Hebrews 13:9

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

This verse is not in apposition with "the end of their conversation" (Hebrews 13:7), but forms the transition, Greek order: 'Jesus Christ, yesterday and today (is) the same, and (shall be the same) unto the ages' (i:e., unto all ages). The Jesus Christ (the full name marks with affectionate solemnity His person and His office) who supported your spiritual rulers through life unto their end "yesterday" (in times past), being at once 'the Author and the Finisher of their faith' (Hebrews 12:2), remains still the same Jesus Christ "today," ready to help you also, if you too walk by "faith." Compare "this same Jesus," Acts 1:11. He who yesterday (the past time) suffered and died is today in glory (Revelation 1:18). 'As night comes between yesterday and today, yet is itself swallowed up by yesterday and today; so the glory of Jesus Christ which was of yesterday, and that which is today, was not so interrupted by His suffering as not to continue the same. He is the same yesterday, before He came into the world, and today, in heaven: yesterday in the time of our predecessors, and today in our age' (Bengel). So the doctrine is the same, not variable: the transition from Hebrews 13:7 to Hebrews 13:9. He is always "the same" (Hebrews 1:12); the same in the Old and New Testaments.

About, [periferesthee]. 'Aleph (') A C Delta, Vulgate, read [ paraferesthe (G3911)] 'carried aside'-namely, cf. Ephesians 4:14.

Divers, [ poikilais (G4164)] - differing from the one faith in the same Jesus Christ, as taught by them who had the rule over you (Hebrews 13:7).

Strange - foreign to the truth.

Established with grace; not with meats - not with Jewish distinctions between clean and unclean meats, to which ascetic Judaizers added the rejection of some meats and the use of others: noticed also by Paul in 1 Corinthians 8:8; 1 Corinthians 8:13; 1 Corinthians 6:13; Romans 14:17, an exact parallel: some of the "divers and strange doctrines." Christ's body offered once for us is our true spiritual 'meat' to "eat" (Hebrews 13:10), "the stay and the staff ... of bread" (Isaiah 3:1), the mean of all "grace."

Which have not profited - `in which they who walked were not profited' as to justification and perfect cleansing of the conscience. Compare on "walked," Acts 21:21 - namely, with superstitious scrupulosity, as though God's true worship consisted in legal observances.