Some considerations, in addition to what are noticed by Owen, have been deemed of force in support of a Greek original.
106 CITATIONS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT [EXERC. V.
Greek words occur which in Hebrew could be expressed only by a periphrasis :— ToAvuspas xa) roavrpora:, ch. i. 1; aratyarua, ch. 1.3; ebreplorares, ch. xii. 1; Er pio- wabsiv, Ch. V.2; rdvra srtratas bd roy rodoy airov, ch. ii. 8. “he verb in this clause,”’ to use the argument of Hug, which is thus well put by Dr Davidson, “is repeated in the context, Od yap ayytros Drirake chy oinovuivay, Ch. il. 53 ty yap ry drordas airy Te ToyTe, VEY ADALEY AUTH BYUTOTAK TOY, «0. » OLD LEY UUTH TH TUT UTOTETAY EVE, ch.ii.8. But in Hebrew, the verb drordecw is expressed by a periphrasis, 29535 nam Aes, to place under the feet, and if the Epistle was written in Hebrew, the expressions derived from jroréccw could not have been employed in that language, in consequence of the often repeated circumlocution.”
Moreover, since the time of Owen, there is greater evidence of the probability that an apostle writing to the Christians in Palestine would write in Greek. The opinion of De Rossi that Syro-Chaldaic was almost exclusively used in that country has yielded before subsequent inquiries. Hug shows that our Lord must haye spoken Greek in various districts, Mark vii. 24, and with the Hellenists mentioned John vii. 35, xii. 20; that the language of the Roman magistracy was probably Greek; that considerable cities in Palestine were inhabited by Greeks; that the Roman garrisons spoke Greek ; that the foreign Jews at the feast of the passover, amounting to hundreds of thousands, used the same language; that the Jews who spoke Greek had their own synagogue in Jerusalem, Acts vi. 9, ix. 29; and that a great number of the Christian Jews spoke it freely, Acts vi. 1,2. Tholuck adds that James, who had never left Palestine, to judge from his Epistle, wrote Greek with elegance ; and that the Septuagint must have been in common use among the Jews of Palestine, when Matthew and John generally follow it. The best evidence on this point is a passage sometimes appealed to in order to obtain an opposite inference, Acts xxi. 40. Though Paul spoke in the Hebrew tongue, the multitude expected him to address them in Greek. Order and attention were secured when the sounds of their native Janguage fell upon their ear. The fact shows, however, that they were able and prepared to understand him in Greek. In the Epistle to the Hebrews Paul was writing to Christians, and under no necessity to conciliate attention by such an expedient. It was natural, therefore, that he should write in the language in which he had been educated at Tarsus, and in which he wrote all his other epistles.
EXERCITATION V.
TESTIMONIES CITED BY THE APOSTLE OUT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
1. Testimonies cited by the apostle out of the Old Testament. 2-12. Compared with the original and translations. 13-23. Whence the agreement of some of them with that of the LXX.
1. THERE is not any thing in this Epistle that is attended with more difficulty than the citation of the testimonies out of the Old Testament that are made use of in it. Hence some, from their wn- suitableness, as they have supposed, unto the author's purpose, have made bold to call in question, if not to reject, the authority of the whole. But for what concerns the matter of them, and the wisdom of the apostle in their application, it must be treated of in the respec- tive places where they occur; when we shall manifest how vain and causeless are the exceptions which have been Jaid against them, and how singularly they are suited to the proof of those doctrines and assertions in the confirmation whereof they are produced. But the words also wherein they are expressed, varying frequently from the original, yield some difficulty in their consideration. And this con-
SECT. 1, 2.] IN THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 107
cernment of the apostle’s citations, to prevent a further trouble in the exposition itself of the several places, may be previously considered. Not that we shall here explain and vindicate them from the excep- tions mentioned, which must of necessity be done afterwards, as occa- sion offers itself; but we shall only discover in general what respect the apostle’s expressions have unto the original and the old transla- tions thereof, and remove some false inferences that have been made on the consideration of them. To this end I shall briefly pass through them all, and compare them with the places whence they are taken.
2. CHAP. I. ver. 5. Yiég wou ef od, tye) onuepov yeyévnad os-—“ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”? From Ps. ii. 7. The words exactly answer the original, with the supply of only the verb substantive, whereof in the Hebrew there is almost a perpetual ellipsis, SPS °22, And the same are the words in the translation of the LXX. In the same verse, Ey# toowu: air@ sic rurépu, nad airs toras wor cig vidv— “I will be unto him a father, and he shall be unto me a son.” From 1 Chron. xxii 10. The LXX. otherwise, as to the order of the words, Odrog Zorus wor cig vidv, diya aire sig warépa, which also is the order of the sentences in the original, the apostle using his own liberty, and varying from them both; so that this guotatzon is not directly from that translation.