Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 13:11 - 13:12
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Heb_13:11-12. Proof for Heb_13:10. The proof lies in the fact that Christ’s sacrifice is one which has been presented without the camp, and consequently has been freed from all community with Judaism. Heb_13:11 and Heb_13:12 are, as a proof of Heb_13:10, closely connected, and only in Heb_13:12 lies the main factor, whereas Heb_13:11 is related to the same as a merely preparatory and accessory thought (Bähr). For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest are burned without the camp; wherefore Jesus also, in order that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate. That is to say: The N. T. sacrifice of the covenant is typically prefigured by the great atoning sacrifice under the Old Covenant. Of the victims, however, which were devoted to the latter, neither the high priest nor any other member of the Jewish theocracy was permitted to eat anything. For of those animals only the blood was taken, in order to be brought by the high priest into the Most Holy Place as a propitiatory offering; the bodies of those animals, on the other hand, were burned without the camp or holy city (Lev_16:27), wherein was contained the explanation in an act (comp. Bähr, l.c.), that they were cast out from the theocratic communion of Judaism. But thus, then, has Jesus also, in that He entered with His sacrificial blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, made expiation for the sins of them that believe in Him; His sacrificial body, however, has, since He was led out of the camp, or beyond the gate of the holy city, in order to endure the infliction of death (comp. Lev_24:14; Num_15:35 f.; Deu_17:5), declared by this act to be cast out from the Jewish covenant-people. Eat of His sacrificial body, i.e. obtain part in the blessing procured by His sacrifice, can therefore no one who is still within the camp, i.e. who still looks for salvation from the ordinances of Judaism. Consequently he who will eat of the altar of Christ must depart out of Judaism, and go forth unto Christ without the camp (Heb_13:13).
τὰ ἅγια ] as Heb_9:8; Heb_9:12; Heb_9:24-25, Heb_10:19, the Most Holy Place.
The tenses in the present mark the practice as one still continuing.
παρεμβολή ] Characterization of the dwelling-place of the Jewish people at the time of the lawgiving, while it was still journeying through the wilderness and had tents for its habitation. The camp was the complex of the tents, enclosing the totality of the people together with the sanctuary. Thus there was combined with the idea of locality the religious reference to the people as one covenant-people, and “without the camp” became equivalent in signification to “without the bounds of the Old Covenant.” But, since afterwards the city of Jerusalem, with the temple in its midst, took the place of the παρεμβολή , the ἔξω τῆς πύλης standing in Heb_13:12, without the gate, sc. of the city of Jerusalem, says in effect the same thing as ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς , Heb_13:11; Heb_13:13.
διό ] wherefore, i.e. because the sacrificial death of Jesus has been prefigured by the type mentioned, Heb_13:11.
ἰδίου ] opposition to the animal blood in the O. T. sacrifices of atonement.
τὸν λαόν ] see at Heb_2:16, p. 132.
ἔπαθεν ] comp. Heb_9:26.