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Heb_10:38. Continuation of the citation, yet so that the author adduces the two clauses of Hab_2:4 in inverted order. For in the O. T. passage the words read: ἐὰν ὑποστείληται , οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ · ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου [ ὁ δὲ δίκαιός μου ἐκ πίστεως ] ζήσεται . The transposition is intentional, in order to avoid the supplying of the subject ὁ ἐρχόμενος to ὑποστείληται .
ὁ δὲ δίκαιός μου ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται ] my (of God, not of Christ: Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 621, Obs.) righteous one (the devout man belonging to me), however, shall live by faith. ἐκ πίστεως , namely, is, in the sense of the author of the epistle, to be referred to ζήσεται . To conjoin it here, too, as Rom_1:17 and Gal_3:11, with δίκαιος (so Baumgarten, Schulz, Böhme, Kuinoel, Klee, Stengel, al.), is inadmissible, because, according to the connection, the design is not to state by what any one becomes δίκαιος , but by what he will obtain the ἐπαγγελία , or, what is the same thing, the ζωὴ αἰώνιος . The notion of the πίστις here closely attaches itself to the Hebrew àîåÌðÈä . The meaning, in harmony with the conception prevailing elsewhere in the Epistle to the Hebrews, divergent from that of Paul, is the believing, faithfully enduring trust in God and His promises. The second member, καὶ ἐὰν ὑποστείληται κ . τ . λ ., has been misunderstood by the LXX. In the Hebrew: äÄðÌÅä òËôÌÀìÇä ìÉàÎéÈùÑÀøÈä ðÇôÀùÑåÉ áÌÉå , behold, lifted up, not upright is his (sc. the Chaldean’s) soul in him.
ἐὰν ὑποστείληται ] if so be that he with faint heart draws back. Comp. Gal_2:12. In the application: if he becomes lukewarm in Christianity, and apostatizes from the same. ὑποστείληται does not stand impersonally; nor have we, with Grotius, Maier, and others, to supply τίς , or, with de Wette, Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 487 (less decidedly, 5 Aufl. p. 427), and Buttmann, Gramm. des neutest. Sprachgebr. p. 117, to supplement from the foregoing ὁ δίκαιος the general idea ἄνθρωπος as subject. The subject is still the foregoing ὁ δίκαιός μου . This is, moreover, placed beyond doubt, since δίκαιος above is not to be taken in the narrower Pauline sense, but in the general sense of the devout man; he, however, who is in this sense δίκαιος , ceases by the ὑποστέλλεσθαι , to be a δίκαιος .
ἡ ψυχή μου ] μου has reference to God, not to Christ (Oecumenius, as likewise, but with hesitation, Theophylact, as more recently Riehm, l.c.), still less to the author of the epistle (Calvin: perinde accipiendum est, ac si ex suo sensu apostolus proferret hanc sententiam. Neque enim illi propositum fuit exacte recitare prophetae verba, sed duntaxat locum notare, ut ad propriorem intuitum invitaret lectores).