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Heb_1:10-12. A second citation—co-ordinate with the Scripture testimony adduced, Heb_1:8-9—derived from Psa_102:26-28 (25–27) according to the LXX. The psalm is a lamentation, belonging probably to the first century after the Captivity. The words of address refer in the original to God. The author, however, mainly indeed misled[40] by the κύριε in the LXX., which was the ordinary appellation of Christ in apostolic time, takes the utterance as an address to Christ, the Son of God. This interpretation must the more have appeared to him unquestionable, inasmuch as the scope of the utterance fully harmonized with his own conception of the Son of God as the premundane Logos. Comp. Heb_1:2-3. When, for the rest, Hofmann (Schriftbew. I. p. 169 f., 2 Aufl.) supposes that the author found no address whatever to Christ designed in the κύριε of the psalm, but only meant to say in the words of Scripture what was true of Jesus according to his own belief and that presupposed in the readers, this is a freak of fancy without anything to justify it, and even opposed to the context (comp. πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν , Heb_1:8). For the author can have been concerned only about this very object of proving the higher attestation given to his assertion by the Scriptures.
Καί ] not a constituent part of the citation, but a brief formula of connecting, when a further passage of Scripture is linked to that which precedes, comp. Act_1:20.
σὺ κατʼ ἀρχάς , κύριε , τὴν γῆν ἐθεμελίωσας ] LXX. Cod. Alex.: κατʼ ἀρχὰς , σύ , κύριε , τὴν γῆν ἐθεμελίωσας ; Cod. Vatic.: κατʼ ἀρχὰς , τὴν γῆν σύ , κύριε , ἐθεμελίωσας . It is probable the author changed the position of the words in order to make σύ the more emphatic.
κατʼ ἀρχάς ] in the beginning. With the LXX. elsewhere only Psa_119:152, instead of the more usual ἐν ἀρχῇ or ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς , but frequently met with in Philo and the classics (see Raphel, Wetstein, and Munthe ad loc.). In the Hebrew stands the more general ìÀôÌÈðÄéí , “formerly,” or “of old.”
[40] According to Delitzsch, indeed, it would be “a poor look-out” if that were “true.” But when, following in Hofmann’s steps, he objects against it that “we may already see from Heb_8:8 ff., Heb_12:6 ff., that the author is far from everywhere understanding Christ to be intended by the O. T. κύριος ,” these passages naturally prove nothing, since the usual practice is never the constant and invariable practice. When Delitzsch further adds: “such perversity originating in ignorance is not to be laid to the charge of an author who shows so deep an insight into the innermost core of the O. T.,” that is a prejudiced verdict, arising from subjectivity and dogmatic partiality, to the establishing of which it would have been necessary first of all to bring forward the proof that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in reality possessed an accurate knowledge not only of the Greet text of the LXX., but also of the original text of the O. T.,—a proof which even Delitzsch has not been able to afford.