Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Hebrews 2:7

That God has been mindful of man and visited him is apparent in the three particulars now mentioned. βραχύ τι is “a little,” either in material, or in space, or in time. In 1 Samuel 14:29, ἐγευσάμην βραχύ τι τ. μέλιτος. In Isaiah 57:17, of time, διʼ ἁμαρτίαν βραχύ τι ἐλύπησα αὐτον. So in N.T., of aterial, John 6:7; of space, Acts 27:28; of time Acts 5:34. So in classics, v. Bleek. The original of the psalm points to the translation: “Thou didst make him little lower than the angels” [in the Heb. מֵאֱלֹהִים “than God”]. There seems no reason to depart from this meaning either in this verse or in Hebrews 2:9. So Alford and Westcott, but Davidson and Weiss and several others are of opinion that as the words are in Hebrews 2:9 applied to the Messiah, whose superiority has been so insisted upon, an allusion to His inferiority would be out of place; “and that the phrase should be used of degree in one place and time in another, when the point of the passage lies in the identity of the Son's history with that of man, is an idea only puerile” (Davidson). But on any rendering the inferiority of Jesus to angels so far as dying goes is granted, and there is no reason why the sense of degree should not be kept in both clauses. δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ frequently conjoined, Revelation 21:26; 1 Timothy 1:17; Thucyd., iv. 86; Plut., Num., 51; Lucian Somn., 13.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

Hebrews 2:7

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