2:7 The king says, 1 “I will announce the Lord’s decree. He said to me: 2
‘You are my son! 3 This very day I have become your father!
1:5 For to which of the angels did God 4 ever say, “You are my son! Today I have fathered you”? 5 And in another place 6 he says, 7 “I will be his father and he will be my son.” 8 1:6 But when he again brings 9 his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!” 10
1 tn The words “the king says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The speaker is the Lord’s chosen king.
2 tn Or “I will relate the decree. The
3 sn ‘You are my son!’ The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.
4 tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Grk “I have begotten you.”
6 tn Grk “And again,” quoting another OT passage.
7 tn The words “he says” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to make a complete English sentence. In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but English does not normally employ such long and complex sentences.
8 tn Grk “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.”
9 tn Or “And again when he brings.” The translation adopted in the text looks forward to Christ’s second coming to earth. Some take “again” to introduce the quotation (as in 1:5) and understand this as Christ’s first coming, but this view does not fit well with Heb 2:7. Others understand it as his exaltation/ascension to heaven, but this takes the phrase “into the world” in an unlikely way.
10 sn A quotation combining themes from Deut 32:43 and Ps 97:7.
11 tn Grk “the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Grk “I have begotten you”; see Heb 1:5.