Hebrews 1:1 (ESV+LSB+MJ* references, Matthew Henry, John Calvin, Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary)

 

1 God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,

1:1-(John 5:39) You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,(Luke 24:44) Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. (Genesis 3:15)And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”(Genesis 6:18)But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.(Genesis 9:8-9)8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 9 “As for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you;(Genesis 12:1-3)And Yahweh said to Abram,“Go forth from your land, and from your kin and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; 2 and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; 3 and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”(Genesis 14:18-20) And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. 19 Then he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then he gave him a tenth of all. (Genesis 15:1)After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.”(Exodus 3:7-8) And Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sufferings. 8 So I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.(Exodus 12:23)And Yahweh will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and He will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, and Yahweh will pass over the doorway and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.(Deuteronomy 17:15) you shall surely set a king over you whom Yahweh your God chooses, one from among your brothers you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your brother.(Deuteronomy 18:15) “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers; you shall listen to him.(Numbers 24:4-9)4 The oracle of him who hears the words of God, Who beholds the vision of the Almighty, falling down, yet having his eyes opened, 5 How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel! 6 Like valleys that stretch out, like gardens beside the river, like aloes planted by Yahweh, like cedars beside the waters. 7 Water will flow from his buckets, and His seed will be by many waters, and His King shall be lifted up higher than Agag, and His kingdom shall be exalted. 8 God brings Him out of Egypt, He is for Him like the horns of the wild ox. He will devour the nations who are His adversaries, and will gnaw their bones in pieces, and shatter them with His arrows. 9 He crouches, He lies down as a lion, and as a lion, who dares rouse Him? Blessed is everyone who blesses You, and cursed is everyone who curses You.”(2 Samuel 7:12-16) When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up one of your seed after you, who will come forth from your own body, and I will establish His kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever. 14 I will be a Father to Him and he will be a Son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will reprove Him with the rod of men and the strikes from the sons of men, 15 but My lovingkindness shall not be removed from Him, as I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”’”(Psalms 72:1-2)O God, give the King Your judgments, and Your righteousness to the King’s Son. 2 May He render judgment to Your people with righteousness and Your afflicted with justice. 3 Let the mountains lift up peace to the people, and the hills, in righteousness. 4 May he give justice to the afflicted of the people, save the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.(Psalms 22)My God, myGod, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer and by night, but I find no rest. 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4 In you our fathers trust; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. 6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; 8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” 9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts. 10 On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. 11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. 12 Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs encompass me; a company evil doers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—17 I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; 18 they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. 19 But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! 21 Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! 22 I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: 23 You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! 24 For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. 25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him. 26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! 27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. 28 For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. 29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. 30 Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; 31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.(Proverbs 8)8 Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? 2 On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; 3 beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud: 4 “To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man. 5 O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense. 6 Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right, 7 for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips. 8 All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them. 9 They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge. 10 Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, 11 for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. 12 “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion. 13 The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. 14 I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. 15 By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; 16 by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly. 17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me. 18 Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. 19 My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. 20 I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, 21 granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries. 22 “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, 26 before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, 29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man. 32 “And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways. 33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. 34 Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. 35 For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord, 36 but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”(Isaiah 53)Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should desire Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace fell upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed. 6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, that for the transgression of my people, striking was due to Him? 9 So His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. 10 But Yahweh was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief; if You would place Hissoul as a guilt offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand. 11 As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, as He will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion with the many, and He will divide the spoil with the strong; Because He poured out His soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.(Zechariah 9:9)Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.(Micah 5:2) But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.(Daniel 7:9-10,13-14)“I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His clothing was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with fire, its wheels were a burning fire. 10 A river of fire was flowing And coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books were opened. 13“I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and came near before Him. 14 And to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not be taken away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.(Jeremiah 23:5-6) 5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

1 God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 

 

Matthew Henry

The apostle proceeds in the plain profitable method of doctrine, reason, and use, through this epistle. Here we have the application of the truths before asserted and proved; this is brought in by the illative particle therefore, with which this chapter begins, and which shows its connection with the former, where the apostle having proved Christ to be superior to the angels by whose ministry the law was given, and therefore that the gospel dispensation must be more excellent than the legal, he now comes to apply this doctrine both by way of exhortation and argument.

I. By way of exhortation: Therefore we ought to give the more diligent heed to the things which we have heard, v. 1. This is the first way by which we are to show our esteem of Christ and of the gospel. It is the great concern of every one under the gospel to give the most earnest heed to all gospel discoveries and directions, to prize them highly in his judgment as matters of the greatest importance, to hearken to them diligently in all the opportunities he has for that purpose, to read them frequently, to meditate on them closely, and to mix faith with them. We must embrace them in our hearts and affections, retain them in our memories, and finally regulate our words and actions according to them.

