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Heb_2:14-15. The author, after the subsidiary remarks, Heb_2:11-13, returns to the main thought of Heb_2:10, now further to develop the same. To lead Christ through sufferings to perfection, was a provision worthy of God. For it was necessary, if Christ was to be the Redeemer of sinful humanity. In order, however, to be able to take upon Himself sufferings and death, He must become man as other men, and place Himself upon one level with those to be redeemed. Comp. on Heb_2:14, Zyro in the Theol. Studd. u. Kritt. 1864, H. 3, p. 516 ff.
οὖν ] is the outward sign of that return to the main thought. Logically it belongs not to the protasis, with which it is grammatically connected, but to the main thesis: καὶ αὐτὸς παραπλησίως μετέσχεν κ . τ . λ . An attachment of Heb_2:14 to Heb_2:13, therefore, is effected only in so far as τὰ παιδία , Heb_2:13, has given occasion for the resuming of this word in the first clause of Heb_2:14. In a strangely perverted fashion Heinrichs (comp. also Valckenaer): “Quod si homo fuit Christus, infans quoque primo fuerit omnemque in nativitate sua humanam naturam induerit necesse est.”
κεκοινώνηκεν ] here, as often in the case of the classics, combined with the genitive; whereas elsewhere in the N. T. the dative is used with κοινωνεῖν (Rom_15:27; 1Ti_5:22; 1Pe_4:13, al.). The persons with whom the communion or the common participation takes place are not the parents (Valckenaer, who supplies γονεῦσι ), but the children themselves. One παιδίον with the other, one as well as the other, has part in blood and flesh, or possesses the same. The perfect, however, indicates the constant and definitive character of the order of nature, as this has always prevailed already, and still continues to assert its sway.
αἵματος καὶ σαρκός ] The same succession of words, also Eph_6:12. Otherwise more ordinarily: σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα . Comp. 1Co_15:50; Gal_1:16; Mat_16:17; Sir_14:18; Sir_17:31. αἷμα καὶ σάρξ , the two main constituents of the sensuously perceptible outward nature of man.
παραπλησίως ] is not: “equally” (Bleek, Bloomfield, Bisping, Delitzsch, Grimm in the Theol. Literaturbl. to the Darmstadt A. K. Z. 1857, No. 29, p. 663; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 57, 2 Aufl.; Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 313 f.; Maier), or: “likewise” (de Wette),—a signification which is linguistically undemonstrable,—but: in a manner very closely resembling. It expresses the resemblance with the accessory notion of the diversity; in such wise that the author characterizes the human form of Christ’s existence, in all its correspondence with the form of existence of other men, as still different from the latter (Cameron, Owen, Akersloot, Cramer, Böhme, Zyro, Moll, Woerner). And rightly so. For Christ was no ordinary man, but the incarnate Son of God. He was distinguished from His human brethren by His sinlessness (comp. Heb_4:15). As therefore Paul, Php_2:7 (and similarly Rom_8:3), speaks of the incarnate Christ not as ἄνθοωπος γενόμενος , but as ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος , even so the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews also here places not ἐξ ἴσου , but παραπλησίως μετέσχεν τῶν αὐτῶν . Comp. also ὅθεν ὤφειλεν κατὰ πάντα τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοιωθῆναι , Heb_2:17.
μετέσχεν ] The aorist. For the incarnation and the earthly course of Christ is a fact already belonging to the purely past; now Christ is already the glorified Son of God.
τῶν αὐτῶν ] sc. αἵματος καὶ σαρκός . Erroneously, because without taking into account the reference imperatively required by the former clause, Bengel: eadem, quae fratribus accidunt, sanguine et carne laborantibus, ne morte quidem excepta.
διὰ τοῦ θανάτου ] by means of death, the enduring of which first became possible by the taking upon Him of flesh and blood. Bengel: διὰ τοῦ θανάτου Paradoxon. Jesus mortem passus vicit; diabolus mortem vibrans succubuit.
The placing of the characteristic τὸν τὸ κράτος ἔχοντα τοῦ θανάτου before τὸν διάβολον is chosen, in order to gain a marked contrast to the preceding διὰ τοῦ θανάτου .
A ruler’s power over death,[50] however, is possessed by the devil, inasmuch as by the enticement of the devil sin came into the world of men, and sin brings about death for man. Comp. Wis_2:24 : φθόνῳ δὲ διαβόλου θάνατος εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον ; Rom_5:12.
[50] Over-refinedly does Ebrard take τὸ κράτος absolutely, and τοῦ θανάτου as genitivus subjectivus: “him who holds in his hands the power which death exerts over us.”