The mercy and sublimity of the New Covenant as contrasted with the Old (18 24) enhance the guilt and peril of the backslider (25 29)

18. For ye are not come At the close of his arguments and exhortations the writer condenses the results of his Epistle into a climax of magnificent eloquence and force, in which he shews the transcendent beauty and supremacy of the New Covenant as compared with the terrors and imperfections of the Old.

unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire Unless we allow the textual evidence to be overruled by the other considerations, which are technically called "paradiplomatic evidence," the verse should be rendered "For ye have not come near to a palpable and enkindled fire." In any case the allusion is to Exodus 19:16-19; Deuteronomy 4:11, and generally to "the fiery law."

blackness, and darkness, and tempest Deuteronomy 4:11; Deuteronomy 5:22.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising