Hebrews 2:9

5. That lordship assumed that he might suffer for and with our humanity, Hebrews 2:9-18.

9. We see not yet a full subjection; the psalmist’s ideal description is but imperfectly realized; but we do see the dawn of a better state. We see one Jesus, who, like man, is below the angels, yet crowned with divinity, that he might be the suffering redeemer for every other man. The order of the Greek words is nearly as follows: One, however, a little somewhat lower than angels we do see, (namely,) Jesus, for the sake of the suffering of death, with glory and honour crowned, in order that by grace of God he, in behalf of every man, might taste of death. Alford says here that Jesus is unemphatic, being a mere supply to tell us who is meant by the previous descriptive phrase. On the contrary, the previous descriptive phrase holds the mind in suspense to fall with emphasis on the word Jesus, an emphasis destroyed by our translators’ reversing the order. See note on Hebrews 2:14. Jesus, the Saviour’s most purely human name, is used because pure humanity, in its earthly state, is being described, in whose line Jesus is presented. The human Jesus is thence the basis of the crowned, which follows; a crowning in view, and with purpose of, his atoning death. He is crowned with glory and honour in a higher sense than primeval man, (Hebrews 2:7,) by being divinized. In primeval man the blessed Spirit dwelt in elevating power; in the divine man “dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Jesus’s being crowned, as man, with divinity, that is, glory and honour, was in order to render the efficacy of his death extensive to every man. He was human, that he might die; he was divine, that he might redeem.

By the grace of God It was by grace of the Father both to him and to us, that the man Jesus was crowned with divinity that he might efficiently atone.

Taste death Experience death; the experience being expressed by one of our experiential senses. The term taste for experience is frequently used by ancient writers, as taste of labour, taste of bitter grief, taste of liberty. It here suggests, though it does not expressly include, the ideas of the brevity, the reality, and the bitterness of death. Compare Matthew 16:28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; John 8:52.

For every man The Greek might be read as neuter, for all, that is, humanity, or the race. But later commentators, as Lunemann, agree that it truly means every man, in order to emphasize the fact that Christ’s death not merely embraces the collective race, but expressly comes in contact upon every individual of the race.