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Heb_2:16. The necessity for the assumption of flesh and blood on the part of the Redeemer is more fully brought to light by means of an establishing of the characteristic τούτους ὅσοι κ . τ . λ ., Heb_2:15. This assumption was necessary, since the object of this redemption was confessedly not angels, i.e. beings of a purely spiritual nature, but descendants of Abraham, i.e. beings of flesh and blood.
οὐ δήπου ] or δή που , as it is more correctly written, does not signify: “nowhere” (Luther, Zeger, Calvin, Schlichting, Limborch, Bisping, al.; Vulg.: nusquam), in such wise that που should be referred to a passage in the O. T., and the sense would result: nowhere in the O. T. is it spoken of, that, etc.[51]
For such reference must at least have been indicated by the context, which is not the case. Δή που stands rather, according to purely classical usage (in the N. T., for the rest, it is found only here; with the LXX. not at all), to denote, in ironical form of expression, the presupposition that the statement to be expressed is a truth raised above all doubt, which must be conceded by every one. It corresponds to our “assuredly,” “surely” (doch wohl), “I should think,” to the Latin “opinor.” Comp. Hartung, Partikellehre, I. p. 285; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 427.
ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαί τινος ] to take a helping interest in any one (comp. Sir_4:11), here to deliver him from the guilt and punishment of sin (comp. ἀπαλλάξῃ , Heb_2:15; and εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας τοῦ λαοῦ , Heb_2:17; wrongly, because τούτους ὅσοι κ . τ . λ ., Heb_2:15, stands not in reciprocal relation with ἐπιλαμβάνεται , but with the antithesis οὐκ ἀγγέλων ἀλλὰ σπέρματος Ἀβραάμ , Heb_2:16; Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 59, 2 Aufl.: “in order that the fear of death might not in our life terrify and enslave us”). The present, since the ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι is something still continuing. The interpretation of Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Primasius, Erasmus, Luther, Clarius, Vatablus, Zeger, Calvin, Beza, Calov, Wolf, and many others: not angels, but the seed of Abraham, that is to say: not the nature of angels, but the nature of the seed of Abraham did Christ assume, has fallen into deserved disrepute;[52] only Castellio, however, first perceived its grammatical impossibility. The proposal of Schulz to supply ὁ θάνατος from Heb_2:14-15 as the subject to ἐπιλαμβάνεται : “for certainly he (death, or the lord of death) does not lay hold of, or carry off, angels, but the posterity of Abraham does he lay hold of,” is indeed grammatically permissible; logically, however, it does not commend itself, inasmuch as Heb_2:17 stands in close connection with Heb_2:16, but at Heb_2:17, as Heb_2:14-15, the subject again is naturally Christ.
ἀγγέλων ] without article, like the following σπέρματος Ἀβραάμ , generically. The author here excludes the angels from the province of the redemption which takes place through Christ. He is thus brought into contradiction with the teaching of Paul (comp. Col_1:20)—a position which is wrongly denied by Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 59 f.; Delitzsch, and Moll; by the first-named upon the untenable ground that “the design in this connection was not to say whom Jesus helps and whom He does not help, but what He is for those with whom He concerns Himself, for whom He exerts Himself!”
σπέρματος Ἀβραάμ ] does not denote mankind in general (Bengel, Böhme, Klee, Stein, Wieseler, Chronologie des apostol. Zeitalters, p. 491 f., al.), in such wise that the expression should be taken in the spiritual sense, or “the congregation of God, reaching over from the O. T. into the N. T., which goes back to Abraham’s call and obedience of faith for its fundamental beginning, Israel and the believers out of all mankind, the whole good olive tree, which has the patriarchs as its sacred root, Gal_3:29; Rom_4:16; Rom_11:16” (Delitzsch, Hofmann, II. 1, p. 60, 2 Aufl.; Kluge, Kurtz), which must have been introduced and made manifest by the context; but the Jewish people (comp. τοῦ λαοῦ , Heb_2:17; τὸν λαόν , Heb_13:12). For Apollos, who (according to sec. 1 of the Introduction) is to be regarded as the author of the epistle, the conviction of the universality of Christianity must, it is true, have been not less firmly established than for Paul himself. He has mentioned, however, in place of the genus—i.e. in place of mankind in general—only a species of this genus, namely, Jewish humanity; just because he had only to do with born Jews as the readers of his epistle. Grotius: Hebraeis scribens satis habet de illis loqui; de gentibus alibi loquendi locus. Rightly at the same time does de Wette remark that Paul, even under a precisely identical state of the case, would hardly have expressed himself as is here done. Comp. also Reuss (Nouvelle Revue de Théologie, vol. V., Strasb. et Paris 1860, p. 208): “Nous doutons, que Paul eût pu traiter un pareil sujet en s’imposant un silence absolu sur un principe, qui était, à vrai dire, le centre de son activité apostolique.”
[51] Ebrard still finds in ver. 16 a proof from the O. T. Only he supposes the author did not here feel it needful to cite a single passage, but that it sufficed to remind of a universally acknowledged fact of the O. T.!
[52] M‘Caul alone has espoused it afresh.