Some critics indeed, such as Olshausen and Ebrard, object to this, the only unconstrained interpretation of the passage, that there has been no mention made, in what goes before, of a first advent of the Messiah. And hence, as they argue, there would be an incongruity in here making reference, in a formally numerical manner, to his second coming. This objection, however, is of very light weight. For although the phrase first advent, or rather first introduction or in-bringing, is not employed by the Letter-writer, yet the thing signified by the phrase is expressly particularized. When the Father—as we read in the first Old Testament passage adduced said to the Son, I have this day begotten thee, the saying really means, I have this day introduced thee, as my Son, into the world. And hence it is that the Apostle Paul regarded the declaration as tantamount to a promise that God would raise up Jesus among men, or introduce him into the world (Acts xiii. 32, 33)· It will be noticed that this second advent of our Lord is ascribed by the writer to the agency of the Father. It is He who, in relation to some subsequent event, shall have brought in again the first-begotten into the humanly—inhabited world (τήν οἰκουμένην). It is a representation harmonious with the whole scope of Scripture,—for in all the Divine dispensations, creative, redemptive, legislative, administrative, the Father has precedence, and is '' greater than the Son" (John xiv. 28). · It is He who takes the initiative. He sent the prophets. He sends the Son. He gives "commandment." And it is He from whom, in the case of 'the great rebellion,' proffers of conciliation emanate, and to whom propitiation—whatever that may really be is rendered.

The time in the future, when the re-introduction of the first-begotten shall take place, is left indeterminate. There is a nicety to this effect in the original phraseology (ὅταν in place of ὅτε), which is not reproduced in our Authorized Version. The translation should run thus—" And whenever he shall have brought in again the first-begotten into the world."

The name given to our Lord deserves consideration,—the first-begotten, or better, the first-born. So the term is rendered in all the other passages in which it occurs in the New Testament, with the exception of Rev. i. 5, where it should have received the same translation. The corresponding term in Hebrew is never rendered first-begotten. Once it is translated eldest; once or twice, eldest son. Several times, when applied to the lower animals, it is rendered firstling. But in all other cases—and they amount to scores—it is translated first-born.

Why is our Lord so designated? The term replaces the word son, which is employed in the preceding context, and which might have been repeated here. But the writer was an orator, whose mind was teeming with exuberance of recollections and fresh thoughts. He delighted in variety; and hence the variation. The substituted term, in replacing the simpler word, represents the same idea, with an addition.

The addition is the prerogative of primogeniture. It is a prerogative that postulates that there either are or may be other "sons of God." But it claims for our Lord that He is "before all," and that thus He is, and ever will be, the First, the Foremost.

In the primary import of the term first-born, the idea of priority in time stands out conspicuously. And in some instances of its application to our Lord, this idea is express. We read that He is., the first-born of the dead" (Rev. i. 5), and "the first-born from among the dead"· (Col. i. 18). He is so, not simply in the sense of being the greatest, the most conspicuous, the most glorious of the children of the resurrection, but also in the sense of being the forerunner of all the rest. The resurrection proper began chronologically with our Lord.

But in other instances of the application of the designation to Jesus, the secondary idea of patrimonial precedence overshadows the primary idea of chronological anteriority. It is said for instance in Col. i. 15, that He is "the first-born of the whole creation." (Comp. Ephes. ii. 2I; Homer's Iliad, xxiv. 407; and the Rabbinical phrase First-born of the 'world.'—SCHÖTTGEN'S Hor. Heb. i. 922.) The idea is not that our Lord is included in creation as an integral part—the first emanation of the creative power of the Father. The genitive is not partitive. The expression is pregnant. Our Lord is the Prince Imperial of the universe. All creation is his patrimonial inheritance. " All things were created for him," as well as " through him," and "by him" (Col. i. 16).

In Romans viii. 29, again, we read,—" For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren." We cannot suppose that it was the Divine aim to secure a relation of chronological anteriority for the Son. That did not need to be aimed at. The aim was to remove from the peerless Son the condition of solitariness in the paternal home. And this aim was accomplished by surrounding him with a circle of brethren, who might share with him his glory. Precedence in position dominates over the primary idea of precedence in time.

There is an entire submergence of the idea of precedence in time in a subsequent passage of our Epistle (chap. xii. 22, 23), where the term is transferred to some of the human brethren of our Lord. We read,—"Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the 'first-born,' which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." Who are referred to? Is it the members of the celestial Church, in virtue of their priority in possession? No, for the first-born spoken of, though enrolled in the registers of heaven, are express! y distinguished from " the spirits of just men made perfect." It is, it would appear, the members of the Church below who are referred to. Even while below they are "the general assembly and church of the first-born," because, in consequence of their vital union with Him who is emphatically the first-born Son, they are partakers of the prerogatives of his primogeniture. They are "heirs of the world" (Rom. iv. 13, 14); "joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. viii. 17).

As regards the Old Testament usage of the term, we find God saying to Pharaoh, in Exodus iv. 22, " Israel is my son, my first-born." It seems to be national pre-eminence rather than any form of chronological anteriority that is intended. It is s:1id again, in Jeremiah xxxi. 9, " I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born." It seems again to be national or tribal prerogative that is meant. And when it is said of David, in Psalm lxxxix. 27, " I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth," the second clause of the promise explains the first, and shews that the idea of rank overshadows and supersedes the idea of antecedence in time. (Comp. Job xviii. 13; Isa. xiv. 30.)

