Do the words, εἰς τὸ διηνεκές, in Heb. 10:11For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. (Hebrews 10:1), refer to the sacrifices as continually offered, or to the inability of such sacrifices to perfect in perpetuity those who offered them; that is to say, Do the words relate to the offerings, or to the offerers?
Why is it we have in this chapter (passim) προσφέρω, to offer, and προσφορά, an offering, and not ἀναφέρω, to offer up, especially as we find from verses 10, 11, 12, that is attributed to the offering, προσφορά, which we should have supposed could only be by ἀναφέρω, offering up, when only it would be a sacrifice (φυσία)? We have both, “no more offering for sins” (προσφορά), verse 18, and “no more sacrifice for sin” (φυσία), verse 26. W. L. P.
A. 1. The connection of είς τὸ δ. is not the same in verses 1 and 12. In the former it is with the Jewish ritual, and means that they kept offering unbrokenly the same sacrifices year by year, sacrifices unable at any time to perfect those that approached. In verse 12 the connection is with the continuous, or unbroken, session of our Lord at God's right hand, as having offered one sacrifice for sins. It is well known that Lachmann punctuated so as to connect είς τὸ δ. with the clause after in verse 1, and with the clause before in verse 12; but I am satisfied that he unwittingly perverted the sense in both. “Continuously” can run well in the first with “every year,” not with “never,” or “not at any time;” as, again, in the second it is only possible to take it with the preceding clause by supposing some such ellipse as ἀσκοῦσαν ἡμῖν, with CEcumenius and Theophylact, which is not only needless, but weakens what follows. Tisohendorf has evaded the difficulty by inserting a comma in neither.
A. 2. The reason why προσφέρω, is employed in Heb. 10 seems to me the need of a more general word than ἀναφέρω, which had been used in chapter 9 in distinction from προσφ. wherever it was intended to express the actual bearing of sins. Where a substantive is wanted for this, θυσία is used, which is as specific as προσφορά is general. Hence, where προσενέγκας is defined by ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν and θυσίαν, it is as strictly sacrificial as if it had been ἑαυτὸν ἀνενέγκας, or τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἁνενέγκας.