Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 7:26

Τοιοῦτος γάρ. The “for” clinches the whole argument with a moral consideration. There was a spiritual fitness in this annulment of the imperfect Law and Priesthood, and the introduction of a better hope and covenant. So great and so sympathetic and so innocent a High Priest was suited to our necessities. There is much rhetorical beauty in the order of the Greek. He might have written it in the order of the English, but he keeps the word “Priest” by way of emphasis as the last word of the clause, and then substitutes High Priest for it.

ὅσιος. Heb. חָסִיר, pure towards God (Leviticus 20:26; Leviticus 21:1; Psalms 16:10; Acts 2:27). He bore “holiness to the Lord” not on a golden mitre-plate, but as the inscription of all His life as “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24).

ἄκακος, as regards men. Chrys. ἀπόνηρος, οὐχ ὕπουλος. Isaiah 53:9.

ἀμίαντος. Not stained, Isaiah 53:9 (and as the word implies un-stainable), with any of the defilements which belonged to the Levitic priests from their confessed sinfulness. Christ was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15); “without spot” (Hebrews 9:14; 1 Peter 1:19). He “knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

κεχωρισμένος�. “Having been separated from sinners.” The writer is already beginning to introduce the subject of the Day of Atonement on which he proceeds to speak. To enable the High Priest to perform the functions of that day aright the most scrupulous precautions were taken to obviate the smallest chance of ceremonial pollution (Leviticus 21:10-15); yet even these rigid precautions had at least once in living memory been frustrated—when the High Priest Ishmael ben Phabi had been incapacitated from his duties because in conversing with Hareth (Aretas), Emir of Arabia, a speck of the Emir’s saliva had fallen upon the High Priest’s beard. But Christ was free not only from ceremonial pollution, but from that far graver moral stain of which the ceremonial was a mere external figure; and He had now been exalted above all contact with sin in the Heaven of Heavens (Hebrews 4:14).

ὑψηλότερος. Having “ascended up far above all heavens” (Ephesians 4:10).

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Hebrews 7:26

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