- a? 'σάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι Θεοῦ .
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7. “Καὶ πρὸς μὲν τοὺς κε Ps. civ. 4.
ἀγγέλους λέγει, ““Ὃ ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ πνεύματα, καὶ
τοὺς λειτουργοὺς αὐτοῦ πυρὸς φλόγα”. ὃ. " πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱὸν, ““Ὃ ἃ Ps. xlv.6.
are supposed by Delitzsch to have been added in the liturgical use of Moses’ song. The part of the song to which they are attached represents the coming of God to judgment, a fact which further favours the view that it is the second Advent our author has in view.
Ver. 7. καὶ πρὸς μὲν τοὺς ἀγγέλους λέγει. . . . The πρὸς μὲν of this verse is balanced by πρὸς δὲ in ver. 8; andin both πρός is to ibe rendered ‘‘ with reference to,” or “ of” as in Luke xx. 19; Rom. x. 21; Xen., Mem., iv. 2-15. Cf. Winer, Ῥ. 505: and our own expression “ speak to such and such a point”. 6 ποιῶν “κτλ. cited from Ps. civ. 4, Liinemann and others hold that the Hebrew is wrongly rendered and means ‘‘who maketh winds his messengers” not ** who maketh His angels winds”. Calvin, too, finds no reference to angels in the words. He believes that in this Hymn of Creation the Psalmist, to illustrate how God is in all; nature, says ‘who maketh the winds his messengers,’’i.e., uses for his purposes the apparently wildest of natural forces, and “flaming fire his ministers,” the most rapid, resistless and devouring of agents controlled by the Divine hand. Cf. Shakespeare, “ thought-executing fires’. The writer accepts the LXX translation and it serves his purpose of exhibiting that the characteristic function of angels is service, and that their form and appearance depend upon the will of ‘God. This was thecurrent Jewish view. Many. of the sayings quoted by Schoett- gen and Weber suggest that with some of the Rabbis the belief in angels was little more than a way of expressing their faith in a spiritual, personal power behind the forces of nature. ‘* When they are sent on a mission to earth, they are wind: when they stand before God they are fire.” The angel said to Manoah, ΕΙ know not after what image I am made, for God changes us every hour ; why, then, dost thou ask after my name ἢ Sometimes He makes us fire, at others wind; sometimes men, at other times angels.” Sometimes they appear to have no individual existence at all, but are merely the light-radiance or halo of God’s glory. ‘No choir of angels sings God’s praises twice, for each day God creates new hosts which sing His praises cand then vanish into the stream of fire
from under the throne of His glory whence they came.” Cf. also the Book of Jubilees, ii. 2. ‘‘On the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before Him—the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctification, and the angels of the spirit of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail, and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring, and of autumn and of summer, and of all the spirits of His creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, the abysses and the darkness, eventide and the light, dawn and day which He hath prepared in the knowledge of His heart.’”’ One thing all these citations serve to bring out is that the angels were merely servants; like the physical forces of nature they were dependent and perish- able. In contrast to these qualities are those ascribed to the Son.
Ver.8. πρὸς δὲ τὸν vidv..., the quotation being from Ps. xlv. in which the King in God’s kingdom is described ideally. The pointsin the quotation which make it relevant to the writer’s purpose are the ascription of dominion and perpetuity to the Son. The emphatic words, there- fore, are θρόνος, eis τὸν αἰῶνα, ῥάβδος, and παρὰ τοὺς μετόχους σου. [ἴ{ does not matter, therefore, whether we translate ΤΗΥ throne is God”’ or ‘‘ Thy throne, O God,” for the point here to be affirmed is not that the Messiah is Divine, but that He has a throne and everlasting do- minion. Westcott adopts the rendering ‘*God is thy throne,’’ and compares Ps. σαι ο ρα σα: 4 ΕΒ: xc. το xl. το» Deut. xxx. 27. He thinks it scarcely possible that ‘‘God”’ can be addressed to the King. Vaughan, on the other hand, says: “ Evidently a vocative. God is thy throne might possibly have been said (Ps. xlvi. 1): thy throne is God seems an unnatural phrase. And even in its first (human) application the vocative would cause no difficulty (Ps. Ixxxii.6; John x. 34, 35). Weiss strongly advocates this construction, and speaks of the other as quite given up. ets τὸν αἰῶνα τ. αἰῶνος, “to the age of the age,” “for