10.—God changes neither in His being nor in His words; hence we can securely commit ourselves to Him.—Christ, the Son of Man, is truly exalted upon the throne of God. If thou wilt not believe this, thou wilt hereafter see and experience it to thine eternal sorrow, Psa_2:12.—Are the holy angels servants whom God sends out for our service? How, then, should we stand in fear of them, thank God for their protection, and in genuine holiness of heart render ourselves worthy of it?—High honor of believers that they are ministered to by Thrones, Principalities and Powers! Praise God; grieve not the angels; lead an angelic life, and thou wilt be borne by the angels where thou wishest eternally to be, Luk_15:10; Luk_20:36.

Spener:—From the Sonship of God and regeneration comes all the blessedness which we receive as an inheritance, Rom_8:16; Gal_4:7; Act_20:32; Act_26:18.

Heubner:—Christ is the most blessed King. The earthly prosperity of worldly rulers bears no comparison with the heavenly delight which Christ, as the exalted Son of God, enjoys. He enjoys the bliss of being in most intimate communion with God, and of being loved and adored by hosts of ransomed souls, by all spirits.—The whole spirit world is a realm of servants of God. A ruler without subjects possesses no kingdom.—The pious are protegés of heaven, of the angels. Both are one under Christ.

Stier:—Where remain the thrones of all kings on earth amidst the revolution of things, at the end of the days? They are swept away and removed; but the Divine throne of the One Anointed above all anointed ones continues and stands unto eternity. Where in the hands of sinful men is there a sceptre of sovereignty whose honor has not been in some way stained with unrighteousness and error? But the gracious and peaceful sceptre of the One Righteous and Blessed is truly a sceptre of rectitude.—The Son rules on the eternal throne of God, Himself God and Lord: the spirits and personal powers of heaven serve as creatures. The Son has taken His seat in the reassumption of His original Divine power; the angels are sent forth from His and the Father’s seat. They are those who perform priestly ministration in all their allotted activity and service. He is and remains without end of years, the Lord whom they adoringly serve.

[Owen:—“Whatever our changes may he, inward or outward, yet Christ, changing not, our eternal condition is secured, and relief provided against all present troubles and miseries. The immutability and eternity of Christ are the spring of our consolation and security in every condition. Such is the frailty of the nature of man, and such the perishing condition of all created things, that none can ever obtain the least stable consolation but what ariseth from an interest in the omnipotency, sovereignty, and eternity of Jesus Christ”].

Footnotes:

[6]Heb_1:8. Καί introducing the second portion of the passage from the Psalm is found in Sin, A. B. D.* E.* M. 17. Itala according to Cod. Clarom. and Vulg. according to Cod. Amiat. In the following words the lect. Rec. should be retained.

[7]Heb_1:9.—Sin. reads with the Cod. Alex. of the LXX. ἀδικίαν. The remaining MSS. except some minusc, read with the Cod. Vat. of the LXX. ἀνομίαν [ἀδικίαν was perhaps written in accidental conformity to the preceding δικαιοσύνη.—K.]

[8]Heb_1:11.—Instead of the pres. διαμένεις Bleek, following Itala., Vulg. etc., accents διαμενεῖς as future.

[9]Heb_1:12.—Sin. A. B. D.* E. have further the clause ὡς ἱμάτιον after αὐτούς.

[10]Heb_1:12.—The ἀλλάξεις of the original is found also in Sin. D.* 43. The remaining Codd. read ἑλίξεις, perhaps with an indistinct reference to Isa_34:4.

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Section 2. (Heb 1:5-14.)

As Son, God, through Man, as witnessed by the Word, contrasted with angels.

The apostle proceeds, according to his manner in the epistle, to confirm what he has just said by the Old Testament itself. The angels were those, as we know, who, according to the full belief of the Jews, gave character to the dispensation of law. They did indeed give it a character, in this sense, that they confirmed the distance from God on man’s part which the law implied. The ministry of angels is in itself, surely, a thing most gracious, but at the same time the intervention of angels between God and man does not imply the nearness into which Christianity has brought us. Rather, it speaks of what was indeed the legal characteristic, that no one could see God’s face and live. We do see His face, by faith indeed, but still fully revealed to us in the person of His Son, and are brought nigh to Him. Angels have here no place, although in ministry, as to circumstances, they may retain it fully. But thus it is of importance here to show that the Son has a more excellent name than angels; and the apostle confirms this statement now by seven quotations from the Old Testament, which show the name that Christ inherits; and to which of the angels did the glory of such a name belong?

For those who have learned the significance of numbers and the part they have in Scripture, as in nature, as showing the mind of God impressed on every part, it will be easy to see that the series here is significant in this way. Every text is in its place, and the whole is a sevenfold witness to the Lord, in accordance with the design of the epistle.

The first quotation from the second psalm gives the foundation of all. "Thou art My Son; today have I begotten Thee," is the word of Jehovah to the King of Zion; who claims, upon the warrant of this, the earth as His inheritance. But the powers of earth are combined against Him, Israel nationally with the Gentiles also, and they are warned of wrath to come upon those who do not take refuge in Him in the days of His long-suffering patience. It is plain how this suits the Christ of Christians, even to the accounting for what was so perplexing to an Israelite, the delay of Israel’s blessing when Messiah was now come; but the point emphasized in the quotation is His being true Son of God in nature, the Begotten of Jehovah in manhood. It is quite true that men at large, by virtue of their creation, are, as the apostle quotes even the heathen poet, "the offspring of God;" and angels also are recognized in a general way as sons of God. Israel had a special place also nationally as the first-born of Jehovah; but in this way it was not a place that could be claimed by the individual as such, but he had part in it only as one of the nation. Spiritually there was nothing, necessarily, that would answer to this. A Jew was a Jew by nature, not by new nature; and the character of the law, as we know, was the testing of men as to their condition, instead of the bringing in of spiritual power so as to affect their condition. Thus Israel’s privileges were all tentative and conditional; and the law, in fact, spoke nothing plainly as to eternity at all, except as it revealed the total incompetence of man for blessing upon any ground of his own righteousness.

Certainly no one could in Israel claim to be a begotten son of God, and according to Scripture no angel either could make such a claim. No doubt the Lord is looked at here as in humanity, not according to that which we know was His divine title. He is not here "the Only-begotten Son," as John declares Him, but rather the First-begotten, as we shall find Him called directly. But if "the Only-begotten Son" comes into humanity, He could not lose, in this humanity that He assumes, the relationship in which He stood to God. Thus the nature assumed becomes, as it were, like the firmament of the second day, a lower heaven through which the higher heaven of glory shines. The sun is in the firmament, yet above the firmament, and the Son of God in humanity brings into it thus the relationship to God which He could never give up. The Only-begotten becomes the First-begotten; and this implies, of course, that now there will be among men themselves those who will be also the begotten of God. This is not the human family as such, but the family of faith, as we find here fully in Hebrews. They have a new, and, as Scripture speaks, a divine nature, of which they are partakers; but this is through and in the First-begotten only, who is the Adam of the new creation, and, as the apostle says of Him in that character, a "quickening Spirit." We shall find this more particularly dwelt upon in what shortly follows.

Here we have the One through whom this unspeakable blessing is communicated; and it is impossible to confound the One to whom God says, "Thou art My Son," with any other of the sons of men. He has an empire over all by the very fact of what He is; and His miraculous birth distinguishes Him in this character: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee," says the angel to Mary, "and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Thus His unique character is established on all sides.

The apostle strengthens this by a second quotation, which applied indeed first of all to Solomon, as is plain by the context, but only typically to him. Even as the builder of God’s house, the true Son of David was not Solomon, but a greater, whose house and kingdom would be both eternal. We shall find Christ as the builder further on in Hebrews (Heb 3:3), but the point for the present is, "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son." This must be put clearly in connection with the passage from the psalm just quoted; and then we can understand that the relation on each side will be all that is implied in such words as these.

The third quotation is very full for the apostle’s purpose. Here the Firstborn is brought again into the world. Question is made of whether the word "again" is really connected with this bringing in; but it should be plain that it is the appearing of Christ in glory that is at any rate referred to. This is the force of the words: "When He bringeth in the First-born into the world." It could hardly apply to incarnation. It is true that the angels of God worshiped, as we know, when the infant Christ was born; but they were not summoned to worship in that public way which is evidently intimated here. Then the superiority of Christ to angels will indeed be fully manifest -nay His supremacy over all, according to that Name given Him.

