Hebrews 12:1

An exhortation to patient steadfastness

1. Wherefore The Greek word is a very strong particle of inference not found elsewhere in the N. T. except in 1 Thessalonians 4:8.

seeing we also are compassed The order of the Greek is "Let us also, seeing we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses … run with patience."

a cloud A classical Greek and Latin, as well as Hebrew, metaphor for a great multitude. Thus Homer speaks of "a cloud of foot-soldiers." We have the same metaphor in Isaiah 60:8, "who are these who fly as clouds" (Heb.). Here, as St Clemens of Alexandria says, the cloud is imagined to be "holy and translucent."

of witnesses The word has not yet fully acquired its sense of "martyrs." It here probably means "witnesses to the sincerity and the reward of faith." The notion that they are also witnesses of our Christian race lies rather in the word περικείμενον, "surrounding us on all sides," like the witnesses in a circus or a theatre (1 Corinthians 4:9).

let us lay aside every weight Lit., "stripping off at once cumbrance of every kind." The word "weight" was used, technically, in the language of athletes, to mean "superfluous flesh," to be reduced by training. The training requisite to make the body supple and sinewy was severe and long-continued. Metaphorically the word comes to mean "pride," "inflation."

and the sin which doth so easily beset us The six words "which doth so easily beset us" represent one Greek word, euperistaton, of which the meaning is uncertain, because it occurs nowhere else. It means literally "well standing round," or "well stood around." (1) If taken in the latter sense it is interpreted to mean (α) "thronged," "eagerly encircled," and so "much admired" or "much applauded," and will thus put us on our guard against sins which are popular; or (β) "easily avoidable," with reference to the verb peri-istaso, "avoid" (2 Timothy 2:16; Titus 3:9). The objections to these renderings are that the writer is thinking of private sins. More probably it is to be taken in the activesense, as in the A. V. and the R. V. of the sin which either (α) "presses closely about us to attack us;" or (β) which "closely clings (tenaciter inhaerens, Erasmus) to us" like an enfolding robe (statos chiton). The latter is almost certainly the true meaning, and is suggested by the participle apothemenoi, "stripping off" (comp. Ephesians 4:22). As an athlete lays aside every heavy or dragging article of dress, so we must strip away from us and throw aside the clinging robe of familiar sin. The metaphor is the same as that of the word apekdusasthai(Colossians 3:9), which is the parallel to apothesthaiin Ephesians 4:22. The gay garment of sin may at first be lightly put on and lightly laid aside, but it afterwards becomes like the fabled shirt of Nessus eating into the bones as it were fire.

with patience Endurance (hupomonç) characterised the faith of all these heroes and patriarchs, and he exhorts usto endure because Christ also endured the cross (hupomeinas).

the race that is set before us One of the favourite metaphors of St Paul (Philippians 3:12-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-25; 2 Timothy 4:7-8).