Hebrews 2:15

Heb 2:15. Ἀπαλλάξῃ) might deliver from the devil, who had the power of death.—τούτους, these) A demonstrative with relation to what precedes.—φόβῳ, through fear) even before they experienced the power itself, for that followed; concerning fear, comp. ch. Heb 12:19-20; Exo 19:21-22; 2Sa 6:9.—θανάτου, of death) Sudden deaths were inflicted, in the time of Moses and afterwards, even on unwary transgressors.—διὰ παντὸς, through all) This is an antithesis to for a little, Heb 2:9. There are many ages, and these coming one after another, of the brethren.—τοῦ ζῇν, life) That kind of life was not life.—δουλείας, to bondage) The antithesis is, sons unto glory. Paul brings out the same antithesis, Rom 8:15-16. Politicians define liberty to be τὸ ζῇν ὡς βούλεταί τις, living as we choose; slavery to be τὸ ζῇν μὴ ὡς βόυλεται, to live not as we choose.

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

Heb_2:15. Καί] consecutive: and in consequence thereof.

ἀπαλλάξῃ] stands absolutely: might set free, deliver. Without warrant do Grotius, Wolf, and others supplement τοῦ φόβου or τοῦ φόβου θανάτου.

Τούτους] does not go back to τὰ παιδία (Böhme, Kuinoel), but serves for the bringing into relief of the following ὅσοι, and τούτους ὅσοι κ.τ.λ. is a periphrasis of the unredeemed humanity; the thought is not merely of the Israelites (Akersloot, Rambach, Braun, Woerner), and still less merely of the Gentiles (Peirce).

φόβῳ θανάτου] out of fear of death, causal definition to διὰ παντὸς τοῦ ζῆν ἔνοχοι ἦσαν δουλείας.

διὰ παντὸς τοῦ ζῆν] throughout the whole life. The infinitive is employed, by virtue of the addition παντός, entirely as a substantive (διὰ πάσης τῆς ζωῆς). This practice is more rare than the coupling of the infinitive with the mere preposition and article. Yet this very infinitive ζῆν is found exactly so used, as Bleek remarks, with Aesch. Dial. Heb_3:4 (ὥσπερ εἰς ἔτερον ζῆν ἐπιθανούμενος); Ignat. Ep. ad Trall. 9 (οὗ χωρὶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ζῆν οὐκ ἔχομεν), ad Ephes. 3 (καὶ γὰρ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς τὸ ἀδιάκριτον ἡμῶν ζῆν).

ἔνοχοι ἦσαν δουλείας] belongs together; were held in bondage, had become subject to bondage. We have not to construe ἔνοχοι ἦσαν with φόβῳ θανάτου, and δουλείας with ἀπαλλάξῃ (Abresch, Dindorf, Böhme). For against this the position of the words is decisive. On the thought, comp. Rom_8:15.

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.

By (death) thou must understand here that death which is joined with the wrath of God, as it must needs be, if it be without Christ, then there can be nothing devised more miserable.

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

fear of death--even before they had experienced its actual power.

all their lifetime--Such a life can hardly be called life.

subject to bondage--literally, "subjects of bondage"; not merely liable to it, but enthralled in it (compare Rom 8:15; Gal 5:1). Contrast with this bondage, the glory of the "sons" (Heb 2:10). "Bondage" is defined by Aristotle, "The living not as one chooses"; "liberty," "the living as one chooses." Christ by delivering us from the curse of God against our sin, has taken from death all that made it formidable. Death, viewed apart from Christ, can only fill with horror, if the sinner dares to think.

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

Verse 15. And deliver them who through fear of death] It is very likely that the apostle has the Gentiles here principally in view. As they had no revelation, and no certainty of immortality, they were continually in bondage to the fear of death. They preferred life in any state, with the most grievous evils, to death, because they had no hope beyond the grave. But it is also true that all men naturally fear death; even those that have the fullest persuasion and certainty of a future state dread it: genuine Christians, who know that, if the earthly house of their tabernacle were dissolved, they have a house not made with hands, a building framed of God, eternal in the heavens, only they fear it not. In the assurance they have of God's love, the fear of death is removed; and by the purification of their hearts through faith, the sting of death is extracted. The people who know not God are in continual torment through the fear of death, and they fear death because they fear something beyond death. They are conscious to themselves that they are wicked, and they are afraid of God, and terrified at the thought of eternity. By these fears thousands of sinful, miserable creatures are prevented from hurrying themselves into the unknown world. This is finely expressed by the poet: -

"To die,--to sleep,--

No more:--and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die,--to sleep,--

To sleep!--perchance to dream;--ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause:--There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who could bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,--

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns,--puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard, their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action."