The fourth quotation separates the angels from such a place as we have been looking at, by saying that they are indeed but the creatures of God’s hand, made and fashioned by Him at His will. "He maketh His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire." "The acceptance and use of the Septuagint translation by the writer here would quite preclude, as has been said elsewhere, the adoption of any other. ’He maketh His angels spirits’ is, according to the apostle, a fact affirmed of the nature of angels, and, of course, a much higher fact than making ’the winds His messengers,’ as some would have it. As it might be translated either way, the meaning must be decided otherwise than by the language. Nor is it a disproportion in thought that while the material instrument is contemplated as truly in the hands of God, these ministers, ’the spiritual beings, should be His messengers.’ This shows, on the one hand, that no part of His creation is to be conceived as separate from Him, no physical agency that is not the embodiment of His will, while, on the other hand, the spirits, with a responsibility of their own, represent Him and are subject to Him, receiving their character and endowment from Him according to His will." (Notes on the Psalms.)

This distinguishes in the plainest manner all mere creatures from this Son of God.

The fifth quotation, in contrast, shows us God and man united in Him; true God, with an eternal throne, and yet true Man, in righteous recompense anointed by God with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Here Immanuel is found in the full significance of His name (Psa 45:6).

The sixth quotation (Psa 102:25-27), in the application of it by the apostle here, throws a flood of light not upon that psalm only, but upon the whole fourth book of the Psalms, in which it has a central place. It is now not simply a Man, but a suffering, dying Man, who is yet owned of God to be the Maker of heaven and earth. These are limited and changing, but not He who gives them their limit; and who, though He may seem to be Himself at the limit of His days, is Master here as elsewhere. In fact, it is in the cross that He manifests Himself most truly, gloriously Master of all, and evil itself receives its limit from Him and owns Him Lord.

One quotation more (Psa 110:1) completes this series. Here He is Son at rest after His work accomplished, rejected indeed of man, but awaiting the action of God to make His foes His footstool; while He Himself sits at the right hand of God. Thus the testimony is complete, and every quotation fills perfectly its place. The angels have their place, and a blessed one, as thus in heart entering fully into the purposes of God towards those who are naturally below themselves, but in whom they learn to adore the perfect grace and wisdom of Him who lifts them up into a higher one. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" The very salvation which marks them out as sinners is that which displays the glory of God in His grace to them, and thus becomes the new revelation of God to the angels themselves.

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:5-14 In these ten verses, the author uses a variety of Old Testament texts to show that Jesus is superior to the angels. Among ancient Jewish and Christian interpreters, Old Testament passages were strung together one after the other in “chain quotations” (called “pearl stringing”) to convince the hearers or readers of a certain theological point by presenting a lot of scriptural evidence together.

1:5 God . . . said: This verse quotes Ps 2:7 and 2 Sam 7:14. By exalting Jesus to his right hand (see Acts 1:9-11; 2:32-36; 7:55-56), the Father proclaimed his unique relationship with the Son. • Today I have become your Father (or Today I reveal you as my Son): Jesus did not become the Son at the exaltation—he had been involved in creation (Heb 1:2)—but the exaltation verified his identity to all.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Heb 1:5. Τίνι γὰρ, for to which [whom]) A frequent argument in this epistle is derived from the silence of Scripture: Heb 1:13, ch. Heb 2:16, Heb 7:3; Heb 7:14.—τῶν ἀγγέλων, of the angels) For none of them took [was capable of taking] this glory.—Υἱὸς, the Son) Act 13:33.—ἐγὼ—Υἱὸν) So the LXX., 2Sa 7:14. That promise, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son, had regard to Solomon, but much more, considering how august the promise is, to the Messiah; otherwise Solomon also would be greater than the angels. The seed of David, or the Son of David, is one name, under which, according to the nature (relation) of the predicate, sometimes Solomon, sometimes Christ—sometimes Solomon, and at the same time, in a higher sense, Christ—is intended; an ambiguity well suited to the times of expectation, Psa 89:27-28. The apostles are the true interpreters of the Divine words, even though we should not have arrived at such an idea (such a mode of interpretation) as this without them [had it not been for their interpreting Scripture so].

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb_1:5. Τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων] For to which of the angels has He ever said, i.e. to none of the angels has He ever said.

The position of the words serves to put a strong accentuation at the same time upon τίνι and upon τῶν ἀγγέλων.

The subject in εἶπεν is ὁ θεός, as is evident alike from the passage itself which is cited, and from our context; inasmuch as both in that which precedes (Heb_1:1-4) ὁ θεός was expressly mentioned as the subject of the main proposition, and in that which follows (Heb_1:6) the subject of εἰσαγάγῃ τὸν πρωτότοκον can only be God.

ποτέ] is particle of time, at any time, unquam. Wrongly taken by Ch. F. Schmid, Kuinoel, and others as a mere strengthening particle, in the sense of the German doch or the Latin tandem. For then ποτέ must have been placed immediately after τίνι.

The citation υἱὸς … σε is from Psa_2:7, in verbal accordance with the LXX. In its historic sense the psalm relates to an Israelite king (probably Solomon), who, just now solemnly anointed in Zion as theocratic king, in the lofty feeling of his unity with Jehovah, warns the subjugated nations, who are meditating revolt and defection, of the fruitlessness of their undertaking. The author, however, sees Christ in the person addressed, even as a referring of this psalm to the Messiah was quite usual among the Jews of that period, and in the N. T. the Messianic interpretation thereof is further met with, besides Heb_1:5, in Act_13:33.

υἱός μου] my Son, i.e. in the sense of the psalm, the king of my theocracy, my representative, the object of my fatherly love and protection The author, on the other hand, takes υἱός in the sense unfolded, Heb_1:2-3.

ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε] I have this day begotten thee, i.e. in the historic sense of the original: I have, by the anointing accomplished this day, installed thee as the theocratic prince. In the sense of the author, γεγέννηκα denotes the fact of having become the Son. The question is now, how he conceived of the σήμερον. It is referred either to the moment in which Christ was manifested to be the Son of God, i.e. to the moment of the Resurrection or the Ascension (Hilary, in Psalmum; Ambrose, de Sacram. 3. 1; Calvin, Cameron, Grotius, Schlichting, Limborch, Jac. Cappellus, Owen, Calmet, Peirce, Storr, Bloomfield, Bisping, Maier; comp. Delitzsch, who would have the words interpreted of the entrance of the Son into the kingly life of supra-terrestrial glory in God, of which the resurrection is the initial point), or to the moment of the Incarnation (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Eusebius, in Psalmum, alii; Piscator, Böhme, Kuinoel, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 123 f. of the 2d ed.; Woerner), or, finally, to the period before the creation of the world, thus to eternity (Origen in Joh., t. i. c. 32; Athanasius, de decret. Nicen. Synod. § 13; Basil, contra Eunom. 2. 24; Augustine, in Psalmum [Arnobius of Gaul, in Psalmum]; Primasius, Theophylact, Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius a Lapide, Estius, Calov, Wittich, Braun, Carpzov, Bleek [but with wavering; more decidedly in the lectures edited by Windrath[34]], Stein, Alford, Kurtz, and the majority). That the author, as Bleek I., de Wette, and Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 287 f.) deem possible, attached no definite notion to the σήμερον, as being without significance for his demonstration, is an unexegetical supposition. Exclusively correct, because alone in harmony with the context, is the referring of the σήμερον to eternity; since, according to Heb_1:2, God created the world by Christ as the Son, thus Christ must already have existed as Son before the foundation of the world. With Philo, too, occurs the same interpretation of σήμερον, as signifying eternity. Comp. De Profugis, p. 458 E (with Mangey, I. p. 554): σήμερον δʼ ἐστὶν ὁ ἀπέρατος καὶ ἀδιεξίτητος αἰών· μηνῶν γὰρ καὶ ἐνιαυτῶν καὶ συνόλως χρόνων περίοδοι δόγματα ἀνθρώπων εἰσὶν ἀριθμὸν ἐκτετιμηκότων, τὸ δʼ ἀψευδὲς ὄνομα αἰῶνος ἡ σήμερον.

καὶ πάλιν] and further, serves, as frequently (e.g. Heb_2:13, Heb_10:30; Rom_15:11-12; 1Co_3:20; Philo, ed. Mangey, I. p. 88, 490, al.), for the introduction of a new passage of Scripture. The καὶ πάλιν κ.τ.λ. is not, however, to be taken as an assertory declaration, so that merely εἶπεν would have to be supplied (in accordance with which Lachmann punctuates); but the question is continued in such wise that the proposition is to be completed by καὶ (τίνι εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων) πάλιν.

