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Heb_3:2. The discourse takes a turn, by virtue of a further alleging of reasons for the κατανοήσατε , to the comparison of Jesus with Moses, in that first of all the relation of parity between the two is brought prominently forward. The O. T. passage which the author here has under consideration is Num_12:7, where Moses is designated by God as faithful in all His house.
ὄντα ] characterizes the being faithful as an inherent property; the sense of a strict present is not to be asserted for the participle (with Seb. Schmidt and Bleek), according to which we should have to think only of an exalted Christ; rather does πιστὸν ὄντα attach itself as well to the notion Ἰησοῦν τὸν ἀπόστολον τῆς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν as to the notion Ἰησοῦν τὸν ἀρχιερέα τῆς ὁμολογίας ἡμῶν ; ὄντα embraces, therefore, equally the time from which Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, had appeared upon earth, and the time from which He, invested with the high-priestly dignity, has returned to the Father, and now continues to fulfil in heaven His high-priestly office.
τῷ ποιήσαντι αὐτόν ] Periphrasis of God: Him who created Him. Only this sense of the calling forth into existence can the word ποιεῖν have when placed absolutely; comp. LXX. Isa_17:7; Isa_43:1; Isa_51:13; Hos_8:14; Job_35:10; Psa_95:6; Psa_149:2; Sir_7:30, al. Rightly is this accepted by the early Latin translation of the codd. D E (fidelem esse creatori suo), Ambrose (de fide, 3. 11), Vigilius Tapsensis (contra Varimadum, p. 729), Primasius, Schulz, Bleek, Alford, Kurtz, and Hofmann. Contrary to linguistic usage—for an appeal cannot be made to 1Sa_12:6 (where ποιεῖν ( òÈùÒÈä ) has its ordinary signification), and still less to Mar_3:14 (where a nearer defining is given to the verb by means of ἵνα κ . τ . λ .), or to Act_2:36 (where a double accusative is found)—do Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Vatablus, Clarius [Calvin], Cameron, Piscator, Grotius, Owen, Wolf, Bengel, Böhme, Kuinoel, de Wette, Stengel, Tholuck, Stuart, Ebrard, Bisping, Delitzsch, Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 286 f.), Reuss, Maier, Kluge, Moll, M‘Caul, Woerner, and the majority, interpret τῷ ποιήσαντι either by: who appointed Him thereto (sc. Apostle and High Priest), or ordained Him thereto; or—what amounts to the same thing—explaining the supplementing of a second accusative to ποιήσαντι as unnecessary, by: who set Him forth upon the stage of history. Whether, for the rest, the author referred the notion of having created to the incarnation of Christ, as the above-mentioned early ecclesiastical writers suppose, or to His premundane generation as the First-born (cf. Heb_1:5-6), which Bleek rightly regards as at least possible, cannot be determined.[55]
Ὡς ΚΑῚ ΜΩΫΣῆς ] sc. πιστὸς ἦν τῷ ποιήσαντι αὐτόν .
ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ ] does not belong to ΠΙΣΤῸΝ ὌΝΤΑ Τῷ ΠΟΙΉΣΑΝΤΙ ΑὐΤΌΝ , in such wise that we have, with Calvin, Paulus, Bleek, Ebrard, and Hofmann, to enclose Ὡς ΚΑῚ ΜΩΫΣῆς within commas, but is to be comprehended with Ὡς ΚΑῚ ΜΩΫΣῆς (de Wette, Kurtz, and the majority). For not only, Num_12:7, do the words appended: ἘΝ ὍΛῼ Τῷ ΟἼΚῼ ΑὐΤΟῦ , stand in special relation to Moses,—so that the author might very well derive from that place the same addition with the same special reference to Moses,—but also the equal reference of ἘΝ ὍΛῼ Τῷ ΟἼΚῼ ΑὐΤΟῦ to Christ, as to Moses, would be unsuitable to the connection with that which follows, since the author, Heb_3:5 and Heb_3:6, definitely distinguishes the place occupied by Moses, as the position of a servant ἘΝ ὍΛῼ Τῷ ΟἼΚῼ , from the place occupied by Christ, as a position of ruler ἘΠῚ ΤῸΝ ΟἾΚΟΝ ; and in harmony with this distinction, already Heb_3:3 characterizes Moses as merely a member of the ΟἾΚΟς itself; Christ, on the other hand, as the founder of the ΟἾΚΟς .
ΑὐΤΟῦ ] refers neither to Christ (Bleek) nor to Moses (Oecumenius and others), but, as is also determined by the form of the expression with the LXX. ( ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ μου ), to God.
But the house of God is the people of God, or the kingdom of God; and ἐν denotes the province, in the administration of which the πιστὸν εἶναι was made manifest.
[55] That which Delitzsch urges against either possibility, namely, that “although the man Jesus as such, so far as that which is essential in the notion of creation is the state of beginning in time, must be regarded as a creature, there could be no more unsuitable expression—because one almost unmeaningly colourless, or even indecorous—for the matchless and unique act of the formation of the humanity of the Son in the womb of Mary, than the term ποιεῖν , for the use of which, in this sense, no instances can on that very account be adduced;” and that “after the author has, Heb_1:2, employed ποιεῖν as expression of the pure idea of creation, he could surely not now have employed it of the sublimer genesis of the Mediator of the world’s creation,” falls to pieces, because it rests upon mere subjectivity. For it is nothing more than a pronouncing upon the mind of the writer from the standpoint of the critic’s own ready-formed dogmatics.