I give this long quotation from a poet who was well acquainted with all the workings of the human heart; and one who could not have described scenes of distress and anguish of mind so well, had he not passed through them.

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

15. And deliver them who, etc. This passage expresses in a striking manner how miserable is the life of those who fear death, as they must feel it to be dreadful, because they look on it apart from Christ; for then nothing but a curse appears in it: for whence is death but from God’s wrath against sin? Hence is that bondage throughout life, even perpetual anxiety, by which unhappy souls are tormented; for through a consciousness of sin the judgment of God is ever presented to the view. From this fear Christ has delivered us, who by undergoing our curse has taken away what is dreadful in death. For though we are not now freed from death, yet in life and in death we have peace and safety, when we have Christ going before us.

But it any one cannot pacify his mind by disregarding death, let him know that he has made as yet but very little proficiency in the faith of Christ; for as extreme fear is owing to ignorance as to the grace of Christ, so it is a certain evidence of unbelief.

Death here does not only mean the separation of the soul from the body, but also the punishment which is inflicted on us by an angry God, so that it includes eternal ruin; for where there is guilt before God, there immediately hell shows itself.

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.

(15) Deliver them who through fear of death . . . .—This verse brings into relief the former misery and the present freedom. We may well suppose these words to have been prompted by the intense sympathy of the writer with the persecuted and tempted Christians whom he addresses. He writes throughout as one who never forgets their need of sympathetic help, and who knows well the power of the motives, the allurements and the threats, employed to lead them into apostasy. The crushing power of the “fear of death” over those who had not grasped the truth that, in Christ, life and immortality are brought to light, perhaps no thought of ours can reach.

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

15. them who] Lit. “those, as many as,” i.e. “all who.”

through fear of death] This was felt, as we see from the O.T., far more intensely under the old than under the new dispensation. Dr Robertson Smith quotes from the Midrash Tanchuma, “In this life death never suffers man to be glad.” See Num_17:13; Num_18:5; Psalms 6, 30, &c., and Isa_38:10-20, &c. In heathen and savage lands the whole of life is often overshadowed by the terror of death, which thus becomes a veritable “bondage.” Philo quotes a line of Euripides to shew that a man who has no fear of death can never be a slave. But, through Christ’s death, death has become to the Christian the gate of glory. It is remarkable that in this verse the writer introduces a whole range of conceptions which he not only leaves without further development, but to which he does not ever allude again. They seem to lie aside from the main current of his views.

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 verily he took not on him the nature of angels,.... Good angels; for they are all along spoken of in this book; and it would have been impertinent to have said this of evil angels: and this is to be understood not of a denying help and assistance to the angels; for though they have not redemption from Christ, which they needed not, yet have they help from him; they are chosen in him, and are gathered together under him; and he is the head of them, and they are upheld and sustained by him in their being, and well being: but of a non-assumption of their nature; there was no need of it with respect to good angels, and there was no salvation designed for evil ones; and to have assumed the nature of angels, would have been of no service to fallen man; an angelic nature is not capable of death, which was necessary to atone for sin, save men, and destroy Satan: this negative proposition is very strongly put, "he never took", as the Vulgate Latin version more rightly renders it; at no time, in no place; nor is it said in any place of Scripture that he did; this is a certain truth, and not to be disputed. The Syriac and Arabic versions render it, "he took not of, or from angels"; he took not any individual from among them:

but he took on him the seed of Abraham; not all his posterity, but some individual, as the word seed is sometimes used, Gen 4:25. Christ assumed human nature as derived from Abraham; for the Messiah was to spring from Abraham, and is promised, as that seed of his, in whom all nations should be blessed; and he was particularly promised to the Jews, the seed of Abraham, to whom the apostle was writing; and it was with a view to Abraham's spiritual seed, the children of the promise, that Christ partook of flesh and blood: the word here used signifies to catch hold of anyone ready to perish, or to lay hold on a person running away, and with great vehemence and affection to hold anything fast, that it be not lost, and to help persons, and do good unto them; all which may be observed in this act of Christ's, in assuming an individual of human nature, in Abraham's line, into union with his divine person; whereby he has saved those that were gone out of the way, and were ready to perish, and done them the greatest good, and shown the strongest affection to them: and from hence may be learned the deity and eternity of Christ, who was before Abraham, as God, though a son of his as man; and his real humanity, and that it was not a person, but a seed, a nature he assumed; and also the union and distinction of natures in him: and Christ's taking human, and not angelic nature, shows the sovereignty of God, and his distinguishing grace and mercy to men.

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

15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Ver. 15. And deliver them] So that to those that are in Christ, death is but the daybreak of eternal brightness; not the punishment of sin, but the period of sin. It is but a sturdy porter, opening the door of eternity; a rougher passage to eternal pleasure. What need they fear to pass the waters of Jordan to take possession of the land, that have the ark of God’s covenant in their eye? Tollitur mors, non ne sit, sed ne obsit. As Christ took away, not sin, but the guilt of it, so neither death, but the sting of it.

Who through fear of death] The king of terrors, as Job calleth death, that terrible of all terribles, as Aristotle. Nature will have a bout with the best when they come to die. But I wonder (saith a grave divine) how the souls of wicked men go not out of their bodies, as the devils did out of the demoniacs, rending, raging, tearing, foaming. I wonder how any can die in their wits, that die not in the faith of Jesus Christ. Appius Claudius loved not the Greek zeta, because when it is pronounced, it representeth the gnashing teeth of a dying man. Sigismund the emperor, being ready to die, commanded his servants not to name death in his hearing, &c. The like is reported of Louis XI, king of France, who to put by death when it came, sent for Aaron’s rod and other holy relies (as they reputed them) from Rheims; but all would not do. Cardinal Beaufort, perceiving that death was come for him, murmured that his great riches could not reprieve him. Stat sua cuique dies. Now, death is nature’s slaughterman, God’s curse, and hell’s purveyor; and must needs therefore be terrible to those whose lives and hopes end together, and who say as one dying man did, Spes et fortuna valete.

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.

And deliver them - Not all of them “in fact,” though the way is open for all. This deliverance relates:

(1) To the dread of death. He came to free them from that.

(2) From death itself - that is, ultimately to bring them to a world where death shall be unknown. The dread of death may be removed by the work of Christ, and they who had been subject to constant alarms on account of it may be brought to look on it with calmness and peace; and ultimately they will be brought to a world where it will be wholly unknown. The dread of death is taken away, or they are delivered from that, because:

(a)The cause of that dread - to wit, sin, is removed; see the notes at 1Co 15:54-55.

Because they are enabled to look to the world beyond with triumphant joy.

Death conducts them to heaven. A Christian has nothing to fear in death; nothing beyond the grave. In no part of the universe has he any thing to dread, for God is his friend, and he will be his Protector everywhere. On the dying bed; in the grave; on the way up to the judgment; at the solemn tribunal; and in the eternal world, he is under the eye and the protection of his Saviour - and of what should he be afraid?

Who through fear of death - From the dread of dying - that is, whenever they think of it, and they think of it “so often” as to make them slaves of that fear. This obviously means the natural dread of dying, and not particularly the fear of punishment beyond. It is that indeed which often gives its principal terror to the dread of death, but still the apostle refers here evidently to natural death - as an object which people fear. All men have, by nature, this dread of dying - and perhaps some of the inferior creation have it also. It is certain that it exists in the heart of every man, and that God has implanted it there for some wise purpose. There is the dread:

(1)Of the dying pang, or pain.

Of the darkness and gloom of mind that attends it.

(3)Of the unknown world beyond - the “evil that we know not of.”

(4)Of the chilliness, and loneliness, and darkness of the grave.

(5)Of the solemn trial at the bar of God.

(6)Of the condemnation which awaits the guilty - the apprehension of future wo. There is no other evil that we fear so much as we do death - and there is nothing more clear than that God intended that we should have a dread of dying.

The reasons why he designed this are equally clear:

One may have been to lead people to prepare for it - which otherwise they would neglect.

(2)Another, to “deter them from committing self-murder” - where nothing else would deter them.