This second citation is derived from 2Sa_7:14, in verbal accordance with the LXX. Comp. also 1 Chronicles 17(18):13. αὐτῷ and αὐτός refer in the historic sense to Solomon. To David, who designs building a temple to Jehovah, the divine direction comes by Nathan to desist from his purpose. Not David, but his seed, who shall ascend the throne after him, is to build a temple to Jehovah; to him will Jehovah for ever establish the throne of his kingdom; to him will Jehovah be a father, and he shall be to Him a son, and, if he transgress, Jehovah will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men. Even this latter addition (which, for the rest, is not found in the parallel passage, 1Ch_17:13 (1Ch_18:13) makes it impossible to refer the words to the Messiah, as, moreover, the reference to Solomon is rendered certain even from the O. T. itself by the following passages: 1 Kings 5:19 (5), 1Ki_8:17 ff.; 2Ch_6:9-10; as also 1Ch_22:9 (1Ch_23:9 ff)., 1Ch_28:2 (1Ch_29:2) ff.

εἶναι εἰς] Formed after the Hebrew הָיָה לְ Comp. Heb_8:10, al.

[34] Der Hebräerbr., erklärt von Dr. Fr. Bleek, Elberf. 1868.

Heb_1:5-14 follow the scriptural proof for Heb_1:4, and that in such form that in the first place, Heb_1:5, the διαφορώτερον παρʼ αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα is confirmed, and then, Heb_1:6-14, the κρείττων γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Heb 1:5 . τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν ποτε τῶν ἀγγέλων … “For to which of the angels did he ever say My Son art Thou, I this day have begotten Thee?” τίνι to what individual; ποτε in the whole course of history. The angels as a class are called “Sons of Elohim” in the O.T. (Gen 6:2 ; Psa 29:1 ; Psa 89:7 ; Job 1:6 ). But this was not used in its strict sense but merely as expressive of indefinite greatness, nor was it addressed to any individual. εἶπεν , the subject unexpressed, as is common in citing Scripture (2Co 6:2 ; Gal 3:16 ; Eph 4:8 , etc.). Winer and Blass supply ὁ θεός , others ἡ γραφή . Warfield, who gives the fullest treatment of the subjectless use of λέγει , φησί , and sucb words ( Presb. and Ref. Rev. , July, 1899) holds that either subject may be supplied, because “under the force of their conception of Scripture as an oracular book it was all one to the N.T. writers whether they said ‘God says’ or ‘Scripture says’.” Here, however, the connection involves that the subject is ὁ θεός . The words cited are from Psa 2:7 and are in verbal agreement with the LXX, which again accurately represents the Hebrew. The psalm was written to celebrate the accession of a King, Solomon or some other; but the writer, seeing in his mind’s eye the ideal King, clothes the new monarch in his robes. The King was called God’s Son on the basis of the promise made to David (2Sa 7:14 ) and quoted in the following clauses: The words ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε do not seem to add much to the foregoing words, except by emphasising them, according to the ordinary method of Hebrew poetry. σήμερον is evidently intended to mark a special occasion or crisis and cannot allude to the eternal generation of the Son. In its original reference it meant “I have begotten Thee to the kingly dignity”. It is not the beginning of life, but the entrance on office that is indicated by γεγέννηκα , and it is as King the person addressed is God’s Son. Thus Paul, in his address to the Pisidians (Act 13:33 ), applies it to the Resurrection of Christ; cf. Rom 1:4 . The words, then, find their fulfilment in Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension and sitting down at God’s right hand as Messiah. He was thus proclaimed King, begotten to the royal dignity, and in this sense certainly no angel was ever called God’s Son.

This is more fully illustrated by another passage introduced by the usual καὶ πάλιν (see Heb 10:30 , and Longinus, De Subl. , chap, iv, etc.). Ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα …, words spoken in God’s name by Nathan in reference to David’s seed, and conveying to him the assurance that the kings of his dynasty should ever enjoy the favour and protection and inspiration enabling them to rule as God’s representatives. This promise is prior in history to the previous quotation, and is its source; see 2Sa 7:14 . ἔσομαι εἰς is Hellenistic after a Hebrew model. See Blass, Gram. , p. 85.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The writer proceeds to establish the superiority of the Son to the angels by O. T. testimony. It is a mode of argument which does not appeal strongly to us. Dr. Bruce suggests that there are evidences that the writer himself developed it perfunctorily and without much interest in it. The seven following quotations are intended to show the surpassing excellence of Christ 's name as set forth in Scripture. The quotations present difficulty in that they appear, in great part, to be used in a sense and with an application different from those which they originally had. All that can be said is, that the writer takes these passages as messianic, and applies them accordingly; and that we must distinguish between the doctrine and the method of argumentation peculiar to the time and people. Certain passages in Paul are open to the same objection, as Gal 3:16; Gal 4:22 - 25.

To which [τινι] . Note the author 's characteristic use of the question to express denial. Comp. ver. 14; Heb 2:3; Heb 3:17; Heb 7:11; Heb 12:7. First quotation from Psa 2:7. The Psalm is addressed as a congratulatory ode to a king of Judah, declaring his coming triumph over the surrounding nations, and calling on them to render homage to the God of Israel. The king is called Son of Jahveh, and is said to be "begotten" on the day on which he is publicly recognized as king. Words of the same Psalm are quoted Act 4:25, and these words Act 13:33.

Thou art my Son. Note the emphatic position of uiJov son. See on ver. 4. In the O. T. son is applied to angels collectively, but never individually. See Psa 29:1; Psa 89:6. Similarly, son is applied to the chosen nation, Exo 4:22; Hos 11:1, but to no individual of the nation.

Have I begotten [γεγεννηκα] . Recognized thee publicly as sovereign; established thee in an official sonship - relation. This official installation appears to have its N. T. counterpart in the resurrection of Christ. In Act 13:33, this is distinctly asserted; and in Rom 1:4, Paul says that Christ was "powerfully declared" to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. Comp. Col 1:18; Rev 1:5. 1 68 Second quotation, 2Sa 7:14. The reference is to Solomon. David proposes to build a temple. Nathan tells him that this shall be done by Solomon, whom Jahveh will adopt as his son. In 2Co 6:18, Paul applies the passage to followers of the Messiah, understanding the original as referring to all the spiritual children of David.

A father - a son [εις πατεραεις υιον] . Lit. for or as a father - son. This usage of eijv mostly in O. T. citations or established formulas. See Mt 19:5; Luk 2:34; Act 19:27; 1Co 4:3.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He proveth and confirmeth the dignity of Christ manifested in the flesh by these six evident testimonies, whereby it appeareth that he far passeth all Angels, insomuch that he is called both Son, and God, in verses 5, 6, 7, 10, 13.

The Father begat the Son from everlasting, but that everlasting generation was made manifest and represented to the world in his time, and therefore he addeth this word (Today.)

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 5. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee] These words are quoted from Ps 2:7, a psalm that seems to refer only to the Messiah; and they are quoted by St. Paul, Ac 13:33, as referring to the resurrection of Christ. And this application of them is confirmed by the same apostle, Ro 1:4, as by his resurrection from the dead he was declared-manifestly proved, to be the Son of God with power; God having put forth his miraculous energy in raising that body from the grave which had truly died, and died a violent death, for Christ was put to death as a malefactor, but by his resurrection his innocence was demonstrated, as God could not work a miracle to raise a wicked man from the dead. As Adam was created by God, and because no natural generation could have any operation in this case, therefore he was called the son of God, Lu 3:38, and could never have seen corruption if he had not sinned, so the human nature of Jesus Christ, formed by the energy of the eternal Spirit in the womb of the virgin, without any human intervention, was for this very reason called the Son of God, Lu 1:35; and because it had not sinned, therefore it could not see corruption, nor was it even mortal, but through a miraculous display of God's infinite love, for the purpose of making a sacrificial atonement for the sin of the world and God, having raised this sacrificed human nature from the dead, declared that same Jesus (who was, as above stated, the Son of God) to be his Son, the promised Messiah; and as coming by the Virgin Mary, the right heir to the throne of David, according to the uniform declaration of all the prophets.

The words, This day have I begotten thee, must refer either to his incarnation, when he was miraculously conceived in the womb of the virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit; or to his resurrection from the dead, when God, by this sovereign display of his almighty energy, declared him to be his Son, vindicated his innocence, and also the purity and innocence of the blessed virgin, who was the mother of this son, and who declared him to be produced in her womb by the power of God. The resurrection of Christ, therefore, to which the words most properly refer, not only gave the fullest proof that he was an innocent and righteous man, but also that he had accomplished the purpose for which he died, and that his conception was miraculous, and his mother a pure and unspotted virgin.

This is a subject of infinite importance to the Christian system, and of the last consequence in reference to the conviction and conversion of the Jews, for whose use this epistle was sent by God. Here is the rock on which they split; they deny this Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ, and their blasphemies against him and his virgin mother are too shocking to be transcribed. The certainty of the resurrection of Jesus refutes their every calumny; proves his miraculous conception; vindicates the blessed virgin; and, in a word, declares him to be the Son of God with power.

