One Sacrifice Opens the Way and Sharpens the Warning

A shadow, skia, is cast by a thing; the “very image”, eikon, is the thing’s own form. “Continually” renders eis to dienekes, a phrase found in the New Testament only in Hebrews (7:3, 10:12, 10:14). “The comers thereunto” are those who draw near, the verb the letter will turn into a command in verse 22.

The rhetorical question expects yes: a sacrifice that worked would have stopped being needed. “Conscience of sins” means awareness of sins, a burden still carried. A few manuscripts drop the “not” and turn the question into a flat statement, but the King James reading makes the sharper point.

“Remembrance” is anamnesis, the same word Jesus uses at the supper in Luke 22:19, “this do in remembrance of me”. On the Day of Atonement the high priest confessed “all the iniquities of the children of Israel” over the goat’s head (Leviticus 16:21), a yearly recital of what was still owed.

“Not possible” is adunaton, a word Hebrews uses four times for things that cannot happen: renewal after falling away (6:4), God lying (6:18), animal blood removing sin, and pleasing God without faith (11:6). The prophets had already said as much in Psalm 51:16 and Micah 6:6–7.

The psalm is headed “of David”, yet Hebrews hears it as the Son speaking at his entry into the world. “Prepared” is katartizo, to fit out or frame, the verb of 11:3, where the worlds were “framed” by the word of God. The same Maker who framed the ages fitted a body for the Son.

Psalm 40 names four kinds of offering across verses 5 and 6, which together cover the main sacrifices of Leviticus 1–5: the slain sacrifice, the grain offering, the whole burnt offering and the sin offering. “Had no pleasure” is eudokeo, the verb spoken from heaven at the Jordan, “in whom I am well pleased”.

“Volume” translates kephalis, literally a little head, the knob on the end of the rod around which a scroll was wound, so “the roll of the book”. Hebrews stops the quotation early. Psalm 40:8 goes on, “yea, thy law is within my heart”, a line the letter leaves for Jeremiah to say in verse 16.

“Above” means “earlier in the quotation”. The writer now runs all four nouns into one list and adds a clause of his own, “which are offered by the law”, which is not in the psalm. The addition makes the point explicit: God declines the very offerings his own law required.

“Taketh away” is anaireo, a hard verb that elsewhere means to do away with or kill. “Establish” is histemi, to set standing. The first is the order of animal offerings, the second the doing of God’s will, and the verse is the hinge on which the whole quotation turns.

The will that sanctifies is God’s, the same will the Son came to do in verse 7. “Are sanctified” is a perfect tense in Greek, a done thing that stays done. The full name “Jesus Christ” appears only three times in Hebrews, here and in 13:8 and 13:21, and here it is tied to the body of verse 5.

Among all the furniture Exodus lists for the tent there is no seat for a priest; he stood because his work was never over. “Take away” is periaireo, to strip off from around, as a garment is removed, a different verb from the one in verse 4.

“For ever” can go with either half of the sentence: one sacrifice for ever, or for ever sat down. The King James attaches it to the sacrifice. Psalm 110:1 is behind the seating at God’s right hand, and it is the psalm Hebrews cites most often (1:3, 1:13, 8:1, 12:2).

“Expecting” is ekdechomai, to wait for. A footstool is the image of conquest from the ancient Near East: kings were carved with their feet on defeated enemies, and Joshua’s captains put their feet on the necks of five kings (Joshua 10:24).

“Perfected” is teleioo, the verb Hebrews used for Christ himself, “made perfect through sufferings” (2:10, 5:9). The two tenses sit side by side: “hath perfected” is complete, while “them that are sanctified” is a present participle, those being sanctified, a work still going on.

Jeremiah wrote the words, but Hebrews names the Holy Ghost as the witness, as it did in 3:7. “After that he had said before” opens a sentence whose second half only arrives at verse 17; the Greek leaves the “then he says” unwritten, and readers must supply it.

Jeremiah 31:33 was quoted in full at 8:8–12. Here it is cut down to the one line, with “the house of Israel” reduced to “them”, and the order flipped: 8:10 had laws in the mind and written on the heart, and here they are put in the heart and written in the mind.

Of the whole long quotation in chapter 8, the writer keeps the inward law and this last promise and skips everything between. “Remember no more” answers verse 3. The sacrifices kept reminding; God undertakes to forget.

“Remission” is aphesis, release, the word for the cancelling of debts in the year of release. With this sentence the long argument about priesthood begun in chapter 7 is closed, and the next verse opens the letter’s great exhortation with a “therefore”.

“Brethren” is a direct address the letter has not used since 3:12. “Boldness” is parresia, originally a citizen’s right to speak freely in the assembly; here it is the right of entry to the room only the high priest once entered, and only yearly.

“New” is prosphatos, a word whose roots meant “freshly slain”, though by this period it simply meant recent. “Consecrated” is the verb of 9:18, “dedicated”: Christ inaugurated the way as Moses inaugurated the covenant. The Gospels record the temple veil torn from top to bottom at his death (Mark 15:38).

