Heb\Resources

Collected Notes

The Writer's Approach. As Israelites we should not be amazed that God would keep his promise to us, but should believe and know tht in speaking to us by this son, God has spoken his final word to us. For consider this son...

The writer does not presume that his readers already hold a doctrinal position as to what it menas that God is now speaking to Israel by a son. His letter is not addressed to 21st century Gentile Christians. It is addressed to 1st century Jews or Hebrews. Indeed, the point he emphasizes is that it is to Israel that God previously spoke by servant messengers and it is to Israel that He now speaks by a son. Only when this is clearly understood will it become fully appparent what it means that God has spoken to us by a son.

The writer starts, as does the Psalm, with the question of the relationship of Adam to the angels ----- and ust do this because the son whom God is speaking through is human, a child of Adam.

This is how the writer begins. He says, God already spoke to our forebearers by servants. It prepared us for his now speaking to us by a son. As David says in Psalms 22:4-5ff. And David explains: in hearing the word of prophecy God was trusted by all, but when it came to the Spirit of the revelation itesef, the eyes were blinded to anyone having that Spirit.

Therefore, the writer here, though declaring that God has now spoken to Israel by a son, begins to confront the blindness of Israel to the message of the servants, the prophets. He begins by referring to the revelation held in Psalms 8. He reveals that the key to Pslams 8 is in Pslams 2. And, he says, the same key is found in 2nd Samuel 7:14 and 1st Chronicles 17:13 ---- see othe rNT for nts. here.

Deuteronomy 32:7

Remember the days of old; reflect upon the years of [other] generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will inform you.

Rashi's Comments:

Remember the days of old: what God did to past generations who provoked Him to anger.

reflect upon the years of [other] generations: [I.e.,] the generation of Enosh, whom [God] inundated with the waters of the ocean, and the generation of the Flood, whom [God] washed away. Another explanation is: [If] you have not set your attention to the past, then “reflect upon the years of generations,” i.e., to recognize the future, that He has the power to bestow good upon you and to give you as an inheritance the days of the Messiah and the world-to-come. — [Sifrei 32:6]

Ask your father: These are the prophets, who are called “fathers,” as Scripture states regarding [Elisha’s crying out to] Elijah, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel!” (II Kings 2:12).

your elders: These are the Sages. — [Sifrei 32:7]

and they will inform you: the events of the former times.

Hebrews (Chapter 1 - verses 1-3)

[See file in Attached Files]

¹ God, who at different times and in different ways spoke previously to our

Jewish ancestors by prophets ^2a has now in these end time days spoken to

us by a son.

The author is a Jew and the listeners or readers are Jews. All are Torah

educated, kosher Jews, like Kefa/Peter when he said, as recorded in Acts 10:14,

“I have never eaten anything that isn’t kosher or is unclean.”

When the writer says, “God has spoken to us,” it is understood between him and

those to whom he speaks that by “us” he means Israel, both before by prophets,

servants and now, in contrast, by a son.

While English translations may read, “God has spoken to us by his son, or by the

son, the original simply reads, “God has spoken to us”, (which, again, here

means to Israel), “by a son”. The reason for this is that Jews had been promised

since the beginning that a special, chosen Jew would be born, a special , chosen

son, a unique son of Abraham and Sarah, who would later be promised to be the

son of David. The writer is saying, that that promised son has now been born,

fulfilling that promise and all that it means, becoming God’s final word to Israel.

He is saying, ‘At first God sent servants to Israel who were selected from among

the people. In speaking of prophets the writer has in mind God’s servants from

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to Judah and Joseph, to Moses, to Samuel, to David

— to all the prophets. Now, finally, God has sent this son to Israel, the one

selected from among the people.

