Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 11:40 - 11:40

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 11:40 - 11:40


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

40. τοῦ θεοῦ … προβλεψαμένου. Lit., “since God provided” (or “foresaw”) “some better thing concerning us.” The middle voice is used because it differs from the active by expressing a mental act; so too προορᾶσθαι, προϊδέσθαι. In one sense Abraham, and therefore other patriarchs, “rejoiced to see Christ’s day,” and yet they did but see it in such dim shadow that “many prophets and kings desired to see what ye see, and saw them not, and to hear the things which ye hear, and did not hear them” (Mat 13:17), though all their earnest seekings and searchings tended in this direction (1Pe 1:10-11).

ἵνα μὴ χωρὶς ἡμῶν τελειωθῶσιν. “Not unto themselves but unto us they did minister” (1Pe 1:12). Since in their days “the fulness of the times” had not yet come (Eph 1:10) the saints could not be brought to their completion—the end and consummation of their privileges—apart from us. The “just” had not been, and could not be, “perfected” (Heb 12:23) until Christ had died (Heb 7:19, Heb 8:6). The implied thought is that if Christ had come in their days—if the “close of the ages” had fallen in the times of the Patriarchs or Prophets—the world would long ago have ended, and we should never have been born. Our present privileges are, as he has been proving all through the Epistle, incomparably better than those of the fathers. It was necessary in the economy of God that their “perfectionment” should be delayed until ours could be accomplished; in the future world we and they shall equally enjoy the benefits of Christ’s redemption.