This most important use of this saying has passed unnoticed by almost every Christian writer which I have seen; and yet it lies here at the foundation of all the apostle's proofs. If Jesus was not thus the Son of God, the whole Christian system is vain and baseless: but his resurrection demonstrates him to have been the Son of God; therefore every thing built on this foundation is more durable than the foundations of heaven, and as inexpungable as the throne of the eternal King.

He shall be to me a Son?] As the Jews have ever blasphemed against the Sonship of Christ, it was necessary that the apostle should adduce and make strong all his proofs, and show that this was not a new revelation; that it was that which was chiefly intended in several scriptures of the Old Testament, which, without farther mentioning the places where found, he immediately produces. This place, which is quoted from 2Sam 7:14, shows us that the seed which God promised to David, and who was to sit upon his throne, and whose throne should be established for ever, was not Solomon, but Jesus Christ; and indeed he quotes the words so as to intimate that they were so understood by the Jews. See among the observations at the end of the chapter.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

5. Thou art my Son, etc. It cannot be denied but that this was spoken of David, that is, as he sustained the person of Christ. Then the things found in this Psalm must have been shadowed forth in David, but were fully accomplished in Christ. For that he by subduing many enemies around him, enlarged the borders of his kingdom, it was some foreshadowing of the promise, “I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.” But how little was this in comparison with the amplitude of Christ’s kingdom, which extends from the east to the west? For the same reason David was called the son of God, having been especially chosen to perform great things; but his glory was hardly a spark, even the smallest, to that glory which shone forth in Christ, on whom the Father has imprinted his own image. So the name of Son belongs by a peculiar privilege to Christ alone, and cannot in this sense be applied to any other without profanation, for him and no other has the Father sealed.

But still the argument of the Apostle seems not to be well-grounded; for how does he maintain that Christ is superior to angels except on this ground, that he has the name of a Son? As though indeed he had not this in common with princes and those high in power, of whom it is written, “Ye are gods and the sons of the most”, (Psalm 50:6;) and as though Jeremiah had not spoken as honorably of all Israel, when he called them the firstborn of God. (Jeremiah 31:9.) They are indeed everywhere called children or sons. Besides, David calls angels the sons of God;

“Who,” he says, “is like to Jehovah among the sons of God?” (Psalm 89:6.)

The answer to all this is in no way difficult. Princes are called by this name on account of a particular circumstance; as to Israel, the common grace of election is thus denoted; angels are called the sons of God as having a certain resemblance to him, because they are celestial spirits and possess some portion of divinity in their blessed immortality. But when David without any addition calls himself as the type of Christ the Son of God, he denotes something peculiar and more excellent than the honor given to angels or to princes, or even to all Israel. Otherwise it would have been an improper and absurd expression, if he was by way of excellence called the son of God, and yet had nothing more than others; for he is thus separated from all other beings. When it is said so exclusively of Christ, “Thou art my Son,” it follows that this honor does not belong to any of the angels.

If any one again objects and says, that David was thus raised above the angels; to this I answer, that it is nothing strange for him to be elevated above angels while bearing the image of Christ; for in like manner there was no wrong done to angels when the high-priest, who made an atonement for sins, was called a mediator. They did not indeed obtain that title as by right their own; but as they represented the kingdom of Christ, they derived also the name from him. Moreover, the sacraments, though in themselves lifeless, are yet honored with titles which angels cannot claim without being guilty of sacrilege. It is hence evident that the argument derived from the term Son, is well grounded.

As to his being begotten, we must briefly observe, that it is to be understood relatively here: for the subtle reasoning of Augustine is frivolous, when he imagines that today means perpetuity or eternity. Christ doubtless is the eternal Son of God, for he is wisdom, born before time; but this has no connection with this passage, in which respect is had to men, by whom Christ was acknowledged to be the Son of God after the Father had manifested him. Hence that declaration or manifestation which Paul mentions in Romans 1:4, was, so to speak, a sort of an external begetting; for the hidden and internal which had preceded, was unknown to men; nor could there have been any account taken of it, had not the Father given proof of it by a visible manifestation.

I will be to him a Father, etc. As to this second testimony the former observation holds good. Solomon is here referred to, and though he was inferior to the angels, yet when God promised to be his Father, he was separated from the common rank of all others; for he was not to be to him a Father as to one of the princes, but as to one who was more eminent than all the rest. By the same privilege he was made a Son; all others were excluded from the like honor. But that this was not said of Solomon otherwise than as a type of Christ, is evident from the context; for the empire of the whole world is destined for the Son mentioned there, and perpetuity is also ascribed to his empire: on the other hand, it appears that the kingdom of Solomon has confined within narrow bounds, and was so far from being perpetual, that immediately after his death it was divided, and some time afterwards it fell altogether. Again, in that Psalm the sun and moon are summoned as witnesses, and the Lord swears that as long as they shall shine in the heavens, that kingdom shall remain safe: and on the other hand, the kingdom of David in a short time fell into decay, and at length utterly perished. And further, we may easily gather from many passages in the Prophets, that that promise was never understood otherwise than of Christ; so that no one can evade by saying that this is a new comment; for hence also has commonly prevailed among the Jews the practice of calling Christ the Son of David.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(5) For unto which of the angels . . . . “God has spoken of the Messiah as His Son, a title which no angel ever receives from Him.” That the appellation “sons of God” may be used in an inferior sense, and that thus angels may be so designated (Job_1:6; Job_38:7), does not affect this argument; for every reader must perceive that in these quotations “Son” is used of One, and in a sense that is unique The two quotations are taken from Psa_2:7 and 2Sa_7:14. It seems probable that the second Psalm was written by David during the troublous times of 2 Samuel 8-10, in the fresh recollection of the promises of which we read in 2 Samuel 7. In the midst of the rebellious conspiracies of kings and nations is heard Jehovah’s word, “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psa_2:6). In Heb_1:7 the Anointed King declares the divine decree, “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee;” and the following verses describe the kingly dominion of the Son. The clearest comments on Heb_1:7 are supplied by 2Sa_7:12-14, and especially by Psa_89:27 of the last-named Psalm, “I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth,” shows plainly that in their first meaning—that which relates to the royal rule of David or David’s son—the words “I have this day begotten thee” signify “I have this day established thee as my chosen king, and thus constituted thee my son;” for to the firstborn belongs natural, though derived, rule over the kingdom of his father. At what period the people in general, guided by prophetic teaching and the discipline of history (see below), learnt in how secondary a sense such words could be used of any human king, we do not know; but we have clear evidence, both from the New Testament (Heb_5:5; Act_4:25-27; Act_13:33; Rev_2:27) and from Jewish tradition, that the second Psalm was understood to be a distinct prophecy of the Messiah; indeed, this very name “Messiah” and the appellation “Son of God” (see Joh_1:34; Joh_1:49) may be traced to this Psalm. The declarations of Heb_1:6-7, are typical of the enthronement of the Messiah. St. Paul (Act_13:33) refers the words here quoted to the period of the Resurrection. With this the language used above (Heb_1:4) perfectly agrees. As, however, in that verse the exaltation of the Christ is declared to correspond to that essential dignity which lay in the name Son, a name which in this very context bears its highest sense (Heb_1:1-3), we are constrained to regard the “day” of the Resurrection as itself typical, and to believe that “this day” also pointed to the “eternal Now”—to what Origen (on Joh_1:1) speaks of as “the day which is co-extensive with the unbegotten and everlasting life of God.”

The second passage, which seems to have been the basis of the words we have just considered, occurs in the course of the divine promise that David’s seed shall be established in his kingdom, and that David’s throne shall be established for ever: the seed of David shall be received as God’s Son. With the words here quoted are closely joined others which plainly prove that Heb_1:14 is not a simple and direct prophecy of Christ, but in the first instance belonged to an earthly ruler. Through the teaching of successive disappointments, each “son of David” failing to realise the hopes excited by the promise, the nation was led to look to the future King, and at once to remove from the prophecy the purely earthly limitations and to discern a higher meaning in the promise of divine sonship.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5–14. Illustrations from Scripture of the superiority of Christ to Angels

5. For] The following paragraphs prove “the more excellent name.” By His work on earth the God-man Christ Jesus obtained that superiority of place in the order and hierarchy of salvation which made Him better than the Angels, not only in intrinsic dignity but in relation to the redemption of man. In other words the universal heirship of Christ is here set forth “not as a metaphysical but as a dispensational prerogative.” That it should be necessary for the writer to enter upon a proof of this may well seem strange to us; but that it was necessary is proved by the earnestness with which he devotes himself to the task. To us the difficulty lies in the mode of proof, not in the result arrived at; but his readers were unconvinced of the result, while they would have freely admitted the validity of this method of reasoning. The line of proof has been thoroughly studied by Dr W. Robertson Smith, in some papers published in the Expositor for 1881, to which I am indebted for several suggestions. “There is nothing added,” he says, “to the intrinsic superiority of Christ’s being, but He occupies towards us a position higher than the angels ever held. The whole argument turns, not on personal dignity, but on dignity of function in the administration of the economy of salvation.” It may be due to this Epistle that we find in later Jewish books (like the Jalkut Shimeoni) such sentences as “The King Messiah shall be exalted above Abraham, Moses, and the Ministering Angels” (see Schöttgen, p. 905).

