Exodus 29:25

29:25 Then you are to take them from their hands and burn ¹  them ²  on the altar for a burnt offering, for a soothing aroma before the Lord. It is an offering made by fire to the Lord.

Psalms 22:13-14

22:13 They ³  open their mouths to devour me ⁴ 

like a roaring lion that rips its prey. ⁵ 

22:14 My strength drains away like water; ⁶ 

all my bones are dislocated;

my heart ⁷  is like wax;

it melts away inside me.

Zechariah 13:7

13:7 “Awake, sword, against my shepherd,

against the man who is my associate,”

says the Lord who rules over all.

Strike the shepherd that the flock may be scattered; ⁸ 

I will turn my hand against the insignificant ones.

Hebrews 10:14-22

10:14 For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy. 10:15 And the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after saying, ⁹  10:16 “This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put ¹⁰  my laws on their hearts and I will inscribe them on their minds,” ¹¹  10:17 then he says, ¹²  “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no longer.” ¹³  10:18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Drawing Near to God in Enduring Faith

10:19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, ¹⁴  since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 10:20 by the fresh and living way that he inaugurated for us ¹⁵  through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ¹⁶  10:21 and since we have a great priest ¹⁷  over the house of God, 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in the assurance that faith brings, ¹⁸  because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience ¹⁹  and our bodies washed in pure water.

¹ tn “turn to sweet smoke.”

² tn “them” has been supplied.

³ tn “They” refers to the psalmist’s enemies, who in the previous verse are described as “powerful bulls.”

⁴ tn Heb “they open against me their mouth[s].” To “open the mouth against” is a Hebrew idiom associated with eating and swallowing (see Ezek 2:8; Lam 2:16).

⁵ tn Heb “a lion ripping and roaring.”

⁶ tn Heb “like water I am poured out.”

⁷ sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s strength and courage.

⁸ sn Despite the NT use of this text to speak of the scattering of the disciples following Jesus’ crucifixion (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27), the immediate context of Zechariah suggests that unfaithful shepherds (kings) will be punished by the Lord precisely so their flocks (disobedient Israel) can be scattered (cf. Zech 11:6, 8, 9, 16). It is likely that Jesus drew on this passage merely to make the point that whenever shepherds are incapacitated, sheep will scatter. Thus he was not identifying himself with the shepherd in this text (the shepherd in the Zechariah text is a character who is portrayed negatively).

⁹ tn Grk “after having said,” emphasizing the present impact of this utterance.

¹⁰ tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

¹¹ sn A quotation from Jer 31:33.

¹² tn Grk “and.”

¹³ sn A quotation from Jer 31:34.

¹⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

¹⁵ tn Grk “that he inaugurated for us as a fresh and living way,” referring to the entrance mentioned in v. 19.

¹⁶ sn Through his flesh. In a bold shift the writer changes from a spatial phrase (Christ opened the way through the curtain into the inner sanctuary) to an instrumental phrase (he did this through [by means of] his flesh in his sacrifice of himself), associating the two in an allusion to the splitting of the curtain in the temple from top to bottom (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). Just as the curtain was split, so Christ’s body was broken for us, to give us access into God’s presence.

¹⁷ tn Grk “and a great priest,” continuing the construction begun in v. 19.

¹⁸ tn Grk “in assurance of faith.”

¹⁹ sn The phrase our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience combines the OT imagery of the sprinkling with blood to give ritual purity with the emphasis on the interior cleansing provided by the new covenant: It is the heart that is cleansed and the conscience made perfect (cf. Heb 8:10; 9:9, 14; 10:2, 16).