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Heb_2:13. Second and third proofs, taken from Isa_8:17-18. The design of the author in dividing into two different citations, by means of καὶ πάλιν , the words which stand together in the Hebrew and the LXX., is not to present the relation of community between Christ and the Christians on two different sides, in that, namely, it is indicated in his first passage how the incarnate Son of God descended to the standpoint of man; in the second, on the other hand, how redeemed men are raised by God to the standpoint of Christ (Kurtz),—all of which is subtle and far-fetched; but only to pile up the Scripture testimonies, inasmuch as the end of Heb_2:17, as well as the beginning of Heb_2:18, seemed to him to contain each in itself an independent means of evidence for that which he would make good. The words of the first proof passage: πεποιθὼς ἔσομαι ἐπʼ αὐτῷ , are likewise found in the LXX. at 2Sa_22:3 and Isa_12:2. But that the author was not thinking of one of these passages (according to Ebrard, of the first), but of Isa_8:17, is the more natural supposition, because with the LXX. and in the original the words, which here, too, are first adduced (only in partially inverted order, and augmented by ἐγώ ): καὶ πεποιθὼς ἔσομαι ἐπʼ αὐτῷ , immediately precede the directly following passage, taken from Isa_8:18. In their historic sense the words cited refer to the prophet and his sons, and, indeed, with the LXX., the ἰδοὺ … θεός is a further unfolding of the subject in ἔσομαι . The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, however, regards the words as an utterance of Christ, led thereto, as Bleek rightly conjectures, by the καὶ ἐρεῖ , interpolated by the LXX. before Heb_2:17, which seemed to indicate another subject than the prophet, since he spoke throughout the whole section in the first person; and other than God, since He is spoken of, by virtue of ἐπʼ αὐτῷ , as the one in whom the speaker trusts. The demonstrative force of the words cited is found by our author in the fact that the person speaking, i.e. Christ, places Himself, by means of the testifying of His confidence in God, upon the same level with other men;[49] as also in that the author understands by the παιδία , not the children of the speaker, but the children of God, the children whom God the Father has given to Christ.
[49] Theophylact: καὶ διὰ τούτον δείκνυσιν , ὅτι ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἀδελφὸς ἡμῶν γέγονεν . ὥσπερ γὰρ ἕκαστος τῶν ἀνθρώπων , οὕτω καὶ αὐτὸς πέποιθεν ἐπʼ αὐτῷ , τουτέστι τῷ πατρί .