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Heb_5:12. Justification of the reproach: νωθροὶ γεγόνατε ταῖς ἀκοαῖς , Heb_5:11.
καὶ γὰρ ὀφείλοντες εἶναι διδάσκαλοι ] for when ye ought to have been teachers. καί gives intensity to the ὀφείλοντες εἶναι διδάσκαλοι . Comp. 2Co_3:10, al. Arbitrarily Bloomfield (ed. 8), according to whom an intermediate link is to be supplied in connection with καὶ γάρ : “[And such ye are,] for though ye ought, according to the time, to be teachers,” etc.
διὰ τὸν χρόνον ] by reason of the space of time, i.e. because already so considerable a space of time has passed since ye became Christians. In like manner is διὰ τὸν χρόνον often employed by classical writers. Comp. e.g. Aelian, Var. Hist. iii. 37: οἱ πάνυ παρʼ αὐτοῖς γεγηρακότες … πίνουσι κώνειον , ὅταν ἑαυτοῖς συνειδῶσιν , ὅτι πρὸς τὰ ἔργα τὰ τῇ πατρίδι λυσιτελοῦντα ἄχρηστοί εἰσιν , ὑποληρούσης ἤδη τι αὐτοῖς καὶ τῆς γνώμης διὰ τὸν χρόνον .
As regards that which follows, there is a controversy as to whether we have to accentuate τίνα or τινά . The word is taken as an interrogative particle by the Peshito and Vulgate, Augustine, Tract. 98 in Joh.; Schlichting, Grotius, Owen, Wolf, Bengel, Abresch, Schulz, Kuinoel, Klee, de Wette, Tischendorf, Stengel, Bloomfield, Conybeare, Delitzsch, Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 780; Reuss, Maier, Moll, Kurtz, Ewald, Hofmann, and the majority. As an indefinite pronoun, on the other hand, it is taken by Oecumenius, Luther, Calvin, Peirce, Cramer, Heinrichs, Böhme, Lachmann, Stuart, Bleek, Ebrard, Bisping, Alford, Woerner, and others. The latter alone grammatically possible. For in the opposite case, since the subject is a varying one in the tempus finitum ( χρείαν ἔχετε ) and the infinitive ( διδάσκειν ), either the infinitive passive must be written, τοῦ διδάσκεσθαι ὑμᾶς , or to the infinitive active a special accusative of the subject (perhaps ἐμέ ) must be further added. Nor is 1Th_4:9 decisive in opposition hereto, since there the reading of Lachmann: οὐ χρείαν ἔχομεν γράφειν ὑμῖν , is the only correct one. See, besides, the remarks in my Commentary on the Thessalonians, ad loc. [E. T. p. 118 f.]. As, moreover, in a grammatical respect, so also in a logical respect is the accentuation τίνα to be rejected. For upon the adopting thereof the thought would arise, that the readers anew required instruction upon the question: which articles are to be reckoned among the στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ θεοῦ , or else: of what nature these are. But manifestly the author is only complaining—as is plain also from the explicative clause: καὶ γεγόνατε κ . τ . λ .—of the fact that the readers, who ought long ago to have been qualified for instructing others, themselves still needed to be instructed in the στοιχεῖα . While, for the rest, de Wette and Riehm erroneously find in the indefinite τινά “too strong a signification,” Delitzsch is equally mistaken in characterizing it as “unmeaning” and “flat.” With justice does Alford remark, in opposition to the last-named: “So far from τινά , some one, being, as Delitzsch most absurdly says, ‘matt und nichtssagend,’ it carries with it the fine keen edge of reproach; q. d. to teach you what all know, and any can teach.”
ὑμᾶς ] preposed to the τινά , in order to bring into the more marked relief the antithesis to εἶναι διδάσκαλοι .
The notion of rudimenta already existing in τὰ στοιχεῖα is made yet more definitely prominent by the genitive τῆς ἀρχῆς (Calvin: “quo plus incutiat pudoris”). Thus: the very first primary grounds or elements. Analogous is the use of the Latin prima rudimenta, Justin. vii.5; Liv. Heb_1:3; prima elementa, Horace, Serm. i. 1. 26; Quintil. i. 1. 23, 35; Ovid, Fast. iii. 179.
τῶν λογίων τοῦ θεοῦ ] of the utterances of God. Comp. Act_7:38; 1Pe_4:11; Rom_3:2. What is intended is the saving revelations of Christianity, which God has caused to be proclaimed as His word. To think of the Old Testament prophecies, and their interpretation and reference to the Christian relations (Peirce, Chr. Fr. Schmid, Schulz, Stengel, and others; comp. also Hofmann and Woerner ad loc.), is inadmissible; since the expression τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ , in consideration of its generality, always acquires its nearer defining of meaning only from the context, while here, that which was, Heb_5:12, mentioned as τὰ στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ θεοῦ , is immediately after (Heb_6:1) designated ὁ τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ λόγος .
γεγόνατε ] reminds anew, even as the preceding πάλιν , of the earlier more gladdening spiritual condition of the readers.
γάλακτος καὶ οὐ στερεᾶς τροφῆς ] On the figure, comp. 1Co_3:2 : γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα , οὐ βρῶμα . Philo, de Agricult. p. 188 (with Mangey, I. p. 301): Ἐπεὶ δὲ νηπίοις μέν ἐστι γάλα τροφή , τελείοις δὲ τὰ ἐκ πυρῶν πέμματα , καὶ ψυχῆς γαλακτώδεις μὲν ἂν εἶεν τροφαὶ κατὰ τὴν παιδικὴν ἡλικίαν , τὰ τῆς ἐγκυκλίου μουσικῆς προπαιδεύματα · τέλειαι δὲ καὶ ἀνδράσιν εὐπρεπεῖς αἱ διὰ φρονήσεως καὶ σωφροσύνης καὶ ἁπάσης ἀρετῆς ὑφηγήσεις . Quod omnis probus liber, p. 889 A (II. p. 470), al.
By the milk, the author understands the elementary instruction in Christianity; by the solid food, the more profound disclosures with regard to the essence of Christianity, for the understanding of which a Christian insight already more matured is called for, In connection with the former, he thinks of the doctrinal topics enumerated Heb_6:1-2 (not, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Primasius, Clarius, and others suppose, of the doctrine of the humanity of Christ in contradistinction from that of His Godhead, which is foreign to the context); in connection with the latter, mainly of the subject, just the treatment of which will pre-eminently occupy him in the sequel,—the high-priesthood of Christ after the manner of Melchisedec.
The statement of Heb_5:12 has been urged by Mynster (Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1829, H. 2, p. 338), Ebrard, and others, in proof that the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot have been addressed to the Palestinean congregations, particularly not to the congregation at Jerusalem. The tenor of the verse might, it is true, appear strange, considering that the congregation at Jerusalem was the parent congregation of all the others, and out of its midst had proceeded the most distinguished teachers of Christianity. Nevertheless this last fact is not at all called in question by the statement of the verse. For the author has present to his mind the condition of the congregation as it was in his own time; he is addressing—in favour of which also διὰ τὸν χρόνον pronounces—a second generation of Palestinean Christianity. The narrow-minded tendency, however, which this second generation had assumed, instead of advancing in its growth to the recognition of the freedom and universality of Christianity as the most perfect religion, might well justify with regard to it the utterance of a reproach such as we here meet with. Only thus much follows from the words,—what is also confirmed by Heb_13:7,—that when the author wrote, James the Lord’s brother had already been torn from the congregation at Jerusalem by death, since he would otherwise certainly have written in another tone.