Hebrews 1:6

6. And As the last verse touches the coronation of the eternal Son, so this verse describes his induction into the rule of the world.

Again Understood by our translators and by many commentators as correlated to the again of the last verse, as introducing a superadded quotation. Others make it qualify bringeth in; as if reading, when he again bringeth in; as referring to some second being, brought in after a first. Alford and Delitzsch refer it to the second advent; very arbitrarily, for it needs some previous mention of the first advent to make it allowable. If a second bringing into the inhabited world is to be supposed, then we should refer it to his resurrection, which was the time of a return and of exaltation, closing the period of his humiliation. See note on Matthew 28:18. Then all power in heaven and in earth was given unto him. So Ephesians 1:19-20: “He raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named,” etc. Then, of course, was fulfilled the requirement on all supernal powers to do him homage. But to describe the second advent as a bringing of the Son into the world is entirely unbiblical.

First-begotten Because eternally begotten. For even if God has been eternally engaged in creating, still the Son is in order of nature first. And when the Son is called first-begotten, it is implied both that his being begotten is prior in order and superior in nature; for creation and formation are in a lower sense figured as generation. And it is as first-begotten that he is, by the divine primogeniture, heir. Hebrews 1:1. So he is firstborn of every creature, Colossians 1:15; firstborn among earthly rulers, Psalms 89:27; firstborn from the dead, Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5. Here the term stands alone, and it alludes to the this day, that is, primordially, have I begotten thee, (of the last verse,) as God manifest, prior to and above all created things.

World Not cosmos, or frame-world, nor aeon, or time-world; but oikoumene, the inhabited earth.

He [God] saith Quoted, perhaps, from Psalms 97:7, which reads in the Septuagint, “Worship him, all his angels.” Yet the precise words are found in the Septuagint in Deuteronomy 32:43, which the Jewish doctors held also Messianic. Indeed, Delitzsch maintains that in the Old Testament, Jehovah, when described as coming, manifestive, administering the affairs of the world, implies Jehovah, the Word, the Son, the ultimate Messiah. The words in Deuteronomy are in the Seventy, but not in the Hebrew. They may, indeed, be supposed to have been in the Hebrew copy used by the Septuagint translators, but dropped out from other copies. They may have been transferred from the psalm, being, perhaps, an essentially accurate reading in some copy of the Septuagint, and even in the copy used by our author. More probably the addition to the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 32:42 is made up from Isaiah 44:33, Psalm 117:7, and Psalms 29:1, springing probably from the liturgical use in the Jewish synagogue of the song of Moses, that is, its use in the chanting of the song in the public worship. Our author, therefore, even if quoting a superaddition to the song, quotes a superaddition acknowledged by his readers, and really made up of inspired words. All the psalms from 93 to 150 were by the Jews held predictive of the Messiah. Psalms 97:0 is an expansion of our author’s words in Hebrews 1:2, appointed heir of all things.

This quotation is an expansion, also, of Psalms 2:7-12, which all confess, who confess any Messiah, to be Messianic. It describes the firstborn, the eternal Son, as God manifest, ruling over nature and overruling all things to the highest ultimate moral good. And when, by the Father, he is thus installed over all, the very highest intelligences are required to do him homage.

In our English version, as in the Hebrew, Psalms 97:7 reads, “Worship him, all ye gods;” and the connexion indicates the idea that the heathen deities are to submit to Jehovah. In accordance with the idea that behind the idol there is a demon, the Jewish Church preferred to extend the term to include all supernaturals. Stuart shows that elohim (gods) is a term repeatedly rendered in the Septuagint by angel, as Job 20:15; Psalms 8:6; Psalms 137:1. The writer of Hebrews does the same in Hebrews 2:7, in quoting Psalms 8:6, as he does in this present verse.