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Heb_9:6-7. After the collective expression τὸ ἅγιον κοσμικόν , Heb_9:1, has been analyzed into its single constituent parts, Heb_9:2-5, and a recapitulatory reference has been made to the total result of this given analysis by means of τούτων οὕτως κατεσκευασμένων ,—the opposition to μέν , Heb_9:1, being formally introduced by δέ , and then receiving its more precise material defining by means of the statement, Heb_9:8, which is attached in a grammatical respect as a subsidiary clause,—the discourse advances to the development of the further general idea, which is placed in the forefront, Heb_9:1, but has hitherto remained unnoticed, the twofold expression δικαιώματα λατρείας .
From the present εἰσίασιν , as from προσφέρει , Heb_9:7 (comp. also Heb_9:8 f.), it follows that the Mosaic cultus was still continuing at the time when the author wrote. The participle perfect, κατεσκευασμένων , however, denotes that which is extending out of the past into the present, and is still enduring in the present (see Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 254). The present hereby indicated can, of course, only be that in which the author himself is living and writing. The endeavour to explain it of a present into which the author only mentally places himself, is as little warranted grammatically as is the asserting, with Hofmann, that the present in which the discourse here moves is “not a past, nor actual, nor something still continuing, but that set forth in the word of God, where it is to be read how the sanctuary erected by Moses was constituted, and what priests and high priests do in the same;” or with Mangold (in Bleek’s Einleit. in das N. T. p. 617), to find the Scripture picture of the tabernacle drawn in our passage as a “purely ideal magnitude, which by no means guarantees the actual continued existence of the temple worship.” For, in order to render possible suppositions of this kind, the conjoining of the presents with a participle aorist would have been indispensably necessary. From the form of discourse chosen: τούτων οὕτως κατεσκενασμένων (“in that these objects have been in such wise regulated”), in union with the present tenses εἰσίασιν and προσφέρει , it therefore follows of necessity that the author, although here entering only upon the presentation of the typical significance of the two main divisions of the Mosaic sanctuary, nevertheless thinks of these two main divisions, together with all that appertains to them,—which he has just now enumerated,—as still preserved in being, thus also as still present in the Jewish temple of his day; by which supposition, it is true, he becomes involved in contradiction with the historic reality, inasmuch as alike the ark of the covenant as the vessel of manna and Aaron’s rod were wanting in the second temple. Vid. supra ad Heb_9:4. With very little reflection does Riehm (Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 491, Obs.) object to this conclusion, that “with just the same right one might infer from the present in Heb_13:11 that the author supposed the Israelites of his time to be still dwelling in a camp.” The passage Heb_13:11 has nothing whatever in common with ours, since it is here a question of the combination of a participle perfect with verbs in the present. That, too, which Delitzsch sets against it, that the τούτων οὕτως κατεσκευασμένων , pointing back to κατεσκευάσθη , Heb_9:2, certainly shows that the author has the Mosaic period before his mind, utterly collapses, inasmuch as the participle perfect, and not the participle aorist, has been employed. Phrases, however, like those met with in Delitzsch: that the author was writing for just such readers as would not have given him credit for an ignorance like this, are peremptory decisions, for which the result is already fixed before the investigation, and consequently intimidations of the grammatical conscience.
ἡ πρώτη σκηνή ] as Heb_9:2, the fore-tent or Holy Place.
διὰ παντός ] continually, i.e. day by day. Opposite ἅπαξ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ , Heb_9:7.
οἱ ἱερεῖς ] opposite μόνος ὁ ἀρχιερεύς , Heb_9:7.
τὰς λατρείας ἐπιτελοῦντες ] performing the religious actions. Daily, morning and evening, an offering of incense was presented, and daily were the lamps of the sacred candlestick placed in readiness and kindled. Comp. Exo_30:7 ff.