Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 3:2

πιστὸν ὄντα, “being faithful,” i.e. as Cranmer excellently rendered it, “how that He is faithful.” The word is suggested by the following contrast between Christ and Moses, of whom it had been said “My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house,” Numbers 12:7.

τῷ ποιήσαντι αὐτόν, “to Him that made Him” (Heb. עָשָׂה). There can be little doubt that the expression means, as in the A. V., “to Him that appointed Him,” “made Him such,” i.e. made Him an Apostle and High Priest. For the phrase is doubtless suggested by 1 Samuel 12:6, where the LXX. has “He that made Moses and Aaron” (A. V. “advanced”); comp. Mark 3:14, “And He made (ἐποίησε) Twelve, that they should be with Him.” Acts 2:36, “God made Him Lord and Christ.” The rendering “appointed” is therefore a perfectly faithful one. Still the peculiarity of the phrase was eagerly seized upon by Arians to prove that Christ was a created Being, and this was one of the causes which retarded the general acceptance of the Epistle. Yet even if “made” was not here used in the sense of “appointed” the Arians would have no vantage ground; for the word might have been applied to the Incarnation (so Athanasius, and Primasius), though not (as Bleek and Lünemann take it) to the Eternal Generation of the Son. Theodoret and Chrysostom understood it as our Version does. It may be noticed that the LXX. have ἔκτισέ με in Proverbs 8:22 (of Wisdom), and that the Fathers perplexed by this, as they referred it to the Christ, argued that the verb was used of His human nature.

ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ, “in all His (God’s) house,” Numbers 12:7. The house is God’s house or household, i.e. the theocratic family of which the Tabernacle was a symbol—“the house of God which is the Church of the living God,” 1 Timothy 3:15. The “faithfulness” of Moses consisted in teaching the Israelites all that God had commanded him (Deuteronomy 4:5) and himself “doing according to all that the Lord commanded him” (Exodus 40:16).

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 3:2

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