II. By way of argument, he adds strong motives to enforce the exhortation.

1. From the great loss we shall sustain if we do not take this earnest heed to the things which we have heard: We shall let them slip. They will leak, and run out of our heads, lips, and lives, and we shall be great losers by our neglect. Learn, (1.) When we have received gospel truths into our minds, we are in danger of letting them slip. Our minds and memories are like a leaky vessel, they do not without much care retain what is poured into them; this proceeds from the corruption of our natures, the enmity and subtlety of Satan (he steals away the word), from the entanglements and snares of the world, the thorns that choke the good seed. (2.) Those meet with an inconceivable loss who let gospel truths, which they had received, slip out of their minds; they have lost a treasure far better than thousands of gold and silver; the seed is lost, their time and pains in hearing lost, and their hopes of a good harvest lost; all is lost, if the gospel be lost. (3.) This consideration should be a strong motive both to our attention to the gospel and our retention of it; and indeed, if we do not well attend, we shall not long retain the word of God; inattentive hearers will soon be forgetful hearers.

2. Another argument is taken from the dreadful punishment we shall incur if we do not do this duty, a more dreadful punishment than those fell under who neglected and disobeyed the law

John Calvin

God formerly, etc. This beginning is for the purpose of commending the doctrine taught by Christ; for it shows that we ought not only reverently to receive it, but also to be satisfied with it alone. That we may understand this more clearly, we must observe the contrast between each of the clauses. First, the Son of God is set in opposition to the prophets; then we to the fathers; and, thirdly, the various and manifold modes of speaking which God had adopted as to the fathers, to the last revelation brought to us by Christ. But in this diversity he still sets before us but one God, that no one might think that the Law militates against the Gospel, or that the author of one is not the author of the other. That you may, therefore, understand the full import of this passage, the following arrangement shall be given,

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and Homiletical

Hebrews 1:1. In many parts, and in many ways.—Although the rich and full-sounding words [πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως] which open the Epistle, form an evidently intended and favorite assonance, they are by no means to be regarded (as by Chrys. and Thol.) as a mere rhetorical expansion of one and the same thought. We must rather recognize in them the characteristic peculiarities of the Old Testament revelations. For πολυμερῶς (in many parts) points not merely to the external, manifold diversity of the revelation at different times and in different persons (Bl.), or to its quantitative succession (Del.), but to the fact that by none of the many prophets, whether appearing in succession or contemporaneously, was the counsel of God revealed perfectly and in undivided fulness, but only fragmentarily and in a manifold diversity of parts. The entire prophetic function of humanity bears the characteristic “in part” (ἐκ μέρους, 1 Corinthians 13:9). From this is to be distinguished a multiplicity of modes (τρόποι), the diversity in the forms and methods of the revelation made to the fathers. In view of this connection, we are not to refer the term to the different forms of divine communication made to the prophets themselves, as “by dreams, visions from mouth to mouth” (Numbers 12:6 ff.); but partly to the distinction of law and prophecy, doctrine and exhortation, warning and consolation, threatening and promise in the prophetic discourses; partly to the diversity—conditioned by personal individuality—in the modes of teaching of an Isaiah and an Ezekiel, a Moses and a David. Both adverbs awaken at once in the reader the thought that a Revelation of such character cannot be final and perfect, but needs supplementing and completion. Kluge finds also in the words, the painstaking solicitude of the Divine instructions.

In time past.—Πάλαι points to the fact that the Old Testament revelation has long since past, having come with Malachi to its canonical conclusion; so that nothing was henceforth to be expected but the coming of him who was predicted by that prophet, the “messenger of the covenant” who immediately preceded the coming of the Lord Himself. The ‘Fathers’ to whom the prophetic words were addressed, are the forefathers of the Jews. Sir. xliv.; Acts iii. 22; Rom. ix. 5.

In the Prophets.—The contrasted ἐνυἱῷ forbids our referring this to the prophetic writings (Fr. Schmidt, Stein). Further, we are neither to supply ὤν, being, nor to take ἐν instrumentally (Chrys., Luth., Calv., Grot., Thol., Ebr., Del.). This construction is commonly taken as an Hebraism: so Del. compares 1 Samuel 28:6, 2 Samuel 23:2 : דִּבֵּר בְּ. Others, as Thol., point to a similar use of ἐν in the classics (Bern hardy’s Synt. 210). But ἐν, according to Kühner, § 600, 3, admits instrumentality only in connection with things, 5 and neither our author’s style nor the sense form here a deviation from the customary import of ἐν. For He who speaks is God. The prophets are the organs of His revelation, completely controlled by Him, and in whom His own utterances are heard. This presupposes a transient indeed and indirect, but still real union of God with the prophets. But this union is not an essential, and as it were, metaphysical entrance into human nature, nor a settled, peaceful indwelling of God in the prophets wrought through the Spirit; but a divine activity in the prophets, coinciding and blending itself with the prophetic utterance. Precisely for this reason the prophets could never become to the fathers a proper manifestation of God, could never become a Theophany. They were, as shown by the λαλήσας (spoke), the tongues of God, and even the form of the prophetic utterances is the result of God’s purpose and agency, and must not be regarded as something barely human and separable from its divine subject-matter. Precisely for this reason could Paul argue (Galatians 3:16,) from the form as such. Finally, the word prophet is here used in the broader sense, which extends the name to Abraham (Genesis 20:7), and the patriarchs generally (Psalms 105:15); as also to Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10).

