Nielsen’s Nook

Commentary

[a] ἐγένετο not simply that word spoken was reliable but that over the course of redemptive history the word spoken through the angels was demonstrated as reliable.

[b] ἔνδικον based on what is right, hence just, deserved (BAGD, 263). See also Romans 3:8.

[c] ἀμελήσαντες as an aorist active participle which “implies a condition on which the fulfillment of the idea indicated by the main verb depends. Its force can be introduced by if in translation.” (Wallace, GGBB, 632).

[d] The Byzantine text (BT) ends the question here, while in NA27 and UBS4 this interrogative sentence runs to the end of verse 4.

[e] Literally the pronoun ἥτις.

[f] λαβοῦσα λαλεῖσθαι It should be noted that λαβοῦσα is an active feminine aorist participle, the antecedent of which is σωτηρίας. So literally “salvation which was at the beginning received to be spoken through the Lord.”

[g] A scriptural appeal to apostolic succession, by a writer one generation removed from the apostles.

[h] συνεπιμαρτυροῦντος (συν+επι+μαρτυρέω) with the dative gives a meaning: to bear witness or testify with simultaneously by means of something (BAGD, 787). The present active participle form reinforces the concurrence of the God’s witness through, with and by the Lord Jesus and those who heard Jesus personally (i.e., the apostles). Given that the simultaneity occurs with events that are fixed clearly in the past for the writer of Hebrews (e.g., the Incarnation and subsequent life of Christ), συνεπιμαρτυροῦντος is translated in the past tense.

[i] Signs, wonders and manifold miracles are given here as those things God was doing concurrently in and through the life of Jesus as a testimony to the great salvation being wrought by Him for the Church.

[j] μερισμός the separation and distribution (of the gifts).

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (329 - January 25, 389), also known as Saint Gregory the Theologian or Saint Gregory Nazianzen, was a 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople. He is widely considered the most accomplished rhetorical stylist of the patristic age. As a classically trained speaker and philosopher he infused Hellenism into the early church, establishing the paradigm of Byzantine theologians and church officials.
St Gregory made a significant impact on the shape of Trinitarian theology among both Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking theologians, and he is remembered as the “Trinitarian Theologian.” Much of his theological work continues to influence modern theologians, especially in regard to the relationship among the three Persons of the Trinity. Along with two brothers, Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, he is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers.
Gregory is venerated a saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church he is among the Doctors of the Church; in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches he is revered as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs along with Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom.

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