There is, apparently, the same overshadowing acceptation of the term in the passage before us. Our Lord is the Father's first-born in the sense of being his Son and heir,—the Prince Imperial of the universe.

To proceed. "And whenever he shall have brought in again the first-born into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him." The delicacy of the connection with the preceding verse is somewhat hidden under the shade of the English copulative and, the corresponding und of Luther, and the et of the Vulgate. This use of the purely aggregative copulative was, no doubt, suggested—to Luther at all events, and to our English Translators—by the erroneous construction which they give to the adverb again. The conjunction, however, which is employed in the original, is the adversative particle but (δέ). The writer as it were says,—To not one of the angels was it ever said,—

             My Son art thou,
             I this day have begotten thee;
                          and again,—
             I will be to him for Father,
             A 1td he shall be to me for Son;

"but' something very different, something that distinctly recognizes the greatly lower grade of their position, is said of them,—

And let all the angels of God do homage to him.

This, says the inspired writer, he saith, that is God saith; not, He will say. Had he used this latter expression, he would have been predicting; but he had no intention whatever of uttering, at present, any prediction. It was his humbler aim to produce from the writings of the Old Testament an appropriate quotation involving a prediction of the preeminence of Christ. Hence the expression he saith means he saith in Scripture. It is as if the writer had expressed himself thus,—we find it said. in Scripture. But as Scripture was to him 'the word of God,' his expression is equivalent to this,—we find Him saying in Scripture. The Letter-writer shifts, almost imperceptibly, and as it were unconsciously, his angle of vision. In the first clause of the verse he thinks of God as acting within the sphere of Providence in time to come; in this he thinks of Him as speaking within the sphere of revelation in time past.

The saying referred to is the statement,—And let all the angels of God do homage to him. The adduction of such a passage, for the purpose contemplated by the Letter-writer, has occasioned much perplexity to not a few students of the Epistle. Ebrard, for example, says: "Our sixth verse belongs indisputably to the most difficult in the whole Epistle." But the difficulty is, after all, artificial and insignificant.

Two questions confront us. (1) Whence is the citation taken? (2) What is its genuine import?

As to the first, there are two opinions ventilated among expositors. Some—a very large proportion—suppose that the passage referred to is Psalm xcvii. 7—Worship him all ye gods, which is rendered in the Septuagint, Worship him all his angels. Others, including several of the Fathers and a very decided majority of the latest critics, maintain that the quotation is taken from the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy xxxii. 43, the last verse of the "Song of Moses."

This latter opinion would, doubtless, have commanded the suffrages of all without exception, had it not been the case that there is no higher authority for the canonicity of the passage than the Septuagint Version; inasmuch as there is not a vestige of anything equivalent to it in the Hebrew original, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Targum of Onkelos, the Vulgate, or the Syriac. Immediately before the concluding words of the song, which begin thus,—

             Rejoice 0 ye nations with his people,

there occurs in the Septuagint the couplet

             Rejoice ye heavens along with him,
             And let all the angels of God worship him.

The last line of this couplet is identical, word forword, with the Letter-writer's quotation.

Whence this identity? Some, inclusive of Dr. Owen, have thrown out the conjecture that the couplet may have been surreptitiously foisted into the Septuagint by some Christian more wily than wise, for the very purpose of substantiating the Letter-writer's allegation. It is a wild conjecture, wanton as wild, wilful as wanton, and baseless as wilful. There is absolutely no reason for supposing that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews so paltered with his citation as to leave it to his successor to invent for him its original. Neither is there any reason for supposing that our imaginary and wily manipulator could have been successful in his attempted interpolation. Multitudes of copies would have escaped his unscrupulous hands; and hence there would now be diversity in the existing MSS., many uncorrupted copies exhibiting no trace of the tampering. But the MSS., it seems, are unanimous in presenting the couplet.

There is but one alternative. Either the Letter-writer quoted from Psalm xcvii. 7, and allowed himself the freedom of modifying the form of the original; or he actually found in his Septuagint the words that at present stand in Deuteronomy xxxii. 43·

There is an insuperable objection to the' hypothesis that the quotation has been taken from the ninety-seventh Psalm, and freely manipulated in the transference. The copulative And stands unaccountably at its commencement. It was of no value whatever for the writer's doctrinal object. It does not enhance in any way the idea embodied. It adds no beauty, it gives no point, to the expression as an expression. It is, in itself, a cumbersome prefix, awkward and useless. It is utterly incredible that the Letter-writer should, in a mere freak of freedom, have invented and intruded it. How, then, are we to account for it? There is nothing corresponding to it in Psalm xcvii. 7· And for the very reason that there is not, we are shut up to the conclusion that the quotation is made, not from the Psalm, but from Deuteronomy, where the copulative is found, and is natural, justifying itself in virtue of the relation that subsists between the two lines of the couplet.

What then? Are we to accept the canonicity of the Septuagint couplet, although it is wanting in our Hebrew Bible? Why not? There is no reason for supposing that the Septuagint Translator invented the lines and smuggled them in. It is more reasonable, by far, to suppose that he found them in the copy from which he translated, and that their absence from our present Hebrew Scriptures is due to one of those casualties to which every ancient document, requiring to be transcribed, and committed to the custody of imperfect and fallible men, is liable.