Text -- Hebrews 2:1-9 (NET)

Warning Against Drifting Away

2:1 Therefore we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2:2 For if the message spoken through angels proved to be so firm that every violation or disobedience received its just penalty, 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was first communicated through the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him, 2:4 while God confirmed their witness with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Exposition of Psalm 8: Jesus and the Destiny of Humanity

2:5 For he did not put the world to come, about which we are speaking, under the control of angels. 2:6 Instead someone testified somewhere: “What is man that you think of him or the son of man that you care for him? 2:7 You made him lower than the angels for a little while. You crowned him with glory and honor. 2:8 You put all things under his control.” For when he put all things under his control, he left nothing outside of his control. At present we do not yet see all things under his control, 2:9 but we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by God’s grace he would experience death on behalf of everyone.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Heb 2:2

¹ sn The message spoken through angels refers to the OT law, which according to Jewish tradition was mediated to Moses through angels (cf. Deut 33:2; Ps 68:17-18; Acts 7:38, 53; Gal 3:19; and Jub. 1:27, 29; Josephus, Ant. 15.5.3 [15.136]).

² tn Grk “through angels became valid and every violation.”

NET Notes: Heb 2:4

¹ tn Grk “God bearing witness together” (the phrase “with them” is implied).

² tn Grk “and distributions of the Holy Spirit.”

NET Notes: Heb 2:5

¹ sn The phrase the world to come means “the coming inhabited earth,” using the Greek term which describes the world of people and their civilizations.

² sn See the previous reference to the world in Heb 1:6.

NET Notes: Heb 2:6

¹ tn Grk “remember him.”

NET Notes: Heb 2:7

¹ tc Several witnesses, many of them early and important (א A C D* P Ψ 0243 0278 33 1739 1881 al lat co), have at the end of v 7, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.” Other mss, not quite as impressive in weight, lack the words (Ì⁴⁶ B D² Ï). In spite of the impressive external evidence for the longer reading, it is most likely a scribal addition to conform the text of Hebrews to Ps 8:6 (8:7 LXX). Conformity of a NT quotation of the OT to the LXX was a routine scribal activity, and can hardly be in doubt here as to the cause of the longer reading.

NET Notes: Heb 2:8

¹ tn Grk “you subjected all things under his feet.”

sn A quotation from Ps 8:4-6.

² sn The expression all things under his control occurs three times in 2:8. The latter two occurrences are not exactly identical to the Greek text of Ps 8:6 quoted at the beginning of the verse, but have been adapted by the writer of Hebrews to fit his argument.

NET Notes: Heb 2:9

¹ tn Or “who was made a little lower than the angels.”

² tn Grk “because of the suffering of death.”

³ tn Grk “would taste.” Here the Greek verb does not mean “sample a small amount” (as a typical English reader might infer from the word “taste”), but “experience something cognitively or emotionally; come to know something” (cf. BDAG 195 s.v. γεύομαι 2).