Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 13:4,5

Hebrews 13:4-5. The writer now speaks of two relations of life which are often placed side by side in Paul's Epistles marriage and the purity which belongs to it, and covetousness, or ‘the love of money' (Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5). The abrupt form of the sentences and the curt energy of the admonitions are intensely Pauline.

Let marriage be held in honour in all, and the bed be undefiled. Whether these words are affirmative (‘marriage is honourable'), as the A. V. and Delitzsch hold, or hortative (‘let it be held'), has been much discussed. But the question is now settled. The words stand in the midst of exhortations. The next verse is equally without a verb, and is yet translated as an exhortation. And moreover, the reading in the next clause is ‘for' and not ‘but,' enforcing not a statement, but a command. ‘In all persons,' of whatever rank, degree, or profession; or ‘in all respects' a rebuke of the ‘false science' which was already spreading in the Church (1 Timothy 4:13). It may be better to be single, if God's adjustment of gifts and tastes makes single life no serious burden (1 Corinthians 7), and if Christ is thereby better served. But all who marry in the Lord assume an honourable place. Only, where Christians have entered into that state, the bed must be undefiled by adulterous intercourse, or by lascivious sensuality. Those who dishonour the relation in either way, God will judge.

Let your life a word which describes the turn of a man's thoughts and actions be free from covetousness (‘the love of money'), [and be] content with (finding your sufficiency in) such things as you have. They needed the warning: For as men decline in grace, they grow in selfishness. The mischievous influence of this deceitful vice is strikingly described in 1 Timothy 6:9-10, where ‘the love of money' (the same word) is said to be a root of all kinds of evil, drowning men in perdition, or piercing them through with many sorrows. One guard against this evil is that we be content with what we have; but the security against it is the Divine promise.

For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Five negations, ‘I will never, no never, no never forsake,' give strength to the assurance. The words are taken from three passages (see marginal references) spoken to various Hebrew saints, and forming part of the general promise of the Gospel given to each believer. Our God is the God of salvations (Psalms 68:20), not one, but many, and delivers us from want as well as from sin. He spared not His Son, and freely gives with Him all things.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Hebrews 13:4,5

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