Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Hebrews · About this commentary
He Partook of the Same
Hebrews 2:14-18
14 Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, · WEB
Death is defeated by being entered rather than avoided, and the bondage broken is a lifelong fear.
Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same.
The logic runs from them to him. Because they are flesh and blood, he took it — and in the same way, with nothing held back for a different mode of participation.
The purpose is stated as a mechanism, and the mechanism is strange: that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.
Through death. The instrument used against the one who held death is death itself, which means the victory is not an escape but a submission that turns out to reverse the direction of the weapon. And the adversary's power is not denied — he had the power of death — it is simply brought to nothing.
Verse 15 names who is released and what held them: all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
The chain is fear rather than death itself. People not yet dying are described as enslaved for the whole length of their lives by the prospect, which is a claim about how the fear organizes a life rather than about how it ends one. That is aimed at readers who had already lost property and liberty and had not yet lost blood Hebrews 12:4.
Verse 16 fixes the beneficiaries against the argument of chapter 1: he doesn't give help to angels, but he gives help to the offspring of Abraham. The comparison that began by ranking him above angels ends by noting whom he actually assists, and it is not them.
Then verse 17, where the book's central title appears for the first time. He was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.
In all things is unqualified, and the two adjectives divide the office between what he is toward people and what he is toward God — merciful and faithful.
And verse 18 gives the reason the resemblance mattered: in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. The qualification is experience, and able is the operative word — not merely willing.
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