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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 12:7 - 12:8
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Heb_12:7-8. Application of the word of scripture to the readers.
Εἰ παιδείαν ὑπομένετε ] If ye endure chastening. The opposite of this is formed by the εἰ δὲ χωρίς ἐστε παιδείας , Heb_12:8. The emphasis falls, therefore, upon παιδείαν ; and to explain ὑπομένειν as a “stedfast” or “persevering” enduring (Theodoret, Erasm. Paraphr., Stein, Ebrard, Bloomfield, al.) is inadmissible.
ὡς υἱοῖς ὑμῖν προσφέρεται ὁ θεός ] God deals with you as with sons, treats you as sons. By as harsh a construction as possible (comp. ὑμῖν ὡς υἱοῖς , Heb_12:5), Ebrard will have ὡς taken as a conjunction, and translates,—espousing the incorrect reading (see the critical obs.) εἰς παιδείαν ,—“for your instruction endure manfully, even as (or when, so long as) God offers Himself to you as to sons!”
For the genuine Greek formula προσφέρεσθαί τινι , which does not occur elsewhere in the N. T., see examples in Wetstein.
τίς γὰρ υἱὸς κ . τ . λ .] sc. ἐστίν : for what son is there, i.e. where is there a son, whom the father chastens not? This comprehending together of τίς υἱός (Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Alford, Maier, Kurtz, Ewald) is more natural than that one should regard τίς alone as the subject: who is indeed a son, whom, etc. (Delitzsch, Moll, and others); or, with Böhme, as the predicate: of what kind is a son, whom, etc.