By the negative form of the sentence he recognises the presence of an objection which he meets by anticipation. The divine glory of Christ might have seemed to interpose a barrier between Him and His people. But on the contrary, the perfectness of His sympathy is the ground for clinging to the faith which answers to our needs. He is as near to us as the human high- priests (nay, nearer than they) whose humanity inspired the Jewish worshippers with confidence.
For we have not a High-priest such as cannot be touched...but one that hath been tempted
...
mh; dunavmenon
...
pepeirasmevnon dev
] The power of Christ's sympathy is expressed negatively and positively. He is not such as to be unable to sympathise: nay rather He has been tried in all respects after our likeness, and therefore He must sympathise from His own experience.
mh; dunavmenon
]
such that he cannot
...For
mhv
with participles in this Epistle see 4:2; 7:3, 6; 9:9; 11:8, 13, 27; 12:27; (6:1; 10:25; 13:17 are different); for
ouj
11:1 (contrast 2 Cor. 4:18), 35. For other examples of participles with
ouj
see 2 Cor. 4:8 f.; Gal. 4:8, 27; Col. 2:19; 1 Pet. 1:8; 2:10 (not Eph. 5:4; Phil. 3:3); Winer, pp. 606 ff.
sunpaqh'sai
]
to be touched with the feeling of.
Vulg.
compati
... Heb. 10:34 (
sumpaqhv"
1 Pet. 3:8. Vulg.
compatiens
). The verb occurs in Symmachus Job 2:11, and in classical writers from Isocrates downwards. It expresses not simply the compassion of one who regards suffering from without, but the feeling of one who enters into the suffering and makes it his own. So Christ is
touched with the feeling of our weaknesses
, which are for us the occasions of sins, as knowing them, though not with the feeling of the sins themselves. Such weaknesses can be characterised by the circumstances of the Lord's life, natural weariness, disappointment, the feeling of desertion, shrinking from pain (contrast the sing.
ajsqevneia
Heb. 7:28 note). From temptations through such weaknesses the Hebrew Christians were suffering. Comp. 5:2; 7:28; 11:34. Clement also combines the thought of Christ's High-priesthood with that of His help to man's weakness:
ad Cor.
i.c. 36
au{th hJ oJdov", ajgaphtoiv, ejn h|/ eu{romen to; swthvrion hJmw'n, jIhsou'n Cristovn, to;n ajrciereva tw'n prosforw'n hJmw'n, to;n prostavthn kai; bohqo;n th'" ajsqeneiva" hJmw'n
. Compare Orig.
in Matt.
13.2
jIhsou'" gou'n fhsivn Dia; tou;" ajsqenou'nta" hjsqevnoun kai; dia; tou;" peinw'nta" ejpeivnwn kai; dia; tou;" diyw'nta" ejdivywn
, and Resch
Agrapha
p. 244.
pepeirasmevnon dev
...
c. aJmartiva"
] O. L.
expertum in omnibus (omnia) secundum similitudinem sine peccato.
Vulg.
tentatum autem per omnia pro similitudine absque peccato.
Syr. Pesh.
tempted in everything as we
(
are
),
sin excepted.
The words are capable of two distinct interpretations. They may (1) simply describe the issue of the Lord's temptation, so far as He endured all without the least stain of sin (Heb. 7:26). Or they may (2) describe a limitation of His temptation. Man's temptations come in many cases from previous sin. Such temptations had necessarily no place in Christ. He was tempted as we are, sharing our nature, yet with this exception, that there was no sin in Him to become the spring of trial. The first of these thoughts is not excluded from the expression, which is most comprehensive in form, but the latter appears to be the dominant idea. In this sense there is a reference to the phrase in the Chalcedonic definition: jIhsou'n Cristovn ... ejkdidavskomen ... kata; pavnta o{moion