Hebrews 5:12

καὶ γὰρ ὀφείλοντες.… “For indeed, though in consideration of the time [since you received Christ] ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the beginning [the elements] of the oracles of God.” διὰ τὸν χρόνον, cf. Hebrews 2:3; Hebrews 10:32; how long they had professed Christianity we do not know, but quite possibly for twenty or thirty years. Those who had for a time themselves been Christians were expected to have made such attainment in knowledge as to become διδάσκαλοι. This advance was their duty, ὀφείλοντες. Instead of thus accumulating Christian knowledge, they had let slip even the rudiments, so far at any rate as to allow them to fall into the background of their mind and to become inoperative. Their primal need of instruction had recurred. The need had again arisen, τοῦ διδάσκειν ὑμᾶς τινὰ “of some one teaching you,” the genitive following χρείαν, as in Hebrews 5:12 and in Hebrews 10:36. The indefinite pronoun seems preferable, as the form of the sentence requires an expressed subject to bring out the contrast to εἶναι διδάσκαλοι, and to ὑμᾶς. τὰ στοιχεῖα … Θεοῦ. The meaning of τῆς ἀρχῆς would seem to be determined by τῆς ἀρχῆς τ. Χριστοῦ in Hebrews 6:1, where it apparently denotes the initial stages of a Christian profession, the stages in which the elements of the Christian faith would naturally be taught. Here, then, “the beginning of the oracles of God” would mean the oracles of God as taught in the beginning of one's education by these oracles. This of itself is a strong enough expression, but to make it stronger τὰ στοιχεῖα is added, as if he said “the rudiments of the rudiments,” the A B C of the elements. τῶν λογίων τ. θεοῦ, “oraculorum Dei, i.e., Evangelii, in quo maxima et summe necessaria sunt Dei oracula, quae et sic dicuntur, 1 Peter 4:11 ” (Grotius). The “Oracles of God” sometimes denote the O.T., as in Romans 3:2; Acts 7:38; but here it is rather the utterance of God through the Son (Hebrews 1:1), the salvation preached by the Lord (Hebrews 2:3) (so Weiss). καὶ γεγόνατε χρείαν ἔχοντες γάλακτος … “and are become such as have need of milk and not of solid food,” “et facti estis quibus lacte opus sit, non solido cibo” (Vulgate). For the metaphor, cf. 1 Peter 2:2; 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, a strikingly analogous passage, cf. John 16:12, and the Rabbinic term for young students “Theenekoth” “Sucklings” (Schoettgen). The same figure is found in Philo, De Agric., ii. (Wendland, vol. ii., p. 96) ἐπεὶ δὲ νηπίοις μέν ἐστι γάλα τροφή, τελείοις δὲ τὰ ἐκ πυρῶν πέμματα · καὶ ψυχῆς κ. τ. λ. Abundant illustrations from Greek literature in Wetstein. Instead of becoming adults, able to stand on their own feet, select and digest their own food, they had fallen into spiritual dotage, had entered a second childhood, and could only receive the simplest nourishment. Milk represents traditional teaching, that which has been received and digested by others, and is suitable for those who have no teeth of their own and no sufficiently strong powers of digestion. This teaching is admirably adapted to the first stage of Christian life, but it cannot form mature Christians. For this, στερεὰ τροφή is essential.