VARIOUS READINGS. — On the authority of manuscripts ABDEJK, most of the versions, and the majority of the fathers, Tischendorf, in his second edition of the New Testament, inserts ejsca>tou in the text.

In most critical editions since the time of Bengel, the same reading has been preferred and adopted. Our author himself, to judge from a remark which he makes in the course of exposition, had a decided leaning to it. EXPOSITION. — II. kai< p . “Of the two modes of interpreting these words, I rather prefer that which separates them, and gives a distinct meaning to each: ‘God, who in ancient times made communications to the fathers by the prophets, in sundry parts and in various ways, has now made a revelation to us by his Son:’ i. e., he has completed the whole revelation which he intends to make under the new dispensation by his Son, his Son only, and not by a long-continued series of prophets, as of old.” — Stuart. “ They have been considered merely a rhetorical amplification.” — Tholuck. “ Polumerw~v means, not ‘many times,’ but ‘manifoldly, in many parts.’ The antithesis is not that God has spoken often by the prophets, but only once by his Son;..... the opposition is between the distribution of the Old Testament revelation among the prophets, and the undivided fullness of the New Testament revelation by Christ.” — Ebrard. jEp j ejsc . tw~n hJm . “Under the last period, viz., of the Messiah.” — Stuart. “On the confines of the former period, and of the new everlasting epoch; not within the later, and also not within the former.” — Tholuck. “The end of this time, in reference to the hzh ΅lw[ of the Jews, the period of the world which preceded the coming of Christ, whose work was to form the transition from it to the period terminating in the resurrection.” — Ebrard. “The period of the gospel, the last dispensation of God.” — Bloomfield. jEn YiJw~| . A specimen of the arbitrary use of the article, for “ YiJw~| is monadic: it designates one individual peculiarly distingished, and the pronoun aujtou~ is omited after it; on all which accounts, according to theory, the article should be added.” — Stuart. “‘God spake to us by one who was Son,’ who stood not in the relation of prophet, but in the relation of Son to him. If it were ejn tw~| YiJw~| , then Christ would be placed as this individual, in opposition to the individuals of the prophets; but as the article is wanting, it is the species that is placed in opposition to the species, although, of court, Christ is the single individual of his species.” — Ebrard. “ YiJo>v may in this use be considered (like Cristo>v , put for JO Cristo>v ) as an appellative converted into a sort of proper name.” — See Middleton on the Greek article, note Matthew 1:1, and 4:3; Bloomfield. Klhrono>mov . “The Son inherited the world neither by lot nor by the demise of the possessor. Like the Hebrew vrζy; , of which inherit is only a secondary sense, it means to take into possession in any manner.” — Stuart. “The prophets were heralds of the promised future inheritance; Christ is the heir himself..... The principal idea is, not that of a possession which any one receives through the death of another, but a possession which he on his part can transfer as an inheritance to his posterity; consequently a permanent possession, over which he has full authority.” — Ebrard. “ Kai< connects a new thought with what precedes; the same being who, according to his divine-human nature, shall possess all things in the world, is also, according to his divine nature, the author of all things.” — Tholuck. " Aijw>n must necessarily signify the world. This is decisively shown by the parallel passage, Hebrews 11:3, and likewise by that in the Epistle to the Colossians, 1:15-17, and fe>rwn ta< pa>nta in verse 3.” — Tholuck. TRANSLATIONS. — II. kai< p . “Often, and in various ways.” — Stuart. “In many portions, and in many ways.” — Craik.

ToiDe Wette.

Pa>l . “Since primeval times.” — Tholuck. “In ancient times.” — Stuart. j jEp j ejsc . k . t . l . “In the end of these days.” — Conybeare and Howson. jEnY. “In the person of the Son.” — Conybeare and Howson.

Kl . “Lord of all things.” — Stuart.

Aijw>n . “The world.” — Stuart. “The universe.” — Conybeare and Howson. —ED. See the Theologoumena of our author, in vol. 17 of his works. —ED. VARIOUS READINGS. — Owen, though perhaps it is a misprint, reads aujtou~ after uJposta>sewv both in the text of the verse and in the subsequent explanation of the words; the textus receptus has aujtou~ .