For unto which of the angels said he at any time] The “He” is God. This indirect mode of reference to God is common in the Rabbinic writings. The argument here is from the silence of Scripture, as in Heb_1:13, Heb_2:16, Heb_7:13-14.

Thou art my Son …] The quotation is from Psa_2:7 (comp. Psa_89:20; Psa_89:26-27). The author does not need to pause in order to prove that this, and the other passages which he quotes, apply to the Christ; still less to prove that Christ is the Son of God. All Christians held the second point; the first point would have been at once conceded by every Jewish reader. Many of the Jews adopted the common view of the Rabbis that everything in the Old Testament prophecies might be applied to the Messiah. St Peter, in Act_13:33, also applies this verse to Christ, and the great Rabbis, Kimchi and Rashi, admit that the Psalm was accepted in a Messianic sense in ancient days. The Divinity of Christ was a truth which the writer might assume in addressing Christians.

It must therefore be observed that these passages are not advanced as proofs that Jesus was the Son of God—which, as Christians, the readers in no wise disputed—but as arguments ad hominem and ex concessis. In other words they were arguments to those whom the writer had immediately in view, and who had no doubt as to the premisses on which he based his reasoning. He had to confirm a vacillating and unprogressive faith (Heb_6:12, Heb_12:25), not to convince those who disputed the central truths of Christianity.

Our own conviction on these subjects rests primarily upon historical and spiritual grounds, and only depends in a very subordinate degree on indirect Scriptural applications. Yet even as regards these we cannot but see that, while the more sober-minded interpreters have always admitted that there was a primary historic meaning in the passages quoted, and that they were addressed in the first instance to David, Solomon, &c., yet (1) there is a “pre-established harmony” between the language used and its fulfilment in Christ; (2) the language is often so far beyond the scope of its immediate application that it points to an ideal and distant fulfilment; (3) it was interpreted for many centuries before Christ in a Messianic sense; (4) that Messianic sense has been amply justified by the slow progress of history. There is surely some medium between regarding these passages as soothsaying vaticinations, definitely and consciously recognised as such by their writers, and setting them aside as though they contained no prophetic element at all. In point of fact the Jews themselves rightly looked on them as mingling the present and the future, the kingly-theocratic and the Messianic. No one will enter into their real meaning who does not see that all the best Jewish literature was in the highest sense prophetic. It centred in that magnificent Messianic hope which arose immediately from the connexion of the Jews with their covenant God, and which elevated them above all other nations. The divine character of this confident hope was justified, and more than justified, by the grandeur of its fulfilment. Genuine, simple, historical exegesis still leaves room in the Old Testament for a glorious and demonstrable Christology. Although the old aphorism—Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet—has often been extravagantly abused by allegoric interpreters, every instructed Christian will admit its fundamental truth. The germ of a highly-developed Messianic prophecy was involved from the first in the very idea of a theocracy and a separated people.

this day have I begotten thee] St Paul says (Rom_1:4) that Jesus was “determined” or “constituted” (ὁρισθέντος) Son of God, with power, by resurrection from the dead. The aorist in that passage points to a definite time—the Resurrection (comp. Act_13:33). In other senses the expression “to-day” might be applied to the Incarnation (Luk_1:31), or to the Ascension, or to the Eternal Generation. The latter explanation however,—which explains “to-day” of “God’s eternal now” the nunc stans of eternity—though adopted by Origen (who finely says that in God’s “to-day” there is neither morning nor evening) and by St Augustine—is probably one of the “afterthoughts of theology.” Calvin stigmatises it as a “frivola Augustini argutia,” but the strongest argument in its favour is that Philo has a somewhat similar conception. The words, however, originally applied to the day of David’s complete inauguration as king upon Mount Sion. No one time can apply to the Eternal Generation, and the adoption of Philo’s notion that “to-day” means “for ever,” and that “all Eternity” is God’s to-day would here be out of place. Possibly the “to-day” is only, so to speak, an accidental part of the quotation: in other words it may belong rather to the literal and primary prophecy than to its Messianic application. The Church shews that she understood the word “to-day” to apply to the Resurrection by appointing the second psalm as one of the special psalms for Easter-day.

I will be to him a Father] 2Sa_7:14 (LXX.). The words were primarily applicable to Solomon, but the quotation would not, without further argument, have helped forward the writer’s end if he had not been able to assume with confidence that none of his readers would dispute his typological method of exegesis. It is probable that the promise to David here quoted is directly connected with the passage just adduced from Psalms 2.

he shall be to me a Son] The quotation (comp. Philo De Leg. Allegor. iii. 8) though primarily applied to Solomon, has the wider sense of prophesying the advent of some perfect theocratic king. The “Angels” it might be objected are called “Sons of God” in Gen_6:2; Job_1:6; Job_2:1; Job_38:7; Dan_3:25. In these passages, however, the Alexandrian manuscript of the LXX. which this author seems to have used (whereas St Paul seems to quote from another type of manuscript—the Vatican), has “angels” and not “sons.” If it be further urged that in Psa_29:1; Psa_89:7, even the Alexandrian MS. also has “sons” we must suppose either that the writer means to distinguish (1) between the higher and lower senses of the word “son;” or (2) between “Sons of Elohim” and “Sons of Jehovah,” since Elohim is so much lower and vaguer a name for God than Jehovah, that not only Angels but even human beings are called Elohim; or (3) that he did not regard the name “sons” as in any way characteristic of angels. He shews so intimate a knowledge of the Psalms that—on this ground alone, not to dwell on others—the supposition that he forgot or overlooked these passages is hardly admissible.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For unto which of the angels said he at any time,.... That is, he never said to any of the angels what he has said to Christ; namely, what follows,

thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee for though angels are called the sons of God, Job 1:6 yet are never said to be begotten by him; or, with this clause annexed to it, "this day have I begotten thee"; nor are they ever so called in a proper sense, or in such sense as Christ is: this is said to Christ, and of him, in Psa 2:7 and that agreeably to the sense of the Jewish church at this time, or the apostle would never have produced it to the Hebrews in such a manner; and not only the whole psalm in general, but this verse in particular, is owned by Jewish writers (t), both ancient and modern, to belong to the Messiah. Christ is the Son of God, not by Creation, nor by adoption, nor by office, but by nature; he is the true, proper, natural, and eternal Son of God; and as such is owned and declared by Jehovah the Father, in these words; the foundation of which relation lies in the begetting of him; which refers not to his nature, either divine or human: not to his divine nature, which is common with the Father and Spirit; wherefore if his was begotten, theirs must be also, being the same undivided nature, common to all three; much less to his human nature, in which he is never said to be begotten, but always to be made, and with respect to which he is without Father; nor to his office, as Mediator, in which he is not a Son, but a servant; besides, he was a Son, previous to his being a prophet, priest, and King; and his office is not the foundation of his sonship, but his sonship is the foundation of his office; or by which that is supported, and which fits him for the performance of it: but it has respect to his divine person; for as, in human generation, person begets person, and like begets like, so it is in divine generation; though care must be taken to remove all imperfection from it, as divisibility and multiplication of essence, priority and posteriority, dependence, and the like; nor can the modus, or manner of it, be conceived, or explained by us: the date of it, today, designs eternity, as in Isa 43:13, which is one continued day, an everlasting now; and this may be applied to any time and case, in which Christ is declared to be the Son of God; as at his incarnation, his baptism, his transfiguration on the Mount, and his resurrection from the dead, as in Act 13:33 and at his ascension to heaven, when he was made Lord and Christ, and his divine sonship more manifestly appeared; which seems to be the time, and case, more especially referred to here. And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a Son: which words are taken from Sa2 7:14 and the sense is, not that he should be his son by adoption; or that he would be instead of a father to him; or that he should be as dear to him as a son is to a father; but that he was really and properly so; and he would make it manifest, and own him as such, as he did at Jordan's river, upon the Mount, and at his resurrection and ascension; though the words are spoken of Solomon, as a type of Christ, they properly belong to the antitype, who is greater than Solomon.

(t) Zohar in Numb. fol. 82. 2. Maimon. in Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 11. 1. & Abarbinel, Mashmia Jeshua, fol. 37. 4. & 38. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

Ver. 5. This day] Either the day of eternity, and so it is meant of Christ’s eternal generation; or else the fulness of time, wherein God brought his first begotten into the world, and mightily declared him to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead, Act 13:33; Rom 1:4.

