Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 2:15 - 2:15

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Hebrews 2:15 - 2:15


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

15. τούτους ὅσοι. Lit., “those, as many as,” i.e. “all who.”

φόβῳ θανάτου. This fear was felt, as we see from the O.T., far more intensely under the old than under the new dispensation. Dr Robertson Smith quotes from the Midrash Tanchuma, “In this life death never suffers man to be glad.” See Num 17:13; Num 18:5; Psalms 6, 30, &c., and Isa 38:10-20, &c. In heathen and savage lands the whole of life is often overshadowed by the terror of death, which thus becomes a veritable “bondage.” Philo quotes a line of Euripides to shew that a man who has no fear of death can never be a slave. But, through Christ’s death, death has become to the Christian the gate of glory. The different aspect which death assumed in the eyes of Christians is forcibly illustrated by the contrast between the passionate despair, resentment, and cynicism of many Pagan epitaphs, compared with the peace, resignation, and even exultation displayed by those in the catacombs. Christians had not received the πνεῦμα δουλείας πάλιν εἰς φόβον, Rom 8:15. It is remarkable that in this verse the writer introduces a whole range of conceptions which he not only leaves without further development, but to which he does not even allude again. They seem to lie aside from the main current of his views.

διὰ παντὸς τοῦ ζῆν = διὰ πάσης τῆς ζωῆς. The substantival inf. with an adj. is rare, but compare Persius “Scire tuum nihil est.”

ἔνοχοι δουλίας. Stronger than δουλείᾳ, not merely “liable to” but “wholly subdued to” or “implicated in” slavery.