Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 13:3

τῶν δεσμίων. Comp. Colossians 4:18.

ὡς συνδεδεμένοι. Lit., “as having been bound with them.” In the perfectness of sympathy their bonds are your bonds (1 Corinthians 12:26), for you and they alike are Christ’s slaves (1 Corinthians 7:22) and Christ’s captives (2 Corinthians 2:14 in the Greek). This seems to be the meaning rather than that the Hebrew Christians too have had their own personal experience of imprisonment for the faith. Lucian’s tract (referred to in the previous note) dwells on the effusive kindness of Christians to their brethren who were imprisoned as confessors.

ἐν σώματι. And therefore as being yourselves liable to similar maltreatment. “In the body” does not mean “in the body of the Church,” but “human beings, born to suffer.” You must therefore “weep with them that weep” (Romans 12:15). The expressions of the verse (κακουχουμένων, ὡς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὄντες ἐν σώματι) read like a reminiscence of Philo (De Spec. Legg. § 30) who says ὡς ἐν τοῖς ἑτέρων σώμασιν αὐτοὶ κακούμενοι, “as being yourselves also afflicted in the bodies of others”; but if so the reminiscence is only verbal, and the application more simple. Incidentally the verse shews how much the Christians of that day were called upon to endure.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 13:3

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