Hebrews 9: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter describes the worship arrangements of the first covenant: the tent with its two rooms, the objects inside it, and the high priest who entered the inner room only once a year, and only with blood. The writer says the gifts and sacrifices offered there could not clear the worshiper's conscience, since they were outward rules set in place until the time of reform. It then sets Christ against that pattern: he went through a greater tent not made by hands and entered heaven itself once with his own blood, as go-between of a new covenant. It closes by saying that as people die once and then face judgment, so Christ was offered once to carry the sins of many, and will appear a second time to bring salvation to those waiting for him.

Claim by Claim

1. 9:1
   • The first covenant had regulations for worship.
   • The first covenant had a sanctuary belonging to this world.
2. 9:2
   • A tabernacle was prepared.
   • In its first compartment were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the presentation.
   • That first compartment is called the Holy Place.
3. 9:3
   • Behind the second veil was a compartment.
   • That compartment is called the Holy of Holies.
4. 9:4
   • The inner compartment had a golden vessel for incense, either a censer or the incense altar; the text does not settle which.
   • The inner compartment had the ark of the covenant.
   • The ark of the covenant was overlaid all around with gold.
   • Inside the ark was a golden jar holding the manna.
   • Inside the ark was Aaron's rod that had budded.
   • Inside the ark were the tablets of the covenant.
5. 9:5
   • Above the ark were the cherubim of glory.
   • The cherubim overshadowed the mercy seat.
   • The writer says he cannot now speak about these things in detail.
6. 9:6
   • These things were prepared in this way.
   • The priests enter continually into the first compartment of the tabernacle.
   • The priests entering perform the acts of service.
7. 9:7
   • Only the high priest enters the second compartment.
   • The high priest enters the second compartment once a year.
   • The high priest does not enter without blood.
   • The high priest offers that blood for himself.
   • The high priest offers that blood for the sins the people committed in ignorance.
8. 9:8
   • The Holy Spirit was signifying something by this arrangement.
   • The way into the holy place had not yet been made manifest.
   • The way was not yet manifest while the first tabernacle still had its standing.
9. 9:9
   • The first tabernacle is a figure for the time then present.
   • Gifts and sacrifices are offered under that arrangement.
   • Those gifts and sacrifices cannot make the worshiper perfect in respect of conscience.
10. 9:10
    • Those regulations consist only in foods and drinks and various washings.
    • Those are ordinances of the flesh.
    • Those ordinances were imposed until the time of setting things right.
11. 9:11
    • Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come.
    • Christ came through the greater and more perfect tabernacle.
    • That tabernacle is not made with hands.
    • That tabernacle is not of this creation.
12. 9:12
    • Christ did not enter by the blood of goats and calves.
    • Christ entered by his own blood.
    • Christ entered once for all into the holy place.
    • Christ obtained eternal redemption for us.
13. 9:13
    • The blood of goats and bulls sanctifies those who are defiled.
    • The ashes of a heifer sprinkled on the defiled sanctify them.
    • That sanctifying reaches to the cleanness of the flesh.
    • This is stated as a condition: if these things sanctify in that way.
14. 9:14
    • The blood of Christ will do much more than those sacrifices.
    • Christ offered himself to God.
    • Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit.
    • Christ offered himself without blemish.
    • The blood of Christ will cleanse your conscience from dead works.
    • The purpose of that cleansing is that you may serve the living God.
15. 9:15
    • For this cause Christ is the mediator of the new testament.
    • A death has taken place.
    • That death was for the redemption of the transgressions committed under the first testament.
    • The purpose is that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
16. 9:16
    • Where there is a testament, the death of the one who made it must necessarily be established.
17. 9:17
    • A testament is in force where there has been a death.
    • A testament has no strength while the one who made it is alive.
18. 9:18
    • The first testament also was not dedicated without blood.
19. 9:19
    • Moses spoke every precept of the law to all the people.
    • Moses took the blood of calves and of goats.
    • Moses took water, scarlet wool, and hyssop.
    • Moses sprinkled the book.
    • Moses sprinkled all the people.
20. 9:20
    • Moses said that this is the blood of the testament.
    • Moses said that God enjoined that testament upon them.
21. 9:21
    • Moses likewise sprinkled the tabernacle with blood.
    • Moses likewise sprinkled all the vessels of the ministry with blood.
22. 9:22
    • According to the law, nearly all things are purified with blood.
    • Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
23. 9:23
    • It was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens be purified with these sacrifices.
    • It was necessary that the heavenly things themselves be purified with better sacrifices than these.
24. 9:24
    • Christ did not enter holy places made with hands.
    • Those handmade holy places are copies of the true ones.
    • Christ entered heaven itself.
    • Christ entered to appear now in the presence of God.
    • Christ appears in God's presence on our behalf.
25. 9:25
    • Christ did not enter in order to offer himself often.
    • The high priest enters the holy place every year.
    • The high priest enters with blood that is not his own.
26. 9:26
    • Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world.
    • Christ has now appeared once at the end of the ages.
    • Christ appeared to put away sin.
    • Christ put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27. 9:27
    • It is appointed to men to die once.
    • After death comes the judgment.
28. 9:28
    • Christ was offered once.
    • Christ was offered to bear the sins of many.
    • Christ will appear a second time.
    • At his second appearing he will be without sin.
    • He will appear to those who look for him.
    • He will appear to them unto salvation.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

9:1

A covenant is a formal, binding agreement, closer to a treaty than to a private promise. "The first covenant" here means the arrangement God made with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai. Where the King James says "a worldly sanctuary," it does not mean a corrupt one: the Greek word means belonging to this world, that is, built on earth out of earthly materials.

