Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Hebrews 7:6 - 7:6
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Heb_7:6. Notwithstanding this privileged position of the Levitical priests (Heb_7:5), Melchisedec yet occupies a far higher position.
ὁ δέ ] is not to be taken alone, as by Böhme, Kuinoel, and Klee, and then to be supplemented by τὴν ἱερατείαν λαβών from Heb_7:5; but ὁ δὲ μὴ γενεαλογούμενος ἐξ αὐτῶν belongs together: Melchisedec, on the contrary, without ( μή ) his family or descent being derived from them, received tithes of Abraham.
ἐξ αὐτῶν ] refers neither to the Israelites (Epiph. Haer. 67. 7; Cornelius a Lapide, Braun, Ernesti, Schulz) nor to Levi and Abraham (Grotius), but to the υἱοὶ Λευΐ , Heb_7:5.
The parallel clause, καὶ τὸν ἔχοντα τὰς ἐπαγγελίας εὐλόγηκεν ] and blessed him who had the promises, serves yet further to make manifest the dignity and exaltedness of Melchisedec. For, by the fact that Abraham had received the divine promises, that his seed should be multiplied, and in him all nations of the earth should be blessed (Gen_12:2 f., Heb_13:14 f.), he had been already most highly favoured of God. How high thus must that man stand, who imparts his blessing to one already so highly favoured, since truly—as is immediately expressly added, Heb_7:7—the dispenser of the blessing is ever more exalted than the recipient of the blessing! Oecumenius: ἐξῆρε τὸν Ἀβραάμ , ἵνα πλεῖον ἐξάρῃ τὸν Μελχισεδέκ .