Hebrews 1:4

τοσούτῳ. The familiar classical ὅσῳ … τοσούτῳ (involving the comparison and contrast which runs throughout this Epistle, Hebrews 3:3; Hebrews 7:20; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:27; Hebrews 10:25) is not found once in St Paul.

κρείττων. This word, common as it is, is only thrice used by St Paul (and then somewhat differently), but occurs 13 times in this Epistle alone (Hebrews 6:9; Hebrews 7:7; Hebrews 7:19; Hebrews 7:22; Hebrews 8:6; Hebrews 9:23; Hebrews 10:34; Hebrews 11:16; Hebrews 11:35; Hebrews 11:40; Hebrews 12:24).

γενόμενος, “becoming,” or “proving himself to be.” The allusion is to the Redemptive Kingdom of Christ, and the word merely qualifies the “better name.” Christ, regarded as the Agent or Minister of the scheme of Redemption, became mediatorially superior to the Angel-ministrants of the Old Dispensation, as He always was superior to them in dignity and essence.

τοσούτῳ κρείττων τῶν�. The writer’s object in entering upon the proof of this fact is not to check the tendency of incipient Gnostics to worship Angels. Of this there is no trace here, though St Paul in his letter to the Colossians raised a warning voice against it (Colossians 2:18 ἐν θρησκείᾳ τῶν�). Here the object is to shew that the common Jewish boast that “they had received the law” εἰς διαταγὰς� (Acts 7:53) involved no disparagement to the Gospel which had been ministered by One who was “far above (ὑπεράνω) all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:21). Many Jews held, with Philo, that the Decalogue alone had been uttered by God, and that all the rest of the Law had been spoken by Angels. The extreme development of Jewish Angelology at this period may be seen in the Book of Enoch. They are there called “the stars,” “the white ones,” “the sleepless ones.” St Clement of Rome found it necessary to reproduce this argument in writing to the Corinthians, and the 4th Book of Esdras illustrates the tendency of mind which it was desirable to counteract.

κεκληρονόμηκεν, “hath inherited.” Comp. Luke 1:32; Luke 1:35. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9). He does not here speak of the Eternal Generation. Christ inherits His most excellent name, not as the Eternal Son, but as the God-Man. Possibly too the writer uses the word “inherited” with tacit reference to the prophetic promises.

διαφορώτερον παρʼ αὐτοὺς ὄνομα. Διάφορος in the sense of “excellent” is only found in later Greek. The name here intended is not the name of “the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18), which is in its fulness “a name which no one knoweth save Himself” (Revelation 19:12). The “name” in Scripture often indeed implies the inmost essence of a thing. If, then, with some commentators we suppose the allusion to be to this Eternal and Essential name of Christ we must understand the word “inheritance” as merely phenomenal, the manifestation to our race of a prae-existent fact. In that view the glory indicated by the name belonged essentially to Christ, and His work on earth only manifested the name by which it was known. This is perhaps better than to follow St Chrysostom in explaining “inherited” to mean “always possessed as His own.” Comp. Luke 1:32, “He shall be called the Son of the Highest.”

διαφορώτερον παρά. Comp. 3 Esdr. 4:35 ἡ� … ἰσχυροτέρα παρὰ πάντα. This construction (παρὰ after a comparative) is not found once in St Paul’s Epistles, but several times in this Epistle (Hebrews 1:4; Hebrews 2:9; Hebrews 3:3; Hebrews 9:23; Hebrews 11:4; Hebrews 12:24). It should be observed, as bearing on the authorship of the Epistle, that in these four verses alone there are no less than six expressions and nine constructions which find no—or no exact—parallel in St Paul’s Epistles.

ὄνομα. The שׁם המפורשׁ, the ὄνομα ὃ οἶδεν οὐδεὶς εἰ μὴ αὐτός, Revelation 19:12.