Hebrews 2:14-16

This saving brotherhood involved incarnation and death. For, as it has ever been the common lot of the παιδία to live under the conditions imposed by flesh and blood, subject to inevitable dissolution and the shrinkings and weaknesses consequent, He also, this Son of God, Himself (καὶ αὐτὸς) shared with them in their identical nature, thus making Himself liable to death; His intention being that by dying He might render harmless him that used death as a terror, and thus deliver from slavery those who had suffered death to rule their life and lived in perpetual dread. κεκοινώνηκεν … μετέσχεν perf. and aor.; the one pointing to the common lot which the παιδία have always shared, αἵματος καὶ σαρκός, usually (but not always, Ephesians 6:12) inverted and denoting human nature in its weakness and liability to decay (Galatians 1:16, etc., and especially 1 Corinthians 15:50); the other, expressing the one act of Christ by which He became a sharer with men in this weak condition. He partook, but does not now partake. [Wetstein quotes from Polyaenus that Chabrias enjoined upon his soldiers when about to engage in battle to think of the enemy as ἀνθρώποις αἷμα καὶ σάρκα ἔχουσιν καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς φύσεως ἡμῖν κεκοινωνηκόσι.] This human nature Christ assumed παραπλησίως, which Chrysostom interprets, οὐ φαντασίᾳ οὐδὲ εἰκόνι ἀλλʼ ἀληθείᾳ. It means not merely “in like manner,” but “in absolutely the same manner”; as in Arrian vii. 1, 9, σὺ δὲ ἄνθρωπος ὢν, παραπλήσιος τοῖς ἄλλοις, Herod. 3:104, σχεδὸν παραπλησίως “almost identical”; see also Diod. Sic., ver. 45. τῶν αὐτῶν, i.e., blood and flesh. The purpose of the incarnation is expressed in the words ἵνα διὰ τοῦ f1θανάτου … ἦσαν δουλίας. He took flesh that He might die, and so destroy not death but him that had the power of death, and deliver, etc. The double object may be considered as one, the defeat of the devil involving the deliverance of those in bondage. The means He used to accomplish this object was His dying (διὰ τ. θανάτου). How the death of Christ had the result here ascribed to it, we are left to conjecture; for nowhere else in the Epistle is the deliverance of man by Christ's death stated in analogous terms. We must first endeavour to understand the terms here employed. καταργήσῃ : “might render inoperative” (ἄεργον), “bring to nought”. Sometimes “destroy” or “put an end to” as in 1 Corinthians 15:26 ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος. τὸν τὸ κράτος ἔχοντα τοῦ θανάτου, “him who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” τὸν διάβολον (διαβάλλω, I set asunder, put at variance) used by LXX to render שֳׂטָן in Job 1:2 and Zach. 3, etc.; Σατάν is used in 1 Kings 11. In N.T. both designations occur frequently. But the significance for our present passage lies in the description “him who has the power of death”. ἔχειν τὸ κράτος is classical, and κράτος with the genitive denotes the realm within which or over which the rule is exercised, as Herod., iii. 142, τῆς Σάμου τ. κράτος. In connection with this universal human experience of death he uses his malign influence, and the striking vision of Zechariah 3 shows us how he does so. He brings sins to remembrance, he appears as the accuser of the brethren, as the counsel for the prosecution. Thus he creates a fear of death, a fear which is one of the most marked features of O.T. experience. Both Schoettgen and Weber produce rabbinical sayings which illustrate the power of a legal religion to produce servility and fear, so that the natural expression of the Jew was, “In this life death will not suffer a man to be glad”. Life, in short, with sin unaccounted for, and with death viewed as the punishment of sin to look forward to, is a δουλεία unworthy of God's sons. This indeed is expressly stated in Hebrews 2:15. The δουλεία which contradicts the idea of sonship and prevents men from entering upon their destiny of dominion over all things is occasioned by their fear of death (φόβῳ, the dative of cause) as that which implies rejection by God. [Among the races whose conscience was not educated by the law, views of death varied greatly. These will be found in Geddes' Phaedo, pp. 217, 223; and cf. the opening paragraphs of the third Book of the Republic, as well as pp. 330 and 486 B. Aristotle with his usual straightforward frankness pronounces death φοβερώτατον. On the other hand, many believed τεθνάμεναι βέλτιον ἢ βίοτος; Hegesias was styled ὁ πεισιθάνατος, and by