Hebrews 10:8 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Hebrews 10:8
Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;
to think well of · verb — aorist active indicative, 2nd person singular
which
αἵτινεςaitines
G3748
which some · relative pronoun — nominative plural feminine
offered
προσφέρονται,prospherontai
G4374
to bear towards · verb — present passive indicative, 3rd person plural
by
κατὰkata
G2596
(prepositionally) down (in place or time) · preposition
law
νόμονnomon
G3551
law (through the idea of prescriptive usage) · noun — accusative singular masculine
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
Hebrews 10:5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
Mark 12:33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighb…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hebrews 10:7-18
Here the apostle raises up and exalts the Lord Jesus Christ, as high as he had laid the Levitical priesthood low. He recommends Christ to them as the true high priest, the true atoning sacrifice, the antitype of all the rest: and this he illustrates,
I. From the purpose and promise of God concerning Christ, which are frequently recorded in the volume of the book of God, Heb 10:7. God had not only decreed, but declared by Moses and the prophets, that Christ should come and be the great high priest of the church, and should offer up a perfect and a perfecting sacrifice. It was written of Christ, in the beginning of the book of God, that the seed of the woman should break the serpent's head; an…
he--Christ.
Sacrifice, &c.--The oldest manuscripts read, "Sacrifices and offerings" (plural). This verse combines the two clauses previously quoted distinctly, Heb 10:5-6, in contrast to the sacrifice of Christ with which God was well pleased.
Adam Clarke on Hebrews 10:7
In the volume of the book - במגלת ספר bimgillath sepher, "in the roll of the book." Anciently, books were written on skins and rolled up. Among the Romans these were called volumina, from volvo, I roll; and the Pentateuch, in the Jewish synagogues, is still written in this way. There are two wooden rollers; on one they roll on, on the other they roll off, as they proceed in reading. The book mentioned here must be the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses; for in David's time no other part of Divine revelation had been committed to writing. This whole book speaks about Christ, and his accomplishing the will of God; not only in, The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent, and, In…
Above when he said, .... In the afore cited place, Psalm 40:7
Sacrifice and offering, and burnt offerings, and offering for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein; this is a recapitulation of what is before said; and all kind of sacrifices are mentioned, to show that they are all imperfect, and insufficient, and are abolished; and the abrogation of them is expressed in the strongest terms, as that God would not have them, and that he took no pleasure in them:
which are offered by the law; according as that directs and enjoins: this clause is added, to distinguish these sacrifices from spiritual ones, under the Gospel dispensation, and which are well pleasing to God; and to p…
The Church Fathers
"you did not desire nor did you take pleasure in."Paul himself interprets the Davidic more clearly. "which are offered according to the law," that is, the Jewish law, and they are offered by the Jews. Do you see that before the descent, the sacrifices were hated?
"Above when He said, Sacrifice, and offering, and burnt-offerings, and offering for sin Thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the Law, then He said, Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God! He taketh away the first that He may establish the second." So that henceforward this is done in vain, although it is done; for what need is there of medicines where there are no wounds? On this account He ordained offerings "continually," because of their want of power, and that a remembrance of sins might be made.
In what has gone before he had shown that the sacrifices were unavailing for perfect purification, and were a type, and greatly defective. Since then there was this objection to his argument, If they are types, how is it that, after the truth is come, they have not ceased, nor given place, but are still performed? he here accordingly labors at this very point, showing that they are no longer performed, even as a figure, for God does not accept them. And this again he shows not from the New Testament, but from the prophets, bringing forward from times of old the strongest testimony, that it comes to an end, and ceases, and that they do all in vain, "alway resisting the Holy Ghost." And he shows over and above that they cease not now only, but at the very coming of the Messiah, nay rather, even before His coming: and how it was that Christ did not abolish them at the last, but they were abolished first, and then He came; first they were made to cease, and then He appeared. That they might not say, Even without this sacrifice, and by means of those, we could have been well pleasing unto God, He waited for these sacrifices to be convicted of weakness, and then He appeared; for (He says) "sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not." Hereby He took all away; and having spoken generally, He says also particularly, "In burnt-offerings and sacrifice for sin Thou hadst no pleasure." But "the offering" was everything except the sacrifice. "Then said I, Lo! I come." Of whom was this spoken? of none other than the Christ. Here he does not blame those who offer, showing that it is not because of their wickednesses that He does not accept them, as He says elsewhere, but because the thing itself has been convicted for the future and shown to have no strength, nor any suitableness to the times. What then has this to do with the "sacrifices" being offered "oftentimes"? Not only from their being "oftentimes" offered (he means) is it manifest that they are weak, and that they effected nothing; but also from God's not accepting them, as being unprofitable and useless. And in another place it is said, "If Thou hadst desired sacrifice I would have given it." Therefore by this also he makes it plain that He does not desire it. Therefore sacrifices are not God's will, but the abolition of sacrifices. Wherefore they sacrifice contrary to His will.
Dictionary and topics
High priest — Aaron was the first who was solemnly set apart to this office (Ex. 29:7; 30:23; Lev. 8:12). He wore a peculiar dress, which on his death passed to his successor in office (Ex. 29:29, 30). Besides…
Atonement, The · Was voluntary — Was voluntary
Burnt Offering, The · Illustrative of: The offering of Christ — Illustrative of: The offering of Christ
Conscience · The blood of Christ alone can purify — The blood of Christ alone can purify
Offerings · .A type of Christ — .A type of Christ
Sacrifices · Could not take away sin — Could not take away sin
Types · OF THE SAVIOUR — OF THE SAVIOUR
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).
Hebrews 10:5-10
5. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
5. Quapropter egrediens in mundum dicit, Sacrificium et oblationem noluisti, corpus autem aptasti mihi;
6. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
6. Holocausta et victimas pro peccato non probasti;
7. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
7. Tunc dixi, Ecce adsum; in capite libri scriptum est de me, ut faciam, O Deus, voluntatem tuam.
8. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pl…
The author follows the flow of thought in the psalm with great precision. • First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices . . .”: The author of Hebrews understands this as God’s rejection of the old system of sacrifices. • Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will”: The author of Hebrews takes this to be Christ’s willingness to be the supreme sacrifice for sins. • The author of Hebrews concludes that because of Christ’s sacrifice, God has canceled the first covenant—God’s will, as shown by Ps 40:6-8, was that Christ would die for sins as a sacrifice, and this only had to be done once for all time.