I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son] αυτοθεος. The second person is of himself, as God; of his Father, as a Son; because the Father communicateth to him his own nature, and that by generation; whence he is called "his begotten Son;" and his "only begotten;" because by generation God hath no more sons ‘out him; he is called the "Father of spirits," Heb 12:9; of all men, Mal 2:10, as he is Creator and conserver of all; and of "all good men," by the grace of adoption and regeneration, 2Co 6:18; Joh 1:12.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. These words, though commonly expounded of the eternal generation of the Son of God in the day or moment of eternity, yet may be truly applied either to Christ made man by his incarnation, or to Christ risen from the dead, as they are used by St. Paul, (Acts xiii. 33.) because the same Christ both these ways is the Son of God. It was the only true and natural Son of God, who was made flesh, who was made man, who rose from the dead; and the eternal Father manifested his eternal Son by his incarnation, and shewed him triumphing over death by his resurrection. --- I will be to him a father, &c. Although these words might be literally spoken of Solomon, yet in the mystical sense (chiefly intended by the Holy Ghost) they are to be understood of Christ, who in a much more proper sense is the Son of God. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle here proves that Christ hath a more excellent name, and pre-eminency over angels, by Scripture texts owned by these Hebrews. He had the name of Son of God, and so had not angels; for God the Father, who hath absolute power to give and state all excellency, never said to any angel, so as to constitute him his only Son by an ordinance or word of power.

Sons he may style them, as Job 2:1; Psa 89:6; as he doth members of his church, Gen 6:2, and princes and magistrates, Psa 82:1,6; but always in the plural number, as he doth the angels, Job 38:7, noting out their power, place, and ministry. But Son is singular to Christ, and incommunicable to any other.

Thou art my Son: this is quoted out of Psa 2:7.

Thou God-man, thou thyself, thou, and thou alone, (that this was spoken of Christ truly, and of David only as a type of him, the Spirit asserts, Act 13:33), art my own Son, my ever-being Son, my Son by nature, Rom 8:32. Singularity sets out his eminency above all, and his propriety by nature in him.

This day have I begotten thee: at the day of his incarnation, Isa 9:6; Luk 1:31,32,35, but eminently at the day of his resurrection, was he declared and published to be his only begotten Son with power, Rom 1:4; and at his ascension inangurated the supreme, universal King and Priest in heaven and earth, Heb 5:5, possessed of a better name, place, and power than angels, Eph 1:20,21. What men enjoy in this kind attributed to them, is with a vast disproportion to this; born, or begotten, they are said to be, in respect of God’s operation on them, infusing Divine qualities into their souls, but this Son by a generation proper to a substantial person.

And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son: in another Scripture, as 2Sa 7:14; 1Ch 17:13; 22:10, it is declared, I his natural Father, and he my natural Son; so as they are not related to any other as they are to each other. This in the type was spoken of Solomon, but fulfilled in Christ, who was universal King and Priest over his church for ever; so David understood it, Psa 110:1; compare Psa 89:19,26-29. He was the first-born Son, born a King; the Son of the universal and supreme King, the Heir and Lord of all.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Thou art my Son - God of God, Light of Light. This day have I begotten thee - I have begotten thee from eternity, which, by its unalter able permanency of duration, is one continued, unsuccessive day. I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son - I will own myself to be his Father, and him to be my Son, by eminent tokens of my peculiar love The former clause relates to his natural Sonship, by an eternal, inconceivable generation; the other, to his Father's acknowledgment and treatment of him as his incarnate Son. Indeed this promise related immediately to Solomon, but in a far higher sense to the Messiah. Psalm ii, 7; 2 Sam. vii, 14

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

5. This verse describes what theologians call “the eternal generation of the Son.”

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5–12. For to which of the angels. To none of them did he ever use such language as follows. The style in which the Father addresses Christ shows his superiority to the angels. Thou art my Son. See Ps. 2:7. The second Psalm was regarded by the Jews as a prophecy of the Messiah. This day have I begotten thee. What day is referred to in the prophecy? Acts 13:32, 33 answers the question by quoting this very passage and declaring that it was fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. He was born from the dead and God, who raised him, thus demonstrated that he was his Son. I will be to him a Father, etc. Quoted from 2 Sam. 7:14. They were spoken originally of David's son Solomon, chosen to be king after him, but he was in a certain sense a type of Christ. Expression “Son of David,” “Seed of David,” while applicable to Solomon, pre-eminently refers to Christ.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

5–14. ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SCRIPTURE OF THE SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST TO ANGELS

5. γάρ. The following paragraphs prove “the more excellent name.” By His work on earth the God-man Christ Jesus obtained that superiority of place in the order and hierarchy of salvation which made Him better than the Angels, not only in intrinsic dignity but in relation to the redemption of man. In other words the universal heirship of Christ is here set forth “not as a metaphysical but as a dispensational prerogative.” That it should be necessary for the writer to enter upon a proof of this may well seem strange to us; but that it was necessary is proved by the earnestness with which he devotes himself to the task. To us the difficulty lies in the mode of proof, not in the result arrived at; but his readers were unconvinced of the result, while they would have freely admitted the validity of this method of reasoning. The line of proof has been thoroughly studied by Dr W. Robertson Smith, in some papers published in the Expositor for 1881, to which I am indebted for several suggestions. “There is nothing added,” he says, “to the intrinsic superiority of Christ’s being, but He occupies towards us a position higher than the angels ever held. The whole argument turns, not on personal dignity, but on dignity of function in the administration of the economy of salvation.” It may be due to this Epistle that we find in later Jewish books (like the Yalkut Shimeoni) such sentences as “The King Messiah shall be exalted above Abraham, Moses, and the Ministering Angels” (see Schöttgen, p. 905).

εἶπεν. The “He” is God. This indirect mode of reference to God is common in the Rabbinic writings. The argument here is from the silence of Scripture, as in Heb 1:13, Heb 2:16, Heb 7:13-14.

Υἱός μου εἷ σύ. “My Son art Thou.” The order and the pronoun are both emphatic. The quotation is from Psa 2:7 (comp. Psa 89:20; Psa 89:26-27). The author does not need to pause in order to prove that this, and the other passages which he quotes, apply to the Christ. This would have been at once conceded by every Jewish reader. Many of the Jews adopted the common view of the Rabbis that everything in the Old Testament prophecies might be applied to the Messiah. St Peter, in Act 13:33, also applies this verse to Christ, and the great Rabbis, Kimchi and Rashi, admit that the Psalm was accepted in a Messianic sense in ancient days. The Divinity of Christ was a truth which the writer does not need to dwell upon. He might, of course, assume it in addressing Christians.

It must be observed that these passages are not advanced as proofs that Jesus was the Son of God—which, as Christians, the readers in no wise disputed—but as arguments ad hominem and ex concessis. In other words they were arguments to those whom the writer had immediately in view, and who had no doubt as to the premisses on which he based his reasoning. He had to confirm a vacillating and unprogressive faith (Heb 6:12, Heb 12:25), not to convince those who disputed the central truths of Christianity.

Our own conviction on these subjects rests primarily upon historical and spiritual grounds, and only depends in a very subordinate degree on indirect Scriptural applications. Yet even as regards these we cannot but see that, while the more sober-minded interpreters have always admitted that there was a primary historic meaning in the passages quoted, and that they were addressed in the first instance to David, Solomon, &c., yet (1) there is a “pre-established harmony” between the language used and its fulfilment in Christ; (2) the language is often so far beyond the scope of its immediate application that it points to an ideal and distant fulfilment; (3) it was interpreted for many centuries before Christ in a Messianic sense; (4) the Messianic sense has been amply justified by the slow progress of history. There is surely some medium between the two common extremes of (1) regarding these passages as soothsaying vaticinations, definitely and consciously recognised as such by their writers, and (2) setting them aside as though they contained no prophetic element at all. In point of fact the Jews themselves rightly looked on them as mingling the present and the future, the kingly-theocratic and the Messianic. No one will enter into their real meaning who does not see that all the best Jewish literature was in the highest sense prophetic. It centred in that magnificent Messianic hope which arose immediately from the connexion of the Jews with their covenant God, and which elevated them above all other nations. The Divine character of this confident hope was justified, and more than justified, by the grandeur of its fulfilment. Genuine, simple, historical exegesis still leaves room in the Old Testament for a glorious and demonstrable Christology. Although the old aphorism—Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet—has often been extravagantly abused by allegoric interpreters, every instructed Christian will admit its fundamental truth. The germ of a highly-developed Messianic prophecy was involved from the first in the very idea of a theocracy and a separated people.

ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε, “I this day have begotten Thee.” St Paul says (Rom 1:4) that Jesus was “determined” or “constituted” (ὁρισθέντος) Son of God, with power, by resurrection from the dead. The aorist in that passage points to a definite time—the Resurrection (comp. Act 13:33). La other senses the expression “to-day” might be applied to the Incarnation (Luk 1:31), or to the Ascension, or to the Eternal Generation. The latter explanation however,—which explains “to-day” of “God’s eternal now,” the nunc stans of eternity—though adopted by Origen (who finely says that in God’s “to-day” there is neither morning nor evening) and by St Augustine—is probably one of the “afterthoughts of theology.” Calvin stigmatises it as a “frivola Augustini argutia,” but the strongest argument in its favour is that Philo has a somewhat similar conception (σήμερον ὅ ἐστιν ὁ ἀπέρατος καὶ ἀδιεξίτητος αἰών, De profug., Opp. I. 554). The words, however, originally referred to the day of David’s complete inauguration as king upon Mount Sion. No one time can apply to the Eternal Generation, and the adoption of Philo’s notion that “to-day” means “for ever,” and that “all Eternity” is God’s to-day, would here be out of place. Possibly the “to-day “is only, so to speak, an accidental part of the quotation: in other words it may belong rather to the literal and primary prophecy than to its Messianic application. The Church shews that she understood the word “to-day” to apply to the Resurrection by appointing the second psalm as one of the special psalms for Easter-day.

Ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, 2Sa 7:14 (LXX.). εἶναι εἰς is the Hebrew הָיָה לְ. The words were primarily applicable to Solomon, but the quotation would not, without further argument, have helped forward the writer’s end if he had not been able to assume with confidence that none of his readers would dispute his typological method of exegesis. It is probable that the promise to David here quoted is directly connected with the passage just adduced from Psalms 2.

αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν. The quotation (comp. Philo De Leg. Allegor. III. 8), though primarily applied to Solomon, has the wider sense of prophesying the advent of some perfect theocratic king. The “Angels” it might be objected are called “Sons of God” in Gen 6:2; Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7; Dan 3:25. In these passages, however, the Alexandrian manuscript of the LXX. which this author seems to have used (whereas St Paul seems to quote from another type of manuscript—the Vatican) has “angels” and not “sons” If it be farther urged that in Psa 29:1; Psa 89:7, even the Alexandrian MS. has also “sons.” we must suppose either that the writer means to distinguish (1) between the higher and lower senses of the word “son”; or (2) between “Sons of Elohim” and “Sons of Jehovah” since Elohim is so much lower and vaguer a name for God than Jehovah, that not only Angels but even human beings are called Elohim; or (3) that he did not regard the name “sons” as in any way characteristic of angels. He shews so intimate a knowledge of the Psalms that—on this ground alone, not to dwell on others—the supposition that he forgot or overlooked these passages is hardly admissible.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5-13.] Proof from Scripture of this last declaration.

