Hebrews 2:17

These five verses close an argument that runs through the first two chapters of Hebrews. Hebrews 1 shows the Son as the heir of all things and the radiance of God’s glory, far above the angels. Then Hebrews 2:5–8 turns to the reason this exalted Son was “made a little lower than the angels”, which was so that he might “taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9). He is “the captain of their salvation”, the one through whom God is bringing “many sons unto glory” (Hebrews 2:10). Verse 14 tells us how fully he joined those children, and why.

“The children are partakers of flesh and blood.” The phrase means the whole of bodily human life, with its weakness and its mortality. So “he also himself likewise took part of the same.” The Son truly became human. He took up physical life with all its limits, including the ability to die, and he took it without sin. He chose this freely, and his sharing in our nature was complete. Paul says that God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3). By sharing our flesh and blood the Son became our near kinsman and redeemer, able to stand for us before God and to suffer the penalty of sin in our place.

The verse moves straight to the purpose. Its “that” (Greek hína) gives the reason he took a body that could die: so that “through death” he might win the victory over the one who held death as a weapon.

“Him that had the power of death” is named at once: “that is, the devil.” The word for devil, diábolos, means a slanderer or false accuser, and as a title it names the Devil, the one the Hebrew Scriptures call śāṭān. The word for power, krátos, means might, strength or dominion. The devil held a real dominion over people through death, because death entered the world through sin (Romans 5:12). The fear of death he used to hold humanity captive is rooted in our sin and in the judgment that follows it.

Christ won “through death”, by his own death on the cross. The weapon the devil used against us became the means of his defeat. The verb translated “destroy”, katargéō, means to make idle or inactive, to render inoperative, to invalidate or abolish. Christ’s death made the devil’s power over death of no effect for all who are in him. Paul uses the same verb of death itself: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).

Here the first promise of the gospel comes true. In Eden God said that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), and Christ is that seed. Paul says that on the cross Christ disarmed principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). His death was followed by his resurrection, and he became “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20), so death, the devil’s chief weapon, is now a beaten enemy. His humanity was the means, his death was the act, and the devil’s broken power was the result, which secures eternal life and freedom for his people. Jesus is himself the resurrection and the life (John 11:25–26).

The devil was made idle so that Christ could “deliver them”. The verb apallássō means to change away, to release or remove. It describes a real setting free, a removal of people from one state and one master to another, and Christ is the one who acts. He rescues people who could never free themselves.

What held them was “fear of death”. In the Greek, “through fear” is a plain dative, phóbō, “by fear”, showing the means of their bondage. phóbos means alarm or fright, here a dread strong enough to take over a life and shape its choices. The word for death is thánatos. What keeps people captive is their fear of death, a dread that runs through human life and colours how people see the world.

“All their lifetime” joins pâs, “all”, with záō, “to live”, so the fear goes with them through the whole of life, from birth to the grave. “Subject” is énochos, a word for being liable to something or held under it. “Bondage” is douleía, slavery. The picture is of people living as slaves with the fear of death as their master, in a bondage of the spirit that takes the joy and peace out of life.

In the world of the first readers death was a frightening thing, tied in people’s minds to unknown spiritual realms, to judgment and to evil powers. The pagan religions and philosophies gave little real comfort about what lay beyond the grave, and many taught a kind of fatalism. Israel had the hope of resurrection, yet death was still felt as a solemn separation. A fear like that could drive people to superstition, to compromise their faith, or to live in constant apprehension.

Christ delivers us from this fear by meeting death and conquering it. He died and rose again, breaking the power of sin, which gives death its sting, so that death is swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). His resurrection is the proof that death has lost the final word for all who believe in him. Those who belong to him have received the Spirit of adoption in place of a spirit of fear (Romans 8:15), and Jesus said that those whom the Son makes free are truly free (John 8:36). Christ is our life (Colossians 3:4), and this freedom belongs to the new covenant that Hebrews sets out later (Hebrews 8:6–13).

“For verily” marks a strong statement: “he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” The verb in both halves is epilambánomai, to seize or lay hold of, to take hold of someone or something for help or for any other purpose. The words “him” and “the nature of” were supplied by the KJV translators, and they give the older reading of the verse.

Believers differ on how to take the verb here. On the older reading, which the KJV follows, the verse speaks of the incarnation itself: the Son took on himself the nature of Abraham’s seed and passed by the nature of angels. On the other reading, the verb means taking hold of someone to help them, as it does in Hebrews 8:9, where God speaks of the day he took his people by the hand. The verse then says that the Son lays hold of Abraham’s seed to rescue them, and the help he brings is for them, where the angels have no share in it. Both readings agree that the Son came in our nature and came for our sake, and verse 17 goes straight on to say that he was made like his brethren.

