Hebrews 9:1-10 Then truly the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.… You will have noticed the peculiarity of the expression at the commencement of the ver. 4; "which" — i.e., the Holiest of all, "had the golden censer," or rather, "the golden altar of incense." Of the holy place it is said, in ver. 2, "Wherein was the candlestick and the table," &c. The change of expression is significant. The writer does not mean to say that the altar of incense was within the holy of holies, but that the altar of incense belonged to it. The altar actually stood in the holy place, but more truly belonged to the holy of holies itself. It is very wonderful that any man who had read this Epistle intelligently could imagine for a moment that it was possible for the writer to have been so ill-informed as to have believed that the altar was actually within the most sacred inclosure. Apart altogether from inspiration, the intimate and profound knowledge of the Jewish system which the whole of the Epistle indicates, renders it absurd to suppose that on such a simple matter as the.position of the altar of incense the writer could have blundered. It would, to my mind, be just as reasonable to infer from some peculiarity of expression in Lord Macaulay, that the great historian had erroneously imagined that the Spanish Armada came against this country in the reign of Charles I., or to infer on similar grounds that Dr. Livingstone was under the impression that the island of Madagascar formed part of the African continent. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.WEB: Now indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and an earthly sanctuary. |
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