Tas weyerwotyyc. This word is seldom used in other authors: twice in this epistle, here, and chap. viii. 1; once by Jude, verse 25; and nowhere else in the New Testament; by the LXX. not at all. The apostle evidently expresseth by it 722 or 734; not as they are used appellatively for glory, power, or majesty, bub as they are names and denote the essential glory of God, “The glorious God.” So that “eyerwcvyn is God himself; not absolutely considered, but with reference unto the revelation of his glory and majesty in heaven, God on his throne; as our apostle declareth, chap. viii. 1.
"Ey tnaois,—* in the highest.” Meyerwctyn év dWurois is viorog; that is, 772, “the Highest,” God himself, See Luke i. 36.1
1 Various READINGS.—Owen, though perhaps it is a misprint, reads edrod after drosrécewc, both in the text of the verse and in the subsequent explanation of the words; the tewtus receptus has atrod. We reads duvamews adrod in agreement with the teatus receptus ; Tischendorf here gives edrod. The words ds’ favrod are omit- ted by Lachmann and Tischendorf ; who, together with Hahn, omit ya» also,
Exposition.— Aravy. 7. 0. “ Ac&« plainly means the same as the Hebrew “432, namely, splendour, brightness. Comp. Luke ii. 9,” ete.—Stuart. “The idea that God in the A¢yoc finds and reflects himself as in his counterpart is expressed by Paul when, 2 Cor. iv. 4, Col. i. 15, he calls the Logos eixdy rod god, Adee de- notes the splendour which surrounds God, Lukeii. 9.”—Tholuck. “ Nouns end- ing in a denote not the act as continuing, but the result of the act as finished. ’ Avady. denotes not the brightness received from another body, and thrown back as a reflection or a mirrored image, not the light continually proceeding from a shining body, as a light streaming out and losing itself in space; but a light radiated from another light, in as far as it is viewed as now become an independent light. It is
VER. 8. ] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 87
Ver. 8.—Who being the brightness of glory, and the ex- press image of his person, and upholding [or, disposing of | all things by the word of his power, having by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ;
The apostle proceeds in his description of the person in whom God
more than a mere ray, more than a mere image,—a sun produced from the original light.” Adg., “the eternal essential glory of the Father.” According to the ex- planation which refers it to the Shechinah, “the Son would be degraded beneath the Old Testament imperfect typical form of the divine manifestation; seeing that he would be represented as an dvevy. of the latter, which was not even itself an awovy., but a mere reflection,” —Hbrard.
Xapax. 7. ¥. oc. Lx. plainly retains the more ancient meaning of substance or essence. . . . Ohrist is “the development of that substance to our view, the delineation of it. . . . Ancient Greek annotators, and after them most of the modern ones, have applied these words to the divine nature of Christ. In the opinion that the verse now under consideration relates to the incarnate Messiah, I find that Scott and Beza concur.”—Stuart. “‘Yx. means being, essence. Many expositors, offended at the Son being called only the copy of the Being, took v7. in the sense adopted, by the church, of Person.”—Tholuck. Aog. signifies the essence of the Father with reference to the glory in which he represents himself before the eyes of the suppliant creature; v7., this essence as essence, and with- out regard to its outward manifestation. Xwep. is here used “in the sense of a form cut out or engraven.” The 002. represents itself in a form composed of rays, a sun; the vx. stamps itself out in a manifest figure. These appositions belong more properly to the Logos qua eternally pre-existent.—Lbrard.
bép. corresponds to the Hebrew 8¥3, Isa. xlvi. 3, xvi. 9, cwro, conservo, to sus+ tain, to preserve, as a mother does her child, T@ pau. 7,0. o., by his own power- ful word, the word of the Son, not the word of God, as airov would mean.— Stuart, According to Bleek, eirod corresponds to gwevrod of the first person, avrov to guov. If the former, the emphasis being on “ self,” the phrase would be, “By the word of his own power.” “There is no occasion for this emphasis here. Avrod applies in a reflexive sense to the Son, and not to the Father.”— Ebrard.
Ked., purification; in Hellenistic Greek expiation, ¢.g., Exod. xxix. 36,xxx. 10: not purification by moral means, because it isjoined with 0:’ ¢evrov, which is explain- ed in ch. ii. 14 by da rod Saverov; inch. ix. 12 by dic rod ld/ov aiaros; andin ch, ix. 26 by dia rj Suolas avrov.— Stuart. “The purification in the Biblical sense con- sists in the atonement, the gracious covering ("22 Lev. xvi. 30) of guilt.” —Zbrard,
"Exéé. corresponds to the Hebrew 2%; which applied to God and to kings, does not mean simply to sit, but to sit enthroned, Ps. ii. 4.—Stuart. “As man, and continuing to be man, he was exalted to a participation in the divine government of the world.” —Zbrard.
TRANSLATIONS.— Axvavy, x. 7. A. the radiance of his glory and the exact image of his substance.— Stuart. An emanation of his glory and an express image of his substance,—Conybeare and Howson. The radiance of his glory and the im- press of his substance.—Craik. The brightness of his glory and the exact im- pression of his manner of existence.—Pye Smith. The refulgence of his glory and the impression of his essence.—De Wette, The ray of his glory and the stamp of his substance. —T'urner.