Timothy to Hebrews - The Preterist Archive

Hebrews II. 8. 335
The gist of the argument, however, rests, as we have said, not on
nap' ayytkovq ; on the contrary, there follows in ver. 8 still another
inference such as does not presuppose any express mention of angels
at all in vers. 6, 7.
Ver. 8,—The words and meaning are clear. When the author
draws the inference from the fact of all things having been (in
the way of promise) made subject to man, that nothing can be excepted—he,
thereby, suggests to every thinking and attentive reader
the special application, that the angels also will then be subject to
man.
Here this train of thought concludes. With the words vvv 6e,
which must be regarded as belonging to ver. 9, an entirely new train
of thought begins, the design of which is to shew, in how far man
has been akeady invested with the glory and elevation above
the angels ascribed to him in Ps. viii., and in how far he has still
to expect this. At present, indeed, man as such, i. e., humanity,
has not yet attained to that elevation. Still, in the person of
Jesus, who (although the Son of God, and already in himself
higher than the angels, according to chap, i., yet) by his incarnation
has been made lower than the angels like to us, a first-fruits
of humanity is raised above the angels, But he is raised only
to draw all the rest after him ; for it was necessary that he should
suffer, just in order that as a captain he might make many sons
partakers of his glory.
How then was it possible, that such a commentator as Bleek
should so entirely mistake and misunderstand a train of thought so
clear throughout ! He acknowledges (in p. 259) that " it seems as
if the person whom we are to understand as meant by that man,
ver. 6, seq., were first designated in ver. 9," and yet denies that the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews has used the dvdpojnog in ver.
6 in the general collective sense ! But, in truth, the opportunity
was too tempting of fastening upon our author, here again, a grossly
Kabbinical misunderstanding of a psalm. True, the writer says
not a single word of the Messiah in vers. 6, 7, but places in opposition
to the species angels to whom the oh. i] fieXX. is not to be
made subject, the species sons of man to whom (according to Ps.
viii. and Heb. ii. 10) it is to be made subject, and " it seems" as if
the relation of Jesus to this general prophecy were first spoken of in
ver. 9—and yet, the author must have taken the eighth Psalm,
which is not Messianic, for a Messianic Psalm ! True, the expression
tt;i3N—ntt cannot, as Bleek himself acknowledges, be understood
with Kuinoel as pointing to the glory, but only as pointing to the
weakness and frailty of man, and !:in— la as parallel with iuisn can
only denote the " son of man" in his impotency—and yet, the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews cannot possibly have had understand-