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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Heb_6:3. Repetition of the exhortation, Heb_6:1, in order immediately to give thereto so much the greater emphasis by attaching the warning, Heb_6:4 ff.
καὶ τοῦτο ποιήσωμεν ] just this let us do.
τοῦτο ] sc. τὸ ἐπὶ τὴν τελειότητα φέρεσθαι , Heb_6:1; Theodoret, ἀντὶ τοῦ σπουδάσωμεν , ἐπιθυμήσωμεν , πάντα πόνον ὑπὲρ τῆς τελειότητος ἀσπασώμεθα . Το τοῦτο we cannot supplement from the participial clause, Heb_6:1 : τὸ θεμέλιον καταβάλλεσθαι , as was done, on the presupposition of the reading ποιήσομεν , by Jac. Cappellus (who, however, besides this gives also the true reference, and comes to no decision), Schlichting, Grotius, Dorscheus, Wittich, Limborch, Calmet, Zachariae, Storr, Abresch, and is still done by Hofmann, as it is also regarded by Tholuck as possible; in such wise that there should issue the sense: this also, namely, the laying of the foundation, the author will do, sc. at another and more favourable time, if God permit. For—apart from the unsuitability of the sense resulting, according to which the author would declare his intention of treating the more difficult earlier than the more easy, which latter surely contains the preliminary condition for the understanding of the former—against such supplementing the fact is decisive, that the μή in connection with καταβαλλόμενοι , Heb_6:1, would be arbitrarily set aside; against the apprehending in this sense, the fact that for the expression of such a meaning ποιήσομεν δὲ καὶ τοῦτο must have been written.
ἐάνπερ ἐπιτρέπῃ ὁ θεός ] provided that God permits it (1Co_16:7), inasmuch, namely, as all things, even the carrying into effect of good resolutions, are subordinated to the higher decree of God. Incomprehensible, therefore, is the assertion of de Wette, who has therein followed Abresch, that the addition ἐάνπερ κ . τ . λ . is plainly irreconcilable “with the taking of our verse in the sense of a demand.” For the supposition, that in this case “the encouraging belief in God’s gracious assistance” must be expressed, is an altogether erroneous assumption, since the author in the present passage is by no means aiming at the consolation of the readers, but, on the contrary—as is shown by Heb_6:4-8—at the alarming of them. To an encouraging and pointing to God’s gracious help the discourse first advances, Heb_6:9-10.