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Heb_8:4. A sacrificial priest Christ can only be, either in the earthly or the heavenly sanctuary; for a third, besides these two, there is not. The author now proves, Heb_8:4, that He cannot be a priest in the earthly sanctuary, whence it then follows of itself that He must be so in the heavenly one.
εἰ ἦν ] not: if He had been (Böhme, Kuinoel), but: if He were. Το εἰ μὲν οὖν ἦν ἐπὶ γῆς we have, moreover, neither, with Grotius, Wolf, and others, to supply μόνον , nor, with Zeger, Bengel, Carpzov, Heinrichs, Böhme, and others, ἀρχιερεύς or ἱερεύς . It signifies nothing more than: if He were now on earth, had His dwelling-place upon earth.
οὐδʼ ἂν ἦν ἱερεύς ] He would not even be a priest. Incorrectly Bleek, Bisping, and Ewald: He would not even be a priest—not to say a high priest. For the augmenting οὐδέ can refer only to the whole proposition, not specially to ἱερεύς , since otherwise οὐδʼ ἱερεὺς ἂν ἦν must have been written. ἱερεύς is therefore to be taken as a more general expression for the more definite ἀρχιερεύς . Yet more erroneously Primasius, Seb. Schmidt, Wolf, Rambach, Carpzov, and others: “He would not be that unique, real, or true priest, that everlasting priest after the manner of Melchisedec”—which, without an addition, the words cannot by any means signify.
The reason why Christ, if He were dwelling upon earth, could not at all be a priest, is contained in the ὄντων … τὰ δῶρα . For on earth there are, of a truth, the legally appointed priests already present, and with these Jesus, since He belonged not to the tribe of Levi, but to the tribe of Judah (Heb_7:14), has nothing in common.
ὄντων τῶν προσφερόντων κατὰ νόμον τὰ δῶρα ] since assuredly there are present ( ὄντων has the emphasis), sc. on earth, those who in accordance with law (i.e. according to the norm of the Mosaic law) offer the gifts, namely the Levites, among whom Christ could not be reckoned, ὄντων and προσφερόντων designate that which is still existing at the time of our author. To take the words as participles of the past (Peshito, Vulgate, Grotius,[86] Braun, and others), is already forbidden by the present λατρεύουσιν , Heb_8:5.
[86] This writer with the explanation entirely foreign to the subject: “Erant, nempe quum psalmus iste scriberetur.”