his persuasions and otherwise suicide became popular; and death was no longer reckoned an everlasting ill, but “portum potius paratum nobis et perfugium”. Wholly applicable to the present passage is Spinoza's “homo liber de nihilo minus quam de morte cogitat”. Cf. Philo, Omn. sap. liber, who quotes Eurip., τίς ἐστι δοῦλος τοῦ θανεῖν ἄφροντις ὤν ;] This then was the bondage which characterised the life (διὰ παντὸς τοῦ ζῆν) of those under the old dispensation; the bondage in which they were held (ἔνοχοι = ἐνεχόμενοι, “held” or “bound,” “subject to,” see Thayer, s.v.), and from which Christ delivered τούτους ὅσοι, not as if it were a restricted number who were delivered, but on the contrary to mark that the deliverance was coextensive with the bondage. ἀπαλλάξῃ, used especially of freeing from slavery [exx. from Philo in Carpzov, and cf. Isocrates οὗτος ἀπήλλαξεν αὐτοὺς τοῦ δέους τούτου. In the Phaedo frequently of soul emancipated from the body.] How the Son wrought this deliverance διὰ τοῦ θανάτου can now be answered; and it cannot be better answered than in the words of Robertson Smith: “To break this sway, Jesus takes upon Himself that mortal flesh and blood to whose infirmities the fear of death under the O.T. attaches. But while He passes through all the weakness of fleshly life, and, finally, through death itself, He, unlike all others, proves Himself not only exempt from the fear of death, but victorious over the accuser. To Him, who in His sinlessness experienced every weakness of mortality, without diminution of his unbroken strength of fellowship with God, death is not the dreaded sign of separation from God's grace (cf. Hebrews 2:7), but a step in his divinely appointed career; not something inflicted on Him against His will, but a means whereby (διὰ with genitive) He consciously and designedly accomplishes His vocation as Saviour. For this victory of Jesus over the devil, or, which is the same thing, the fear of death, must be taken, like every other part of His work, in connection with the idea of His vocation as Head and Leader of His people.” In short, we see now what is meant by His tasting death “ for every man,” and how this death guarantees the perfect dominion and glory depicted in Psalms 8. All the humiliation and death are justified by the necessities of the case, he concludes, “For, as I need scarcely say, it is not angels (presumably sinless and spiritual beings, πνεύματα, Hebrews 1:14) He is taking in hand, but He is taking in hand Abraham's seed (the dying children of a dead father; ‘also dergleichen sterbliche und durch Todesfurcht in Knechtschaft befangene Wesen,' Bleek). δήπου : frequently in classics, as Plato, Protagoras, 309 C. οὐ γὰρ δήπου ἐνέτυχες, “for I may take it for granted you have not met” (Apol., 21 B). τί ποτε λέγει ὁ θεός … φάσκων ἐμὲ σοφώτατον εἶναι; οὐ γὰρ δήπου ψεύδεταί γε, “for, at any rate, as need hardly be said, he is not saying what is untrue”. ἐπιλαμβάνεται : “lays hold to help” or simply “succours,” with the idea of taking a person up to see him through. Cf. Sir 4:11. ἡ σοφία … ἐπιλαμβάνεται τῶν ζητούντων αὐτήν, and the Scholiast on Aesch., Pers., 742, ὅταν σπεύδῃ τις εἰς καλὰ ἢ εἰς κακά, ὁ θεὸς αὐτοῦ ἐπιλαμβάνεται. Castellio was the first to propose the meaning “help” in place of “assume the nature of,” and Beza having urged the latter rendering as being that of the Greek fathers, goes on to say, “quo magis est execranda Castellionis audacia qui ἐπιλαμ. convertit ‘ opitulatur,' non modo falsa, sed etiam inepta interpretatione, etc.”. It has been suggested that θάνατος might be the nominative which would give quite a good sense, but as Christ is the subject both of the foregoing and of the succeeding clause it is more likely that this affirmation also is made of Him. It is certainly remarkable that instead of saying “He lays hold of man to help him,” the writer should give the restricted σπέρματος Ἀβ. Von Soden, who supposes the Epistle is addressed to Gentiles, thinks the writer intends to prepare the way for his introducing the priesthood of Christ, and to exhibit the claim of Christians to the fulfilment of the prophecies made to Abraham (cf. Robertson Smith), but this Weiss brands as “eine leere Ausflucht”. Perhaps we cannot get further than Estius (cited by Bleek): “gentium vocationem tota hac epistola prudenter dissimulat, sive quod illius mentio Hebraeis parum grata esset, sive quod instituto suo non necessaria”. Or, as Bleek says. “es erklârt sich aus dem Zwecke des Briefes”.