《Poole’s English Annotationson the Holy Bible –Hebrews》(Matthew Poole)
Commentator
Matthew Poole (1624 - 1679) was an English Nonconformist theologian.
He was born at York, the son of Francis Pole, but he spelled his name Poole, and in Latin Polus; his mother was a daughter of Alderman Toppins there. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from 1645, under John Worthington. Having graduated B.A. at the beginning of 1649, he succeeded Anthony Tuckney, in the sequestered rectory of St Michael le Querne, then in the fifth classis of the London province, under the parliamentary system of presbyterianism. This was his only preferment. He proceeded M.A. in 1652. On 14 July 1657 he was one of eleven Cambridge graduates incorporated M.A. at Oxford on occasion of the visit of Richard Cromwell as chancellor.
Poole was a jure divino presbyterian, and an authorised defender of the views on ordination of the London provincial assembly, as formulated by William Blackmore. After the Restoration, in a sermon of 26 August 1660 before the lord mayor Sir Thomas Aleyn at St Paul's Cathedral, he made a case for simplicity of public worship. On the passing of the Uniformity Act 1662 he resigned his living, and was succeeded by R. Booker on 29 August 1662.
Perhaps the only true rival to Matthew Henry! A standard for more than 400 years, Poole's insightful commentary continues to be a trusted resource for pastors and laypeople. Offering verse-by-verse exposition, he also includes summaries for each chapter and book, questions and answers, information on cultural context, historical impact, and cross-references. Practical, readable, and applicable.
Though he occasionally preached and printed some tracts, Poole made no attempt to gather a congregation. He had a patrimony of £100 a year, on which he lived.
He was one of those who presented to the king 'a cautious and moderate thanksgiving' for the indulgence of 15 March 1672, and were offered royal bounty. Gilbert Burnet reports, on Edward Stillingfleet's authority, that Poole received for two years a pension of £50. Early in 1675 he entered with Richard Baxter into a negotiation for comprehension, promoted by John Tillotson, which came to nothing. According to Henry Sampson, Poole made provision for a nonconformist ministry and day-school at Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
In his depositions relative to the alleged Popish plot (September 1678), Titus Oates had represented Poole as marked for assassination, because of his tract (1666) on the Nullity of the Romish Faith. Poole gave some credit to this, reportedly after a scare on returning home one evening near Clerkenwell with Josiah Chorley. Poole left England, and settled at Amsterdam. Here he died on 12 October 1679 (N.S.), and was buried in a vault of the English Reformed Church, Amsterdam. His wife was buried on 11 August 1668 at St Andrew Holborn, Stillingfleet preaching the funeral sermon. He left a son, who died in 1697.
In 1654 Poole published a tract against John Biddle. In 1658 he put forward a scheme for a scholarship for university courses, for those intending to enter the ministry. The plan was approved by Worthington and Tuckney, and had the support also of John Arrowsmith, Ralph Cudworth, William Dillingham, and Benjamin Whichcote. Money was raised, and supported William Sherlock at Peterhouse. His Vox Clamantis gives his view of the ecclesiastical situation after 1662.
The work with which his name is principally associated is the Synopsis criticorum biblicorum (5 vols fol., 1669-1676), in which he summarizes the views of one hundred and fifty biblical critics. On the suggestion of William Lloyd, Poole undertook the Synopsis as a digest of biblical commentators, from 1666. It took ten years, with relaxation often at Henry Ashurst's house. The prospectus of Poole's work mustered of eight bishops and five continental scholars. A patent for the work was obtained on 14 October 1667, and the first volume was ready for the press, when difficulties were raised by Cornelius Bee, publisher of the Critici Sacri (1660); the matter was decided in Poole's favour. Rabbinical sources and Roman Catholic commentators are included; little is taken from John Calvin, nothing from Martin Luther. The book was written in Latin and is currently being translated into English by the Matthew Poole Project.
