Hebrews 2:9

χάριτι θεοῦ אABCDEKL. The χωρὶς θεοῦ of M Syr. and the rec. is an ancient variation known to Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Jerome and others. It has been supposed to be a Monophysite corruption, but was more ancient than that controversy. It is probably a mere pragmatic gloss on the ὑπὲρ παντός. By a curious error St Thomas Aquinas here mistook the gratia Dei of the Vulg. for a nominative. See the note.

9. βραχύ τι κ.τ.λ. This alludes to the temporal (“for a little while”) and voluntary humiliation of the Incarnate Lord. See Philippians 2:7-11. For a short time Christ was liable to agony and death from which angels are exempt; and even to the “intolerable indignity” of the grave.

βλέπομεν. “But we look upon,” i.e. not with the outward eye, but with the eye of faith. The verb used is not ὁρῶμεν videmus as in the previous verse, but βλέπομεν cernimus (as in Hebrews 3:19). In accordance with the order of the original the verse should be rendered, “But we look upon Him who has been, for a little while, made low in comparison of angels—even Jesus—on account of the suffering of death crowned, &c.”

διὰ τὸ πάθημα τοῦ θανάτου, “because of the suffering of death.” The via crucis was the appointed via lucis (comp. Hebrews 5:7-10; Hebrews 7:26; Hebrews 9:12). This truth—that the sufferings of Christ were the willing path of His perfectionment as the “Priest upon his throne” (Zechariah 6:13)—is brought out more distinctly in this than in any other Epistle.

δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεφανωμένον. Into the nature of this glory it was needless and hardly possible to enter. “On His head were many crowns” (Revelation 19:12).

ὅπως. The words refer to the whole of the last clause. The universal efficacy of His death resulted from the double fact of His humiliation and glorification. He was made a little lower than the angels, He suffered death, He was crowned with glory and honour, in order that His death might be efficacious for the redemption of the world.

χάριτι θεοῦ. The work of redemption resulted from the love of the Father no less than from that of the Son (John 3:16; Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21). It is therefore a part of “the grace of God” (Romans 5:8; Galatians 2:21; 2 Corinthians 6:1; Titus 2:11), and could only have been carried into completion by the aid of that grace of which Christ was full. The Greek is χάριτι θεοῦ, but there is a very interesting and very ancient various reading χωρὶς θεοῦ, “apart from God.” St Jerome says that he only found this reading “in some copies” (in quibusdam exemplaribus), whereas Origen had already said that he only found the other reading “by the grace of God” in some copies (ἐν τίσιν�). At present however the reading “apart from God” is only found in the cursive manuscript 53 (a MS. of the 9th century), and in the margin of 67. It is clear that once the reading was more common than is now the case, and it seems to have been a Western and Syriac reading which has gradually disappeared from the manuscripts. Theodore of Mopsuestia calls the reading “by the grace of God” meaningless, and others have stamped it as Monophysite (i.e. as implying that in Christ there was only one nature). We have seen that this is by no means the case, though the other reading may doubtless have fallen into disfavour from the use made of it by the Nestorians to prove that Christ did not suffer in His divinity but only “apart from God,” i.e. “divinitate tantisper depositâ” (so too St Ambrose and Fulgentius). But even if the reading be correct (and it is certainly more ancient than the Nestorian controversy) the words may belong to their own proper clause—“that He may taste death for every being except God”; the latter words being added as in 1 Corinthians 15:27. But the reading is almost certainly spurious. For (1) in the Nestorian sense “(should, apart from God, taste death”) it is unlike any other passage of Scripture; (2) in the other sense (“should taste death for everything except God”) it is unnecessary (since it bears in no way on the immediate argument) and may have been originally added as a superfluous marginal gloss by some pragmatic reader who remembered 1 Corinthians 15:27; or (3) it may have originated from a confusion of letters on the original papyrus. The incorporation of marginal glosses into the text is a familiar phenomenon in textual criticism. Such perhaps are 1 John 5:7; Acts 8:37; the latter part of Romans 8:1; “without cause” in Matthew 5:22; “unworthily” in 1 Corinthians 11:29, &c.

ὑπέρ, “on behalf of,” not “as a substitution for,” which would require ἀντί. παντός. Origen and others made this word neuter, “for every thing” or “for every existence”; but this seems to be expressly excluded by Hebrews 2:16, and is not in accordance with the analogy of John 1:29; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 John 2:2. It will be seen that the writer deals freely with the Psalm. The Psalmist views man in his present condition as being one which involves both glory and humiliation: his words are here applied as expressing man’s present humiliation and his future glory, which are compared with Christ’s temporal humiliation leading to His Eternal glory. It is the necessity of this application which required the phrase “a little” to be understood not of degree but of time. No doubt the writer has read into the words a pregnant significance; but (1) he is only applying them by way of illustrating acknowledged truths: and (2) he is doing so in accordance with principles of exegesis which were universally conceded not only by Christians but even by Jews.

γεύσηται θανάτου. The word “taste” is not to be pressed as though it meant that Christ “saw no corruption.” “To taste” does not mean merely “summis labris delibare.” It is a common Semitic and metaphoric paraphrase for death, derived from the notion of Death as an Angel who gives a cup to drink; as in the Arabic poem Antar “Death fed him with a cup of absinth by my hand.” Comp. Matthew 16:28; John 8:52. But the “death” here referred to is the life of self-sacrifice as well as the death of the body. Γεύεσθαι with the gen. is common in classical Greek, but its use with θανάτου in the N. T. (Matthew 16:28 &c.) is a Rabbinic phrase (see Schöttgen, Hor. Hebr. p. 148).