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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Hebrews 9:23 - 9:23
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The heavenly sanctuary required a better purification than the Levitical.
The patterns of things in the heavens
The earthly tabernacle and its furniture. See on Heb 8:5.
With these (τούτοις)
Things specified in Heb 9:19.
With better sacrifices (κρείττοσι θυσίαις)
How can it be said that the heavenly things needed cleansing? It is not easy to answer. Various explanations have been proposed, which the student will find collected in Alford's note on this passage. The expression is rhetorical and figurative, and appears to be founded on that feature of the Levitical ritual according to which the high priest was required, on the Great Day of Atonement, to make an atonement for the sanctuary, “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel.” He was to do this also for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the great altar. See Lev 16:16 ff. The rite implied that even the holy of holies had contracted defilement from the people's sin. Similarly, the atoning blood of Christ is conceived as purifying the things of the heavenly sanctuary which had been defiled by the sins of men. “If the heavenly city of God, with its Holy Place, is, conformably with the promise, destined for the covenant-people, that they may there attain to perfect fellowship with God, then their guilt has defiled these holy things as well as the earthly, and they must be purified in the same way as the typical law appointed for the latter, only not by the blood of an imperfect, but of a perfect sacrifice” (Delitzsch).