9:2

The "tabernacle" was a portable tent shrine that Israel carried through the wilderness, described in Exodus 25 to 27. The King James "candlestick" is a branched stand holding lamps that burned olive oil, not wax candles. "Shewbread" is older English for show-bread, and translates a Hebrew phrase meaning bread of the Presence: twelve loaves laid out on a table before God and replaced each week.

9:3

The tent was divided by hanging curtains, a screen at the entrance and a second curtain further in. The King James "the Holiest of all" reproduces a Hebrew way of forming a superlative, holy of holies, meaning the holiest room of all.

9:4

The Greek word behind "the golden censer" can mean either a handheld pan for burning incense or the altar of incense itself, and readers have long divided over which is meant, since Exodus places the incense altar in the outer room. Manna was the bread-like food Israel gathered in the wilderness (Exodus 16). Aaron's rod was the staff that sprouted overnight to confirm that his family, and no other, held the priesthood (Numbers 17). The King James "tables of the covenant" means the stone tablets on which the commandments were cut; "table" once meant any flat writing surface.

9:5

"Cherubims" is a double plural: the -im ending is already the Hebrew plural, so the singular is cherub. They were winged composite figures, guardians of a sacred space, not the plump infants of later art. The "mercyseat" was the solid gold lid of the ark; the Greek word means place of atonement, and it was on this lid that the high priest sprinkled blood once a year.

9:6

The King James "accomplishing the service of God" means carrying out the daily round of ritual duties: tending the lamps, burning incense, and setting out the bread.

9:7

The one day a year was the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, whose ritual is set out in Leviticus 16. The King James "errors" translates a word for offenses committed unknowingly or by mistake; the law drew a sharp line between those and deliberate defiance, and this ritual covered the first kind.

9:8

"Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" are the same phrase: in 1611 "ghost" simply meant spirit. "Made manifest" means made known or opened up, not made obvious.

9:9

"A figure" here does not mean a number or a person. It translates the Greek word for a parable or comparison: something that stands for something else. "For the time then present" means for the period that was in force at the time.

9:10

Several King James words have shifted. "Meats" meant food of any kind, not just flesh. "Divers" is an older form of diverse, meaning various. "Carnal" here means bodily or physical, with no sexual sense; these were rules about the outside of a person. "The time of reformation" means the time of setting things straight or putting them right, and has nothing to do with the sixteenth-century Reformation.

9:11

The King James "not of this building" means not belonging to this created order. "Building" here is used for the whole made world, not for a structure.

9:12

"Once" in the King James often carries the force of once for all: a single act that is never repeated, not simply on one occasion. "Redemption" is commercial language: the price paid to buy back a slave, a prisoner of war, or forfeited property, and so a rescue that costs something.

9:13

The ritual of the heifer is in Numbers 19: a red heifer was burned outside the camp and its ashes were mixed with water, then sprinkled on anyone who had been in contact with a corpse. "Unclean" does not mean dirty or immoral. It means ritually disqualified from approaching the sanctuary, a state one could enter by ordinary events such as touching a dead body or giving birth. "Sanctifieth" means sets apart as fit for worship again.

9:14

"Without spot" is sacrificial language: an animal offered had to be unblemished, with no defect. "Purge" means cleanse, not purge in the sense of removing people. "Dead works" is genuinely ambiguous in the Greek and has been read both as deeds that lead to death and as deeds that are lifeless and get nowhere.

9:15

The King James uses "testament" here and "covenant" elsewhere, but the underlying Greek word is one and the same, diatheke, which covers both a binding agreement between parties and a person's last will. The writer is about to play on that double sense in the next two verses, which is why the English word changes. A "mediator" is the person who stands between two parties and puts an agreement into effect.

9:16

"Testator" is the legal term for the person who made the will. The argument only works in Greek, where one word means both covenant and will.

9:17

"Of force" means having legal power, or taking effect.

9:18

"Dedicated" here has its old legal force: inaugurated, formally brought into effect.

9:19

The scene is Exodus 24, where Moses reads the covenant terms aloud and sprinkles blood. "Precept" means a command or regulation. Hyssop is a small bushy plant whose stalks were bound together and used as a sprinkler; scarlet wool and hyssop appear together in the purification rites of Numbers 19. "The book" was a scroll, not a bound volume.

9:20

Moses is quoted from Exodus 24:8. "Enjoined unto you" means laid upon you as a binding obligation.

9:21

"The vessels of the ministry" means the bowls, pans, snuffers and other implements used in the service of the sanctuary. "Ministry" here means the work of worship, not a person's office.

9:22

"Purged" means cleansed. "Remission" is the old legal word for release or letting go, as of a debt or a prisoner, and so comes to mean forgiveness. The King James "almost all things" reflects the fact that the law allowed a few exceptions, such as flour offered by the very poor.

9:23

"The patterns of things in the heavens" does not mean designs to be copied from. It means the copies themselves, the earthly replicas modeled on a heavenly original.

9:24

"The figures of the true" means the copies or representations of the real thing. "To appear in the presence of God" uses courtroom and court language: to present oneself before the ruler on someone's behalf.

9:25

"Blood of others" means blood that was not his own, that is, the blood of animals.

9:26

"Since the foundation of the world" means since the world was founded, at creation. "In the end of the world" translates a phrase meaning at the completion of the ages: a decisive turning point in history, not the destruction of the planet.

9:27

"Appointed" means set down or assigned in advance, the way a fixed date is appointed.

9:28

The King James "without sin" here does not describe Christ's character. It means apart from sin, that is, his second appearance will not be concerned with dealing with sin as the first was.