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Heb_5:7-10. Further proof—accessory to the Scripture testimony, Heb_5:6—that Christ did not on His own authority usurp to Himself the high-priesthood, but was invested with the same by God. Far removed from all self-exaltation, He displayed in His earthly life the most perfect obedience towards God. In consequence thereof He became, after His consummation and glorification, the Procurer (Vermittler) of everlasting blessedness for all believers, and was appointed by God High Priest after the manner of Melchisedec.
We have to reject the explanation—mainly called forth by the expression προσενέγκας (compared with Heb_5:1; Heb_5:3)—of Schlichting, Calov, Seb. Schmidt, Braun, Limborch, Akersloot, Cramer, Baumgarten, Heinrichs, Böhme, Klee, Bloomfield, and others, according to which the design in Heb_5:7-10 is to show that Christ already discharged the functions of the high-priestly office during His earthly life, in that He offered prayers as sacrifices to God. For evidently the main gist of Heb_5:7-10 lies in the words of Heb_5:8 : ἔμαθεν ἀφʼ ὧν ἔπαθεν τὴν ὑπακοήν , to which the statements Heb_5:9-10 attach themselves only for the completion of the figure traced out Heb_5:7-8, and for leading back to Heb_5:6. But by the fact that Christ manifested obedience, it cannot by any means be shown that He was already executing the office of High Priest.
Quite mistaken also is the opinion of Kurtz, that, Heb_5:7-10, a “third requirement of the Levitical high-priesthood, namely, obedience to the will of Him that founded it” (?), is shown to be satisfied in Christ. For neither does the form of the grammatical annexing of Heb_5:7 to that which precedes point in any way to the conclusion that the author designed to string on to the two necessary qualifications of the earthly high priest yet a third one of equal value; nor, as regards the import, is anything else to be found in Heb_5:7-8 than a wider unfolding of the foregoing statement, οὐχ ἑαυτὸν ἀδοξάσεν γενηθῆναι ἀρχιερέα , Heb_5:5.