Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 13:3 - 13:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Heb_13:3. Exhortation to have a care for the prisoners and distressed.
Μιμνήσκεσθε τῶν δεσμίων ] Be mindful (sc. in order to aid them with ministering love) of the prisoners.
ὡς συνδεδεμένοι ] as fellow-prisoners, i.e. with as much devotion to them as though the captivity had fallen upon yourselves. For the Christians are members of the same body; as in the prosperity, so also are they to share in the sufferings one of the other. Comp. 1Co_12:26. Böhme (in like manner Heinrichs too) explains: “quippe ejus naturae et conditionis homines, qui ipsi quoque pro captivis sint, nimirum in ecclesia pressa degentes.” Upon this interpretation, it is true, the twofold ὡς retains its full significance; but in order to represent the readers as “in ecclesia pressa degentes,” an addition to συνδεδεμένοι could not have been dispensed with.
τῶν κακουχουμένων ] of those who suffer evil treatment. τῶν κακουχουμένων is the genus, under which the foregoing τῶν δεσμίων are ranged as a particular species.
ὡς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὄντες ἐν σώματι ] as sojourning yourselves in a body, thus likewise still subjected to the earthly order of the world, and not secured against the like ill-treatment. According to Calvin and others, the sense is: since ye indeed are members of the same body (to wit, the church),—which, however, must have been indicated by ὡς καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐν τῷ σώματι τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὄντες . According to Beza: as though in your own person ye were κακουχούμενοι ,—a sense which can only with violence be put upon the words.