Hebrews 5:2

Hebrews 5:2. Who; rather, being one able to have compassion; literally, to be reasonably compassionate towards a word found in the New Testament only here. The Stoic prided himself on being apathetic in relation to sin and misery, as he held the gods were. A sympathetic or emotional nature rejoices with those that rejoice, and weeps with those that weep. The true position of a priest in relation to those who are not only suffering, but are also guilty, is between the two. His is a blended feeling of sorrow and blame. Were there no sorrow, there would be no fitness for the office manward; were there no blame, there would be no holiness, and so no fitness for the office Godward. As standing between man and God, he feels (we may say it with reverence) for both; and herein consists His noblest quality.

With the ignorant and the erring. The persons for whom the priest acts are not innocent, or the function would cease; they are sinners, and are described as ignorant and out of the way (erring or, it may be, led out of the way). The first word is milder than the second, and describes an ignorance that may be without sin, though it is oftener an ignorance that is more or less sinful (see Leviticus 4:13; Leviticus 5:18). There is generally sin in it, though not the sin of a wilful perverseness (‘I did it ignorantly in unbelief,' 1 Timothy 1:13). The second word, though stronger than the first, is milder than is consistent with wilful conscious sin; it is going astray, or (in the passive voice) being led astray (see 1 Corinthians 6:9; Galatians 6:7; 2 Timothy 3:13). Possibly these words describe the feeling of the priest, who is supposed to be a man and himself a sinner (see next clause) towards those who are sinners, and who he may say are after all ‘ignorant and deluded.' More probably, however, the words describe the real character of those for whom he is to act. All men are blameably ignorant, and are out of the way; every sin is want of knowledge, as well as want of wisdom; we all have gone astray, and for all the priest acts; those being excepted who are presumptuous and defiant sinners for whom no sacrifice could be accepted. The very office of the priest implies some desire to be forgiven, or at all events the cessation of perverse persistence in sin. Sympathy for all such is the duty and the qualification of the true priest; made the more easy that he is himself beset with infirmity, and the more obligatory that he himself needs the same treatment. The infirmity here spoken of is clearly moral weakness, which makes men capable of sin, and leads to it.