adjecto 1 Νὰ pater noster (Schoettgen).
When Paul speaks out of his Jewish con- sciousness, he shares this pride (‘‘ whose are the fathers,’’ ix. 5); when he speaks as a Christian, to whom the Church is ‘the Israel of God” (Gal. vi. 16), and who can even say ‘we are the circum- | cision,” he claims all the Jews boasted of as in reality the property of believers: it is Christians, and not Jews by birth, who can truly say ‘‘ We have Abraham to our father”. The earliest indication (an indirect one) of the Jewish pride in Abraham js perhaps seen in Is. lxiii. 16. That Abraham is the father of us all agrees with Scripture: Gen. xvii. 5 LXX. The ὅτι belongs to the quotation. If there is any parenthesis, it should only
62ο
a 3 ιό μὴ ὄντα ὡς ὄντα. 18. “Os παρ ἐλπίδα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι ἐπίστευσεν, cis
τὸ γενέσθαι αὐτὸν πατέρα πολλῶν ἐθνῶν, κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον, “ Οὕτως
» a , » ‘ ‘ > , ~ / 1 Here only εσται TO σπέρµα σου * 19. και µη ἀσθενήσας τη πιστει,
in Paul.
m Heb. xi. 12.
n Eph. vi. 10; 2 Tim. ii. 1; Heb. Xi. 34.
1 ov κατενοησεν; 59ο DFKLP, Syr. and lat. All the critical edd. omit ov, though both readings are widely and early attested ;
etc.
lod) κατε-
νόησε τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα ἤδη ™ νενεκρωµένον, ἑκατονταέτης που ὑπάρχων, καὶ τὴν νέκρωσιν τῆς μήτρας Σάῤῥας 20. εἰς δὲ τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐ διεκρίθη τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ, GAN " ἐνεδυναμώθη τῇ πίστει, Sods δόξαν τῷ Θεῷ, 21. καὶ πληροφορηθεὶς ὅτι ὃ ἐπήγγελται, δυνατός
Om. ου SABC, best MSS. of vulg.,
though the sense is quite good either way, the authorities for the omission are un-
doubtedly stronger. Weiss omits.
be from καθὼς to σέ. As Abraham has this character in Scripture, so he has it before God: the two things are one and the same ; it is his true, historical, Divine standing, that he is father of all believers. The attraction in κατέναντι οὗ ἐπίσ- τευσεν θεοῦ is most simply resolved into κ. θεοῦ ᾧ ἐπίστευσε: but see Winer, p. 204, 206. In characterising the God whom Abraham believed, the Apostle brings out further the correspondence between the patriarch’s faith and that of Christians. He is “ ἀοά who makes the dead alive and calls things that are not as though they were”. Such areference to Isaac as we find in Heb. xi. 19 (λογισά- µενος ὅτι καὶ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἐγείρειν δυνατὸς 6 θεός) is not suggested here (yet see ver. 24), and hence it is better to take ἵωοπ. τοὺς νεκροὺς of restoring vitality to Abraham, whose body was as good as dead. In the application, the things that are not are the unborn multitudes of Abraham’s spiritual children. God speaks of them (hardly, issues his sum- mons to them) as if they had a being. Faith in a God who is thus conceived comes nearer than anything else in Paul to the definition given in Heb xi. 1. On τὰ μὴ ὄντα, see Winer, p. 608.
Ver. 18 ff. Abraham’s faith described. It was both contrary to hope (as far as nature could give hope), and rested on hope (that God could do what nature could not). εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι αὐτὸν πατέρα κ.τιλ. (cf. ver. τ1) is most properly taken to express the Divine purpose—that he might become father, etc. (see Moulton’s note in Winer, p. 414); not result—so that he became. κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον, Οὕτως κ.τ.λ., Gen. xv. 5: the passage is familiar, and the οὕτως is supposed to suggest its own interpretation—the stars of the heaven.
ηδη SWACDKLP; om. BF 47, etc.
W. and H. bracket.
μὴ ἀσθενήσας .. « κατενόησεν, with- out becoming weak in faith, he con- sidered his own body. ‘“ The participle ἀσθενήσας, though preceding the verb, is most naturally interpreted as referring to a (conceived) result of the action de- noted by κατενόησεν.’᾽ Burton, Moods and Tenses, § 145. This remark holds good only with the reading κατενόησεν : if we read οὐ κατ. the meaning is, He considered not his body quippe qui non esset imbecillis (Winer, p. 610). ἑἕκατον- ταετής Tov (circiter) ὑπάρχων: his great age was the primary and fundamental fact in the situation: this seems to be the suggestion of ὑπάρχων as distinct from ὤν. In ver. 20 (eis δὲ τὴν ἔπαγγε- λίαν) the δὲ contrasts with becoming weak, as he considered his body, the actual conduct of Abraham. ‘ He did not waver in relation to the promise, in unbelief; on the contrary, he was strengthened in faith.” On διεκρίθη, cf. Mt. xxi. 21, Jas. i.6, Rom. xiv. 23. TY ἀπιστίᾳ: instrum. dative; because of unbelief. It is simplest to take τῇ πίστει as dative of respect, though Heb. xi. ΙΙ can be adduced by those who would render: ‘‘ he became strong, re- covered his bodily vigour, by faith”’. The participles in ver. 21 are loosely attached to the principal verbs, and are really equivalent to co-ordinate clauses with καί. In his whole conduct on this occasion Abraham glorified God, and de- monstrated his own assurance of His power. See Burton, § 145. δοὺς δόξαν τῷ θεῷ: for this Hebraism see Josh. vii. το, Jer. xiii. 16, John ix. 24, Acts xii. 23. For πληροφορηθείς xiv. 5, Col. iv. 12.