Hebrews 1:5 (ESV+LSB+MJ* references, Matthew Henry, John Calvin, Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal and Homiletical

 

5 For to which of the angels did He ever say,

“You are My Son,

Today I have begotten You”?

And again,

“I will be a Father to Him

And He shall be a Son to Me”?

1:5-(Psalm 89)*I will sing of the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh forever; from generation to generation I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth. 2 For I have said, “Lovingkindness will be built up forever; in the heavens You will establish Your faithfulness.” 3 “I have cut a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, 4 I will establish your seed forever and build up your throne from generation to generation.” Selah. 5 The heavens will praise Your wonders, O Yahweh; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. 6 For who in the sky is comparable to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the mighty is like Yahweh, 7 A God greatly dreaded in the council of the holy ones, and fearsome above all those who are around Him? 8 O Yahweh God of hosts, who is like You, O mighty Yah? Your faithfulness also surrounds You. 9 You rule the swelling of the sea; when its waves rise, You still them. 10 You Yourself crushed Rahab like one who is slain; You scattered Your enemies with Your strong arm. 11 The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; the world and its fullness, You have founded them. 12 The north and the south, You have created them; Tabor and Hermon sing with joy at Your name. 13 You have a mighty arm; Your hand is strong, Your right hand is exalted. 14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; lovingkindness and truth go before You. 15 How blessed are the people who know the loud shout of joy! O Yahweh, they walk in the light of Your face. 16 In Your name they rejoice all the day, and by Your righteousness they are exalted. 17 For You are the beauty of their strength, and by Your favor our horn is exalted. 18 For our shield belongs to Yahweh, and our king to the Holy One of Israel. 19 Formerly You spoke in vision to Your holy ones, and said, “I have bestowed help to a mighty one; I have exalted one chosen from the people. 20 I have found David My servant; with My holy oil I have anointed him, 21 with whom My hand will be established; My arm also will strengthen him. 22 The enemy will not deceive him, nor the son of unrighteousness afflict him. 23 But I shall crush his adversaries before him, and strike those who hate him. 24 My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be with him, and in My name his horn will be exalted. 25 I shall also set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers. 26 He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ 27 I also shall make him My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall be confirmed to him. 29 So I will set up his seed to endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven. 30 “If his sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments, 31 if they profane My statutes and do not keep My commandments, 32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with striking. 33 But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. 34 My covenant I will not profane, nor will I alter what comes forth from My lips. 35 Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. 36 His seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before Me. 37 It shall be established forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful.” Selah. 38 But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed. 39 You have spurned the covenant of Your slave; You have profaned his crown to the ground. 40 You have broken down all his walls; You have beset his strongholds with ruin. 41 All who pass along the way plunder him; He has become a reproach to his neighbors. 42 You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries; You have made all his enemies be glad. 43 You also turn back the edge of his sword and have not made him arise in battle. 44 You have made his splendor to cease and cast his throne to the ground. 45 You have shortened the days of his youth; You have wrapped him up with shame. Selah. 46 How long, O Yahweh? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember what my span of life is; for what vanity You have created all the sons of men! 48 What man can live and not see death? Can he provide his soul escape from the power of Sheol? Selah. 49 Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, which You swore to David in Your faithfulness? 50 Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your slaves; how I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, 51 With which Your enemies have reproached, O Yahweh, with which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. 52 Blessed be Yahweh forever! Amen and Amen.(Psalm 2:7-9)*“I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. 8 Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as Your possession. 9 You shall break them with a [h]rod of iron, You shall shatter them like a potter’s vessel.’”

5 For to which of the angels did He ever say,

“You are My Son,

Today I have begotten You”?

And again,

“I will be a Father to Him

And He shall be a Son to Me”?

 

Matthew Henry

(v. 5): For to the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.

I. Here the apostle lays down a negative proposition, including a positive one—That the state of the gospel-church, which is here called the world to come, is not subjected to the angels, but under the special care and direction of the Redeemer himself. Neither the state in which the church is at present, nor that more completely restored state at which it shall arrive when the prince of this world is cast out and the kingdoms of the earth shall become the kingdom of Christ, is left to the government of the angels; but Jesus Christ will take to him his great power, and will reign. He does not make that use of the ministration of angels to give the gospel as he did to give the law, which was the state of the old or antiquated world. This new world is committed to Christ, and put in absolute subjection to him only, in all spiritual and eternal concerns. Christ has the administration of the gospel church, which at once bespeaks Christ's honour and the church's happiness and safety. It is certain that neither the first creation of the gospel church, nor its after-edification or administration, nor its final judgment and perfection, is committed to the angels, but to Christ. God would not put so great a trust in his holy ones; his angels were too weak for such a charge.

