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Hebrews 13.20-21
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
These two verses, though formally (since God is not directly addressed but referred to in the third person) a wish or ‘prayer-wish’, are really tantamount to a prayer. The structure of the sentence may be indicated as follows: (i) God is named (‘the God of peace’); (ii) an adjectival clause follows (as very often in collects); (iii) the first part of verse 21 expresses the substance of the petition; (iv) the whole is concluded by a doxology. A most perceptive and stimulating commentary on these verses is afforded by Philip Doddridge's paraphrase, ‘Father of peace, and God of love’, to which we shall refer from time to time.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1967
References
page 437 note 1 For this prayer-wish form cf. Rom. 15.5–6; 2 Thess. 3.16a; 2 Tim. 1.16, 18.
page 437 note 2 This paraphrase is to be found in the revised Church Hymnary, No. 481, and in The Scottish Psalter of 1929, paraphrase No. 60.
page 437 note 3 The phrase ‘the God of peace’ is found also in Rom. 15.33; 16.20; 2 Cor. 13.11; Phil. 4.9; 1 Thess. 5.23; and also in Testament of Dan. 5.2. The expression ‘the Lord of peace’ is used in 2 Thess. 3.16.
page 437 note 4 Cf. von Rad, G. and Foerster, W., in Kittel, G. and Friedrich, G. (ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Stuttgart, 1933—), II, pp. 398–418.Google Scholar
page 438 note 1 Torrance, T. F., Theology in Reconstruction (London, 1965), p. 277.Google Scholar
page 438 note 2 To conclude from the fact that this is the only direct reference to the Resurrection in Hebrews that the author of the epistle was probably not the original author of this prayer and/or that the Resurrection was not important to him, is surely unjustified. The absence of other references in Hebrews is probably adequately explained by the author's special concerns. His concern to show Jesus as the great High Priest, for example, makes it natural for him to concentrate attention on the sacrificial death on the one hand and on the entrance of Christ into the heavenly holy of holies on the other; the comparison he is making affords nothing to correspond to the actual Resurrection.
page 440 note 1 The verb καταρτ⋯ζειν was probably chosen, as Spicq, C. suggests (L'Epître aux Hébreux, II (Paris, 3rd ed. 1953), p. 436Google Scholar) because of its very wide range of meaning. Its meanings include ‘adjust’, ‘put in order’, ‘restore’, ‘mend’, ‘recommission’, ‘furnish’, ‘equip’, ‘make good’, ‘prepare’. It would, of course, be wrong to infer from the AV and RV rendering ‘make perfect’ that the writer to the Hebrews expected Christians to attain perfection in this life. It may be noticed that the lines of the paraphrase, That to perfection's sacred height We nearer still may rise, while speaking of our approaching nearer and nearer to perfection, avoid implying that we should hope actually to attain it in this life.
page 441 note 1 The best sense is obtained by taking δι⋯ Ἰησο
Xριστο with ποιν as we have done above. It seems less satisfactory, though possible, to take it with τ⋯ εὐ⋯ρεστον ⋯νώπιον αὐτο. It is scarcely possible to take it as the end-formula of the prayer (a pleading of Christ's merits), since this is not a prayer directly addressed to God.
page 441 note 2 The verb παρακαλεν is, as a matter of fact, used in both 13.19 and 13.22, though little weight can be put on this.
page 441 note 3 So e.g. Spicq, op. cit., p. 437; Bruce, F. F., in Black, M. and Rowley, H. H. (ed.), Peake's Commentary on the Bible (London, 1962), p. 1019.Google Scholar
page 441 note 4 So e.g. Moffatt, J., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh, 1924), p. 242Google Scholar; Montefiore, H. W., The Epistle to the Hebrews (London, 1964), p. 252.Google Scholar
page 441 note 5 As does Strathmann, H., in Das Neue Testament Deutsch, 9 (Göttingen, 1949), P. 153.Google Scholar