kai; pavlin jIdou; ejgwv ...] Isaiah with his children were signs to the unbelieving people. In them was seen the pledge of the fulfilment of God's purposes. Thus, the prophet was a sign of Christ. What he indicated Christ completely fulfilled; for under this aspect Christ is the father no less than the brother of His people. The words are not referred directly to Christ by a misunderstanding of the LXX.
The emphatic ejgwv in both cases is to be noticed. Comp. Heb. 1:5; 5:5; 10:30; 12:26.
kai; pavlin
] Contiguous quotations from Deut. 32:35 f. are separated by
kai; pavlin
in Heb. 10:30.
a{ moi e[dwken
]
which God gave me
in the crisis of national suffering as a pledge of hope. The prophet looks back on the moment when light broke through the darkness.
2:14, 15. The object of the Incarnation (the completed fellowship of the Son with the sons). The full connexion of the Son and the sons was realised in the Incarnation with a twofold object:
(1) To overcome the prince of death (2:14), and
(2) To establish man's freedom, destroyed by the fear of death (2:15).
That which has been shewn before to be fitting (2:10-13) is now revealed in its inner relation to man's redemption. Christ assumed mortality that He might by dying conquer the prince of death and set man free from his tyranny.
Compare Athanas.
de decr. Syn. Nic.
§ 14;
c. Apollin.
2.8; Greg. Nyss.
c. Eunom.
viii. p. 797 Migne. In this paragraph man is regarded in his nature, while in the next (2:16-
18) he is regarded in his life.
14 Since therefore the children are sharers in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might (may) bring to nought him that had (hath) the power of death, that is the devil ,
15 and might (may) deliver all them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
2:14. ejpei; ou\n ...] Since therefore ...Christ connects Himself with the children whom God had given Him. These children were men. To complete His fellowship with them therefore it was necessary that He should assume their nature under its present conditions ( ai|ma kai; savrx ).
For
ejpeiv
see Heb. 5:11 note.
ta; paidiva
] The phrase is taken up from the quotation just made. Isaiah and his children foreshadowed Christ and His children.
kekoinwvnhken
......
metevscen
......]
are sharers in...He partook of
... Vulg.
communicaverunt (pueri)...participavit
... O. L.
participes sunt...particeps factus.
The Syr. makes no difference between the words which describe the participation in humanity on the part of men and of the Son of man. Yet they present different ideas.
Kekoinwvnhke
marks the common nature ever shared among men as long as the race lasts:
metevscen
expresses the unique fact of the Incarnation as a voluntary acceptance of humanity. And under the aspect of humiliation and transitoriness (
ai|ma kai; savrx
) this was past (
metevscen
).
For a similar contrast of tenses see 1 Cor. 15:4; 1 John 1:1; Col. 1:16; John 20:23, 29; and for the difference between koinwnei'n and metevcein see 1