Facts have shown that it was necessary that there should be some strong principle in the human bosom to prevent this crime - and even the dread of death does not always do it. So sick do people become of the life that God gave them; so weary of the world; so overwhelmed with calamity; so oppressed with disappointment and cares, that they lay violent hands on themselves, and rush unbidden into the awful presence of their Creator. This would occur more frequently by far than it now does, if it were not for the salutary fear of death which God has implanted in every bosom. The feelings of the human heart; on this subject were never more accurately or graphically drawn than in the celebrated Soliloquy of Hamlet:

- To die; - to sleep -

No more; - and by a sleep, to say we end.

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks.

That flesh is heir to, - ‘tis a consummation.

Devoutly to be wished. To die - to sleep -

To sleep: - perchance to dream; - ay, there’s the rub;

For in that deep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: - there’s the respect.

That makes calamity of so long a life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns.

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make.

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourne.

No traveler returns, puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution.

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment.

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

God planned that man should be deterred from rushing uncalled into His awful presence, by this salutary dread of death - and his implanting this feeling in the human heart is one of the most striking and conclusive proofs of a moral government over the world. This instinctive dread of death can be overcome only by religion - and then man does not need it to reconcile him to life. He becomes submissive to trials. He is willing to bear all that is laid on him. He resigns himself to the dispensations of Providence, and feels that life, even in affliction, is the gift of God, and is a valuable endowment. He now dreads “self-murder” as a crime of deep dye, and religion restrains him and keeps him by a more mild and salutary restraint than the dread of death. The man who has true religion is willing to live or to die; he feels that life is the gift of God, and that he will take it away in the best time and manner; and feeling this, he is willing to leave all in his hands. We may remark:

(1) How much do we owe to religion! It is the only thing that will effectually take away the dread of death, and yet secure this point - to make man willing to live in all the circumstances where God may place him. It is possible that philosophy or stoicism may remove to a great extent the dread of death - but then it will be likely to make man willing to take his life if he is placed in trying circumstances. Such an effect it had on Cato in Utica; and such an effect it had on Hume, who maintained that suicide was lawful, and that to turn a current of blood from its accustomed channel was of no more consequence than to change the course of any other fluid!

(2) In what a sad condition is the sinner! There are thousands who never think of death with composure, and who all their life long are subject to bondage through the fear of it. They never think of it if they can avoid it; and when it is forced upon them, it fills them with alarm. They attempt to drive the thought away. They travel; they plunge into business; they occupy the mind with trifles; they drown their fears in the intoxicating bowl: but all this tends only to make death more terrific and awful when the reality comes. If man were wise, he would seek an interest in that religion which, if it did nothing else, would deliver him from the dread of death; and the influence of the gospel in this respect, if it exerted no other, is worth to a man all the sacrifices and self-denials which it would ever require.

All their life-time subject to bondage - Slaves of fear; in a depressed and miserable condition, like slaves under a master. They have no freedom; no comfort; no peace. From this miserable state Christ comes to deliver man. Religion enables him to look calmly on death and the judgment, and to feel that all will be well.

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

The devil, by exciting men to sin, made them liable to the temporal and eternal death? he was, therefore, the prince of death, both as to soul and body. Jesus Christ, the life and source of life, has by his death destroyed sin and vanquished the devil; he has, at once, triumphed over the prince of death, and death itself; and by the assurance which he has given us of eternal life, has delivered us from the terrible apprehensions of dying. To a good Christian, death is the termination of misery and the beginning of eternal happiness; why, therefore, should we be afraid to die? We ought rather, with St. Paul, to say: I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ.

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 effect of the former destruction of the devil is laid down in this verse, viz. the children’s freedom from the fear of death, to which, being slaves to the devil, they were once in bondage.

And deliver them; he, by breaking and disannulling the devil’s power, doth really, fully, and justly exempt them from the concomitant evil.

Who through fear of death; a painful and wasting horror, working the saddest apprehensions and tumultuous workings of soul, from its apprehended danger of death spiritual, temporal, and eternal, when the wrath of God doth not only dissolve the natural frame, but makes an everlasting separation from himself, shutting them up with the worst company, in the worst place and state that is possible for the human mind to imagine, and that for ever, Job 18:11,14; 24:17; Psa 55:4,5; Psa 73:19; 88:14-18.