Poole also wrote English Annotations on the Holy Bible, a work which was completed by several of his Nonconformist brethren, and published in 2 vols fol. in 1683. The work was continued by others (last edition, three volumes, 1840). This work has chapter outlines which are among the best available.
00 Introduction
HEBREWS
THE ARGUMENT
Some few Greek copies not having the name of the apostle Paul prefixed to this Epistle, though most of them have, hath made many doubt concerning the writer of it, as others, especially heretics, of its authority. The conjectures of those who ascribe it to Barnabas, Luke, or Clemens, &c. seem groundless; since the character the Holy Ghost gives of its penman, and his state, in Hebrews 10:34, and Hebrews 13:19,Hebrews 13:23, is not agreeable to any of them. This is most certain, that the apostle Paul did write such an Epistle; that it was well known to the dispersed churches of Christ then; that it was abused by men of corrupt minds, as it is at this day, since the Spirit gives us undeniable testimony of it in 2 Peter 3:15-16. That this Epistle should be it, (when it is so like the rest of his writings; when it is strongly confirming the truth the apostle Peter had written to them, Hebrews 6:2, Hebrews 10:26-27; when it is so expressive of his condition in bonds, Hebrews 10:34, Hebrews 13:19, Colossians 4:18, of his known companion Timothy, Hebrews 13:23, Colossians 1:1, of his love to, and concern for, those to whom he writes, Romans 9:1-3, Romans 10:1, and of his known doctrine, that Judaism had its completion in Christianity; that the veil was rent asunder, that they might discern the temple or church to be laid open to Gentiles as well as Jews, as at Antioch, Galatia, &c., he tanght them; besides, that it hath the signal by which he declareth all his Epistles are to be known, Hebrews 13:25, compare 2 Thessalonians 3:17-18, and the general consent of the church through the successive ages of it, entitling of him to it), I say, that this Epistle should be it, seems not difficult to determine. It is conjectured that the reason why he prefixed not his name to it, as to the rest of his Epistles, was, lest the great prejudice the Jews had causelessly taken up against him, as an enemy to the Mosaical law, would prevent their reading or weighing of it as they ought. It is directed by him to the dispersed tribes of believing Israel, under the name of Hebrews, being the common one of all the posterity of Heber by Abraham, both which patriarchs were great separatists from the idolatrous world in their respective ages, and in whose families the church of God was continued; a name grateful to them, because the Lord honoured it by adding it to his title, Exodus 3:18, and ascribed it to their progenitor, Genesis 14:13, of a natural descent from whom they were most fond, John 8:33, 2 Corinthians 11:22. And the apostle Peter confirmeth these to be the persons, 1 Peter 1:1-2; compare 2 Peter 1:1, 2 Peter 3:15. Written this was in the Greek language, as his other Epistles, it being then the most diffusive dialect in the world, and especially the common one of these Hebrews, Acts 6:1, as Josephus himself testifieth; though the Greek idioms themselves, and the translation of other words in the Epistle, show it abundantly. For the time of his writing it to them, most likely it was after his appearing before the emperor Nero at Rome, 2 Timothy 4:16,17, during his liberty, Acts 28:30, upon Timothy's dismission to them, Hebrews 13:23, and before the first of the ten bloody persecutions, Hebrews 12:4, about the same year wherein he despatched other of his Epistles to the churches.
The design of the apostle in this Epistle, is fully to discover to the believing Hebrews, that they had not lost by renouncing Judaism and turning Christians, since the whole economy of Moses was designed but to lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be perfected in him, he being the truth and substance of all those shadows. To confirm them in the faith of this, and to encourage them more cheerfully to undergo those cruel persecutions, in loss of goods, liberty, relations, estates, country, and life itself, which their enemies would pursue them with for it; he shows them, that it was never God's purpose to have the earthly Mosaical church frame to continue in the world, it being weak and insufficient for priesthood, sacrifice, ordinances, ceremonies, to purge their conscience, and to bring them unto God; but to be a type of, and a guide to, a better, which he did resolve to pitch by his own Son, even that heavenly one, in which both Jew and Gentile should acquiesce, and which should continue immovable to the end of the world. In handling which:
First: He instructs them in the transcendent excellency of his person and offices; in respect of his Deity, Hebrews 1:1-14; of his humanity exceeding angels, Hebrews 2:1-18; as a Prophet exceeding Moses, Hebrews 3:1-4:13; as a Priest exceeding Aaron, Hebrews 4:14-5:9; as a King and Priest exceeding Melchisedec, Hebrews 5:10, to Hebrews 7:28.
