Bible Commentaries
Hebrews 13

Verses 1-25

XIII 1-17 Appendix— 1-6. Various admonitions. Charity, purity, detachment are the first triad. Charity must be constantly fraternal, given to hospitality (in the exercise of which Abraham and Lot received Angels, Genesis 18:3), and compassionate (nourished by the remembrance of our fellowship in misery). Marriage must be surrounded with great respect in all that belongs to it. God, the great Defender of undefiled nuptial unions, will not fail to punish fornicators and adulterers. Detachment from money goes with trust in Providence, which trust is inspired by the freely adapted words of God to the Israelites in general, Deuteronomy 31:6, and to Josue in particular, Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:5. The Psalm text, 117:6, is an act of confidence from the Hymn of the Cornerstone.

Loyalty, 7, 8, religious fidelity, 9-16, obedience to superiors, 17, sum up the rest. Devoted remembrance of dead leaders (like Stephen, James the son of Zebedee, James the son of Alpheus) is a reminder that the ’Faith of our Fathers’ is the faith of today and of tomorrow—’Jesus Christ yesterday and today and the same. (he remains) for ever’, 8.

9. An unchangeable faith is necessary. Therefore every doctrinal drift has to be guarded against, and the heart fed with grace rather than the superstition of unprofitable food regulations.

10-14. It is very controverted whether the Eucharistic Altar is the altar from which the servants of the tabernacle cannot eat. The trend of this very difficult passage seems to be: Jesus Crucified is our altar. He was an Expiatory Victim for sin. Now the flesh of Jewish victims on the day of Annual Expiation was not eaten, the bodies being burned outside the camp. Jesus realized this prophetic detail of expiation ritual, for he suffered outside the gate of Jerusalem. Those, therefore, who belong to Jesus must go outside the camp of Judaism to him, even at the cost of carrying his reproach. This is really the programme of all those who decide to leave the Jewish world (and, extensively, every merely terrestrial camp) behind them, in their resolution to journey to the lasting City of Heaven. The author does not say that the body of Jesus is not eaten, and, of course, it was not burned. He says that we have an altar and implies that we eat from it. Knowing the Eucharistic history of the Jerusalem community as we do, Acts 2:42, it seems solidly probable that the Eucharist was in the mind of St Paul as he wrote these words.

15-16. To the great real victim, he adds metaphorical victims of praise (’fruit of lips’), and also the well-pleasing victims of beneficence and generously helpful communication in the needs of others.

17. Submission to superiors is urged from the beautiful motive of sympathy with their ’watchful solicitude. They have to give an account. That it should be a sad one is our loss rather than theirs.

XIII 18-25 Epilogue— 18-19. The Apostle asks the rayers of the Hebrews, in the consciousness of his own evotedness, and in the hope of returning to them sooner.

20-21. In turn, he prays for them in the remembrance of Christ’s resurrection through the blood of an eternal testament, asking that God, who thus brought back from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep, might, through him their Mediator, fit the Hebrews for the doing of every good in the wellpleasing accomplishment of the will of God. The doxology goes to our Lord Jesus Christ.

22-25. Concluding, he begs that the word of consolation written with epistolary brevity be well received, 22, and announces that Timothy has bean released (from a captivity otherwise unknown). The final salutations are to the ’Superiors and all the Saints’. Those ’from Italy’ are presumably in Italy, from where (probably Rome), the letter was written: Grace be with you all. Amen’.