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into that rest, for the word of God’s pro- mise is searching; and, by offering us the best things in fellowship with God, it discloses our real disposition and affini- ties.
The passage falls into two parts, the former (iii. 1-6) exhibiting the trust- worthiness of Christ, the latter (iii. 7-iv. 13) emphasising the unbelief and doom of the wilderness generation.
Ver. 1. “ὌΟθεν, “ wherefore,” ifthrough Jesus God has spoken His final and 5αν- ing word (i. 1), thus becoming the Apostle of God, and if the high priest I speak of is so sympathetic and faithful that for the sake of cleansing the people He became man and suffered, then “ consider, etc.”’. The πιστός of ver. 17 strikes the keynote of this paragraph. Here for the first time the writer designates his readers, and he does so in a form peculiar to him- self (the reading in 1 Thess. v. 27 being doubtful) ἀδελφοὶ ἅγιοι, “ Christian brethren,” literally ‘‘ brethren conse- crated,” separated from the world and dedicated to God. Bleek quotes from Primasius : ‘‘ Fratres eos vocat tam carne quam spiritu qui ex eodem genere erant”’. But there is no reason to assign to ἀδελφοὶ any other meaning than its usual N.T. sense of “" fellow-Christians,”’ cf. Matt. xxiii. 8. But there is further significance in the additional κλήσεως ἐπουρανίου μέτοχοι, “partakers of a heavenly calling” (cf. ot κεκλημένοι τῆς αἰωνίου κληρονομίας, ix. 15) sug- gested by the latent comparison in the writer’s mind between the Israelites called to earthly advantages, a land, etc., and his readers whose hopes were fixed on things above. ‘In the word ‘ heavenly’ there is struck for the first time, in words at least, an antithesis of great importance in the Epistle, that of this world and heaven, in other words, that of the merely mate- rial and transient, and the ideal and abiding. The things of the world are material, unreal, transient: those of heaven are ideal, true, eternal. Heaven is the world of realities, of things them- selves (ix. 23) of which the things here are but ‘copies’”’ (Davidson). κατα- νοήσατε, “consider,” ‘bring your mind to bear upon,” ‘‘ observe so as to see the significance,” as in Luke xii. 24, κατανοήσατε τοὺς κόρακας, though it is sometimes, as in Acts xi. 6, xxvii. 39, used in its classical sense ‘‘ perceive’’. A “confession ”’ does not always involve that its significance is seen. Consider thentév...’Ilnaovdvy the Apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus,” the
στο
b ver. 5; ν Num. xii. ης Ἀν. ἌΝ 7. ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ.
ς Zach. vi. 5