Secondly: He instructs them in the doctrine of the heavenly church frame pitched by him, with its appurtenances, which exceeded the earthly Mosaical one; in respect of covenant most excellent, Hebrews 8:1-13; of gospel sacrifice, ordinances, and administrations, for efficacy exceeding all the Levitical ones, Hebrews 9:1-10:18; where he proceedeth to improve and apply his former doctrine, that they might answer their high privileges by the performance of proportionable duties, becoming this great gospel Minister and his heavenly church frame, from Hebrews 10:19-13:20; concluding the whole with solemn prayer to God, for his enabling of them to the performance of these duties, Hebrews 13:20-21: adding his desire of their candid acceptance of this Epistle from him; comforting them with Timothy's despatch to them, and his own hopes of seeing them; giving them the church's usual salutations, and his own valediction, whereby he discriminateth and closeth all his Epistles.
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
HEBREWS CHAPTER 1
Hebrews 1:1-3 The essential dignity of the Son, by whom God hath
revealed himself in these last days.
Hebrews 1:4-14 His pre-eminence above the angels in office.
God: the apostle designing the conviction of these Hebrews by this discourse, enters on it solemnly, that if a God can awe them, the consideration of Him should gain credit to his doctrine. The God he speaks of is to be apprehended here personally, as well as essentially; God the Father, the one admirable sovereign, immutable Being, the Author of first and second revelation: order is kept here in the subsistence of the relations, as in their works.
Who at sundry times; polumerwv, by many parts, turns and changes of time, seasons and opportunities, and by many parcels of revelation. God's will was discovered by piecemeal, and not all at once. He vouchsafed one promise to Adam, and so gradually opened further to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, David, pointing out a Christ to come, to come of Abraham's seed in David's family: he discovered here a little, and there a little, Isaiah 28:13.
And in divers manners; polutropwv, suitable to the manifold wisdom of God, in divers forms and manners, was his revelation to them; sometimes by sensible representations to them waking, as by angels, fire in the bush, the pillar of fire and cloud: terribly, as at Mount Sinai, Hebrews 12:18-21. Sometimes by dreams and visions, Numbers 12:6; by Urim and Thummim, by voice from the ark, by types and signs from heaven, by riddles, and dark speeches, and Levitical ceremonies; sometimes by immediate illapses on the soul, powerfully influencing it with a Divine light.
Spake; revealed and declared infallibly his mind and will concerning the way of man's salvation, which his wisdom contrived and his will decreed.
In time past; all that time past between Adam and Christ, about 4000 years before.
Unto the fathers; the holy ancestors of these Hebrews, from Adam, down along the Old Testament church of God: the believers of old, such as are registered, Hebrews 11:1-40, and all like them to the times of Christ, from Genesis 3:15, to that time.
By the prophets; all those holy men to whom and by whom God revealed his will to his church throughout the successive ages of the Old Testament day; such as were but God's servants, Hebrews 2:4, and had his will and mind by measure; who as they preached God's will were God's mouth, as they wrote it were God's scribes; as Abel, Enoch, &c. before the flood; Noah before and after; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. &c.; to these did God infallibly declare it, and they did infallibly deliver it to the church by word and writing; God was by gracious inhabitation in them, in their hearts, tongues, and hands, 2 Peter 1:21
Verse 2
Hath in these last days; the gospel day, last, as after the days of the old world, and after the law given to Israel by Moses: the days of the fourth kingdom of the Roman empire, in the height of which Christ came into the world, and at the end of it shall accomplish his kingdom, Daniel 2:40,44. The last, because the perfection of those types which went before, when Christ settled in the church that religion which must remain unalterable, to the end of the world, Hebrews 12:25-28: the best days for clearest light and greatest mercies.
