Hebrews 13:9

9. Fixed on Christ, the immutable, be not carried about like a wind-whirled ship. The winds by which, as coming from different quarters, the ship is whirled and hurled about, are divers and strange doctrines. Probably the true reading is, Be not carried away; and then it suggests a being driven to an unknown destiny. Divers refers to their number and variety, strange to their unnatural and unchristian character.

Established Firmly based on the ever same Jesus Christ. With, or, rather, by grace, and not by meats. It is debated whether reference is here made to sacrificial meats eaten in idol temples or to meats ascetically avoided by religious vegetarians. But the altar of Hebrews 13:10 is undoubtedly suggested by the word meats in this verse, and so indicates a reference to sacrificial meats. And, as Lunemann well argues, profited seems to refer not to abstaining, but to the eating of meats.

An altar We Christians discard all Jewish controversy touching sacrificial meats, for we have a sacrificial altar apart from all Jews. To the question, What is it that our author designates by the term altar? an obvious answer is, “The table of the Lord,” whereon the emblem of the Victim is partaken, and from which all but the believing Christian are excluded. And, knowing as we do that the “table” existed in the full knowledge of our author, we cannot imagine that there should not have been in his mind some reference to it. Others have understood by altar the cross on which the real sacrifice was offered. But the real altar, or the deep reality symbolized by the word altar, has no material shape or nature. The “table,” the cross, and the altar, are all but terms and images by which the saving power of the atonement is represented, the participation of which is limited to living faith. The propitiatory merits of Christ are at once the table, the altar, and the food by which the sinner lives.

No right to eat For they possess not the faith by which that aliment is received.

Serve the tabernacle The tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness, which was the scene and emblem of Hebrew sacrifices; and was succeeded, when Jerusalem became the capital, by the temple built by Solomon, and rebuilt by Zerubbabel, and re-rebuilt by Herod. The tabernacle was in the desert in the centre of the camp of the hosts of Israel, and our author, as matter of doctrine, refers to it as the primitive institution rather than to the later temple. Yet, while he uses the primitive words tabernacle and camp, he uses the word city in Hebrews 13:14, both being the same thing so far as the symbol was concerned.