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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 10:37 - 10:37
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37. μικρὸν ὅσον ὅσον. A very emphatic phrase to imply the nearness of Christ’s return, “yet but a very very little while” (lit., “little, how very, how very.” Comp. Arist. Vesp. 213 ὅσον ὅσον στίλην = quantillum; Arrian, Indic. XXIX. 15 ὀλίγοι δὲ αὐτῶν σπείρουσιν ὅσον τῆς χώρας). The phrase occurs in the LXX. in Isa 26:20. The quotations in this and the next verse are adapted from Hab 2:3-4. In the original it is “the vision” which will not tarry, but the writer quotes from the LXX., only inserting the definite article before ἐρχόμενος, and applying it to the Messiah. “The coming one” was a Messianic title (Mat 11:3; Luk 7:19; comp. Dan 7:13, &c.). In Mat 24:34 our Lord has said, “This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled”; and by the time that this Epistle was written few still survived of the generation which had seen our Lord. Hence, Christians felt sure that Christ’s coming was very near, though it is probable that they did not realise that it would consist in the close of the Old Dispensation, and not as yet in the End of the World. It is most probable that by the time this Epistle was written the Roman eagles were already beginning to gather to the carcase of a corrupted nationality and a decadent religionism; so that no wise man could overlook the indications of the rapidly approaching end.