Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 7:20 - 7:22
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Heb_7:20-22. As one element in the superiority of the everlasting priesthood after the manner of Melchisedec, assigned to Christ, over the Levitical priesthood has been already implicitly brought forward, Heb_7:18-19, namely, that the goal, for the attainment of which the strength was lacking to the Levitical priesthood, is really attained by the everlasting priesthood. A second point of superiority in the new order of things over the old follows in Heb_7:20-22. Of less moment than the everlasting priesthood of Jesus must the Levitical priesthood be; for the former was constituted by God by virtue of a declaration upon oath, the latter without a declaration upon oath. Heb_7:20-22 form again a single period, the protasis being contained in καὶ καθ ̓ ὅσον οὐ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας , to which then καὶ τοσοῦτο κ . τ . λ ., Heb_7:22, corresponds as the apodosis, while all that intervenes ( οἱ μὲν γάρ , to the end of Heb_7:21) is a parenthesis. Wrongly do Chrysostom, Theodoret, Erasmus, Calvin (in the translation), Er. Schmid, and others join καὶ καθ ̓ ὅσον οὐ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας , too, to the closing words of Heb_7:19 : and, indeed, a hope which is better, inasmuch as it is not brought in without an oath. So also Luther: “and moreover, which is a great thing, not without oath;” while, with not less violence, Lud. Cappellus, who, in enclosing Heb_7:18-19 within a parenthesis, and taking καὶ καθ ̓ ὅσον οὐ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας with Heb_7:17, gives as the sense: “Deus constituit Christum sacerdotem secundum ordinem Melchisedec, et quidem non sine jurejurando.”
καί ] coupling on a farther link in the chain of enumeration, as Heb_7:8-9; Heb_7:23.
καὶ καθ ̓ ὅσον οὐ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας ] sc. ἱερεύς ἐστιν γεγονώς ; and inasmuch (Heb_9:27) as He has become priest not without a declaration upon oath, i.e. He has not become so without God having sanctioned His appointment to be a priest by a declaration upon oath (namely, by virtue of the oath, with which the declaration, Psa_110:4, is introduced). Only this mode of supplementing is warranted by the connection, as is shown partly by the οἱ μὲν γὰρ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας εἰσὶν ἱερεῖς γεγονότες immediately following, partly by the circumstance that the author is still engaged in the exposition of the Scripture statement, Heb_7:17, this statement thus containing for him the gist of the matter; as, accordingly, this declaration of Scripture is repeated anew, Heb_7:21, and then likewise the εἰσὶν ἱερεῖς γεγονότες recurs in the further member of the thought, Heb_7:23 f. The explanation therefore of Seb. Schmidt, Wolf, Heinrichs, Böhme, Kuinoel, Ebrard, Alford, Kurtz, and others is to be rejected, when to καθ ̓ ὅσον οὐ χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας they supplement from the apodosis διαθήκης ἔγγυος γέγονεν ; as also that of Storr, Schulz, Bleek, de Wette, Tholuck, Bisping, Delitzsch, Moll, and Hofmann, when they supply τοῦτο (sc. ἐπεισαγωγὴ κρείττονος ἐλπίδος ) γίνεται ( γέγονεν ).
οἱ μὲν γάρ ] namely, the Levitical priests.
χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας ] since nothing is related in Scripture of an oath of God, when He destined Aaron and his posterity to be priests.
εἰσὶν γεγονότες ] forms one idea: have become. Wrongly, Paulus and Klee: are priests who have become so without an oath. Böhme (and so also Hofmann): “sunt sacerdotes, sed sine juramento (illi quidem singuli deinceps) facti”—which must have been expressed by εἰσὶν ἱερεῖς χωρὶς ὁρκωμοσίας γεγονότες . Still more widely mistaken the view of Michaelis ad Peirc.: “fuerunt, i.e. esse desierunt,”—which is grammatically as well as logically impossible. The tempus periphrasticum εἰσὶν γεγονότες marks the fact already belonging to the past as still extending onwards into the present.
ὁ δέ ] namely, Christ.
μεθ ̓ ὁρκωμοσίας ] sc. ἱερεύς ἐστιν γεγονώς .
διὰ τοῦ λέγοντος πρὸς αὐτόν ] i.e. in the sense of the author: by God, not: by the psalmist (Rambach, Heinrichs), although certainly the statement, Psa_110:4, that God hath sworn and will not repent of this oath, forms not a constituent part of the words of God Himself, but a remark of the psalmist, with which he introduces the words of God. Yet, when in the psalm it is said that God has sworn, and of this oath He will not repent, and then there is adduced as the subject-matter of this oath the declaration: σὺ ἱερεὺς κ . τ . λ ., this is tantamount to saying that God has declared by virtue of an irreversible oath: σὺ ἱερεὺς κ . τ . λ . As, accordingly, the psalmist is relating the words of God, so does he also relate the oath which preceded them.