Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 11:37

ἐπρίσθησαν, ἐπειράσθησαν. The MSS. vary in the order. See the note.

37. ἐλιθάσθησαν. Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). Jewish tradition said that Jeremiah was stoned. See Matthew 23:35-37; Luke 11:51.

ἐπρίσθησαν. This was the traditional mode of Isaiah’s martyrdom. Hamburger, Talm. Wörterb. s.v. Jesaia. Comp. Matthew 24:51. The punishment was well known in ancient days (2 Samuel 12:31).

ἐπειράσθησαν. This would not seem an anticlimax to a pious reader, for the intense violence of temptation, and the horrible dread lest the weakness of human nature should succumb to it, was one of the most awful forms of trial which persecutors could inflict (see Acts 26:11), especially if the tempted person yielded to the temptation, as in 1 Kings 13:7; 1 Kings 13:19-26. There is no variation in the MSS., but some have conjectured ἐπρήσθησαν “they were burned.” In a recent outbreak at Alexandria some Jews had been burnt alive (Philo. in Flacc. 20), and burnings are mentioned in 2Ma 6:11. The reason for the position of the word, as a sort of climax, perhaps lies in the strong effort to tempt the last and youngest of the seven brother-martyrs to apostatise in 2 Maccabees 7.

ἐν φόνῳ μαχαίρης. “They have slain thy prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10). Jehoiakim “slew Urijah with the sword” (Jeremiah 26:23). The Jews suffered themselves to be massacred on the Sabbath in the war against Antiochus (1Ma 2:38; 2Ma 5:26).

ἐν μηλωταῖς, ἐν αἰγείοις. Elijah (1 Kings 19:13; 2 Kings 1:8). A hairy garment seems subsequently to have been a common dress among prophets, and it was sometimes adopted for purposes of deception (Zechariah 13:4). Clement in his Ep. ad Rom. i. 17 says that Elisha and Ezekiel also wore hairy garments.

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Hebrews 11:37

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