Hebrews 2:2

The word spoken by angels. — Or rather, through angels (comp. Hebrews 1:2): the word was God’s, but angels were the medium through which it was given to men. In accordance with the tone of the whole passage (in which the thought is not the reward of obedience, but the peril of neglect of duty), “the word” must denote divine commands delivered by angels, and — as the close parallel presented by Hebrews 10:28, seems to prove — especially the commands of the Mosaic law. Hence this verse must be joined to the other passages (Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19; comp. also Acts 7:38) which bring into relief the ministration of angels in the giving of the Law; and the nature of the argument of this Epistle gives special importance to the subject here. The only passage in the Pentateuch which can be quoted in illustration is Deuteronomy 33:2 : “The Lord came from Sinai.... He came from amid myriads of holy ones.” The Greek version (introducing a double rendering of the Hebrew) adds, “at His right hand were angels with Him;” and two of the Targums likewise speak of the “myriads of holy angels.” Psalms 68:17 is difficult and obscure, but very possibly agrees with the passage just quoted in referring to angels as the attendants of Jehovah on the mount. Nowhere in the Old Testament is the thought carried beyond this point; but there are a few passages in Jewish writers which clearly show that such a ministration of angels as is here spoken of was a tenet of Jewish belief in the apostolic age. Philo, after saying that the angels have their name from reporting the commands of the Father to His children, and the wants of the children to the Father, adds: “We are unable to contain His exceeding and unalloyed benefits, if He Himself proffers them to us without employing others as His ministers.” Much more important are the words of Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, § 3), who introduces Herod as reminding the Jews that the noblest of the ordinances and the holiest of the things contained in the laws had been learnt by them from God through angels. Jewish writers quoted by Wetstein speak of the “angels of service” whom Moses had known from the time of the giving of the law; and, moreover, of the angel who, when Moses had through terror forgotten all that he had been taught during the forty days, delivered the law to him again. Such speculations are of interest as showing the place which this tenet held in Jewish doctrine and belief. Here and in Galatians 3:19 (see Note there) this mediation of angels is adduced as a mark of the inferiority of the law; in Acts 7:53, where no such comparison is made, the contrast implied is between angels and men as givers of a law.

Was stedfast. — Rather, proved steadfast or sure; evidence of this was given by the punishment which overtook the transgressor, whether inflicted by the direct visitation of God or by human hands faithfully executing the divine will. Of the two words well rendered transgression and disobedience, the one points especially to the infraction of a positive precept, the other is more general: the former relates more commonly to “thou shalt not;” the latter rather to “thou shalt.” The two words are here united, that every violation of the command may be included. The use of reward in a neutral or unfavourable sense (2 Peter 2:13; Psalms 94:2, et al.) is not uncommon in our older writers. (Comp. “the reward of a villain,” in Shakespeare.)