Hebrews 8:5

οἵτινες ὑποδείγματι … “priests who serve a suggestion and shadow of the heavenly things even as Moses when about to make the tabernacle was admonished, for ‘See,' He says, ‘that thou make all things after the pattern shown thee in the Mount' ”. οἵτινες with its usual classifying and characterising reference, priests distinguished by the fact that they serve a shadow. λατρεύουσιν, originally to work for hire, from λάτρις, a hired servant (Soph., Trach., 70, etc.), but used especially in classics, LXX, and N.T. of service of God. It is followed by the dative of the person served (see reff.) Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 12:28; Hebrews 13:10 as here οἱ τῇ σκηνῇ λατρεύοντες. ὑποδείγματι, Phrynichus notes. ὑπόδειγμα · οὐδὲ τοῦτο ὀρθῶς λέγεται · παράδειγμα λέγε. To which Rutherford adds, “In Attic ὑποδείκνυμι was never used except in its natural sense of show by implication; but in Herodotus and Xenophon it signifies to mark out, set a pattern ”. The meaning of ὑπόδειγμα accordingly is “a sign suggestive of anything,” “a delineation,” “outline,” perhaps “suggestion” would satisfy the present passage. σκιᾷ, “an adumbration of a reality which it does not embody” (Vaughan). A shadow has no substance in itself, no independent existence. It merely gives assurance that there is a reality to cast it, but itself is nothing solid or real. So the tabernacle gave assurance of the existence of a real dwelling of God which itself was not. Cf. Hebrews 10:1, and Colossians 2:17. τῶν ἐπουρανίων, as in Hebrews 9:23 τὰ ὑποδείγματα τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς … αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ ἐπουράνια, heavenly things, in a comprehensive sense. καθὼς κεχρημάτισται … καθὼς, i.e. the description of the Mosaic tabernacle as a shadow of the heavenly accords with the directions given to Moses in its erection. κεχρημάτισται, χρηματίζω (from χρῆμα) originally means “to transact business,” “to advise” or “give answer to those asking advice”; hence “to give a response to those who consult an oracle”; then, dropping all reference to a foregoing consultation, it means “to give a divine command” and in passive to be commanded; see Thayer. The perfect tense is explained by Delitzsch thus: “as thou Moses hast received (in our Scriptures) the divine injunction (which we still read there)”. But cf. Burton, M. and T., 82. ἐπιτελεῖν, not, to complete what was already begun; but to realise what was determined by God; cf. Numbers 23:23, and Hebrews 9:6; so that it might be rendered “to bring into being”. Ὅρα γάρ φησιν … He now cites the authoritative injunction referred to and which determines that the earthly tabernacle was but a copy of the heavenly. γάρ of course belongs to the writer, not to the quotation, and φησιν has for its nominative the Θεός implied in κεχρημάτισται. ποιήσεις.… The words are quoted from Exodus 25:40 (adding πάντα and substituting δειχθέντα for δεδειγμένον) and are a literal rendering of the Hebrew, so that nothing can be gathered from them regarding N.T. usage. The future indicative being regularly used as a legal imperative (an unclassic usage) it naturally occurs here. κατὰ τὸν τύπον, a stamp or impression (τύπτειν) struck from a die or seal; hence, a figure, draft, sketch, or pattern. How or in what form this was communicated to the mind of Moses we do not know. “In the Mount,” i.e., in Sinai where Moses retired for communion with God, he probably pondered the needs of the people to such good purpose that from suggestions received in Egypt, together with his own divinely guided conceptions, he was able to contrive the tabernacle and its ordinances of worship. It is his spiritual insight and his anticipation of his people's wants which give him his unique place in history. And it is both to trifle and to detract from his greatness to say with some of the Rabbis (vide Schoettgen) that models of the Ark and the candlestick and the other equipment descended from heaven, and that Gabriel in a workman's apron showed him how to reproduce the articles shown.