He reads duna>mewv aujtou~ in agreement with the textus receptus; Tischendorf here gives aujtou~ . The words di j eJautou~ are omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf; who, together with Hahn, omit hJmwn also. EXPOSITION. — jApau>g . t . d . plainly means the same as the Hebrew dwObk; , namely, splendor, brightness. Comp. Luke 2:9,” etc. — Stuart. “The idea that God in the Lo>gov finds and reflects himself as in his counterpart is expressed by Paul when, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15, he calls the Logos eijkwGod, Luke 2:9.” — Tholuck. “Nouns ending in ma denote not the act as continuing, but the result of the act as finished. jApau>g . denotes not the brightness received from another body, and thrown back as a reflection or a mirrored image, not the light continually proceeding from a shining body, as a light streaming out and losing itself in space; but a light radiated from another light, in as far at it is viewed as now become an independent light. It is more than a mere ray, more than a mere image, — a sun produced from the original light.” Do>x ., “the eternal essential glory of the Father.” According to the explanation which refers it to the Shechinah, “the Son would be degraded beneath the Old Testament imperfect typical form of the divine manifestation; seeing that he would be represented as an ajpau>g of the latter, which was not even itself an ajpau>g ., but a mere reflection.” — Ebrard.

Carak . t . uJ. a . plainly retains the more ancient meaning of substance or essence .... Christ is “the development of that substance to our view, the delineation of it.... Ancient Greek annotators, and after them most of the modern ones, have applied these words to the divine nature of Christ. In the opinion that the verse now under consideration relates to the incarnate Messiah, I find that Scott and Beza concur.” — Stuart. “ JYp . means being, essence. Many expositors, offended at the Son being called only the copy of the Being, took uJp . in the sense adopted by the church, of Person.” — Tholuck. Do>x signifies the essence of the Father,with reference to the glory in which he represents himself before the eyes of the suppliant creature; uJp ., this essence as essence, and without regard to its outward manifestation. Car . is here used “in the sense of a form cut out or engraven.” The do>x represents itself in a form composed of rays, a sun; the uJp . stamps itself out in a manifest figure. These appositions belong more properly to the Logos qua eternally pre-existent. — Ebrard.

Fe>r . corresponds to the Hebrew av;n; Isaiah 46:3, 66:9, curo, conservo, to sustain, to preserve, as a mother does her child. Tw~| rJh>m . t . d . a ., by his own powerful word, the word of the Son, not the word of God, as aujtou~ would mean. — Stuart. According to Bleek, aujtou~ corresponds to ejmautou~ of the first person, aujtou~ to ejmou . If the former, the emphasis being on “self,” the phrase would be, By the word of his own power.” “There is no occasion for this emphasis here.

Aujtou~ applies in a reflexive sense to the Son, and not to the Father.” — Ebrard.

Kaq ., purification; in Hellenistic Greek expiation, e.g., Exodus 29:36, 30:10 not purification by moral means, because it is joined with di j eJautou~ , which is explained in chapter 2:14 by dia< tou~ zana>tou ; in chapter 9:12 by dia< tou~ ijdi>ou ai[matov ; and in chapter 9:26 by dia< th~v zusi>av aujtou~ . — Stuart. “The purification in the Biblical sense consists in the atonement, the gracious covering ( rpekζ Leviticus 16:30) of guilt.” — Ebrard. jEka>q . corresponds to the Hebrew bvζy; ; which applied to God and to kings, does not mean simply to sit, but to sit enthroned, Psalm 2:4. — Stuart. “As man, and continuing to be man, he was exalted to a participation in the divine government of the world.” — Ebrard. TRANSLATIONS. — jApau>g . k . t . l . the radiance of his glory and the exact image of his substance. — Stuart. An emanation of his glory and an express image of his substance. — Conybeare and Howson. The radiance of his glory and the impress of his substance. — Craik. The brightness of his glory and the exact impression of his manner of existence. — Pye Smith. The refulgence of his glory and the impression of his essence. — De Wette. The ray of his glory and the stamp of his substance. — Turner.

Fe>rwn k . t . l . Controlling all things by his own powerful word. — Stuart.

Kaqar . p . After he had made expiation. — Stuart. Having made expiation. — Bloomfield. When he had made purification. — Conybeare and Howson. When he had made atonement. — Craik.