ángelos means a messenger. It comes from a word meaning to bring tidings, and in Scripture it names the heavenly beings God made. spérma means seed, and by extension posterity, descendants or offspring. “The seed of Abraham” points first to Abraham’s physical descendants. In the New Testament the phrase also takes in all who are Abraham’s offspring through faith in Christ (Galatians 3:29), and here it stands for the human race the Son came to save, and above all for God’s covenant family. Christ himself is the seed of Abraham through whom the nations are blessed (Galatians 3:16).

The letter was most likely written to Jewish believers, and both names in the verse carried weight for them. In the Greek-speaking world, and in some Jewish circles such as the community at Qumran, angels were given great honour, often as go-betweens linking God and people or even as objects of reverence. Hebrews answers this by setting the Son far above them (Hebrews 1:4). The name of Abraham tied the Son’s coming to the covenant promises God made to their own forefather, so that his work continues and fulfils God’s plan within their own heritage.

The Son, who is higher than every angel, emptied himself of his divine rights while keeping his deity, and took on the full reality of human flesh (Philippians 2:6–8). In that nature he is the one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5).

“Wherefore” draws the conclusion of all that has gone before. “It behoved him” is opheílō, from a word meaning to owe, and it speaks of what ought to be or must be. The Son’s becoming human was required by the work God gave him to do. He had “in all things... to be made like unto his brethren”, the people he came to save. The verb homoióō means to make like or to become similar, and it is passive here: Jesus was truly made like us, with all the real limits of human life. “In all things” covers every part of that life, its suffering and its temptation, and Hebrews later adds that he was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

That likeness had a purpose, “that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest”. He is merciful because he understands our weakness, having shared our life. He is faithful because he is wholly trustworthy, true to the mission his Father gave him and perfect in every duty of his office. “In things pertaining to God” means that he stands for us before God in all that concerns sin, worship and our life with him.

The first readers knew well what a high priest was. He was the central figure in Israel’s atonement, and once a year, on the Day of Atonement, he entered the Most Holy Place to make reconciliation for the sins of the people (Leviticus 16). Those priests were sinful and mortal. They had to offer sacrifice for their own sins before they offered for the people’s (Hebrews 7:27), and their sacrifices were repeated year after year because they could never take sin away, being only a shadow of the good things to come (Hebrews 10:1–4). Jesus, who is without sin, offered himself once for all as the unblemished sacrifice and obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–14, Hebrews 9:22–28). He is the mediator of a better covenant founded on better promises (Hebrews 8:6), and he is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). This verse opens the great theme of the rest of Hebrews, in which Israel’s priesthood and sacrifices are shown to point to him.

“To make reconciliation for” is hiláskomai, to conciliate, to atone for, to be propitious. It speaks of turning away God’s just anger against sin and so restoring a right relationship with him. In the Old Testament the sacrifices covered sin. Christ by his own sacrifice dealt with sin itself, satisfying God’s justice, so that God can be merciful and we can be reconciled to him. John calls Christ the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2), Paul says that we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son (Romans 5:10), and God has given his people the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). In the Greek, “that” (hina) and “to” (eis) mark the two purposes of the verse: to be this high priest, and to make reconciliation.

The work needed one who is both God and man. Only one who shared our nature could truly represent us before a holy God, and only one who is God could offer a sacrifice of infinite worth to atone for sin.

“For in that” (en hō) points to the very thing that makes him able to help, his own experience. “He himself” (autos) stresses that he went through it in person. páschō means to suffer, to undergo an experience, usually a painful one. Jesus knew physical pain, distress of soul and the hardships of human life, and at the last the suffering of the cross. peirázō, related to peira, a test or trial, means to test, try or tempt. It covers trials and also enticements to sin. Jesus faced real pressures and allurements, as in his temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11), and he never gave way to sin.

So “he is able” (dýnamai) “to succour them that are tempted”. boēthéō, from boēthós, a helper, means to aid or relieve. The word is traced to the picture of running to the cry of someone in distress, and it speaks of active, timely help given to someone in urgent need. His past suffering is the ground of his present help to everyone being tested now. Hebrews takes this up again when it calls us to come to our high priest for mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:14–16). God is faithful to his people in temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13), and they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them (Philippians 4:13).

The first readers were facing persecution and rejection by their neighbours, and they felt the pull of the religious practices they had left. A high priest who knew suffering and testing from the inside was a deep comfort to them. In Christ, weakness became the ground of strength. He suffered for our sin, having none of his own, and he endured the cross, despising the shame (Hebrews 12:2). Now he is seated at the right hand of God, where he pleads for his people with full understanding and compassion.

This passage shows us a Saviour who is truly one of us. The Son who is above every angel took our flesh and blood, called us his brethren, and went into death on our behalf. Death, which held people in lifelong dread, has lost its power over those who are his, and the devil who wielded it has been made idle. Our sins have been dealt with by a high priest who is both merciful and faithful, and who offered himself.

It also shows us who God is. He did not leave his children to their bondage. He sent his Son into the very nature he meant to save, to the very death he meant to defeat. When we are tempted, the one we come to has been tempted himself, and he runs to help. The way stands open to “the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), where his people find mercy and grace in their time of need.