Spoken; revealed his will to us once and entirely, John 1:17,18 Jude 1:3,4; discovering the excellent things of God more clearly than they were before, Ephesians 3:3-111 Peter 1:10-12.
To us: the believing Hebrews were so favoured beyond their fathers, to have the best revelation of God in Christ made to them, Matthew 13:16,17 Lu 10:23,24.
By his Son; our Lord Jesus Christ, who cometh out of the Father as a Son, John 1:14 16:28. He is his bosom Son, nearest his heart, John 1:18; the complete Word of him, creating the new world as well as the old, John 1:1; his wisdom, who teacheth without any mistake, declaring all of God, being truth itself, and exhibiting of it, what he hath seen as well as heard, John 3:11.
Whom; this Son, who naturally issueth from his Father by a Divine and anutterable generation, Proverbs 8:22-31 30:4. On him all the Father’s love doth terminate, Colossians 1:13. He is to be the Founder and Builder of God’s family, propagating being to a holy seed for him, Hebrews 3:3-6.
He hath appointed; the Father hath chosen and ordained him as God-man to heirship by an inviolable ordinance of his decree, as 1 Peter 1:20; compare Ephesians 1:10; giving him thereby right and title to all things; appointing to him his nature, Hebrews 2:16, compare Hebrews 10:5; his offices in this nature, his kingly, Psalms 2:6,7, his priestly, Hebrews 3:1,2, his prophetical, Acts 3:22; being heir by nature, as God the Son, and heir by an irresistible ordinance, as God-man Mediator: so as he had a super-added right from the Father, which right he was able to make over to us, but his natural right he could not, Romans 8:17. And he was by solemn investiture put in possession of it at his ascension, when he sat down on the Father’s right hand, Hebrews 12:2Matthew 28:18Ephesians 1:20-22Philippians 2:9-11.
Heir; Lord Proprietor, who hath sovereign and universal power over all, being the firstborn, and receiving the right of it in the whole inheritance, Psalms 89:27Romans 8:29Colossians 1:15,18. The lot and portion is fallen to him by God’s law, the heir being Lord of all, Galatians 4:1; being heir of his brethren, Psalms 2:8, and the builder and purchaser of his inheritance, Revelation 5:9-14; compare 1 Peter 1:3,4,18,19; possessing the inheritance during his Father’s life, and making all his brethren heirs of it with him.
Of all things; of all things within the compass of God, all that God is, all that God hath, all that God can or will do. All dominions of God, heaven, earth, and hell, are his. He is Lord of angels, Ephesians 1:21Colossians 1:18, and hath made them fellow servants with us, to himself, and ministering guards to us, Hebrews 1:14Revelation 5:11 19:10: of devils, to overrule them, who cannot go or come but as he permits them, Matthew 8:31Colossians 2:15: of saints, John 17:13Romans 8:29: of wicked men, his enemies, 2 Thessalonians 1:8,9: of all creatures, Colossians 1:15-17: of all God’s works, spiritual, temporal, past, present, or to come; pardon, peace, righteousness, life, glory; all blessings of all sorts, for time and for eternity. This Son-prophet hath right to, actual possession of, and free and full disposal of them. All, both in law and gospel, his, Moses himself, and all his work, to order, change, and do his pleasure with.
By whom; his Son God-man, a joint cause, a primary and principal agent with the Father, and not a mere instrument, second in working as in relation; by this Word and Wisdom of God, who was the rule and idea of all things, all things were modelled, received their shapes, forms, and distinct beings, John 1:1-3 5:19,20 Col 1:16. In the works of the Trinity, what one relation is said to do the other do, but in their order, answerable to the three principles in every action, wisdom, will, and power.