Hebrews 4:12

ψυχῆς καί. The τε before the καὶ in the rec. (DEK) is not found in אABCHL and was probably suggested by the following ἁρμῶν τε καί.

12. ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ. The writer feels the force of the word ζῶν which he four times applies to God, Hebrews 3:12; Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 10:31; Hebrews 12:22. “Quick” is an old English expression for “living”; hence St Stephen speaks of Scripture as “the living oracles” (Acts 7:38). The “word of God” is not here the personal Logos; a phrase not distinctly and demonstrably adopted by any of the sacred writers except St John, who in the prologue to his Gospel calls Christ “the Word,” and in the Apocalypse “the Word of God.” The reference is to the written and spoken word of God, of the force and almost personality of which the writer shews so strong a sense. To him it is no dead utterance of the past, but a living power for ever. At the same time the expressions of this verse could hardly have been used by any one who was not familiar with the personification of the Logos, and St Clemens of Rome applies the words “a searcher of the thoughts and desires” to God. The passage closely resembles several which are found in Philo, though it applies the expressions in a different manner (see Introduction).

ἐνεργής. Lit., “effective, energetic.” The vital power shews itself in acts.

τομώτερος ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν. The same comparison is used by Isaiah (Isaiah 49:2) and St Paul (Ephesians 6:17) and St John (Revelation 2:16; Revelation 19:15). See too Wis 18:15-16, “Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven … and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword.” Philo, Quis rer. div. haer. §§ 26, 27 (Opp. I. 491), compares the Logos to the flaming sword (ῥομφαία) of Eden (Genesis 3:24) and “the fire and knife” (μάχαιραν) of Genesis 22:6. Comp. Ephesians 6:17.

διϊκνούμενος ἄχρι μερισμοῦ κ.τ.λ. The meaning is not that the word of God divides the soul (the “natural” soul) by which we live from the spirit by which we reason and apprehend; but that it pierces not only the natural soul, but even to the Divine Spirit of man, and even to the joints and marrow (i.e. to the inmost depths) of these. Thus Euripides (Hippol. 527) speaks of the “marrow of the soul.” It is obvious that the writer does not mean anything very specific by each term of the enumeration, which produces its effect by the rhetorical fulness of the expressions. The ψυχὴ or animal soul is the sphere of that life which makes a man ψυχικός, i.e. carnal, unspiritual; he possesses this element of life (anima) in common with the beasts. It is only by virtue of his spirit (πνεῦμα) that he has affinity with God.

κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων κ.τ.λ. These words are a practical explanation of those which have preceded. The phraseology is an evident reminiscence of Philo. Philo compares the Word to the flaming sword of Paradise; and calls the Word “the cutter of all things,” and says that “when whetted to the utmost sharpness it is incessantly dividing all sensuous things” (see Quis rer. div. haeres, § 27; Opp. ed. Mangey I. 491, 503, 506). By ἐνθυμήσεις is meant (strictly) our moral imaginations and desires; by ἔννοιαι our intellectual thoughts and active will (1 Peter 4:1): but the distinction of meaning is hardly kept (Matthew 9:4, &c.).