A COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS
“On this account every scribe who has been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like a head of household who brings forth out of his storeroom things new and old.” Matthew 13:52
Editors and publishers of biblical commentary series are in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, advances in the scholarship offered by commentary authors and changes in the contexts, expectations, and needs of commentary readers mean that aging commentaries become dated. On the other hand, some commentaries offer enduring qualities and timeless insights that should not be set aside. So there is good reason to replace older commentaries, but there can also be good reason to keep them available. At Wm. B. Eerdmans, our way of both replacing older commentaries and retaining them is this collection that we call Eerdmans Classic Biblical Commentaries. Some volumes in this collection were originally published in major series such as New International Commentary on the New Testament, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, or New International Greek Testament Commentary. Others were published as freestanding books. Some were originally published many decades ago, others more recently. Some comment on the text in the original language, others on one or another standard English version or on the author’s own rendering. They were written for various levels of readers. What they all have in common is this: readers have found them helpful and so have continued to purchase them, study them, and cite them. When you select from this collection of commentaries, you are selecting books that hundreds and thousands of seminarians, pastors, professors, teachers, scholars, and other serious students of the Bible have used with profit for many years. We hope that they will serve you as well. May they enable you to be a steward who is able to bring forth things both new and old from your scholarly storeroom as you work with the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews
Philip Edgcumbe Hughes
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 www.eerdmans.com © 1977 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co. All rights reserved This Eerdmans Classic Biblical Commentaries edition published 2019 The text and layout of the 1977 edition have been preserved Printed in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ISBN 978-0-8028-7731-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. A commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Includes indexes. 1. Bible. N. T. Hebrews—Commentaries. I. Titles. BS2775.3.H84 227′.87′077 76-49104 ISBN 0-8028-3495-7 The Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and used by permission. Excursus III, “The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly High Priesthood,” was initially published in Bibliotheca Sacra 130 (1973), 99–109, 195–212, 305–314, and 131 (1974), 26–33; Excursus IV, “The Doctrine of Creation in Hebrews 11:3,” first appeared in Biblical Theology Bulletin 2 (1972), 64–77; and the section “Hebrews 6:4–6 and the Peril of Apostasy” was published originally in Westminster Theological Journal 35 (1973), 137–155. They are republished by permission of the publishers of these journals.