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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 10:27 - 10:27
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27. φοβερὰ δέ τις ἐκδοχή. All that is left for willing apostates when they have turned their backs on the sole means of grace is “some terror-causing expectance of a judgement.” They are “heaping up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath” (Rom 2:5). φοβερὸς means “inspiring fear,” not “feeling fear.” Ἐκδοχὴ is a ἄπαξ λεγόμενον in the N. T. The τις adds strong emphasis to the expression = “a very terrible.” Comp. Lucian φοβερόν τι θέαμα. Diod. Sic. ἐπίπονός τις βίος.
καὶ πυρὸς ζῆλος. Lit., “and a jealousy of fire.” He is thinking of God “as a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29) and of the question “Shall thy jealousy burn like fire?” Psa 79:5 (comp. Eze 36:5).
ἐσθίειν μέλλοντος τοὺς ὑπεναντίους. “Destined” (by prophecy) “to devour opponents.” “Yea, let fire devour thine enemies” (Isa 26:11). It has so long been the custom to interpret such passages of “eternal torments” that we lose sight of the fact that such a meaning, if we may interpret Scripture historically, was in most cases not consciously present to the mind of the writers. The constant repetition of the same metaphor by the Prophets with no reference except to temporal calamities and the overthrow of cities and nations made it familiar in this sense to the N. T. writers. By “the adversaries” here are not meant “sinners,” but impenitent Jews and wilful apostates who would perish in the Day of the Lord (2Th 1:8). It is at least doubtful whether the writer meant to imply anything beyond that prophecy of doom to the heirs of the Old Covenant which was fulfilled a few years later when the fire of God’s wrath consumed the whole system of a Judaism which had rejected its own Messiah. The word for “adversaries” only occurs besides in the N. T. in Col 2:14.