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ο Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο δια- ο xii. 24: Acts xili, 39; Rom. ili. 25, et Ve Oink Tim. ii. 5; 1 Peter iii. 18. P Sua- p Gal. iii. 15. The words ot κεκλημένοι, therefore, include not only the Hebrews addressed but all who had lived under the O.T. dispensation. ἀπολύτρωσιν... παραβάσεων, the genitive is of the object from which redemption is achieved, and ἐπὶ is scarcely ‘‘against” as in Vaughan, but rather ‘‘in the time of,” as in ix. 26, Phil. i. 3.
Ver. 16. ὅπον yap διαθήκη... The meaning of these words is doubtful. In the LXX διαθήκη occurs about 280 times and in all but four instances trans-
a A ὅπου yap δια-
17.
lates ΓΛ, covenant. In classical and
Hellenistic Greek, however, it is the common word for ‘‘ will” or “ testament” (see especially The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Grenfell and Hunt, Part I., 105, etc., where the normal meaning of the word appears also from the use of ἀδιάθετος for “intestate” and μεταδιατίθεσθαι for “to alter a will”). Accordingly it has been supposed by several interpreters that the writer, taking advantage of the double meaning of διαθήκη; at this point introduces an argument which applies to it in the sense of “‘ will”’ or “‘ testament,”’ but not in the sense of ‘‘ covenant’’; as if he said, “‘where a testamentary dis- position of property is made, this comes into force only on the decease of the testator”. θάνατον ἀνάγκη φέρ- εσθαι τοῦ διαθεμένου “it is necessary that the death of him who made the disposition be adduced”. On the very common omission of the copula in the third singular indicative see Butt- mann, p. 136. φέρεσθαι, “‘necesse est afferri testimonia de morte testatoris”’ (Wetstein). For passages establishing its use as a term of the courts for the production of evidence, etc., see Field in loc. and especially Appian, De Bell. Civil. ii. 143, διαθῆκαι δὲ τοῦ Καίσαρος ὥφθη- σαν φερόμεναι. (See also Elsner in Joc.) φέρειν is apparently even used for ‘to register” in the Oxy. Papyri, Part II., 244. The reason of this necessity is given in νετ. 17. διαθήκη γὰρ ἐπὶ νεκροῖς βεβαία. .. ‘for a testament is of force with reference to dead people, since itis never of any force when the testator is alive”. On this interpretation the
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