Hebrews 2:5-9

Exposition of Psalm 8: Jesus and the Destiny of Humanity

2:5 For he did not put the world to come, ¹  about which we are speaking, ²  under the control of angels. 2:6 Instead someone testified somewhere:

“What is man that you think of him ³  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. ⁴ 

2:8 You put all things under his control.” ⁵ 

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, ⁶  2:9 but we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, ⁷  now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, ⁸  so that by God’s grace he would experience ⁹  death on behalf of everyone.

[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.

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

[2:6]  ³ tn Grk “remember him.”

[2:7]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Grk “you subjected all things under his feet.”

[2:8]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Or “who was made a little lower than the angels.”

[2:9]  ⁸ tn Grk “because of the suffering of death.”

[2:9]  ⁹ 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).