II. We have a scripture—account of that blessed Jesus to whom the gospel world is put into subjection. It is taken from Ps 8 4-6, But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of man, that thou visitest him? etc. There words are to be considered both as applicable to mankind in general, and as applied here to the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. As applicable to mankind in general, in which sense we have an affectionate thankful expostulation with the great God concerning his wonderful condescension and kindness to the sons of men. (1.) In remembering them, or being mindful of them, when yet they had no being but in the counsels of divine love. The favours of God to men all spring up out of his eternal thoughts and purposes of mercy for them; as all our dutiful regards to God spring forth from our remembrance of him. God is always mindful of us, let us never be forgetful of him. (2.) In visiting them. God's purpose of favours for men is productive of gracious visits to them; he comes to see us, how it is with us, what we ail, what we want, what dangers we are exposed to, what difficulties we have to encounter; and by his visitation our spirit is preserved. Let us so remember God as daily to approach him in a way of duty. (3.) In making man the head of all the creatures in this lower world, the top-stone of this building, the chief of the ways of God on earth, and only a little lower than the angels in place, and respect to the body, while here, and to be made like the angels, and equal to the angels, at the resurrection of the just, Luke 20 36. (4.) In crowning him with glory and honour, the honour of having noble powers and faculties of soul, excellent organs and parts of body, whereby he is allied to both worlds, capable of serving the interests of both worlds, and of enjoying the happiness of both. (5.) In giving him right to and dominion over the inferior creatures, which did continue so long as he continued in his allegiance and duty to God.

2. As applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the whole that is here said can be applied only to him

John Calvin

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”, (Psalms 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?” (Psalms 84:6.)

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. (18)

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 high­priest, 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. (19)

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. (20)

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.

(18) “If it be objected,” says Stuart, “that angels are also called sons, and men too, the answered is easy: No one individual, except Jesus, is ever called by way of eminence, the Son of God, i.e., the Messiah or the King of Israel,” John 1:49. By “The Son of God” is to be understood here His kingly office: He was a Son as one endowed with superior power and authority; and angels are not sons in this respect. — Ed.

(19) The foregoing is a sufficient answer to Doddridge, Stuart, and others, who hold that the texts quoted must refer exclusively to Christ, else the argument of the Apostle would be inconclusive. David is no doubt called a son in the 2nd Psalm, but as a king, and in that capacity as a type of Christ; and what is said of him as a king, and what is promised to him, partly refers to himself and to his successors, and partly to Christ whom he represented. How to distinguish these things is now easy, as the character of Christ is fully developed in the New Testament. We now see the reason why David was called a son, and why Solomon, as in the next quotation, was called a son; they as kings of Israel, that is, of God’s people, were representatives of him who is alone really or in a peculiar sense the Son of God, the true king of Israel, an honor never allotted to angels. (See Appendix B) — Ed.

(20) Many have interpreted to-day as meaning eternity; but there is nothing to countenance such a view. As to the type, David, his “to-day” was his exaltation to the throne; the “to-day” of Christ, the antitype, is something of a corresponding character; it was his resurrection and exaltation to God’s right hand, where he sits, as it were, on the throne of David. See Acts 2:20. — Ed.

Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1) "For unto which of the angels said he at any time," (tini gar eipen pote ton angelon) "For to which of the angels did he ever say;" which individual angel or which of the bands of angels, (either those of Michael or Gabriel), did he (God the Father) directly say, or assert, at any point in time? Answer if you can, the Inspired Written Challenges.

2) "Thou art my Son," (huios mou ei su) "Thou art (the) Son of me," or "you are my heir," to inherit all my possessions, the universe- - Did God ever affirm such, make a sweeping pledge to any angel?

3) ’’This day have I begotten thee," (ego semeron gegenneka se) "Today I have begotten thee;" Did God ever say to any angel "I have begotten you?" the writer rhetorically challenges. The answer is "no;" Angels were created, but Jesus was begotten of the Father, that he might be heir-redeemer to all that the Father had, John 1:14; Romans 8:17.

4) "And again, I will be to him a Father," (kai palin ego esomai auto eis patera) "And again I will be (or exist) to him for ((with reference to him as) a Father;" God is the creator of angels, but not the Father or a Father-begetter to them, granting to them heirship or inheritance rights, Ezekiel 28:14-15; Colossians 1:16.

5) "And he shall be to me a Son?" (kai autos estai moi eis huion?) "And he shalI be to or toward me for a Son; " A son is his father’s inheritor, 1 Corinthians 3:22-23. The heritage redemption and restitution of all things have been pledged to Jesus Christ by the Father. And through faith in the Son, men may become heir inheritors of all things, jointly with the Son; But angels are not heirs to such; They are only servants, Hebrews 1:14; ; 1 Corinthians 15:23-28; Romans 8:17, Galatians 3:26