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Heb_7:11. From the inferiority of the Levitical priesthood to the priesthood of Melchisedec, just proved, it followed that the former was imperfect and incapable of leading to perfection. This fact is now presupposed by the author as a self-evident consequence, and he proceeds at once to demonstrate the truth thereof.
οὖν ] deduces the conclusion from Heb_7:5-10, not from Heb_6:20 (de Wette, Bisping), whereby an interruption ensues in the continuity of the development begun by the author.
εἰ ] with the indicative preterite (Heb_4:8, Heb_8:4), supposition of an impossible case: if there were, if there existed; in combination with διά : if it were effected.
τελείωσις ] perfection, i.e. attainment of the highest goal of mankind in a moral and religious respect. There is included in it the obtaining of the expiation of sins and the glory to come. Comp. Heb_9:9, Heb_10:1; Heb_10:14, Heb_11:40.
ὁ λαὸς γὰρ ἐπʼ αὐτῆς νενομοθέτηται ] for the people on the ground thereof hath received the law. These words can be taken only as a parenthesis (against Stein). νομοθετεῖν τινί signifies to give laws to one, to provide one with a law (here the Mosaic law). The mode of transposing this active construction into the passive ὁ λαὸς νενομοθέτηται is quite the usual one; comp. Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 244 f.
ἐπʼ αὐτῆς ] relates not to τελείωσις (so, upon the supposition of the reading ἐπʼ αὐτῇ , Vatablus, but undecided; Seb. Schmidt, Starck, Rambach), but to τῆς Λευϊτικῆς ἱερωσύνς . ἐπί , however, denotes: upon the ground or condition of the existence of the Levitical priesthood, i.e. the Levitical priesthood is indissolubly conjoined with the Mosaic law which the people has received; it forms a foundation pillar upon which the latter rests, so that with the fall of the one the other also must fall (Heb_7:12). Erroneously,—because the statement thus arising would be too insignificant, and because ἐπί in this sense is used only with verba dicendi (comp. Gal_3:16; Heindorf, ad Plat. Charm. p. 62; Bernhardy, Syntax, p. 248),
Schlichting and Grotius [as also Whitby]: de sacerdotio Levitico legem accepit [an interpretation already rejected by Junius and Piscator]; as likewise Bleek I.: the people had received legal instruction concerning the Levitical priesthood.
But to what end the parenthesis? Its design is to indicate the ground on which one might expect to attain to the τελείωσις ,—if the Mosaic law were at all capable of leading thereto,—by the intervention of the Levitical priesthood, since the Mosaic law is erected upon this very Levitical priesthood as its basis.
τίς ἔτι χρεία ] sc. ἧν , or ἂν ἦν . The words following χρεία are not to be blended together into one thought (Faber Stapulensis, Luther, Baumgarten, Chr. Fr. Schmid), in such wise that λέγεσθαι is governed immediately by χρεία , and again all the rest ( κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισεδὲκ ἕτερον ἀνίστασθαι ἱερέα καὶ οὐ κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Ἀαρών ) by λέγεσθαι . The position of the words would then be contorted, and one explicable on no justifying grounds. On the contrary, the infinitive clause κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισεδὲκ ἕτερον ἀνίστασθαι ἱερέα depends at once upon the immediately preceding τίς ἔτι χρεία ; and to this first infinitive clause the second καὶ οὐ κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Ἀαρὼν λέγεσθαι forms an epexegetic parallel clause: What need was there still then (or: would there then still have been) that another priest should arise “after the order of Melchisedec,” and not be called (priest) after the order of Aaron?
ἔτι ] sc. after the Levitical priesthood had long been instituted, and in general the Mosaic law promulgated.
ἕτερον ] in distinction from ἄλλον , brings prominently forward the dissimilarity of his nature and constitution as compared with that of the Levitical priests.
To καί we have not to supplement the whole idea ἔτερον ἱερέα , but only ἱερέα .
οὐ , however, is placed, not μή as the infinitive λέγεσθαι might seem to require, because the negation extends to only a part of the clause. οὐ , namely, is closely associated with κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Ἀαρών , and forms with the same merely a more precise definition to the ἱερέα which is to be supplied, so that the total expression καὶ ( ἱερέα ) οὐ κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Ἀαρών presents an opposition to the foregoing total expression κατὰ τὴν τάξιν Μελχισεδὲκ ἕτερον ἱερέα .
λέγεσθαι ] namely, Psa_110:4. That λέγεσθαι is not to be taken in the sense of eligi (Kuinoel, Stein, al.) is already shown by the λέγεται , Heb_7:13.