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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Hebrews 8:9 - 8:9
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Heb 8:9. Ἐποίησα, I made) LXX., διεθέμην, I have arranged or disposed. To perfect is more than to make and dispose.-ἡμέρᾳ, in the day) Days, in the plural, are opposed to this one day, Heb 8:8. These many days are the days that intervened between the day of the Exodus and the New Testament.-ἐπιλαβομένου μου τῆς χειρὸς αὐτῶν, when I took them by the hand) Whilst their sense of the Divine help and power was recent, these men in old times obeyed; but they were wont soon to revolt and turn God from them. This was their custom; comp. presently after, they continued not. It was not merely one singular act.-ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, out of the land of Egypt) There are three periods:-1. That of the promise; 2. That of instruction (pædagogiæ); 3. That of fulfilment. The instruction (as children) began at the time of the departure from Egypt, with that which was destined to become old (Heb 8:13).-αὐτοὶ οὐκ ἐνέμειναν ἐν τῇ διαθήκῃ μου, κᾀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not regard (care for) them) Correlatives, as Heb 8:10, from the opposite, I will be to them a GOD, and they shall be to Me a people; but the method of proceeding is now reversed: the people had begun first to put an end to the covenant: God both begins and perfects all things in the new covenant, Heb 8:10-11.-κᾀγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν) LXX., καὶ ἐγὼ ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν, and I did not regard them. ואנכי בעלתי בם, and I ruled over them; although some claim for the verb בעל, the meaning געל, disregard, from the Arabic idiom. God’s ruling and disregard may, in some measure, be reconciled in this view: I treated them as if they were not Mine; Hos 1:9 : nor was I propitious to their sins; Deu 29:19; Deu 31:16, etc. They are not regarded over whom such lordly rule is exercised; they do not rejoice in (are not privileged with) that access, in which those who are in covenant or in friendship rejoice; Joh 15:15 : but they are treated as slaves; nor are they held in great consideration, whatever may befall them; Eze 24:6, at the end; Jer 15:1-2. The passages, Jer 3:14, Eze 20:33; Eze 20:37, express a somewhat similar idea: but in both places there is rather a promise than a threatening; nay, even in the present, Jer 31:32. The Hebrew Masters, as Surenhusius shows, in βίβλῷ καταλλαγῆς, p. 628, understand the word בעלתי to apply to the dominion of love and good pleasure; and it is not, save by an error in writing, that they turn it into the contrary, בחלתי, I have disdained or disregarded (fastidivi). The LXX. seem evidently to have read געלתי בם, which very word Jeremiah uses, ch. Jer 14:19, μὴ ἀπὸ Σιὼν ἀπέστη (געלה) ἡ ψυχή σου; hath thy soul loathed Sion?