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Heb_3:5 as far as αὐτοῦ , Heb_3:6. Return to the point of comparison between Christ and Moses, Heb_3:2 ( πιστός ), and the exaltedness of the former above the latter, Heb_3:3 ( υἱός , ἐπί … θεράπων , ἐν ).
καί ] is the more sharply-defining “and indeed;” whereas μέν serves to bring into relief the personal name Μωϋσῆς , and finds in Χριστὸς δέ , Heb_3:6, its emphatic opposition. Heb_3:5-6 init. does not, accordingly, contain a second proof for the superiority of Christ to Moses (Calvin, Bengel, Tholuck, Ebrard, Woerner), but is only a more detailed unfolding of the thoughts, Heb_3:2 and Heb_3:3.
πιστός ] sc. ἦν , or else ἐστίν , in connection with which latter mode of supplementing, the thought would be less of the historic fact as such, than of the fact as it still continues present in the O. T. narrative.
αὐτοῦ ] refers not to Μωϋσῆς (as Ebrard assumes, since he starts with the erroneous presupposition that the author speaks of a twofold οἶκος , and that the design of Heb_3:5-6 was just that of rendering clearly apparent the difference of the house entrusted to Moses on the one hand, and that entrusted to Christ on the other), but to θεός , Heb_3:4.
ὡς θεράπων ] in his capacity as servant, comp. Num_12:7. Upon this, as upon the preceding ἐν , rests the emphasis of Heb_3:5.
εἰς μαρτύριον ] belongs to θεράπων . It is unnaturally referred back by Estius, Seb. Schmidt, Stengel, and others to πιστός
εἰς μαρτύριον τῶν λαληθησομένων ] to give testimony to that which should be spoken, or proclaimed to the people. Τὰ λαληθησόμενα are not the revelations afterwards to be given in Christ (Erasmus, Calvin, Cameron, Calov, Seb. Schmidt, Owen, Limborch, Wolf, Wetstein, Ebrard, Delitzsch, Alford, Moll, Ewald, M‘Caul, Woerner, and others), which must have been more precisely specified; and still less does the expression indicate: “dicenda a nobis in hac epistola de cerimoniis earumque significatione et usu” (Pareus), but the law to be proclaimed by Moses, at the mandate of God, to the Jewish people is intended.