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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Hebrews 9:18 - 9:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Whereupon (ὅθεν)
Rend. wherefore, or for which reason: on the general principle that a covenant must be ratified by death.
Neither the first testament was dedicated without blood (οὐδὲ ἡ πρώτη χωρὶς αἵματος ἐνκεκαίνισται)
Rend. “neither hath the first (covenant) been inaugurated without blood.” There is surely no excuse for inserting testament here, as A.V., since the allusion is clearly to the ratification of a covenant with blood. But further, as this and the verses immediately following are intended to furnish a historical illustration of the statements in Heb 9:16, Heb 9:17, we seem forced either to render covenant in those verses, or to assume that the transaction here related was the ratification of a will and testament, or to find our writer guilty of using an illustration which turns on a point entirely different from the matter which he is illustrating. Thus: a testament is of force after men are dead. It has no force so long as the testator is alive. Wherefore, the first covenant was ratified by slaying victims and sprinkling their blood. For the incident see Exo 24:8. Ἐνκαινίζειν only here and Heb 10:20. lxx, to renew, 1Sa 11:14; 2Ch 15:8; Psa 51:10 : to dedicate, 1Ki 8:63; 1 Macc. 4:36. Comp. τὰ ἐνκαίνια the feast of dedication, Joh 10:22. Rend. οὐδὲ neither, as A.V., and not not even, in which case the meaning would be, “not even the first covenant, although its ministries did not perfect the worshipper as touching the conscience,” a thought which would be foreign to the point, which is merely the analogy in the matter of death.