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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 13:8 - 13:8
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Heb_13:8 is ordinarily comprehended in one with Heb_13:7. Expositors then find in the utterance either, as Bleek, Ebrard, Bisping, and others, an adducing of the motive for the emulation of the faithful leaders enjoined at Heb_13:7; or, as Zeger, Grotius, Schulz, Kurtz, and others (comp. already Theophylact), the encouraging assurance that, as to these leaders, so also to the readers, provided they only take the faith of these leaders as a model for themselves, the gracious aid of Christ—of which, however, there was no mention in Heb_13:7—will not be wanting; or finally, as Carpzov,[124] the more precise information as to that in which their faith had consisted. More correctly, however, on account of the antithetic correspondence between ὁ αὐτός , Heb_13:8, and ποικίλαις καὶ ξέναις , Heb_13:9, are the words, Heb_13:8, taken as constituting the foundation and preparation for the injunction of Heb_13:9. Jesus Christ is for ever the same; the Christian therefore must give no place in his mind and heart to doctrines which are opposed to Christ, His nature and His requirements.
ἐχθὲς … σήμερον … εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας ] Designation of the past, present, and future; exhaustive unfolding of the notion ἀεί . The expression is rhetorical; ἐχθές is consequently not to be further expounded, in such wise that we must think of the time of the former teachers (Schlichting, Grotius, Hammond, Limborch, Bleek, de Wette, Bisping, Delitzsch, Maier, Kluge, Kurtz, Hofmann, Woerner, al.), or of the time before the appearing of Christ (Bengel, Cramer, Stein), or to the whole time of the Old Covenant (Calvin, Pareus, al.), or even to the eternal pre-existence of Christ (Ambrose, de Fide, v. 1. 25; Seb. Schmidt, Nemethus, and others).
Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is the subject, and ὁ αὐτός (sc. ἐστίν , not ἔστω ) the common predicate to all three notes of time. Wrongly Paulus: “Jesus is the God-anointed One; yesterday and to-day is He altogether the same”—which must have read: Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστός . But mistaken also the Vulgate, Oecumenius, Luther, Vatablus, Zeger, Calvin, and others, in that they interpunctuate after σήμερον : Jesus Christ yesterday and to-day; the same also in eternity. For that which is to be accentuated is not the eternity of Christ, as would be the case by means of the ἐχθὲς καὶ σήμερον taken alone, but the eternal unchangeableness of Christ.
[124] “Imitamini vestrorum praefectorum fidem, nimirum hanc: Jesus Christus heri, hodie et semper ὁ αὐτὸς Deus est.”