What does this mean that God has selected one Jew from among the people of

Israel to call a son, one sent to Israel from God? This is specifically a Jewish

question. It is the question that God himself cultivated in Israel from its very

beginning, by his servants the prophets. A person who has been raised from

infancy in the Hebrew Scriptures, who has been raised all of their life with the

promise of God embedded in Israel has this promise as the source of their

question, What does it mean to be a Jew? Reading the opening words of this

Letter to the Hebrews, it would be clear to them that the writer intended to

address this question by asking it in this form, What does it meant that the

Scriptures call the Messiah not so much a prophet as a son?

^2b whom he appointed heir of all things. By whom he also made the worlds.

Knowing that he would be understood by his Jewish audience in this way, he

goes on to immediately begin to answer this question, saying that what it means

that God makes the Messiah a promised son is that “he has appointed him heir of

all things.” In this he alludes to Adam, whom God first indicated would be the heir

of all his creation. Now, however, he says that it is this one who is a unique son

of Adam, unique because he is the promised son of Abraham and of David, the

King of Israel, who he has made the heir of all things.

So the Jewish question becomes, Why does God speak of this son from the loins

of Abraham, and of David, as if he were his own son, making him the heir of all

things? The writer to the Hebrews will now set about to fully discuss and answer

these Jewish questions. He has framed them from the outset in this way: The

Scriptures call the promised Messiah, the King of Israel, not so much a servant

as a son, making him heir of all things and his final word to Israel. The question

will be Why? What does this mean?

Before going on we should take note of the fact that the language that Yeshua

himself used when he told his parable of the Vineyard, otherwise known as the

parable of the Tenants. In that parable, found in Matthew 21, Mark 12 and Luke

20, Yeshua speaks about the Owner of a vineyard first sending servants and then

finally sending his son to collect his due from the produce of the vineyard.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews uses the same contrast between servants and

a son. He first mentions prophets as representative of servants. Later, as we will

see, he will mention angels as representative of the servants of God. No one

knows exactly who the writer of this letter was, but it is evident that he was a

close disciple of Yeshua’s a member of the apostolic circle. By listening carefully

to his apostolic discussion of this subject, of the meaning of the Scriptures in

calling the Messiah not only a servant but a unique son, we can also gain insight

into Yehoshua’s own mind, his own self-awareness, when he spoke about the

contrast between a servant and a son.

^3a Who, being the brightness of his glory…

We have seen that the writer of the Book in his opening verse has raised and

begun to respond to the Jewish question, ‘What does it mean that this man, the

Messiah, is called a son by God and not just a servant’? In the second verse of

this first chapter of Hebrews, having said to begin with, that God making him the

unique son means that he has made him the heir of all things, goes on

immediately to say why it is appropriate that God would make this son the heir of

all things. It is, he says, because it was by him that he “also made the worlds,”

and that “he is the brightness of his glory!”

It is a very deep mystery how that this man, this son of Adam, could be the one

by whom God made the worlds and who is the brightness of his glory. But this is

the mystery that the Holy Scriptures of Israel had been circling around from the

beginning, cultivating the question of this mystery in every Jewish child who

came into the world. It is articulated in many different Psalms and other

Scriptures, beginning with Psalms 8, which the writer will come to shortly. How

can it be that a man, even the King of Israel, should be God’s heir to all creation?

How can it be? It can be because it is by this man that God created the worlds?

But how can this be? It can be because this man is the brightness of God’s

glory! But how can this be, since, as it is written, Adam was created lower than

the angels? It is not Jewish obstinate unbelief that creates and articulates these

questions. It is the Holy Scriptures and their cultivation of the Jewish heart and

mind and community which forces the articulation of these questions. It is the

discussion of these questions, therefore, that open the discussion of this

apostolic letter to the Hebrews.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews does not begin by lessening the challenge to

the Jewish mind. He launches into his discussion right from the start by

increasing the challenge to the Jewish mind!

