Hebrews 13:17

End. The conclusion of the Epistle.

Hebrews 13:17. “Obey your rulers and submit; for they watch for your souls, knowing they are to give account, that they may do this with joy not with lamentation for this would be profitless to you.”

Having exhorted the Hebrews to keep in mind their former rulers and adhere to their teaching, the writer now admonishes them, probably in view of a certain mutinous and separatist spirit (Hebrews 10:25) encouraged by their reception of strange doctrines, to obey their present leaders, and yield themselves trustfully (ὑπείκετε) to their teaching an admonition which, as Weiss remarks, shows that these teachers held the same views as the writer. The reasonableness of this injunction is confirmed by the responsibility of the rulers and their anxious discharge of it. They watch, like wakeful shepherds (ἀγρυπνοῦσιν), or those who are nursing a critical case, in the interest of your souls (ὑπὲρ τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν) to which they may sometimes seem to sacrifice your other interests. They do this under the constant pressure of a consciousness that they must one day render to the Chief Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20) an account of the care they have taken of His sheep (ὡς λόγον ἀποδώσοντες). Obey them, then, that they may discharge their responsibility and peform these kindly offices for you (τοῦτο referring not to λόγον ἀποδώσοντες as Vaughan, etc., which would require a much stronger expression than ἀλυσιτελές, but to ἀγρυπνοῦσιν) joyfully and not with groaning (στενάζοντες, the groaning with which one resumes a thankless task, and with which he contemplates unappreciated and even opposed work). And even for your own sakes you should make the work of your rulers easy and joyful, for otherwise it cannot profit you. Your unwillingness to listen to them means that you are out of sympathy with their teaching and that it can do you no good (ἀλυσιτελὲς γὰρ ὑμῖν τοῦτο).