11:23 By faith, when Moses was born, his parents hid him 15 for three months, because they saw the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
1 tn Or “who was made a little lower than the angels.”
2 tn Grk “because of the suffering of death.”
3 tn Grk “would taste.” Here the Greek verb does not mean “sample a small amount” (as a typical English reader might infer from the word “taste”), but “experience something cognitively or emotionally; come to know something” (cf. BDAG 195 s.v. γεύομαι 2).
4 tn Grk “in the days of his flesh.”
5 tn Grk “he”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Grk “who…having offered,” continuing the description of Christ from Heb 5:5-6.
7 tn Grk “in assurance of faith.”
8 sn The phrase our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience combines the OT imagery of the sprinkling with blood to give ritual purity with the emphasis on the interior cleansing provided by the new covenant: It is the heart that is cleansed and the conscience made perfect (cf. Heb 8:10; 9:9, 14; 10:2, 16).
9 tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א D2 1881 Ï), read δεσμοῖς μου (desmoi" mou, “my imprisonment”) here, a reading that is probably due to the widespread belief in the early Christian centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews (cf. Phil 1:7; Col 4:18). It may have been generated by the reading δεσμοῖς without the μου (so Ì46 Ψ 104 pc), the force of which is so ambiguous (lit., “you shared the sufferings with the bonds”) as to be virtually nonsensical. Most likely, δεσμοῖς resulted when a scribe made an error in copying δεσμίοις (desmioi"), a reading which makes excellent sense (“[of] those in prison”) and is strongly supported by early and significant witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texttypes (A D* H 6 33 81 1739 lat sy co). Thus, δεσμίοις best explains the rise of the other readings on both internal and external grounds and is strongly preferred.
10 tn Grk “you yourselves.”
11 tn Or “through his sacrifice”; Grk “through which.”
12 tn Or “through his sacrifice”; Grk “through it.”
13 tn Grk “past the time of maturity.”
14 tn Grk “power to deposit seed.” Though it is not as likely, some construe this phrase to mean “power to conceive seed,” making the whole verse about Sarah: “by faith, even though Sarah herself was barren and too old, she received ability to conceive, because she regarded the one who had given the promise to be trustworthy.”
15 tn Grk “Moses, when he was born, was hidden by his parents.”