Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 10:34

τοῖς δεσμίοις AD Vulg. and many Fathers. This seems to have first changed by oversight into τοῖς δεσμοῖς, to which μου (אEKL) was perhaps added as an explanatory gloss.

ἑαυτούς אA. ἑαυτοῖς DEKL, ἐν ἑαυτοῖς only a few cursive MSS. See the note.

[ἐν οὐρανοῖς]. Omitted in אAD Copt. Aeth. Vulg. It. and many fathers. It is an explanatory gloss, and a mistaken one. See the note.

34. τοῖς δεσμίοις συνεπαθήσατε. “Ye pitied the prisoners.” The other reading of the A.V. had more to do than anything else with the common assumption that this Epistle was written by St Paul. The true reading however undoubtedly is not τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου, but τοῖς δεσμίοις, “ye sympathised with the prisoners.” The reading of our text was probably introduced from Colossians 4:18; Philippians 1:7, &c. In the first persecutions many confessors were thrown into prison (Acts 26:10), and from the earliest days Christians were famed for their kindness to their brethren who were thus confined. See too Hebrews 13:3. The verb συμπαθεῖν occurs only here and in Hebrews 4:15. St Paul uses συμπάσχειν “to suffer with” in Romans 8:17. The extreme care and attention paid by Christians to imprisoned confessors is illustrated in the letters of Ignatius, and in those of Cyprian. It had even attracted the astonished notice of the heathen, and Lucian in his satirical romance De Morte Peregrini indicates that it was one of the motives for the sham-conversion of that charlatan.

τὴν�. Christians were liable to be thus plundered by lawless mobs. Epictetus, by whose time Stoicism had become unconsciously impregnated with Christian feeling, says, “I became poor at thy will, yea and gladly.” On the supposition that the letter was addressed to Rome, “the spoiling of goods” has been referred to the edict of Claudius which expelled the Jews (and with them the Christian Jews) from Rome; or to the Neronian persecution. But the supposition is improbable; and indeed confiscation was one of the most ordinary incidents of persecution, as we see in the letters of Cyprian.

γινώσκοντες ἔχειν ἑαυτοὺς κρείσσονα ὕπαρξιν. The “in heaven” (of the A. V.) is almost certainly a spurious gloss, and the “in” before “yourselves” should be unquestionably omitted. If the true reading be ἑαυτοῖς, the meaning is “recognising that ye have for yourselves,” but if we may accept ἑαυτούς, the reading of א, we have the very beautiful and striking thought—“recognising that ye have yourselves as a better possession and an abiding.” He points them to the tranquil self-possession of a holy heart (Luke 9:25; Luke 21:19), the acquisition of our own souls, as a sufficiently present consolation for the loss of earthly goods (Hebrews 11:26), independently of the illimitable future hope (Matthew 6:20; Romans 8:18; 1 Peter 1:4-8).

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 10:34

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