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Heb_8:3. Subsidiary remark in justification of the expression λειτουργός , Heb_8:2. The λειτουργεῖν , or the presenting of sacrifices, is just something essential in the fulfilment of the office of every high priest; a λειτουργός , or sacrificing priest, must thus Christ also be.
By the statement, Heb_8:3, the argument itself is not interrupted. For enclosing the verse within a parenthesis, with Cameron, Stengel, and others, there exists therefore no reason.
γάρ ] the explanatory namely.
On πᾶς γὰρ … καθίσταται , comp. Heb_8:1 : πᾶς γὰρ ἀρχιερεὺς … καθίσταται τὰ πρὸς τὸν θεόν , ἵνα προσφέρῃ δῶρά τε καὶ θυσίας .
ὅθεν ἀναγκαῖον ] sc. ἦν (Syriac, Beza, Piscator, Owen, Bengel, Bleek, de Wette, Hofmann, Komm. p. 306; Woerner), not ἐστίν (Vulgate, Luther, Calvin, Schlichting, Schulz, Böhme, Stuart, Kuinoel, Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, 2 Aufl. p. 407; Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 505; Alford, Maier, Moll, Ewald, M‘Caul, al.). For the author knows only one single sacrificial act of Christ, an act performed once for all (not one continually repeated), as is evident partly from the parallel passages, Heb_7:27, Heb_9:12; Heb_9:25; Heb_9:28, Heb_10:10; Heb_10:12; Heb_10:14, partly from the preterite προσενέγκῃ in our passage.
ἔχειν τι καὶ τοῦτον , ὃ προσενέγκῃ ] that also this (High Priest) should have somewhat that He might offer up. By the τί the author understands Christ’s own body, which He gave up to death as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sinful world. The indefinite mode of expression by τί , however, was chosen just because the reference to the sacrifice in this place was only an incidental one, and that which was intended could the less be misunderstood by the readers, in that immediately before, Heb_7:27, it had been declared by means of ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας in what the sacrifice of Christ consisted.