Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 1:1,2

Hebrews 1:1-2. The author contrasts the gradual and multiform revelations given of old in the person of the prophets, with the revelation given at the end of the Jewish dispensation in the person of Him who is Son.

God who... spake; rather, God having spoken; the Greek expressing the preliminary nature of former communications.

Sundry times describes rather the many imperfect revelations which were still parts of one whole given through Enoch, Abraham, Moses, etc., each knowing in part only; as diverse manners points to the many ways in which the revelations were given mysterious promise, pregnant type, dark prophecy, or it may be, though less probably, dream, vision, audible utterance; while under the Gospel the revelation is the life and dying and explicit teaching of Christ, with the added enlightenment still in Christ of the Holy Spirit.... God spake in the prophets, as he spake in one who was Son. So the preposition means, indicating not so much instrumentality ‘through them,' as God in them, abiding and inspiring.... ‘One who was Son.' Such is the force of the original where there is no article, in contrast to the prophets of the previous clause. The completeness, the unity, the supreme authority of the revelation that closes the preliminary and partial lessons of the old economy is the theme that fills the writer's mind.... The Son of God incarnate as we afterwards learn (Hebrews 2:14) is in His life and death and teaching the full revelation of the Father, and of all that is essential to salvation.

At the end of these days. Such is the corrected text. The common text speaks of the Son as introducing the new economy; the corrected text speaks of Him as closing the old. Christ's kingship really began at Pentecost; but the last days of the old economy continued overlapping the new till Jerusalem was overthrown, and the possibility of keeping the Levitical law had passed away (Hebrews 8:13). The Epistle thus prepares all readers for the overthrow which is seen to be at hand, and which was to prove a sore temptation even to Christian Jews.

Heir, possessor, like the ‘heritor' of Scotland and the Mares of the old Roman law (Justinian, Inst, xi. 19). Already Christ was Lord, and whatever was God's was His also (Acts 2:36; John 17:10).

By whom, through rather, i.e by whose agency or instrumentality.

The worlds. The Greek word in this passage describes all things as existing in time, and in successive economies, natural and moral. Elsewhere the world often represents the world in its material order and beauty (Hebrews 4:3; Hebrews 9:26), or, as inhabited, the world of men (Hebrews 1:6; Hebrews 2:5.) In the second of these senses, the word is sometimes used to mark a spirit or temper as opposed to the Gospel (Hebrews 11:7; James 4:4; 1 John 5:4.)

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 1:1,2

Old Testament

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