Hebrews 2:1-9

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 ¹  proved to be so firm that every violation ²  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 ³  with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed ⁴  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, ⁵  about which we are speaking, ⁶  under the control of angels. 2:6 Instead someone testified somewhere:

“What is man that you think of him ⁷  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. ⁸ 

2:8 You put all things under his control.” ⁹ 

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, ¹⁰  2:9 but we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, ¹¹  now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, ¹²  so that by God’s grace he would experience ¹³  death on behalf of everyone.

[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]).

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

[2:4]  ³ tn Grk “God bearing witness together” (the phrase “with them” is implied).

[2:4]  ⁴ tn Grk “and distributions of the Holy Spirit.”

[2:5]  ⁵ 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.

[2:5]  ⁶ sn See the previous reference to the world in Heb 1:6.

[2:6]  ⁷ tn Grk “remember him.”

[2:7]  ⁸ 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.

[2:8]  ⁹ tn Grk “you subjected all things under his feet.”

[2:8]  ¹⁰ 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.

[2:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “who was made a little lower than the angels.”

[2:9]  ¹² tn Grk “because of the suffering of death.”

[2:9]  ¹³ 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).