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Heb_10:25. Μὴ ἐγκαταλείποντες τὴν ἐπισυναγωγὴν ἑαυτῶν , καθὼς ἔθος τισίν ] while not forsaking (ceasing to frequent), as is the custom with some, our own assembly, and thereby, in connection with the already prevalent tendency to apostasy from Christianity, setting a pernicious example.
τὴν ἐπισυναγωγὴν ἑαυτῶν ] is taken by Calvin, Böhme, Bleek, and others as designation of the Christian congregation or Christian religious society itself. But in this case the only signification which could be attached without violence to ἐγκαταλείπειν would be that of apostasy from Christianity; to understand the expression, in that case, of the leaving to its fate of the Christian church, sunk in poverty, peril, and distress, by the refusal of acts of assistance (Böhme), or of the escape from the claims of the church to the cherishing and tending of its members, by the neglecting of the common religious assemblies (Bleek), would not be very natural. We are prevented, however, from thinking of an actual apostasy from Christianity by the addition καθὼς ἔθος τισίν , according to which the ἐγκαταλείπειν was an oft-recurring act on the part of the same persons. τὴν ἐπισυναγωγὴν ἑαυτῶν , therefore, is best explained as: the assembling of ourselves, in order to be united together (comp. 2Th_2:1), i.e. our own religious assemblies.
ἑαυτῶν ] has great emphasis; for otherwise the simple ἡμῶν would have been written. It has its tacit opposition in the alien, i.e. Jewish religious assemblies, and contains the indication that the τινές gave the preference to the frequenting of the latter.
ἀλλὰ παρακαλοῦντες ] sc. ἑαυτούς (comp. Heb_3:13) or ἀλλήλους , which is easily supplemented from the foregoing ἑαυτῶν : but animating one another, namely, to the uninterrupted frequenting of our own Christian assemblies. Quite unsuitably, Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 2, 2 Aufl. p. 379) would supply in thought to παρακαλοῦντες , as its object: τὴν ἐπισυναγωγήν .
καὶ τοσούτῳ μᾶλλον ὅσῳ βλέπετε ἐγγίζουσαν τὴν ἡμέραν ] and that so much the more, as ye see the day itself drawing nigh. Reinforcing ground of obligation to the παρακαλεῖν .
βλέπετε ] The transition from the first to the second person plural augments the significance of that which has been remarked, since the author can appeal to the verdict of the readers themselves for the truth thereof.
The ἡμέρα is the day κατʼ ἐξοχήν , the day of the coming in of the Parousia of Christ, which the author thinks of as quite near at hand (comp. Heb_10:37), and which the readers themselves already saw drawing nigh in the agitations and commotions which preceded the Jewish war, such as had already begun to appear.