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Heb_9:16-17. Demonstration of the necessity of the θάνατον γενέσθαι by means of a truth of universal application. That Christ might be able to become the Mediator of a new διαθήκη , His death was required. For, to the validity of a διαθήκη , it is essential that the death of the διαθέμενος be first proved. Since immediately before (Heb_9:15) and immediately after (Heb_9:18 ff.) διαθήκη was employed in the sense of “covenant,” elsewhere usual in our epistle, we might naturally, on account of the conjunction of Heb_9:16-17, by means of γάρ , with Heb_9:15, and on account of ὅθεν , by which again Heb_9:18 is joined to Heb_9:15-16, expect this signification of the word to be found also in Heb_9:16-17. This has accordingly been insisted upon, here too, by Codurcus (Critt. sacrr. t. VII. P. ii. p. 1067 sqq.), Seb. Schmidt, Peirce, Whitby [in com.], Macknight, Michaelis, Sykes, Cramer, Paulus, and others, lastly also by Ebrard. But it is altogether inadmissible. For if we take διαθήκη as covenant, ὁ διαθέμενος could only designate him who makes or institutes the covenant; to take ὁ διαθέμενος as the mediator of the covenant, as is generally done in connection with that view, and to understand this again of the sacrificial victims, by the offering of which the covenant was sealed, is pure caprice. The thought, however, that for the validity of a covenant-act the death of the author of the covenant must first ensue, would be a perfectly irrational one. Irrational the more, inasmuch as, Heb_9:16-17, only an entirely general truth is contained, passing for a norm in ordinary life. Ebrard finds expressed the thought: “Where a sinful man wishes to enter into a covenant with the holy God, the man must first die, must first atone for his guilt by death (or he must present a substitutionary òåÉìÈä ).” But all these definings have been arbitrarily imported. For Heb_9:16-17 nothing is said either about a “sinful man,” or about a volition on his part, or about the “holy God,” or about an “atoning for guilt,” or about a “substitutionary òåÉìÈä .” From what has been said, it follows that διαθήκη , Heb_9:16-17, can be taken only in the sense, likewise very frequently occurring with the Greek authors, of “testament” or “disposition by will.” It is true there arises therefrom a logical inaccuracy,[93] owing to the fact that διαθήκη is used in these two verses in another sense than before, and the formal demonstrative force of that which is advanced by the author—although the underlying thoughts are in themselves perfectly just—is thereby sacrificed. It is, however, to be observed that while for us, since we are obliged to employ a twofold expression for the reproducing of the diversity of sense, the transition from the one notion to the other appears abruptly made, this transition for the author, on the other hand, might be an imperceptible one, inasmuch as in the Greek one and the same word included within itself both significations. Thus, accordingly, it has happened that the ancient Greek interpreters explain ΔΙΑΘΉΚΗ , Heb_9:16-17, expressly in the sense of a testament or will, then at once pass over to the declaration contained in Heb_9:18, without so much as noticing the logical inaccuracy which presents itself. The sense consequently is: where a testament or deed of bequest exists, there it is necessary, in order to give it validity (comp. ἰσχύει , Heb_9:17), that the death of the testator first be proved. The New Covenant, therefore, which Christ has established between God and man by His sacrificial death, the author here represents—in accordance with the figure of the κληρονομία , Heb_9:15—as a testamentary disposition on the part of Christ, which, however, as such could only acquire validity, and put the heirs in possession of the blessings bequeathed to them, by means of the death of Christ.
ΘΆΝΑΤΟΝ ] emphatically preposed, while ΤΟῦ ΔΙΑΘΕΜΈΝΟΥ , upon which no emphasis falls, comes in at the end of the clause.
ΦΈΡΕΣΘΑΙ ] be declared or proved. Wrongly Grotius: the verb to be regarded as equivalent to exspectari (“est enim exspectatio onus quoddam”); Wittich: it denotes the being endured on the part of the relatives; Carpzov, Chr. Fr. Schmid, Schulz, Kuinoel, Klee, Stein, Stengel, Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1, 2 Aufl. p. 428), and others, that it denotes nothing more than ensue or γίνεσθαι , Heb_9:15.
[93] For the author does not reason, as de Wette supposes, from the mere “analogy of a will or testament.”—The course, moreover, pursued by Hofmann (Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 426 ff.), in order to manifest the non-existence of a logical inaccuracy, in that, namely, in the whole section, ver. 15ff., he will have διαθήκη signify neither “covenant” nor “testament,” but throughout the whole only “disposal” (Verfügung), is, as also Delitzsch and Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 598, Obs.) acknowledge, an utter breakdown. See likewise the observations of Nickel in Reuter’s Repertor. 1858, März, p. 194 f.—Nor will it do, with Kurtz, to set aside the logical inaccuracy, at which he takes so great offence that he thinks himself obliged to designate such inaccuracy, in case it were present, an “inexcusable confusion” (!), in taking not only at vv. 16, 17, but also in like manner at vv. 15, 18, the διαθήκη in the special sense of “establishing as heir.” For the connection with that which precedes (comp. Heb_7:22, Heb_8:6 ff., Heb_9:1; Heb_9:4) leads at vv. 15, 18 exclusively to the idea of a covenant.