Hebrews 5:7

Hebrews 5:7. In the days of his flesh (‘of His humanity,' Arabic), i.e during His earthly life, especially in the closing part of it, as contrasted with the glorified state on which He entered when His high-priesthood began.

When he had offered up, etc.; rather, ‘in that He offered up.... was heard, and though He was a Son... learned;' or, ‘having offered up and being heard... He learned obedience,' etc. All the tenses refer to one and the same process of discipline; they describe His life not in distinct and successive portions, but as a whole, though no doubt the description is specially true of His final agony.

Having offered up is the regular sacrificial word used throughout this Epistle, and it probably implies that while all the sufferings these words describe were fitting our Lord for His priestly office, they were also part of what He had to suffer as the bearer of our sin.

Prayers and supplications. The word for ‘prayers' expresses a deep feeling of need; the word ‘supplications' is a term taken from the olive branch wrapped with wool which was held out of old as an earnest entreaty for protection and help, and is a stronger word than the former. ‘Prayers and entreaties' may represent, therefore, the general sense. Each may involve the other, but they differ in this way: St. Luke (who of the Evangelists dwells most on this human side of Christ's life) tells us often that Christ prayed, and then again that ‘being in an agony he prayed more earnestly' (Luke 22:44).

With strong crying and tears; with a most vehement outcry, an outcry of intensest feeling. Such was His first great cry on the cross: ‘My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' (Matthew 27:46); and such was the cry that accompanied His last utterance (Luke 23:46). His tears are also once named at least (Luke 19:41), and seem implied in such passages as Matthew 26:38; Matthew 27:46. The very agony of the final struggle has its prelude at an earlier stage (John 12:27), and was not without its parallel even in the wilderness. These prayers and entreaties were addressed unto him that was able to save from death, and he was heard in that he feared. This clause has been variously interpreted. One guide to its meaning is, that whatever it was He prayed for, the Father heard and gave (literally, or by a better equivalent) what he asked. A second guide to its meaning is that the last clause, ‘in that He feared,' is rightly translated in the English Version. ‘Was heard, and so delivered from that which He feared either from His own fear, or from the thing He feared,' though largely supported, is inadmissible. The word ‘fear' is used only of the fear of caution, of reverence, of devoted submission, never of the fear of terror. The interpretation of the Authorised Version, adopted by all the Greek expositors, is accepted, after a full examination of passages in ancient writers by Bleek and Alford, and is required in Hebrews 12:28, the only other place where it is found in the New Testament. The adjective, moreover, which is found only in Luke, means always ‘devout' (Luke 2:25, and Acts). Does it mean, then, that Christ prayed to Him who was able to save from death that He Himself might not die? Impossible He came to ‘give Himself a ransom for many.' He knew that He was to be betrayed into the hands of the Gentiles, and was to be scourged and crucified. With ever-increasing clearness He had announced the fact to His disciples; and if now He prayed for such deliverance, His prayer was not heard. Does it mean that He prayed God to deliver Him from death after having died a prayer that was fulfilled when the ‘God of Peace,' God reconciled to the world through the death of His Son, ‘brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ'? So Ebrard, Brown, and others interpret it. But neither is this exactly the meaning. What He prayed to be delivered from was not the mere dying, nor was it the grave into which, when dead, He was to enter. His prayer had rather reference to the agony of the final struggle. As Mediator He saw in death all it involved; the curse of the broken law, the penalty due to sin, the wrath of God, not primarily against Himself as the Holy One, but against the guilty, in whose room He stood, and against Him as He had taken their place. The weight of the Father's wrath, and the need in that dread hour of continued love to man, and of continued trust in God; the fear lest by one moment of passionate impatience, in forgetfulness of the force of His temptation, through a natural recoil against the injustice and cruelty of His murderers, through possible distrust of Him who now seemed to have left Him to His own unassisted power these were among the elements of His agony. And He could bear and resist them only through the cautious handling of the solemnities of His position, and by the reverent submission of His entire nature unto God. And God heard Him, not by delivering Him from the necessity of dying, not even by raising Him from the dead, but by strengthening Him to bear all (Luke 22:43), and by making the pangs of death the birth-throes of an endless life for him, and for all who were to believe. Had there been any impatience or distrust. His prayer must have remained unanswered, and His whole work have been frustrated. On the cross was there the deepest prostration of human weakness, and the utmost willingness to bear the burden whereby we are disburdened; as there was also the perfecting of the work and of the discipline which fitted Him to be a Priest, both in relation to God and in relation to ourselves.