Were all their lifetime subject to bondage: when they come to the exercise of the reasonable life of man, and under convictions of sin, then these terrors arise, and never leave affrighting or tormenting them, but make them pass as many deaths as moments, as is evident in Cain and Judas; for they are enslaved, and in such a state of drudgery and vassalage to the devil, the most cruel tyrant, by their own guilt, and so are justly, invincibly, and miserably held in it. Christ by his death rescueth them from this woeful, intolerable vassalage to the devil and hell, and brings them into the glorious liberty of the children of God, Rom 8:21; Col 1:12,13.

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

15. The destruction of the destroyer is a final act. Rev_20:10.

But there is an earlier process of deliverance in progress. It is a deliverance even now from that bondage caused by the fear of death. But for sin and Satan men would have passed through the immortalizing “change,” (see note on 1Co_15:51,) like Enoch and Elijah, without pain or fear. But death is now the king of terrors. To the atheist and the skeptic death is an endless night; to the heathen a land of shadows; to the sinner a vista of woe. It is Christ who in death has conquered death, and has opened to the believer’s faith the blessed vision of life and immortality.

Hence the saints of God have found their death beds scenes of joy and triumph, and have left many a precious testimony of their deliverance from fear.

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

And deliver them, as many as through fear of death were all their lifetime, till then, subject to bondage - Every man who fears death is subject to bondage; is in a slavish, uncomfortable state. And every man fears death, more or less, who knows not Christ: death is unwelcome to him, if he knows what death is. But he delivers all true believers from this bondage.

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

15. “That He might liberate those so many as through fear of death were all their life subject to slavery.” The near proximity and absolute certainty of death have in all ages invested the grim monster with terrors at once horrific and appalling. Who has not suffered ten thousand tortures under the foreboding fear of this merciless tyrant? My childhood was one protracted ordeal of torture, more or less intermittent in proportion to the periods intervening between the funerals I was permitted to attend. Perfect love is the only conqueror of the grim monster, from which he is forced to retreat, vanquished, crestfallen and defeated forever. Entire sanctification is the only emancipator of a sighing world from the galling slavery everywhere superinduced by the King of Terrors.

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

15. That he might deliver them. Not only from sin, which gives death its sting, but from all fear of death by giving the hope of a blessed life to come.

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.

15. τούτους ὅσοι. Lit., “those, as many as,” i.e. “all who.”

φόβῳ θανάτου. This fear was felt, as we see from the O.T., far more intensely under the old than under the new dispensation. Dr Robertson Smith quotes from the Midrash Tanchuma, “In this life death never suffers man to be glad.” See Num 17:13; Num 18:5; Psalms 6, 30, &c., and Isa 38:10-20, &c. In heathen and savage lands the whole of life is often overshadowed by the terror of death, which thus becomes a veritable “bondage.” Philo quotes a line of Euripides to shew that a man who has no fear of death can never be a slave. But, through Christ’s death, death has become to the Christian the gate of glory. The different aspect which death assumed in the eyes of Christians is forcibly illustrated by the contrast between the passionate despair, resentment, and cynicism of many Pagan epitaphs, compared with the peace, resignation, and even exultation displayed by those in the catacombs. Christians had not received the πνεῦμα δουλείας πάλιν εἰς φόβον, Rom 8:15. It is remarkable that in this verse the writer introduces a whole range of conceptions which he not only leaves without further development, but to which he does not even allude again. They seem to lie aside from the main current of his views.

διὰ παντὸς τοῦ ζῆν = διὰ πάσης τῆς ζωῆς. The substantival inf. with an adj. is rare, but compare Persius “Scire tuum nihil est.”

ἔνοχοι δουλίας. Stronger than δουλείᾳ, not merely “liable to” but “wholly subdued to” or “implicated in” slavery.

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.

Deliver [απαλλαξη] . Only here in Hebrews, and besides, only Luk 12:58; Act 19:12. Tolerably often in LXX Very common in Class. Used here absolutely, not with douleiav bondage, reading deliver from bondage.

Subject to bondage [ενοχοι δουλειας] . Enocoi from ejn in and ecein to hold. Lit. holden of bondage. See on Jas 2:10. Comp. the verb ejvexein, Mr 6:19 (note), and Gal 5:1. Douleia bondage only in Hebrews and Paul.

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