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Heb_1:1. Πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως κ . τ . λ .] After God had spoken oftentimes and in manifold ways of old time to the fathers in the prophets. The twofold expression πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως (comp. Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. vii. 2, xvii. 7) is by no means merely rhetorical amplification of one and the same idea (Chrysostom: τουτέστι διαφόρως , Michaelis, Abresch, Dindorf, Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Reiche, Tholuck,[28] and others). Τὸ πολυμερές is that which is divided into many parts ( τὸ εἰς πολλὰ μεριζόμενον , Hesychius). Πολυμερῶς therefore presents the λαλεῖν of former ages from the point of view of something which was accomplished in a multiplicity of successive acts, whereas πολυτρόπως brings out the manifold character of the modality in which, in connection with those acts, the λαλεῖν was accomplished. Common thus to both expressions is, indeed, the notion of changeful diversity; but the former marks the changeful diversity of the times in which, and the persons through whom, God revealed Himself; the latter, the changeful diversity of the divine revelations as regards contents and form. For not only was the substance and extent of the single revelations disproportioned, but also the modes of their communication varied, inasmuch as God spoke to the recipients of His revelations sometimes by means of visions and dreams, sometimes mouth to mouth (comp. Num_12:6 ff.), sometimes immediately, sometimes by the intervention of an angel, sometimes under the veil of symbols and types, sometimes without these.[29] By the very choice of πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως our author indicates the imperfection of the O. T. revelations. No single one of them contained the full truth, for otherwise there would have been no need of a succession of many revelations, of which the one supplemented the other. And just so was the continual change in the modes of communicating these revelations a sign of imperfection, inasmuch as only a perfect form of communication corresponds to the perfect truth.
As, moreover, on the one hand, by means of the adverbs the imperfection of the O. T. revelation is indicated in contrast with the perfection of the N. T. revelation; so, on the other hand, by means of the identity of the subject ὁ θεός in λαλήσας and ἐλάλησεν , the inner connection between the revelations of the O. T. and that of the N. T. is brought into relief, and in this way attention is tacitly drawn to the fact that the former was the divinely appointed preliminary stage and preparation for the latter.
πάλαι ] of old, in long bygone times. For Malachi was looked upon as the last of the O. T. prophets, and since his appearing already from four to five centuries had elapsed. Delitzsch: πάλαι is not so much antiquitus as antehac, since the contrast is not between ancient and recent or new, but between past and present. Wrongly; for the opposition of a “prius” and “post” has certainly been already expressed by λαλήσας and ἐλάλησεν , whereas πάλαι still finds its special, and indeed very significant opposition in ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων , and must accordingly be explained after the analogy of this.
λαλεῖν ] particularly in our epistle of very frequent use, to indicate divine revelations. Comp. Heb_2:2-3, Heb_3:5, Heb_7:14, Heb_9:19, Heb_11:18, Heb_12:24-25.
τοῖς πατράσιν ] to the fathers (forced, and needlessly; Kurtz: τοῖς πατράσιν , and equally so afterwards ἡμῖν , is dativus commodi), i.e. to the forefathers of the Jewish people. Comp. Rom_9:5. The expression in its absolute use characterizes author and recipients as born Jews.
προφῆται ] is to be taken in the widest sense, in such wise that all holy men of the O. T. history who received revelations from God are comprehended under it. For unquestionably the aim of the discussion now begun, that of expressing the pre-eminence of the revelation contained in Christ over each and all of the O. T. revelations, demands this. But thus must Moses also, and very specially, be reckoned as belonging to the προφῆται , since Moses held the first rank in the series of development of the pre-Christian revelations; as, accordingly, Heb_3:2 ff., the superiority of Christ even over Moses is expressly asserted. Nor does the wider acceptation of προφῆται encounter any difficulties on the ground of Biblical usage. Comp. e.g. Gen_20:7, where Abraham is spoken of as a προφήτης ( ðÈáÄéà ); Deu_34:10, where it is said of Moses: καὶ οὐκ ἀνέστη ἔτι προφήτης ἐν Ἰσραὴλ ὡς Μωϋσῆς . Philo, too (de nom. mut. p. 1064 A, ed. Mangey, I. p. 597), calls Moses the ἈΡΧΙΠΡΟΦΉΤΗς .
