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solemn covenant was made upon the basis of a sacrifice. The death of the victim was supposed to give validity to it. The idea which is involved in the symbolic act is intelligible and important. The unchangeableness of a covenant is seen in the fact that he who has made it has deprived himself of all further power of movement in this respect: while the ratification by death is still incomplete, while the victim, the representative of him who makes it, still lives, that is, while he who makes it still possesses the full power of action and freedom to change, the covenant is not of force.

The sense here given to the death of the victim appears more natural than to suppose that it indicates the penalty for the violation of the covenant. For the sense of ejpiv ( ejpi; nekroi'" ), as giving the accompanying conditions, see Heb. 9:10 note, and compare also Lev. 21:5 (LXX.); Eurip. Ion , 228 f.

The subjective negative may be explained on the principle that the reason alleged is regarded as a thought (John 3:18) and not as a fact. The clause may be taken interrogatively ( for is it ever of force...? John 7:26); so OEcumenius: katj ejrwvthsin ajnavgnwqi . Perhaps this best suits the rhetorical form of the passage.

If the reading mh; tovte is adopted, and it has high claims on consideration, the rendering will necessarily be: since hath it then force when...?

Heb. 9:18-22. The great, inaugurating, sacrifice of the Old Covenant embodied the same thought that death marks the immutability of the terms laid down (Exod. 24); and yet more: this death also was employed to convey the thought of atonement, of life surrendered that it may be given back. The blood was sprinkled on the altar and on the people. Thus the law which was enacted for the yearly access of the High-priest to the Divine Presence (Heb. 9:7 ouj cwri;" ai{mato" ) was observed when the people entered into the Divine Covenant.

In relation to the use which is made of this thought, it is important to observe, that it is not said of the first covenant that it was inaugurated ‘not without death’ but ‘not without blood.’ By the use of the words ‘not without blood’ the writer of the Epistle suggests the two ideas of atonement and quickening by the impartment of a new life which have been already connected with Christ's work (vv. 14, 15).

9:18. o{qen ... ejnkekaivnistai ] (Vulg. dedicatum est ) whence , since every absolute, inviolable, covenant is based upon a death, and, further, since every covenant of God with man requires complete self-surrender on the part of man, not even hath the first covenant , though it failed in its issue, been inaugurated without blood.

The word ejgkainivzw occurs again in the N. T. in Heb. 10:20, note. It is

used several times in the LXX. to render vd"j; , H2542 ( to renew, e.g. 1 Sam.

11:14) and Ën"j; , H2852 ( to dedicate, e.g. 1 Kings 8:63). Compare 1 Macc.

4:36, 54, 57; and ta; ejnkaivnia John 10:22.

Heb. 9:19. lalhqeivsh" gavr ...] Vulg. lecto enim omni mandato legis ....
The ceremonies connected with the establishment of the Law-Covenant emphasise the ideas already seen to be involved in ‘blood’;
for when every commandment had been spoken according to the Law by Moses...taking the blood ....The terms of the divine covenant were declared fully to the people


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