Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 102:26-27 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall…
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shado…
John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hebrews 1:4–end
The apostle, having proved the pre-eminence of the gospel above the law from the pre-eminence of the Lord Jesus Christ above the prophets, now proceeds to show that he is much superior not only to the prophets, but to the angels themselves. In this he obviates an objection that the Jewish zealots would be ready to make, that the law was not only delivered by men, but ordained by angels (Gal 3:19), who attended at the giving forth of the law, the hosts of heaven being drawn forth to attend the Lord Jehovah on that awful occasion. Now the angels are very glorious beings, far more glorious and excellent than men; the scripture always represents them as the most excellent of all creatures, and w…
vesture--Greek, "an enwrapping cloak."
fold them up--So the Septuagint, Psa 102:26; but the Hebrew, "change them." The Spirit, by Paul, treats the Hebrew of the Old Testament, with independence of handling, presenting the divine truth in various aspects; sometimes as here sanctioning the Septuagint (compare Isa 34:4; Rev 6:14); sometimes the Hebrew; sometimes varying from both.
changed--as one lays aside a garment to put on another.
thou art the same-- (Isa 46:4; Mal 3:6). The same in nature, therefore in covenant faithfulness to Thy people.
shall not fail--Hebrew, "shall not end." Israel, in the Babylonian captivity, in the hundred second Psalm, casts her hopes of deliverance on Mes…
And they shall be changed - Not destroyed ultimately, or annihilated. They shall be changed and renewed.
But thou art the same - These words can be said of no being but God; all others are changeable or perishable, because temporal; only that which is eternal can continue essentially, and, speaking after the manner of men, formally the same.
Thy years shall not fail - There is in the Divine duration no circle to be run, no space to be measured, no time to be reckoned.
All is eternity - infinite and onward.
The Church Fathers
"like a robe you will roll them up." He indicated the ease of their change. For everything will change from decay to incorruption; and thus easily, as if one were to wrap a cloak. But if he works so easily towards the better transformation and creation, would he need to focus on the lesser creation of another? "but you are the same." He says that you will change and renew all things, and make the corruptible into incorruptible. You will truly live forever and will always remain. And there is no small comfort for those suffering here, to know that things will not always be this way, but will undergo a change; and that the one who is being cared for by them remains for eternity and lives forever.
It is possible to see in a glance that whenever the Old Testament speaks about the divine nature, it does not speak distinctly about the Father alone, as the heretics suppose when they attempt to apply "I am God and there is no other besides me" and similar passages to the Father alone. On the contrary, whatever it says concerning God as it expounds upon the divine nature, it says in such a way that those attributes may be joined together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, owing to the fellowship of their nature. Otherwise how has the apostle dragged in this second scriptural witness from it?… Has not Paul done the same in his epistle to the Romans, where he says, "For it is written, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee shall bow to me' "? For no one would find here something that would clearly distinguish between them.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Christ Is God · As the Eternal God and Creator — As the Eternal God and Creator
Excellency And Glory Of Christ, The · Is unchangeable — Is unchangeable
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on Hebrews 1:12
And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up,.... In order to lay them aside, and make no use of them in the manner they now are; just as clothes, when they are grown old, or out of fashion, are folded up, and laid aside from use at present, or are put into another form. In the Hebrew text it is, "as a vesture shalt thou change them"; but the sense is the same, for a garment is changed by folding it, or turning it; agreeably to which Jarchi interprets the Hebrew phrase thus,
"as a man turns his garment to put it off;''
the Vulgate Latin version reads as the Hebrew does, and one of the manuscripts of New College, Oxford.
And they shall be changed; as to their form and use, not as to their bein…
Hebrews 1:10-14
10. And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
10. Et tu ab initio, Domine, terram fundasti; et opera manuum tuarum sunt coeli:
11. They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
11. Ipsi peribunt, tu autem permanes; et omnes quasi vestimentum veterascent;
12. And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
12. Et tanquam amictum involves eos, et mutabuntur: tu autem idem es, et anni tui non deficient.
13. But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I m…
These verses, quoting Ps 102:25-27, celebrate the Son as both the creator and the one who brings the created order to an end. All created things will wear out like old clothing, and the Son will discard them (cp. Heb 2:5; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1). By contrast, the Son of God will live forever.
