Hebrews 9:16

ὅπου γὰρ διαθήκη … The meaning of these words is doubtful. In the LXX διαθήκη occurs about 280 times and in all but four instances translates בְרִית, covenant. In classical and Hellenistic Greek, however, it is the common word for “will” or “testament” (see especially The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Grenfell and Hunt, Part I., 105, etc., where the normal meaning of the word appears also from the use of ἀδιάθετος for “intestate” and μεταδιατίθεσθαι for “to alter a will”). Accordingly it has been supposed by several interpreters that the writer, taking advantage of the double meaning of διαθήκη, at this point introduces an argument which applies to it in the sense of “will” or “testament,” but not in the sense of “covenant”; as if he said, “where a testamentary disposition of property is made, this comes into force only on the decease of the testator”. θάνατον ἀνάγκη φέρεσθαι τοῦ διαθεμένου “it is necessary that the death of him who made the disposition be adduced”. On the very common omission of the copula in the third singular indicative see Buttmann, p. 136. φέρεσθαι, “necesse est afferri testimonia de morte testatoris” (Wetstein). For passages establishing its use as a term of the courts for the production of evidence, etc., see Field in loc. and especially Appian, De Bell. Civil. ii. 143, διαθῆκαι f1δὲ τοῦ Καίσαρος ὤφθησαν φερόμεναι. (See also Eisner in loc.) φέρειν is apparently even used for “to register” in the Oxy. Papyri, Part II., 244. The reason of this necessity is given in Hebrews 9:17. διαθήκη γὰρ ἐπὶ νεκ ροῖς βεβαία … “for a testament is of force with reference to dead people, since it is never of any force when the testator is alive”. On this interpretation the words mean that before the inheritance, alluded to in Hebrews 9:15, could become the possession of those to whom it had been promised, Christ must die. He is thus represented as a testator. The illustration from the general law relating to wills or testaments extends only to the one point that Christ's people could inherit only on condition of Christ's death. The reason of Christ's death receives no illustration. He did not die merely to make room for the heir. The objections to this interpretation are (1) the constant Biblical usage by which, with one doubtful exception in Galatians 3, διαθήκη stands for “covenant,” not for “will”. On this point see the strong statement of Hatch, Essays in Bibl. Greek, p. 48. “There can be little doubt that the word must be invariably taken in this sense of “covenant” in the N.T., and especially in a book which is so impregnated with the language of the LXX as the epistle to the Hebrews”. (2) His argument regarding covenants receives no help from usages which obtain in connection with testaments which are not covenants. The fact that both could be spoken of under the same name shows that they were related in some way; but presumably the writer had in view things and not merely words. To adduce the fact that in the case of wills the death of the testator is the condition of validity, is, of course, no proof at all that a death is necessary to make a covenant valid. (3) The argument of Hebrews 9:18 is destroyed if we understand Hebrews 9:16-17 of wills; for in this verse it is the first covenant that is referred to.

But is it possible to retain the meaning “covenant”? Westcott, Rendall, Hatch, Moulton and others think it is possible. To support his argument, proving the necessity of Christ's death, the writer adduces the general law that he who makes a covenant does so at the expense of life. What is meant becomes plain in the 18th verse, for in the covenant there alluded to, the covenanting people were received into covenant through death. That covenant only became valid ἐπὶ νεκροῖς over the dead bodies of the victims slain as representing the people. Whatever this substitutionary death may have meant, it was necessary to the ratification of the covenant. The sacrifices may have been expiatory, indicating that all old debts and obligations were cancelled and that the covenanters entered into this covenant as clean and new men; or they may have meant that the terms of the covenant were immutable; or that the people died to the past and became wholly the people of God. In any case the dead victims were necessary, and without them, χωρὶς αἵματος, the covenant was not inaugurated or ratified. Great light has been thrown on this passage by Dr. Trumbull in his Blood Covenant, in which he shows the universality of that form of compact and the significance of the blood. The rite of interchanging blood or tasting one another's blood, indicates that the two are bound in one life and must be all in all to one another. On the whole, this interpretation is to be preferred. Certainly it connects much better with what follows. For having shown that by dead victims all covenants are ratified, the writer proceeds ὅθεν οὐδʼ ἡ πρώτη χωρὶς ἅματος ἐνκεκαίνισται, “wherefore not even the first,” although imperfect and temporary “was inaugurated without blood,” i.e., without death. [The perfect here as elsewhere in Hebrews is scarcely distinguishable from the aorist.] Proof that this statement regarding the first covenant is correct he forthwith gives in Hebrews 9:19-20.

Hebrews 9:19. λαληθείσης γὰρ πάσης ἐντολῆς.… “For when Moses had spoken to the people every commandment of the law,” this being the needful preliminary, that the people might clearly understand the obligations they assumed on entering the covenant, he then took the blood of the calves and the goats, etc. In Exodus 24:3 ff., an account is given of the inauguration of the first covenant. To that narrative certain additions of no importance are here made. In Exodus no mention is made of goats, only of μοσχάρια. (See Westcott on this discrepancy.) Probably this addition is due to an echo of Hebrews 9:12-13. Water, which was added to the blood to prevent coagulation or possibly as a symbol of cleansing; (cf. John 19:34; 1 John 5:6) scarlet wool, κόκκινος, so called from κόκκος “the grain or berry of the ilex coccifera ” used in dyeing (cf. Leviticus 14:4) and the hyssop or wild marjoram on which the wool was tied, are all added as associated with sacrifice in general, and all connected with the blood and the sprinkling. ἐράντισεν here takes the place of the κατεσκέδασε of Exodus and the action is not confined to the people as in the original narrative but includes αὐτὸ τὸ βιβλίον, the book itself, that is, even the book in which Moses had written the words of the Lord, the terms of the covenant. Everything connected with the covenant bore the mark of blood, of death. Again, in Hebrews 9:20, instead of the ἰδοὺ of the LXX, which literally renders the Hebrew we have τοῦτο τὸ αἶμα κ. τ. λ., a possible echo of our Lord's words in instituting the new covenant, and instead of διέθετο of Exodus 24:8 we have ἐνετείλατο corresponding with the ἐντολή of Hebrews 9:19.