1: “having been brought into existence”

The participle used here has many uses, but it basically means “having become.” The form used points to the past, but it implies all that God has done and will do in the future.

2

“entered” is the primary verb of verses 11 and 12 which form one sentence; all of its other verbs or participles are secondary. The Holy of Holies that Christ entered was not the one made by hands but the true place where God meets with man, which can mean people’s hearts, or the system established by God for intimacy between God and man. We know that Jesus established a new system for connecting with God, but He also utilized God’s new system to enter into people’s hearts through the new system God had set up. It is hard to understand because, in the physical world we are accustomed to, one cannot use item A to make item A. The author is giving yet another example of how great Jesus Christ is. He is fulfilling everything about the Old Testament sacrificial system, yet He is replacing it with something better.

3

What follows is a quote from Ps 40:6-8. The Greek words for sacrifices and offerings are not exact equivalents of the Hebrew terms but the general idea of the passage is adequately conveyed.

4: "little head"

In this case there are a few steps between my translation and my paraphrase. The Greek word used here means “little head” and it was also used of the “knob” at the ends of the wood around which a scroll was wound. The Hebrew word used in Ps 40:7 means “roll,” and the Hebrew phrase means “in a roll of the book.” The Greek wording used here is pointing to the same thing as Ps 40:7. i.e. “the roll of the book,” but I chose to show you what the Greek actually says – “the little head.” David was likely referring to the Law and indicating that He had attempted to be faithful to the entire law. But David’s words refer more to Jesus than to himself because Jesus fulfilled them much more completely. The author of Hebrews was likely referring to the entirety of the Old Testament Scriptures.

5

The passage Jesus was quoting, Ps 40:6-8, includes a final statement that Jesus did not say in the hypothetical conversation expressed in Heb 10:7. It says “Your law is in the middle of my heart.” I have included it in the paraphrase column because this was a tactic that many Jews used; they would say most of the statement but purposefully leave out part of it. The speaker expected the listener to know the Old Testament well enough to be able to finish the statement on his own. Sometimes the speaker would purposefully leave out the most important part. I figure not all of my readers know Ps 40 by heart, therefore, I considered it justified to add the final statement to the paraphrase. The last part, which Jesus did not say out loud, proves He is qualified to do this work of atonement – He is in full harmony with the Law.

6

When used together in this way, the Law and the Prophets refer to the sections of the Old Testament known as the Law and the Prophets (the third section was called the writings and it included the historical books and the poetic books). The point is that all the Law and all the writings of the prophets point to Jesus and His cross and empty tomb.

7

In Greek there is no word between the word “faith” and the name “Jesus Christ.” That is because both the word “faith” and the name “Jesus Christ” are in the Genitive case, a noun form that is used when they intend to describe such things as possession or relationship to something or someone (and a few other situations).  It is the same case that is used in the phrase “the righteousness of God,” meaning that God is the source of that righteousness. Grammatically we could translate it “the faith of Jesus Christ,” but that makes it sound like it is His faith, not our faith. I prefer to render this statement as “the Jesus Christ kind of faith,” or “the faith that is connected to Jesus Christ.” We usually see it written as “faith in Jesus;” this phrase means basically the same thing but expresses the idea differently.

8

The word for “sin” basically means “to miss the mark, to wander from the right path, to make a mistake, to do wrong.”

9

“falling short of the glory of God” can mean either failing to give Him glory, or failing to receive and understand whatever part of His glory He wants to show us. I think it is more likely failing to give Him glory; salvation is more about God being God and being given the honor He deserves than it is about us receiving something from God. We think salvation is about us because we are the ones in need, but God sees it differently. He designed us and created us to give Him glory through our lives; when we sin, we bring the process of giving Him glory to a halt.

10: Atoning sacrifice

This word usually has something to do with “the offering of an atoning sacrifice,” sometimes called “propitiation.” The emphasis seems to be on “the victim of the sacrifice,” i.e. “the lamb.” It can also mean “the mercy seat,” which was the cover of the Ark of the Covenant that was placed in the Holy of Holies. According to Lev 16:14, once a year there was blood sprinkled “on the Eastern face of the Mercy Seat” and “seven times before the Mercy Seat.” It sounds like that means on the side of the Ark of the Covenant/Mercy Seat and then on the ground in front of it. I believe the emphasis of this word is the shedding of the blood of the sacrificial animal. The fact that the writer of Hebrews chose to connect it to the Mercy seat in Heb 9:5 has no bearing here. The emphasis is on the atoning sacrifice, regardless of where the blood was sprinkled. To say, as some do, that God chose Jesus before hand to be “the Mercy Seat” takes the meaning of this word at least one step away from what I think this verse intends to communicate, that Jesus was chosen as the sacrifice to take our place.

11

There are two time-related words here: The first one is an adverb meaning “now, at the present [time],” and the other one is a noun meaning “a season, an opportune season, a pivotal moment.” Greek has another key noun that relates to time; it denotes the passing of the minutes and hours and is the word from which we get English words such as “chronological, and chronology.” That word is not used in this verse. The noun that is used here, which means “a season, an opportune season,” is not about the passage of time itself, but about what is happening during that season or era. It is a big picture perspective. It is used in this verse along side an adverb which points to “right now.” Therefore, I have expressed these two references to time separately in both my translation and my paraphrase.

Do the references to time point to the time of God’s action or to the time of His demonstration of the proof of His righteousness? They go together. The action was the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is also the proof of God’s righteousness.

12

The Greek says: “toward a demonstration, or toward a proof.”

13

The word used here means “resemblance, image, likeness.” It does not mean an exact copy. Jesus looked like one of us, but He was without sin. He resembled sinful flesh, but He was not characterized by sin the way we are.

14

This word also mean “impossible.”