At the end of these days.—The expression ἐπ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶυ τούτων, at the end of these days is rightly to be understood only as a terminus technicus in connection with the Hebrew בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים (at the end of the days). These words, which originally pointed only to the future, became, on account of their frequent connection with Messianic prophecies, a standing designation for the Messianic time, which brings to an end the עוֹלָם הַזֶּה αἰὼν οὖτος and introduces the coming age עוֹלָם הַבָּא αἰὼν μέλλων as the period, commencing with the resurrection, of the glorious manifestation of the kingdom of God. In the Jewish conception this period coincided with the appearance of the Messiah.

Since this was looked for in the “time of the end,” Daniel 8:17-19, or “at the end of time,” Daniel 12:13, to the Christian conception this divides itself into two sections of which the first commences with the appearance of Jesus Christ in the flesh, the second with the reappearance of Him who has been exalted at the right hand of God. The two divisions stood in the contemplation and hope of the early church, in close proximity, and were essentially identical: for the latter contains only the complete manifestation of what was essentially and substantively commenced in the former: Colossians 3:3-4. The expression ‘last days’ (ἔσχαται ἡμέραι) James 5:3, comprehends therefore the whole time from the birth of Jesus Christ to His second coming, which takes place in the καιρὸς ἔσχατος 1 Peter 1:5 after the accomplishment, ‘in the last times,’ ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς (1 Timothy 4:1), of the signs preceding His second coming. Then all promises receive their final fulfilment, Hebrews 11:40; Hebrews 12:28; and for believers their entrance into rest (κατάπαυσις Hebrews 4:4; Hebrews 4:11), and into the Sabbatism (σαββατισμός Hebrews 4:10) is accomplished at the same time with their emancipation into the glorious freedom of the children of God, Romans 8:21. Thus the first coming of Jesus Christ falls “at the end of the times” (ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων), 1 Peter 1:20, when the “fulness of time” (πλήρωμα τῶν χρόνων) had come, Galatians 4:4. Precisely for this reason does Peter recognize in the miracle of the Pentecost (Acts 2:17), the fulfilment of a prophecy in regard to that which was to happen “in the last days” (ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις); as elsewhere the appearance of certain heretical teachers recalls prophecies in regard to the ‘end of time’ (Judges 18:0), or ‘of the days’ (2 Peter 3:3). The οἱκουμένη μέλλουσα (coming world) which is subjected not to angels, but to the Lord, (Hebrews 2:5) or the new order of things, (the season of rectification, καιρὸς διορθώσεως), Hebrews 9:10, commences, therefore, with the founding of the Christian church; and believers have since their conversion tasted along with the word of God, the “powers of the world to come,” Hebrews 6:5. For Christ appeared for the doing away of sins by the sacrifice of Himself, “at the consummation of the ages” (ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ αἰώνων, Hebrews 9:26.) There is, thus, now nothing to be looked for but the second coming, 1 Thessalonians 4:15. Already has the “last time” (ἐσχάτη ὥρα) begun, 1 John 2:18. The expression has not a chronological, but a doctrinal and moral import. When, therefore, it is said that God has spoken in the Son, ἐπ̓ ἐσχάτου ἡμερῶν τούτων, the expression cannot, viewed with reference either to the language or to the fact, mean “at last in these days” (Vulg., Luth., Dav. Schulz). The ἡμέραι αὖται, these days, are not the days in which the readers and the author live, but they correspond to the αἰὼν οὖτος this age or time, and ἐπ̓ ἐσχάτου is to be taken as neuter, indicating the close of the ante-Messianic time. The demonstrative points not to a chronological, but to a doctrinal conception. So also ἡμῖν denotes, in contrast with the ‘fathers,’ the author with his readers as belonging to the Christian period.

In the Son.—The absence of the article before υἱῷ has its ground not in the fact that υἱός can be used of Christ after the manner of a proper name, and thus be determined in itself (Böhme, Bloomf., Del., Riehm), which none can doubt, but in the fact that it is here not the individual, whom the author would signalize, but the character, or relation. In distinction from the well-known prophets, the organ of God’s utterances at the close of the ages is one who stands to God in the relation of Son. Thus we have no longer to do with a continuance of God’s prophetic oracles; but with a form of divine revelation specifically different from all that preceded it, yet maintaining its organic connection with them by the fact of its proceeding from the same God who spoke to the Fathers.