After he had by himself purified us from sins by making an expiation. — Turner. —ED. EXPOSITION. — The comparison of the Son with angels divides itself into two sections; — the Son is superior to the angels already, in virtue of his eternal existence as the Son of God, chapter 1:4-14; in the Son, man also has been exalted above the angels, chapter 2:5-18. — Ebrard.

Geno>m , points out that this exaltation is true not only of the Logos in abstracto, but of the whole divine-human subject. — Tholuck. The aorist, “having been made” or “become,” is antithetic to the present w]n , “being,” in verse 3. — Turner. The name “sons of God” is given to angels. But it is a different thing to apply a common name in the plural to a class, from what it is to apply the same as an individual name in the singular to an individual. When Jehovah, in Psalm 2:2,7, declares his anointed to be his Son whom he has begotten, this is something different from what is said, when the angels as a class are called sons of the Elohim who has created them. — Ebrard. Krei>t . refers to superiority in rank or dignity. The term “better” suggests the idea of moral excellence, which is not the thought here. — Craik. TRANSLATIONS. — Krei>t . Exalted above the angels. — Stuart.

Greater. — Boothroyd, Conybeare, and Howson. Superior to the angels. — Craik, Geno>m . Being made. — Diodati. Diafor . More distinguished, more singular. — Ebrard. — ED. Pote , > kai< pa>lhn . does not serve to strengthen the ti>ni , but is independent, signifying ‘at any time,’ and thus forms a marked antithesis with pa>lin . This kai< pa>lin is to be extended in the following way: Kai< ti>ni tw~n ajgge>lwn , ‘ To which of the angels has he at any time said, Thou art my Son? And to which has he again said, I will be to him a Father?’ This contains clearly the two ideas: God has used such expressions to an angel not even a single time, but to the Son not merely once, but again and again. Gege>n . There is ascribed to the Messiah a relation of sonship to God such as is never applied, even approximately, to any of the angels, — a relation of such a kind, that the Messiah derives his real being not from David but from God.” — Ebrard “It may fairly be doubted whether there exists any valid evidence in favor of the declarative sense of the passage, and hence we have no alternative but to explain it according to its literal acceptation, as an absolute affirmation of the divine sonship of Christ. That this is the exposition which would most readily occur to the Jews is too evident to require any detailed proof...... Today always is. .... So Clement of Alexandria happily remarks, ‘Today is the image of an eternal age.’“ — Treffrey on the Sonship, pp. 300-302. — ED. The quotation is from 2 Samuel 7:14. The eijv is Hebraistic, equivalent to l . Efforts have been made to explain this passage exclusively either of Solomon or of Christ; but in vain. The context will not allow such a limitation. The “seed” predicted is a royal progeny, — not merely an individual son, but a succession of kings; and as the Messiah is the most distinguished and glorious, whatever of dignity and of honor is asserted or implied in the context is properly attributable to him. — Turner. —ED. Kai< prosk . — “ Kai< here exhibited does not appear in Psalm 97:7. I regard it as an intensive particle here..... One might render the phrase thus: ‘Let all the angels of God indeed worship him,’ or ‘ even pay him obeisance or adoration.’’’ It must be spiritual worship, from the nature of the beings commanded to render it. Civil homage can hardly be predicated of angels. — Moses Stuart.

Bleek, Tholuck, and Ebrard hold the quotation to be from Deuteronomy 32:43. “With respect to the absence of the words from the Masoretic text, we must, with all our deference to this text, as resting on ancient and strong tradition, never forget that we have in the LXX., particularly in the Pentateuch, an equally ancient recension of the Hebrew text.” — Ebrard. The difficulty in receiving the words as a quotation from Psalm 97:7, lies in the fact that the word is Elohim, “God” or “gods;” it is employed also to denote angels. “It may be sufficient to adduce one striking passage from Psalm 8:5, ‘ Thou hast made him a little lower, than the angels;’ literally, than God or gods. But such a literal translation is entirely out of the question, and there can be no reasonable doubt that angels is the true meaning.” The Syriac and Vulgate agree with the LXX. in the use of angels [in Psalm 97]. — Turner. — ED. EXPOSITION. — Poiw~n . k . t . l . “Who maketh his angels that serve him the ministers of his will, as the winds and the lightning are.” The angels are employed simply in a ministerial capacity, while the Son is lord of all. — Stuart. Angels are ministering elements of nature; the Son is everlasting king. Pro>v , like L] , turned towards; i.e., “in respect of.” — Tholuck . Pro>v is to be rendered, not “to,” but “respecting.” The angels are regarded as duna>meiv of God, through whom God works wonders in the kingdom of nature. — Ebrard. God’s angels are employed by him in the same way as the more ordinary agents of nature, — winds and lightnings. — Turner.

Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Grotius, Limborch, Lowth, Campbell, Michaelis, Knapp, and others, translate the Greek words as equivalent to the Hebrew. Luther, Calov, Storr, Tholuck, and others, interpret the Hebrew according to the Greek. The Hebrew, it is alleged, must from the context be rendered, “He makes thewinds his messengers,” etc. To the former view it is justly objected, that the Greek rendering would have been, JO poiw~n ajgge>louv aujtou~ ta< pneu>mata. To the latter, that the analogy of the context requires us in the Hebrew psalm to understand winds as the messengers of God, even as light is his garment, the heaven his tent, and the clouds his chariot. Tholuck, Stuart, and Turner hold that the Hebrew psalm leads to the opposite conclusion, from the natural order of the words, from the connection of angels with natural causes, and from the real scope of the context, — “ Who maketh the clouds his chariot.” The former, says Storr, like angels and ministers, must be understood literally, and the latter (chariot), like winds and lightnings, figuratively for agents of his will The translation adopted by the New Testament from the Septuagint has the sanction also of the Chaldee and Syriac versions. TRANSLATIONS. — JO poiw~n , k . t . l . Who maketh his angels winds. — Stuart, Craik, Ebrard. Who maketh winds his messengers, and flaming fire his ministers. — Campbell on Gospels, Dissert. 8 part sect. 10. —ED. VARIOUS READINGS. — Lachmann, on the authority of respectable manuscripts, gives the reading, kai< hJ pJa>zdov eujqu>thtov rJa>zdov , k . t . l . EXPOSITION. — JO Qeo>v is the usual voc., and nearly, the only form of it,throughout the Septuagint; e.g., Psalm 3:7, 4:1, 5:10, 7:1, et passim..... Where is God ever said to be the throne of his creatures? and what could be the sense of such an expression? — Stuart. All the ancient versions of the original passage in the Psalms agree in supporting the common construction, so far as their respective idioms permit a positive conclusion. — Pye Smith. The attempt of Gesenius to sustain another translation of the Hebrew, “The throne of God,” that is, “thy divine throne,” is truly surprising; as he must have known, that, in such a case, the second of the two nouns, and not, as here, the first, would have had the suffix by common usage of the language. — Turner TRANSLATIONS. — Pron, But respecting the Son. — Stuart, De Wrette. Concerning. — Boothroyd. — ED. VARIOUS READINGS. — Griesbach, Knapp, and Stuart, on the strength of MSS. D. E., and a few others, read diamenei~v , instead of diame>neiv , the future instead of the present. Tischendorf retains diame>neiv . The Peschito version has it “Thou art permanent.”\parEXPOSITION. — The manifestations of the Deity were made in the person of HIM who, in the fullness of time, became incarnate as the promised Messiah. In the deliverance from Egypt, and the march through the wilderness, he was known as “the angel of the covenant,” and sometimes appeared in a visible form. The blessing for which the author of the psalm prays, is the improvement and deliverance of the chosen people, by that God who had directed providence for that end.

