Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Hebrews 9:11-22, Blood, ashes and a will
Christ entered the greater tent once for all with his own blood, not the blood of goats and calves. If the ashes of a heifer could make the unclean outwardly clean, how much more will his blood cleanse the conscience; and as a will takes effect only at a death, the new covenant was put in force by his.
Hebrews 9:11-22, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer contrasts the high priest's yearly entry with Christ's single entry into the true sanctuary, made with his own blood rather than an animal's. If animal blood and a heifer's ashes could make people ritually clean, he argues, Christ's offering of himself does far more and cleanses the conscience. He links covenant and death, noting that even the Sinai covenant began with sprinkled blood and that under the law forgiveness came through blood. Whether 9:16-17 speaks of a covenant or a will is debated.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/day-of-atonement\/","n":"The Day of Atonement and the mercy seat","s":"Once a year the high priest went into the holy of holies with sacrificial blood, for his own sins and then the nation's. It was the one fast the law commanded, and the mercy seat on the ark was the place the blood was brought.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sacrifice-and-blood\/","n":"Sacrifice and the daily offering","s":"Animals were offered at the temple for sin, for thanks and for cleansing, and blood sealed covenants. Every day a lamb was offered at dawn and again in the afternoon, and Jews everywhere prayed at those hours.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/unclean-by-touch\/","n":"Unclean by touch","s":"Under the law, skin disease, bleeding, corpses, tombs and certain animals made a person ritually unclean, and touch could pass it on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/adoption-and-heirs\/","n":"Adoption, heirs and wills","s":"A family's property passed to its heirs; in Jewish practice the land went to the sons, the eldest with a double share. Roman law also let a man adopt a son, often a grown one, who left his old debts and ties behind and became his heir. A will, sealed before witnesses, settled who inherited and who looked after an heir too young to inherit.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/new-covenant\/","n":"The new covenant","s":"Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised a day when God would write his law on hearts instead of stone and put his own Spirit within his people. Some Jews of Paul's day believed the promise belonged to their own group.","r":""}
On the Day of Atonement the high priest brought the blood of a bull for himself and a goat for the people (Leviticus 16) (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). The heifer's ashes of Numbers 19 were mixed with water and sprinkled to cleanse corpse impurity (the cultural backgrounds notes; the ESV Study Bible). Water, scarlet wool and hyssop are not in Exodus 24; the writer seems to join that scene with the cleansing rites of Leviticus 14:6 or Numbers 19:6 (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes), and Josephus too adds that Moses "had sprinkled Aaron's vestments, himself, and his sons, with the blood of the beasts that were slain" (Antiquities 3.8.6). The Greek word for covenant also means a will, and the reading of 9:16-17 turns on it. Keener and the cultural backgrounds notes see a deliberate play on words, since a will took effect only at death; the ESV Study Bible allows either a will or a covenant sealed by an animal's death; Wright calls the will sense daring. The Zondervan dictionary goes further: the Greek Old Testament chose a word whose main sense was a will, and that sense runs through 9:15-28.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to Hebrews 9:11-22, and on Hebrews 9:11, 9:12, 9:13-14, 9:16-17, 9:18-20 and 9:21-22
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Hebrews 9:12, 9:13, 9:14, 9:16-17, 9:19 and 9:22
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Hebrews 9:13 and 9:16-17
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 3.8.6, trans. William Whiston
- N. T. Wright, Hebrews for Everyone, comment on Hebrews 9.15-22
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry covenant
