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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 5:1 - 5:3
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Heb_5:1-3. The first qualification: the capacity, as man, who himself is subject to human weakness, to deal leniently with erring humanity. To what extent and under what modification this characteristic of the earthly high priest is applicable also to Christ, is not discussed by the author in our passage. This might appear remarkable, since with respect to the second necessary qualification of the earthly high priest, further added Heb_5:4, the parallel relation in the case of Christ is expounded in detail from Heb_5:5 onwards. But yet there was no need of an express application to Christ, of that which was observed Heb_5:1-3. What the author had had to say with regard to this was already clear to the readers from the earlier disquisitions of the epistle itself. The element of the homogeneity of Christ with the Jewish high priest, namely, that He, like the Jewish high priest, can have sympathy with sinful man, since He had become in all points like unto men His brethren, had been fully traced out in the second chapter, and attention is called anew to it in Heb_4:15 by the δυνάμενον συμπαθῆσαι ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν and πεπειρασμένον κατὰ πάντα καθʼ ὁμοιότητα . The element of the dissimilarity, on the other hand, namely, that while the Jewish high priest had to offer for his own sins, Christ was without sin, is first brought prominently forward in Heb_4:15 by means of χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας , and, besides this, followed already from the exalted position the author had, in the opening chapters of the epistle, assigned to Christ as the Son of God.
That, in reality, also the paragraph Heb_5:7-10, no less than Heb_5:5-6, is subordinate to the second main consideration, expressed Heb_5:4, has been denied, it is true, by Beza, Schlichting, Hammond, Limborch, Storr, Delitzsch, Maier, Moll, and others. They are of opinion that from Heb_5:5 onwards an application of all the statements, Heb_5:1-4, to Christ ensues; that this, however, takes place in inverse order, so that Heb_5:5-6 refer back to Heb_5:4, Heb_5:7-8 to Heb_5:2, and finally, Heb_5:9-10 to Heb_5:1. The untenable character of such opinion is self-evident. For—(1) Heb_5:7-8 cannot have the design of applying to Christ that which was observed Heb_5:2, because only the parenthetic clause of Heb_5:7 ( δεήσεις … εὐλαβείας ) adapts itself to any extent to the contents of Heb_5:2, and this parenthetic clause stands in logical subordination to Heb_5:8 as the main point of the argument, consequently just Heb_5:8 and Heb_5:2 must present a similarity of contents, which is not the case. (2) That Heb_5:9-10 should be referred back to Heb_5:1 cannot be accepted as correct, because Heb_5:1 forms in itself no independent and complete statement, but stands in closest concatenation with Heb_5:2, so that only with this verse comes in what is for Heb_5:1 the all-essential point of nearer definition.
From the foregoing it results that the harmonizing view of Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 444, 447) is unwarranted. According to this view, Heb_5:7-8 are indeed, “in the first place,” or “formally,” a link in the demonstration that Christ did not become high priest by an act of arbitrary self-glorification, but as regards the “contents” or “tenor” form, “at the same time also an indication corresponding to Heb_5:1-3, and pointing out that Christ upon His path of suffering has passed through experiences which were adapted not only to make Him acquainted with the human ἀσθένεια , but also to prove in Him the capacity for the μετριοπάθεια .”
With Tholuck, for the rest, to take Heb_5:1-3 still in relation to the preceding chapter, as an antithesis to Heb_5:14, and to begin a new section with Heb_5:4, is not permissible. For a comparison of the main contents of Heb_5:1-3 with the main contents of Heb_4:15, points to the fact that the author designs to bring out a relation of resemblance and affinity. We cannot possibly, therefore, attach, with Tholuck, to the particle γάρ , Heb_5:1, the sense: “the distinction namely arises, that.” The consideration, moreover, presents itself, that Heb_5:4 can only appear in relation to Heb_5:1-3, alike as regards tenor of contents as with regard to its lax grammatical nexus, as a further co-ordinate link in an enumeration, before begun, of the qualifications essential to the character of every earthly high priest, consequently is not appropriate to the introduction of a section entirely separated from that which precedes.