We need to be clear. No Jew, then or now, from the beginning to the last day,

approaches the study of the subject of the Messiah, the Mashiach, without

knowledge. Just as all Jews who are raised in the culture of the Torah and the

Scriptures have knowledge of God’s commandments, so they also have

knowledge of God’s promise to redeem Israel, to bring a son of David into the

world and to anoint him and make him a redeemer of Israel like Moses and a king

like David. They are therefore taught, in looking for their redeemer and king to

look for a man like Moses and a man like David. If he should be high and

exalted, like Adam, and have a unique relationship with god, it is because of the

unique relationship that God has with Israel, which he set apart as a kingdom for

himself. To the Jew, therefore, if the promised son of David would be elevated to

the highest position it would be because he would be anointed by God to rule

over his people Israel.

These were the foundational truths that had been taught to the Jews by the

Scriptures. The one who was now writing to them, himself a Jew, was not going

to argue with these foundational truths in which he himself was raised but rather

was going to show how they are to be built upon in understanding the revelation

of Mashiach. As Yehoshua himself said to the Samaritan woman, the Jews know

the One whom they believe in, for “salvation is of the Jews”.

Although the Jews who believed the Holy Scriptures of promise knew God, they

stood in need of knowing him fully and completely, with a knowledge that they

could never lose, with a knowledge that would bring forth a new creation. The

writer to these Hebrews, these Jews, was setting out to tell them that they did not

have to remain in ignorance about, or try to imagine, the high level to which the

Messiah was to be elevated, according to the Scriptures, and, indeed, now had

been elevated, and also the level to which Israel was t be elevated through him.

The answers were there before them, to be found in the Scriptures, through

which they had been taught as Jews from childhood. But there was a condition

that would have to be met. If they were to learn from their Scriptures how it is that

the son whom God anointed as the King of Israel is the brightness of his glory,

and how that upon the foundation of this man, and by him, God created the

worlds, and now had made him the heir of all things, then they would have to be

among those who personally knew him, Yehoshua, as the eternal High Priest of

God and as the Lamb of God, the sacrifice for Israel’s sins.

^3b …and the exact image of his person, and upholding all things by the word

of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the

right hand of the Majesty on high.

Other than by being an Israelite whose sins were forgiven, whether private sins

or national sins before God, through God’s covenant with Israel made new in

Messiah’s blood, they would not be able to find in the Holy Scriptures the

revelation that, as the King of Israel, the Messiah is: “The exact image of [God’s]

person.” Nor would they be able to understand how the Scriptures prophesied

that he: “upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had himself

purged our sins” would sit “down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.”

Page 1 of 5

POINTS

v.5 An angel is not naturally of eternal creation. The contrast between a son and an angel is not in the first place here a contrast between natures. It is a contrast between two types of messenger. It is about the message. Still, it is because they are not by nature of the Eternal World but of This World that angels are not called "son". This is one point being made here. But it is being made so that we should ask and learn how it is a son of Adam could be called "son" as a messenger of God. This is the point of the whole book.

Before we can learn how the contrast refers to nature we must learn how it refers to mission, that is, kind of messenger. As to mission, it is written, "this day you have become..." It is this, then, once established, that leads us back to the question of nature/source.

v.6 The Good News is preached to the angels also! (It is not a message here that we should not worship angels. The readers are beyond this.) If the Good News is t the angels, then there is a man ---Adam--- who is not only revealing redemption from Adam's sin, but redemption of Adam's created purpose --- which was to bring forth the Eternal World!

How can we know the glory of this? Because even the angels are saved in this salvation and worship him for this.

v.7 So --- we see that, concerning this son, this glory is in his identity as Adam, with Adam, and because of his work as Adam, for Adam, providing atonement for Israel. He, as the Eternal Head of Adam, is crowned with glory and honor --- and given a name which is above every name, for all things are redeemed through him as an Eternal Kingdom, "placed under his feet", to the glory of God, the Father! And so shall it be revealed. For this is the Kingdom of REvelation. It is being revealed, there being angels and some called out among humans to receive it now and some not yet.

Special point on Verse 6

Having set out that the promised firstborn is that firstborn of prophecy, of Abraham and of David, the writer clarifies his exposition of Psalms 8. [A discussion of Deuteronomy 32:43 in the various manuscripts must follow.]

Attached Files