By virtue of this wider acceptation of ΠΡΟΦῆΤΑΙ in itself, the opinion of Er. Schmid and Stein, that ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΠΡΟΦΉΤΑΙς signifies: “in the prophetic Scriptures,” becomes an impossibility; quite apart from the consideration that this interpretation is also sufficiently refuted by the antithesis ἘΝ ΥἹῷ . But just as little is ἘΝ ΤΟῖς ΠΡΟΦΉΤΑΙς to be made equivalent to ΔΙᾺ ΤῶΝ ΠΡΟΦΗΤῶΝ , as is done by Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Primasius, Luther, Calvin, Grotius, and the majority, also Böhme, Reiche, Tholuck, Stengel, Ebrard, Bisping, Bloomfield, Delitzsch, Maier, and M‘Caul. For the linguistic character of the Epistle to the Hebrews affords no warrant for the supposition of such a Hebraism in the interchange of prepositions. Nor is this proved by Heb_9:25, to which Tholuck appeals in following the precedent of Fritzsche (Jen. Literaturzeit. 1843, p. 59). Ἐν is of more extensive significance than ΔΙΆ . While the latter would signify the mere medium, the mere instrument, ἘΝ implies that God, in revealing Himself to the fathers by the prophets, was present in the latter, was indwelling in them, in such wise that the prophets were only the outward organs of speech for the God who spoke in them. Comp. 2Co_13:3; Mat_10:20.
ἘΠʼ ἘΣΧΆΤΟΥ ΤῶΝ ἩΜΕΡῶΝ ΤΟΎΤΩΝ ] Antithesis to ΠΆΛΑΙ . Wrongly does Delitzsch, with the approval of Meier (comp. also Schneckenburger in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1861, H. 3, p. 557), take τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων as apposition to ἙΠʼ ἘΣΧΆΤΟΥ : “at the period’s close, which these days form,”—for which, on account of the article before ἩΜΕΡῶΝ , the placing of ἘΠῚ ΤΟῦ ἘΣΧΆΤΟΥ would at least have been required,—while he then still more arbitrarily finds in ἜΣΧΑΤΟΝ ΤῶΝ ἩΜΕΡῶΝ “the expression indicative of one idea, equivalent to àÇúÂøÄéú äÇéÌÈîÄéí ,” and makes ΤΟΎΤΩΝ belong logically to the whole idea! The ἩΜΈΡΑΙ ΑὟΤΑΙ are identical with that which is elsewhere called Ὁ ΑἸῺΝ ΟὟΤΟς , in opposition to Ὁ ΑἸῺΝ ΜΈΛΛΩΝ . The demonstrative ΤΟΎΤΩΝ refers to the fact that these ἩΜΈΡΑΙ are the period of time in which the author equally as his readers lives, and of an ἜΣΧΑΤΟΝ of these ἩΜΈΡΑΙ he speaks, because like all N. T. writers—the author of the Second Epistle of Peter (Heb_3:4 ff.) excepted—he regards the return of Christ, for the transforming of the present order of the world and the accomplishment of the Messianic kingdom, as near at hand; comp. Heb_10:37, Heb_9:26.
ἩΜῖΝ ] to us, namely, who belong to the age just mentioned, the ἔσχατον τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων . Antithesis to τοῖς πατράσιν .
ἐν υἱῷ ] anarthrous, as Heb_7:28; not because υἱός has acquired the nature of a nomen proprium (Böhme, Bloomfield, Delitzsch, Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 272), but for the indication of the essential property: in one (to wit, Christ) who is not merely prophet—who is more than that, namely, Son.
[28] The last-named expositor would otherwise expect an antithetical ἀπλῶς (!) or ἐφάπαξ at the close of the verse.
[29] Erroneously does Grimm (Theol. Literaturbl. to the Darmstadt A. K. Z. 1857, No. 29, p. 661) raise against the above explanation, according to which πολυτρόπως has respect not only to the purport, but also at the same time to the form of the divine revelations, the objection that the properly understood ἐν τοῖς προφ . (see below) does not accord therewith, inasmuch as revelations “mouth to mouth,” or by the intervention of angels, would not have been a speaking of God in the prophets, but to ( πρός ) the same. For what is spoken of (ver. 1) is not the relation of God to the prophets in itself alone, but the relation of God to the fathers through the medium of the prophets. The fact, however, that the prophets, as men in whom God was present, brought to the knowledge of the fathers the revelations received, is independent of the way and manner in which those revelations were previously communicated to themselves by God.—Since, moreover, the prophets as recipients of revelation in the first rank are distinguished from the fathers as recipients of revelation in the second rank, and only an interweaving of the relation of God to both takes place, we cannot assume either, with Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 90), who in other respects rightly explains πολυτρόπως , that the form of the communication of the word of God to the prophets is to be taken into account only so far as a duly proportioned form corresponded to it, even as in the prophetic word the revelation of God became known to the fathers.