5.] For (substantiation of διαφορώτερον κεκλ. ὄνομα) to whom of (among) the angels did He (God, the subject of vv. 1, 2; as the subsequent citation shews) ever say (this citation from Psa_2, has brought up in recent German Commentators the whole question of the original reference of that Psalm, and (as in Bleek) of O. T. citations in the N. T. altogether. These discussions will be found in Bleek, De Wette, and Ebrard. The latter is by far the deepest and most satisfactory: seeing, as he does, the furthest into the truth of the peculiar standing of the Hebrew people, and the Messianic import of the theocracy. Those who entirely or partially deny this latter, seem to me to be without adequate means of discussing the question. Ebrard’s view is, that the Psalm belongs to the reign of David. The objection, that ver. 6 will not apply to David’s anointing, inasmuch as that took place at Bethlehem in his boyhood, he answers, by regarding that anointing as connected with his establishment on Mount Zion, not as having locally taken place there, but as the first of that series of divine mercies of which that other was the completion. (Even Hupfeld gives up this objection.) He further ascribes the Psalm to that portion of David’s reign when (2Sa_8.) Hada-dezer, and many neighbouring nations, were smitten by him: which victories he looked on as the fulfilment to him of Nathan’s prophecy, 2Sa 7:8-17. In that prophecy the offspring of David is mentioned in the very words quoted below in this verse, and in terms which, he contends, will not apply to Solomon, but must be referred to the great promised Seed of David. He regards this triumphant occasion as having been treated by the royal Psalmist as a type and foretaste of the ultimate ideal dominion of the ‘Son of David’ over the kings of the earth. But I must refer the reader to his long note, which is well worth reading: and to Bleek’s, in which are several suggestions, valuable as notices of the way in which the present and the future, the political and Messianic ideas, are intermingled in the Psalms. See also Delitzsch, h. l. Even Hupfeld, who denies Messianic reference wherever he can, is obliged to acknowledge that the Psalm “probably applies to no particular king, but is a glorification of the theocratic kingdom in general, with poetic reference to the universal dominion promised to it:” and confesses, that this is in fact the Messianic idea. He also connects the Psalm with the prophecy in 2Sa_7. We may observe, that the connexion here of the two, the triumphant expression of the Psalm, and the prophecy of Nathan, is a strong presumption in favour of Ebrard’s view), Thou (the seed of David, anointed in God’s counsels as king on His holy hill of Sion: see above) art my Son (according to the promise presently to be quoted, finding its partial fulfilment in Solomon, but its only entire one in the Son of David who is also the Son of God), I (emphatic: ‘I and no other:’ expressed also in the Hebrew) this day have begotten thee (First, what are we to understand by γεγέννηκα? Bleek says, “As Sonship, in the proper sense, is dependent on the act of begetting, so may, especially by the Hebrews, ‘to beget’ be figuratively used to express the idea of ‘making any one a son,’ in which derived and figurative reference this also may be meant. And we get an additional confirmation of this meaning from Jer 2:27, where it is said of the foolish idolatrous Israelites, τῷ ξύλῳ εἶπαν ὅτι ὁ πατήρ μου εἶ σύ, καὶ τῷ λίθῳ Σὺ ἐγέννησάς με. Accordingly, the meaning here is,—‘I have made Thee my son’ (so Psa 89:20, Psa 89:26, Psa 89:27: ‘I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: … He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father.… Also will I make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth’):—namely, by setting Thee on the throne of my people: and the σήμερον will most naturally be referred to the time of the anointing of the King on Zion, as the act whereby he was manifested as Son of God in this sense.” And so Calvin, whom Bl. cites, in his comm. on Ps. 2.: “David genitus a Deo fuit, dum clare apparuit ejus electio. Itaque adverbium hodie tempus illud demonstrationis notat, quia, postquam innotuit creatum divinitus regem, prodiit tanquam nuper ex Deo genitus.” The above remarks seem pertinent and unobjectionable, as long as we regard them as explaining the supposed immediate reference to David and present circumstances: but it is plain that, according to the above view of Psa_2, and indeed to the usage of the N. T., in applying this passage to our Lord, we want another and a higher sense in which both words, γεγέννηκα and σήμερον, may be applicable to Him: a sense in which I should be disposed to say that the words must in their fulness of meaning be taken, to the neglect and almost the obliteration of that their supposed lower reference. For, granting the application of such sayings to our Lord, then must the terms of them, suggested by the Holy Spirit of prophecy, which is His testimony, bear adequate interpretations as regards His person and office. It has not therefore been without reason that the Fathers, and so many modern divines, have found in this word γεγέννηκα the doctrine of the generation of the Son of God, and have endeavoured, in accordance with such reference, to assign a fitting sense to σήμερον. As the subject is exceedingly important, and has been generally passed over slightly by our English expositors, I shall need no apology for gathering from Bleek and Suicer the opinions and testimonies concerning it. 1. One view refers σήμερον to the eternal generation of the Son, and regards it as an expression of the “nunc stans, as they call it” (Owen) of eternity. Thus Origen very grandly says, in Joann. tom. i. 32, vol. iv. p. 33: λέγεται πρὸς αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ᾧ ἀεί ἐστι τὸ σήμερον· οὐκ ἔνι γὰρ ἑσπέρα θεοῦ, ἐγὼ δὲ ἡγοῦμαι, ὅτι οὐδὲ πρωΐα, ἀλλʼ ὁ συμπαρεκτείνων τῇ ἀγενήτῳ καὶ ἀϊδίῳ αὺτοῦ ζωῇ, ἵνʼ οὕτως εἴπω, χρόνος ἡμέρα ἐστὶν αὐτῷ σήμερον, ἐν ᾗ γεγέννηται ὁ υἱός· ἀρχῆσγενέσεως αὐτοῦ οὕτως οὐχ εὑρισκομένης, ὡς οὐδὲ τῆς ἡμέρας. And so Athanasius (de Decret. Nicæn. Syn. § 13, vol. i. p. 172, adv. Arian. iv. § 24, vol. ii. (Migne) p. 503), Basil (contra Eunom. ii. 24, vol. i. p. 260), (on the Psalm: “Quanquam etiam possit ille dies in prophetia dictus videri, quo Jesus Christus secundum hominem natus est: tamen hodie quia præsentiam significat, atque in æternitate nec præteritum quidquam est, quasi esse desierit, nec futurum, quasi nondum sit, sed præsens tantum: quia quidquid æternum est, semper est: divinitus accipitur secundum id dictum Ego hodie genuite, quo sempiternam generationem virtutis et sapientiæ Dei, qui est unigenitus Filius, fides sincerissima et catholica prædicat”), Primasius, Thom. Aq.; of the Commentators on this place, Thl. (οὐδὲν ἓτερον δηλοῖ ἢ ὃτι ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, ἐξ οὗ ἐστιν ὁ πατήρ. ὥσπερ γὰρ ὢν λέγεται ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος καιροῦ, οὗτος γὰρ μάλιστα ἁρμόζει αὐτῷ, οὕτω καὶ τὸ σήμερον): and so Corn.-a-lap., Est., Calov., Seb.-Schmidt, Schöttg., Rev_2. A second, to the generation, in time, of the Incarnate Son of Man, when Jesus assumed the divine nature on the side of his Manhood also: so Chrys. (curiously enough using the illustration from ὤν, which Thl. afterwards, copying verbatim from him, turns to the opposite purpose: ὥσπερ δὲ ὤν λέγεται κ.τ.λ. as above under Thl. to ἁρμόζει αὐτῷ· οὕτω καὶ τὸ σήμερον ἐνταῦθά μοι δοκεῖ εἰς τὴν σάρκα εἰρῆσθαι), Thdrt. (οὐ τὴν αἰώνιον δηλοῖ γέννησιν, ἀλλὰ τὴν τῷ χρόνῳ συνεζευγμένην. And even more expressly on the Psalm: ταύτην δέ τὴν φωνὴν οὐκ ἄν τις τῇ τοῦ θείου πνεύματος διδασκαλίᾳ πειθόμενος, τῇ θεότητι προσάψοι τοῖ δεσπότου χριστοῦ), Euseb., Cyr.-alex., Greg.-nyss. (see these in Suicer), Œc., Kuinoel, Stuart, &c. 3. A third, to the period when Jesus was manifested to men as the Son of God, i. e. by most, to the time of the Resurrection, with reference to Act 13:33, where St. Paul alleges this citation as thus applying (so, recently, Delitzsch): by some, to that of the Ascension, when He was set at the right hand of God and entered on His heavenly High-priesthood (ch. 5:5): so Hilary (on the Psalm, § 30, vol. i. p. 48, “Id quod nunc in psalmo est, Filius meus es tu, hodie genui te, non ad virginis partum, neque ad lavacri generationem, sed ad primogenitum ex mortuis pertinere apostolica autoritas est:” and again, “Vox ergo hæc Dei patris secundum Apostolum (Acts l. c.) in die resurrectionis exstitit”), Ambrose (de Sacr. iii. 3, vol. iii. p. 362: “Pulchre autem Pater dixit ad Filium: ‘Ego hodie genui te,’ hoc est, quando redemisti populum, quando ad cœli regnum vocasti, quando implesti voluntatem meam: probasti meum esse te Filium”), Calv. (“Frivola Augustini argutia est, qui hodie æternum et continuum fingit. Christus certe æternus est Dei filius, quia sapientia ejus est ante tempus genita. Sed hoc nihil ad præsentem locum, ubi respectus habetur ad homines, a quibus agnitus fuit Christus pro filio Dei postquam eum Pater manifestavit. Hæc igitur declaratio, cujus etiam Paulus meminit ad Rom 1:4, species fuit æternæ (ut ita loquar) generationis. Nam arcana illa et interior quæ præcesserat, hominibus fuit incognita, nec in rationem venire poterat, nisi eam Pater visibili revelatione approbasset”), Grot. (the Resurrection is “initium gloriæ Christi”), al.: Schlichting and the Socinians generally, Storr, Sack, Hengstenberg, &c. Owen also takes the same view (“The eternal generation of Christ, on which His filiation or sonship, both name and thing, doth depend, is to be taken only declaratively, and that declaration to be made in His resurrection, and exaltation over all, that ensued thereon”). Of these interpretations, I agree with Bleek that the first is that which best agrees with the context. The former verses represent to us the Son of God as standing in this relation to the Father before the worlds: and ver. 6, which plainly forms a contrast to this ver. 5 as to time, treats distinctly of the period of the Incarnation. It is natural then to suppose that this verse is to be referred to a time prior to that event. And he also remarks, that the sense of σήμερον thus adopted is by no means foreign to the Alexandrine theology: Philo, de Profugis, § 11, vol. i. p. 554, says, σήμερον δέ ἐστιν ὁ ὰπέραντος καὶ ἀδιεξίτητος αἰών. μηνῶν γὰρ καὶ ἐνιαυτῶν κ. συνόλως χρόνων περίοδοι δόγματα ἀνθρώπων εἰσὶν ἀριθμὸν ἐκτετιμηκότων, τὸ δὲ ἀψευδὲς ὄνομα αἰῶνος ἡ σήμερον. And in Leg. Allegor. iii. § 8, vol. i. p. 92, ἕως τῆς σήμερον ἡμέρας, τουτέστιν ἀεί. ὁ γὰρ αἰών ἅπας τῷ σήμερον παραμετρεῖται· μέτρον γὰρ τοῦ παντὸς χρόνου ὁ ἡμέριος κύκλος)? and again (how is the ellipsis here to be supplied? Probably, καὶ (τίνι εἶπεν ποτὲ τῶν ἀγγέλων) πάλιν: or perhaps πάλιν (see below on ver. 6) merely serves to introduce a fresh citation), I will be to him as (‘for:’ so the LXX often for the Heb. הָיָה לְ: e. g. in the citation, ch. 8:10. The more ordinary Greek construction would be as in Lev 26:12, κ. ἔσομαι ὑμῶν θεός, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἔσεσθέ μοι λαός) a father, and he shall be to me as (for) a son (the citation is from the LXX, as usual. It occurs in the prophecy of Nathan to David, respecting David’s offspring who should come after him. The import of it has been above considered, and its connexion with Psa_2. shewn to be probable. The direct primary reference of the words to Solomon, 1Ch 22:7-10, does not in any way preclude the view which I have there taken of their finding their higher and only worthy fulfilment in the greater Son of David, who should build the only temple in which God would really dwell. See Bleek in loc., who fully recognizes this further and Messianic reference)?

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5. τίνι γὰρ εἶπέν wore) For to which...caid He at any time? The use of the rhetorical question is characteristic of the style of the Epistle. Compare v. 14; ii. 2 £; fii, 16 M.; wii 11; xii. 7.

The subject of the yerb is taken from the context. God is the Speaker in all revolation (v. 1) It bas boen objocted that tho title ‘Son’ is not limited to the Mogsiah in tho Old Testamont, but the objection rests upon a misunderstanding. The title which is characteristic of Messiah is never used of Angels or men in the Old Scriptures, Angels as ἃ body aro sometimes called ‘sons of God’ (Ps. xxix. 1, lxxxix. 6) but to no one (rin) is the title ‘Son of God’ given individually in all the long line of revelation. The τίνε and the ποτέ are both significaut.

In like manner the title ‘Son’ was given to Iarael as the chosen nation : Hos. xi.1; Ex. iv.22; but to no single Jew, except in the passage quoted, which in the original refers to Solomon as the type of Him who should come after.

Nor is it without the deopest significance that in these fundamontal passages, Ps. ii. 7, 2 Sam. vii. 14, the speaker is ‘the Lorp’ and not ‘Gop.’ The unique title of Christ is thus connected with God as He is the God of the Oovenant (Jehorah, the Lorp), the God of Revelation, and not as He is tho God of Nature (Zlohim, Gop).

vios pov] The order is full of meaning. By the omphasis which is laid upon υἱός the relation is marked as peculiar and not shared by others. My son art thou, and no less than this; and not Thou too, as well as others, art my son. Oompare Ps. Ixxxviil. (Ixxxix.) 27 πατήρ pou εἶ σύ. At the same time the ov is brought

vi, 18. And in a somewhat different sense, Matt. xix. 5; Acta xiii. 47; 1 Cor. xiv. 22; xvi. 16; Eph. i 12; Luke fii. 5 &c. :

Brooke Foss Westcott (1825–1901), The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889) and The Epistles of St John (1883) — public domain (pre-1929). Text recovered from Internet Archive / Google Books OCR scans. Westcott’s Gospel of John commentary is not included (its OCR lost the chapter running-heads required for reliable verse-keying). Some Greek quoted in the Hebrews volume is imperfectly rendered by the OCR.