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Heb_11:3. The author is on the point of proving out the truth of Heb_11:2, in a series of historic instances from the Holy Scriptures of the O. T., when the thought forces itself upon him that the very first section of that sacred book of Scripture relates a fact of which the reality can only be recognised by means of faith. He first of all, therefore, calls attention to this fact, before proceeding, in Heb_11:4, to the designed enumeration of those historic examples. Certainly not very aptly, since Heb_11:3 cannot, as Heb_11:4 ff., serve in proof of the assertion, Heb_11:2, but, on the contrary, introduces into the examination something heterogeneous in relation to Heb_11:4 ff. For Heb_11:3 shows only the necessity for πίστις on our part in regard to a fact belonging to the past and recorded in Scripture; Heb_11:4 ff. there are placed before our eyes as models historic persons in whom the virtue of πίστις , so constituted as the author demands it of his readers, was livingly present. This judgment, that Heb_11:3 forms a heterogeneous insertion, is pronounced, indeed, by Delitzsch, to whom Kluge and Moll have acceded, an “unfair one.” But the counter observation of Delitzsch: “the author had already at Heb_11:2, in connection with οἱ πρεσβύτεροι , and particularly in connection with ἐμαρτυρήθησαν , the O. T. Scripture before his mind; so that the statement, although sounding thus personal, is equivalent to the proposition that the O. T. Scripture concedes no recognition to any mode of life which lies not within the province of faith,” labours under the defect of logical deliquescence; it is a mere rationalizing of the words of Heb_11:2, simply and clearly preposed as the theme for that which follows.
πίστει ] Dat. instrumentalis: by virtue of faith.
νοοῦμεν ] we discern. νοεῖν is the inner perception, accomplished by means of the νοῦς . Comp. Rom_1:20.
κατηρτίσθαι ] has been prepared (comp. LXX. Psa_73:16. Ps. 88:38). More expressive than if πεποιῆσθαι had been written. It represents the having been created at the same time as a having been placed in a completed or perfect condition [Heb_13:21].
τοὺς αἰῶνας ] the world; see at Heb_1:2.
ῥήματι θεοῦ ] by the word (or authoritative command) of God. Reference to the repeated: “And God said,” Genesis 1 Comp. 2Pe_3:5; LXX. Psa_38:6; Psa_148:5. Philo, de sacrif. Abel, et Cain. p. 140 D (with Mangey, I. p. 175): Ὁ γὰρ θεὸς λέγων ἅμα ἐποίει , μηδὲν μεταξὺ ἀμφοῖν τιθείς . The supposition of Bleek (comp. also Ewald, p. 123), that the author here too thought of the word of God as a personified property, has nothing in its favour, since the expression is sufficiently explained without it. Nor does the διʼ οὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας , Heb_1:2, compel us to adopt this supposition. For above the special mode of mediately effecting the creation of the world there indicated, stands the higher authorship of God, to which the writer here points in general by the expression ῥήματι θεοῦ .
εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὸ βλεπόμενον γεγονέναι ] not: so that, etc. (so still Böhme, Stuart, Bleek, de Wette, Alford, Conybeare, Kurtz, Ewald, M‘Caul, Woerner, and the majority of recent expositors), εἰς τό with the infinitive preserves here, too, its ordinary telic signification, in that it introduces the purpose of God with regard to the ῥήματι καταρτίζειν τοὺς αἰῶνας . The sense is: that in accordance with the decree of God, the fact should he averted, that from φαινόμενα the βλεπόμενον should have sprung; consequently that the human race should from the beginning be directed to the necessity for πίστις .
μή ] belongs to the whole object-clause. So rightly Beza, Piscator, Seb. Schmidt, Er. Schmid, Bengel, Storr, Schulz, Huët, Böhme, Stuart, Bleek, Stein, de Wette, Bloomfield, Bisping, Riehm [Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 58), Alford, Maier, Kluge, Moll, Kurtz, M‘Caul, and Hofmann; while the Peshito, Vulgate, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, and almost all later expositors, including also Stengel and Ebrard (Delitzsch is undecided), comprehend μή with ἐκ φαινομένων , and then interpret this in the sense of ἐκ μὴ φαινομένων .[106] The latter, in favour of which the supposed parallels which have been adduced prove nothing, is by reason of the position of the words (to say nothing of the fact that οὐ must have been written in place of μή ; for neither 2Co_4:18, as Delitzsch supposes, nor Rom_4:17, as Maier supposes, decides against this rule. See Meyer ad loc.) a grammatical impossibility.
τὸ βλεπόμενον ] that which is seen, or the outward, visible world. The singular represents the same as one complex whole, τὸ βλεπόμενον resumes under another form only the foregoing τοὺς αἰῶνας , whereas the emphasis in the negative final clause rests upon the ἐκ φαινομένων , which is on that account preposed.
φαινόμενα ] are things which appear in outward manifestation, and are perceived by the senses. The expression indicates the domain of the corporal, the material, and there underlies it the conception that the universe did not spring forth by the power of nature from earthly germs or substances, but was created by the mere word of God’s omnipotence. In this is contained, it is true, the conception of the creating of the world from nothing. [Cf. 2Ma_7:28.] The opinion of Estius, Schlichting, Limborch, Michaelis, Baumgarten, and others, that the author, with a reference to Gen_1:2 (specially after the translation of the LXX.: ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος ), thought of a visible arising of the worlds out of the invisible chaos already existing, has for its presupposition the erroneous transposal of the μὴ ἐκ into ἐκ μή , and fails to maintain itself in presence of the fact that the γεγονέναι ἐκ φαινομένων , as antithesis to the foregoing κατηρτίσθαι ῥήματι θεοῦ , must receive from this latter its nearer defining of signification. Quite untenable is consequently also the opinion of Delitzsch, who, with the assent of Kluge and Kurtz, supplements ἀλλʼ ἐκ νοητῶν as opposition to μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων , and in connection with the μὴ φαινόμενα —or if μή is combined with the verb, in connection with the tacitly assumed opposite of the φαινόμενα —imagines the author to have thought, in harmony with the Philonian doctrine, of the divine ideas, out of which the world is supposed to have sprung, in that they were called forth by means of the divine word from their seclusion within the Godhead into the outer phenomenal reality. See against this also Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 59, Obs.
[106] Calvin alone forms an exception, who would have ἐκ blended together with φαινομένων into a single word, and finds the sense: “ut non apparentium fierent visa h. e. spectacula,” in such wise that the “doctrina” harmonizing with that of Rom_1:20 should result: “quod in hoc mundo conspicuam haheamus Dei imaginem.”