Hebrews 2:1

Διὰ τοῦτο. Because we are heirs of a better covenant, administered not by Angels but by a Son, to whom as Mediator an absolute dominion is to be assigned.

δεῖ. The word implies moral necessity and not mere obligation. The author never loses sight of the fact that his purpose was to warn as well as to teach.

περισσοτέρως προσέχειν. If the command to “take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things that thine eyes have seen” (Deuteronomy 4:9), came with awful force to those who had only received the Law by the disposition of Angels, how much “more abundantly” should Christians attend to Him of Whom Moses had spoken to their fathers? (Acts 3:22).

τοῖς�, “to the things heard,” i.e. to the Gospel.

μήποτε, “lest haply.” See Hebrews 3:12; Hebrews 4:1.

παραρυῶμεν. This is the 2nd aor. subj. pass. of παραρέω. In classical Greek it would be spelt ρρ. There are no such verbs as παραῤῥυέω, παραῤῥύω, or παραῤῥύημι, which seem to be mere fictions of grammarians. The meaning is “should drift away from them.” Wiclif rendered the word more correctly than the A.V. which here follows the Genevan Bible of 1560—“lest peradventure we fleten away.” The verb thus resembles the Latin praetervehi. The metaphor is taken from a boat which having no “anchor sore and steadfast,” slips its anchor, and as Luther says in his gloss, “before her landing shoots away into destruction” (Proverbs 3:21 LXX. υἱὲ μὴ παραῤῥυῇς). It is obvious that these Hebrew converts were in great danger of “drifting away” from the truth under the pressure of trial, and in consequence of the apathy produced by isolation and deferred hopes (Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 6:11; Hebrews 10:25; Hebrews 10:36-37; Hebrews 12:1-3).