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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Hebrews 1:1 - 1:1
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God
Both stages of the revelation were given by God.
At sundry times (πολυμερῶς)
Rend. in many parts. N.T.o. olxx, but πολυμερής Wisd. 7:22. In the first stage of his revelation, God spake, not at once, giving a complete revelation of his being and will; but in many separate revelations, each of which set forth only a portion of the truth. The truth as a whole never comes to light in the O.T. It appears fragmentarily, in successive acts, as the periods of the Patriarchs, Moses, the Kingdom, etc. One prophet has one, another element of the truth to proclaim.
In divers manners (πολυτροπῶς)
Rend. in many ways. N.T.o. lxx, 4 Macc. 3:21. This refers to the difference of the various revelations in contents and form. Not the different ways in which God imparted his revelations to the prophets, but the different ways in which he spoke by the prophets to the fathers: in one way through Moses, in another through Elijah, in others through Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc. At the founding of the Old Testament kingdom of God, the character of the revelation was elementary. Later it was of a character to appeal to a more matured spiritual sense, a deeper understanding and a higher conception of the law. The revelation differed according to the faithfulness or unfaithfulness of the covenant-people. Comp. Eph 3:10, the many-tinted wisdom of God, which is associated with this passage by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 4, 27). “Fitly, therefore, did the apostle call the wisdom of God many-tinted, as showing its power to benefit us in many parts and in many ways.”
Spake (λαλήσας)
See on Mat 28:18. Often in the Epistle of the announcement of the divine will by men, as Heb 7:14; Heb 9:19; by angels, as Heb 2:2; by God himself or Christ, as Heb 2:3; Heb 5:5; Heb 12:25. In Paul, almost always of men: once of Christ, 2Co 13:3; once of the Law, personified, Rom 3:9.
In time past (πάλαι)
Better, of old. The time of the Old Testament revelation. It indicates a revelation, not only given, but completed in the past.
Unto the fathers (τοῖς πατράσιν)
Thus absolutely, Joh 7:22; Rom 9:5; Rom 15:8. More commonly with your or our.
By the prophets (ἐν τοῖς προφήταις)
Rend. “in the prophets,” which does not mean in the collection of prophetic writings, as Joh 6:45; Act 13:40, but rather in the prophets themselves as the vessels of divine inspiration. God spake in them and from them. Thus Philo; “The prophet is an interpreter, echoing from within (ἔνδοθεν) the sayings of God” (De Praemiis et Poenis, § 9)