“High priest” here is literally “great priest”, hierea megan, the Greek form of the Hebrew kohen gadol. “Over the house of God” recalls 3:6, where Christ is a Son over his own house, “whose house are we”, and Moses was faithful only as a servant in it.

Sprinkled hearts and washed bodies take up the consecration of Aaron’s sons (Exodus 29:4, 21), and Ezekiel 36:25–26 joins the same two things: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you”, followed at once by a new heart. “Full assurance” is plerophoria, the word of 6:11, full measure, nothing lacking.

The Greek reads “the confession of our hope”, elpis, and the King James “faith” is the only place it translates that noun so. “Without wavering” is aklines, not leaning, a word that pictures something standing upright. “Profession” is the confession of 3:1 and 4:14.

“Consider” is katanoeo, the verb of 3:1, “consider the Apostle and High Priest”: the attention once fixed on Christ now turns to one another. “Provoke” is paroxysmos, the word used for the sharp contention between Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:39, here set to work for love.

“Assembling together” is episynagoge, a word containing “synagogue”, used elsewhere in the New Testament only of believers gathered to Christ at his coming (2 Thessalonians 2:1). “The day” needs no explanation to these readers; it is the day of the Lord. “As the manner of some is” shows the drift had already begun.

“Wilfully” stands first in the Greek sentence for weight, and the verb is present tense, “if we go on sinning”. The phrase recalls the law’s line between unwitting sins and sins done “presumptuously”, with a high hand (Numbers 15:30). “Knowledge” is epignosis, full knowledge, not a passing acquaintance.

“Fiery indignation” is literally “zeal of fire”, the jealousy of God pictured as flame, and the clause about fire devouring the adversaries echoes Isaiah 26:11. “Looking for” is ekdoche, the waiting of a person who expects something, the same idea as Christ “expecting” in verse 13, turned dark.

Deuteronomy 17:2–7 required two or three witnesses before an idolater was stoned, and Deuteronomy 13:8 forbade the eye to pity. “Despised” is atheteo, to set aside or annul, the root behind “put away” in 9:26 and “disannulling” in 7:18.

“Trodden under foot” is the contempt of Matthew 7:6, pearls trampled by swine. “Unholy” is koinos, common, the ritual word for what is not set apart. “Done despite” is enybrizo, from hubris, insolent outrage. “Spirit of grace” is Zechariah 12:10’s phrase, “the spirit of grace and of supplications”.

“Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense” matches Romans 12:19 word for word but neither the Hebrew nor the Greek of Deuteronomy 32:35 exactly, which suggests a form of the saying already in circulation. In Deuteronomy 32:36 “judge his people” leans toward vindicating them; Hebrews turns it toward judgment within the household.

David, offered a choice of punishments, chose the opposite: “let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14). For David the hands of God were refuge; for the one who tramples the Son they are the thing to fear.

“Illuminated” is the verb of 6:4, “once enlightened”, and within a century Justin Martyr was calling baptism “illumination”. “Great fight” is athlesis, an athletic contest, found only here in the New Testament. The appeal is to their own record, not to the heroes of chapter 11 yet.

“Gazingstock” translates theatrizo, to put on show in a theatre, exposed to a crowd’s stare. The verse has two halves, what they suffered and whom they stood beside. “Companions” is koinonoi, partners, the choice to share another’s disgrace by being seen with him.

The King James follows manuscripts reading “me in my bonds”, once taken as proof that Paul wrote the letter; the oldest copies read “the prisoners”. If the letter went to Rome (compare 13:24), the plunder may date to Claudius’ expulsion of Jews in AD 49, an inference. “Substance” is hyparxis, property.

“Confidence” is the parresia of verse 19, the boldness that opened the holiest, and here the danger is simply throwing it away. “Recompence of reward” is misthapodosia, payment of wages, a word only Hebrews uses in the New Testament (2:2, 10:35, 11:26).

“Patience” is hypomone, endurance, the staying power the letter will picture as a race in 12:1. The order matters: first the will of God done, then the promise received. The promise is singular, one thing waited for.

“Yet a little while” comes from Isaiah 26:20 in its Greek form, and the rest from Habakkuk 2:3. In Habakkuk the vision is what will come; Hebrews adds the article and makes it personal, “the coming one”, the title John the Baptist used in Matthew 11:3, “Art thou he that should come?”

Hebrews reverses the order of the two clauses in the Greek Habakkuk 2:4, so that the one who draws back is the just man himself, not the coming one. Paul quotes the first clause twice (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11). “Draw back” is hypostello, to shrink back or cower, a word used of pulling in a sail.

The noun “draw back”, hypostole, answers the verb of verse 38, and “saving” is peripoiesis, a gaining or keeping safe, used of God’s “purchased possession” in Ephesians 1:14. The chapter ends on “believe”, and chapter 11 opens on the same word, faith.