But with regard to the Divine Father, the Scriptures assure us that “no one hath seen him, or can see him.” Can we, then, avoid inferring that the object of the afflicted psalmist’s prayers was that same DIVINE PERSON who had allowed himself to be seen in a glorious human form by Abraham, by Jacob, by Moses, etc.? — Pye Smith. TRANSLATIONS. — Diam . Thou shalt remain. — Boothroyd, Stewart, Ebrard. Tu permanebis. — Vulgate. Du bestehest. — De Wette. — ED. TRANSLATION — Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to execute His service, for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation? — Conybeare and Howson. — ED. VARIOUS READINGS. — Tischendorf reads pararuw~men , on the authority of A B D J; which, says Ebrard, is nothing more than an Alexandrine orthography. EXPOSITION. — Parar . Stuart remarks, that two senses have been attached to the word: — 1. To full, stumble, or perish. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Theodoret, and others, render, the clause, “So that we may not stumble,” or “fall.” And, 2. To suffer to flow from the mind; in proof of which he quotes from Clem. Alex. Paedagog., 3. p, 246, and he shows that Proverbs 3:21 really bears the samemeaning, “Do not pass by, but keep my counsel.” The translation therefore, which he proposes for this verse is, “Lest we should slight them. Parar . Allow them to flow past us;’ i.e., ‘allow them to pass by our ears without being listened to.’ Erasmus Schmid. Bos, in like manner. Any place which a river flows past is said pararjrJuei~sqai . Metaphorically, any thing is said in general pararjrJuei~sqai , which is passed by and omitted through carelessness.” — Wolfius. —ED. VARIOUS READINGS. — The clause, Kate>sthsav usque sou , verse 7, is omitted by Griesbach, Scholz, and Tischendorf. Knapp, Lachmann, and Hahn enclose it within brackets, as doubtful. TRANSLATIONS. — Bracu> . “For a little while.” — Valckenaer, De Wette, Conybeare and Howson, Ebrard. “A little” (in respect of degree). — Stuart, Scholefield, Olshausen, Turner. —ED. EXPOSITION. — Teleiw~sai . This word refers either to Christ’s consecration to office or to his exaltation to his reward. Turner holds it difficult to conceive how suffering could be the means of consecrating Christ to his priestly office, and that he must have been priest before his sufferings commenced, whereas the other view is in accordance with various parts of the New Testament, and with all the places in the epistle in which the word occurs. Conybeare and Howson hold that itmeans literally to bring to the appointed accomplishment, to develop the full idea of the character, to consummate. The last word, they state, would be the best translation, if it were not so unusual as applied to persons.

TRANSLATION. — “It became him, for whom and through whom all things subsist, to make perfect through suffering the captain of their salvation, as one who should bring many sons unto glory.” — Ebrard. —ED. In his treatise De Divina Justitia, etc., vol. 10 of the author’s works. —\parED. EXPOSITION. — JAgia>x , according to Ebrard, refers neither to sanctification nor to justification, as such, but to the total change in their relation to God whichtakes place in the members of the new covenant, in opposition to the relation of the natural man to God. jEx eJno>v , “of one;” that is, Father. — Macknight, De Wette, Conybeare and Howson, Tholuck, Ebrard, etc. TRANSLATIONS. — [O te gaz . Both the purifier and the purified. — Scholefield. He that atoneth, and they that are atoned for. — Turner. He who maketh expiation, and they for whom expiation is made. — Stuart. JAgiazo>menoi , literally, who are in the process of sanctification. — Conybeare and Howson. — ED. READINGS. — Tischendorf, on the strength of a considerable preponderance of MS. authorities, reads ai[matov kai< sarko>v . EXPOSITION. — He, in order to make us partakers in his sonship to God, has first taken part in our sonship to Adam. TRANSLATIONS. — Katarg . Render powerless. — Craik. Subdue him. — Stuart. Undo him. — De Wette. — ED. jEpilamz . is now translated differently from the A. V., by almost all expositors. “He doth succor.” — Stuart. “He giveth his aid.” — Conybeare Howson. “He doth lay hold on.” — Craik. “The church fathers and the theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries supplied a fu>sin to the genitive, and rendered thus, ‘He has not assumed the nature of angels, but that of the seed of Abraham.’

Castalio was the first to oppose this monstrous interpretation; after him the Socinians and Arminians. Since 1650 the right interpretation has been the general one.” — Ebrard. — ED. See the treatise on “Temptation,” vol. 6 p. 88, of the author’s works. —ED. EXPOSTION. — Jesus is called ajpo>stolov , from the analogous relation in which he stands to the yay °alm as messenger of God to men; ajrciereu>v , from the analogy between him and lwOdG;hζ ˆheko , as representative of men before God. — Ebrard. TRANSLATIONS. — Th~v oJmol . Confession. — De Wette, Wahl, Craik, Conybeare and Howson, Ebrard. Covenant. — Titmann, Tholuck.