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This long, sonorous sentence forms the introduction to the whole Epistle if as it were, the portico of an august temple, its many weighty clauses being as rows of stately ornamental pillars supporting the roof. This temple front has a most imposing aspect! It fills the mind with awe, and disposes one to enter the sacred edifice in religious silence, rather than to indulge in critical remarks. In these opening verses the writer announces at once the theme of his discourse, and introduces the leading thoughts on which he intends to expatiate. The first point to be noticed in the proem is the contrast drawn, in anithetic terms, between the Old and the New Testament revelations. By "the prophets" may be meant those strictly so called, but more probably the phrase is meant to cover the whole Old Testament revelation, including the law-giving; the recognition of the angels as the agents by whom the law was given being rather a concession to Jewish opinion than the expression of the writer's own view. To be noted is the use of the phrase "the fathers" absolutely, as the recipients of the ancient revelation. It implies that the Epistle is meant solely for Jewish readers. Very remarkable are the terms employed to describe the character of the Old Testament revelation. It is characterised as a piecemeal multiform revelation. For what purpose are these epithets employed? Hardly for the purpose of mere literary description, to suggest, for example, the picturesque nature of the Hebrew literature; still less for the purpose of pointing out its spiritual excellences. Rather, to indicate the inferiority of the earlier revelation, that the Hebrew Christians might not cling to it as something final. This end these epithets are well fitted to serve. The first of the two points to a fact with which the first readers of the Epistle were perfectly familiar. They knew that the Divine communications to Israel came bit by bit: the promise by Abraham; the law by Moses; the song of the sanctuary by David and other poets; the wisdom of life by Solomon and the other sages of Israel; and by the prophets commonly so called, to relieve the gloom of the present, successive rays of light concerning Messiah and the Messianic kingdom. And of course they understood that no one of these partial fragmentary revelations could be regarded as complete or final. Each successive piece of revelation proved the incompleteness of all that went before. But might not all the pieces taken together, when the last had been given, and the Hebrew canon was complete, amount to a full, adequate revelation, possessing the character of finality? The presumption was the other way. The likelihood was that the prophets collectively, including under that category all the men by whom the Hebrew books were written, were but luminaries of the night — street lamps set in a row to show travellers their way through the gloom; stars set in the spiritual firmament to mitigate the darkness till the sun should arise, bringing in the day. This presumption is converted into certainty by the second epithet, which greatly strengthens the argument against finality suggested by the first. It gives us to understand that the ancient revelation was communicated, not only in many parts, but in many modes. The general idea intended is plain. It is that the revelation made to each prophet was relative — relative to him temperament, circumstances, and historical position. This relativity or subjectivity of the ancient revelation makes it impossible to add together the separate pieces of revelation, and so bring out the whole final revelation. For the pieces are not homogeneous fragments of one whole. They are heterogeneous wholes, often incapable of combination. This is most clearly seen in the Messianic prophecies uttered by successive prophets, which are not separate fragments of one picture of the future capable of being combined into a harmonious whose, but independent pictures, each exhibiting the future from its own point of view. Of Him by whom the much needed new revelation was made the writer next proceeds to speak. "God hath, in the end of these days, spoken unto us in (His) Son." The revelation made in the Son is not qualified by descriptive epithets, as in the case of the earlier revelation, the reason being that such epithets in this case are not needed. The finality of the revelation made through the Son is expressly taught by the phrase " in the end of these days." The writer expresses himself in accordance with the Jewish mode of viewing the history of the world as divided into two great periods, the present age, and the age to come. He conceives of Christ as the divider and maker of the ages (as of the worlds), coming at the end of the old time and inangurating the new. Having made mention of the Son, the writer proceeds to invest Him with all due honours, Divine and mediatorial, to win for His word fitting attention. The elaborate encomium which follows presents a very high view of the Person of Christ. It ascribes to Him (by implication) pre-existence, an essential and therefore eternal relation to God, universal heirship, participation in the Divine functions of making and upholding the world.

(A. B. . Bruce, D. D.)

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KJV: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

WEB: God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,