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Heb_5:4. The second necessary qualification: to be no usurper of the office, but one called of God to the same.
καί ] Progress, not from Heb_5:3, nor yet from Heb_5:1, in such wise that λαμβάνει , Heb_5:4, should form a paronomasia with λαμβανόμενος , Heb_5:1 (Böhme, Bleek, Bisping, Alford, Maier), but from Heb_5:1-3.
And not to himself does any one take the honour (here under consideration), i.e. not any one appropriates or arrogates to himself the high-priestly dignity on his own authority. Comp. Xiphilinus, Galb. p. 187: νομίζων οὐκ εἰληφέναι τὴν ἀρχήν , ἀλλὰ δεδόσθαι αὐτῷ
ἀλλὰ καλούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ] sc. λαμβάνει αὐτήν , he receives it. The λαμβάνει here to be supplied has consequently—what is wrongly denied by Delitzsch, Hofmann, and Woerner—another notion than the λαμβάνει before placed. This diversity of notion, nevertheless, comes out more strongly in German, where two different verbs must be chosen to indicate it, than in Greek, where one and the same verb combines both significations in itself.
καθώσπερ καὶ Ἀαρών ] sc. κληθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτὴν εἴληφεν . These words still belong to that which precedes. They are unnaturally referred by Paulus to the sequel, as its protasis.
Aaron and his descendants were, according to Exo_28:1; Exo_29:4 ff., Lev_8:1 ff., Num_3:10; Num_3:16-18, called by God Himself to the high-priesthood. Comp. Bammidbar rabba, sec. 18, fol. 234. 4 (in Schöttgen and Wetstein): Moses ad Corachum ejusque socios dixit: si Aaron frater meus sibimet ipsi sacerdotium sumsit, recte egistis, quod contra ipsum insurrexistis; jam vero Deus id ipsi dedit, cujus est magnitudo et potentia et regnum. Quicumque igitur contra Aaronem surgit, contra ipsum Deum surgit. Not until the time of Herod and the Roman governors were high priests arbitrarily appointed and deposed, without respect to their descent from Aaron. Comp. Josephus, Antiq. xx. 10. 5; Winer, Bibl. Realwörterb. I. p. 591, 2 Aufl. That, however, as Chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Abresch, and others conjecture, the author intended by the words of Heb_5:4 at the same time to indicate that the high priests of that period were no longer true high priests at all, since they had acquired their office at the hand of men, and in the way of venality, is not very probable, inasmuch as the author would otherwise have expressed himself more clearly with regard thereto.