Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Hebrews 12:16 - 12:16
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
This properly interprets the root of bitterness before, by two special fruits of it.
Lest there be any fornicator: uncleanness, pornov, is not to be taken so strictly, as only to note fornication, uncleanness committed by unmarried persons, but all sorts of pollution and filthiness, as it is used in the general decree, Act_15:29; such defilements as had crept in among them already, to which many were propense and inclined, whence warned of and charged against it by James, Peter, and Jude, in their Epistles.
Or profane person: bebhlov imports one who had a bitter frame of spirit against the first table, one of an impure mind to God-ward, opposite to godliness, who neglects and spurns at holy things, rolling itself in its own pleasures, riches, honours, with a despising of God, his grace, and glory, 1Ti_1:9 4:7,16 2Ti_2:16.
As Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birth-right: Esau, the best example to these Hebrews, he being Jacob’s brother, who was most notoriously profane, who irreligiously undervalued and despised the blessing of the birthright, to which was entailed by God the double portion, the priesthood and dominion over the family, the blessings of the covenant, and the being a type of Christ; he basely and impiously gave it away to his younger brother, slighting it, and freely and fully making it over to him, and all for one eating, the base gratifying of his sensual appetite but once, Gen_25:32,34. Like to whom were those, Phi_3:18 2Pe_2:10-19 Jud_1:4-19. In these is his filthy, profane spirit improved.