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the first-begotten into the world , " ( a reference to the resurrection , ) " he saith , * Let all the angels of God worship him' " ( rather , " do homage to him . " It is somewhat doubtful whence these words are taken . Dr . S . considers them as a loose quotation from Ps . xcvii . 7 . " The difference of the words , " he says , " is immaterial to the sense , and is not greater than occurs in some instances of * passages from the Old Testament introduced into the New . " It is possible he may be right . The literal translation from
the Hebrew in that passage is , " Worship him , all ye Gods ; " but the LXX . render it ayysXoi , angels . It is not certain whether the original here intends by " Gods , " princes , magistrates , or prophets ; but there is little reason to suppose that it can mean angels in our sense of that word . Whoever they are , it is clear that they are called upon to praise Jehovah , and there is no pretence for supposing any reference of the Psalm to the Messiah ; nor will the opinion of certain Jews , at a period when they were disposed to refer
every thing in their Scriptures to this expected prince , and which applies equally to all the neighbouring Psalms , be thought of much importance . Our author ' s attempt to explain the introduction ofthe first-begotten into the world , as implied in the Psalm , is , we should think , too far-fetched and fanciful to satisfy even those who are most willing to be led by him . But it is upon the whole the most probable supposition , adopted by Mr . Belsham after Sykes , that the words in the Epistle-are taken from the LXX . version of Deut . xxxii . 43 , where they are found exactly , though there is nothing
corresponding in the purest Hebrew copies , or in the other ancient versions ; and if we suppose the clause not to be genuine as a part of the passage in Deuteronomy , that is no reason why it may not have been quoted and ap * - plied by the author of the epistle , rinding it , as we have no reason to doubt that he did , in his Greek copy , from whence he has drawn all his quotations . * Mr . Belsham agrees with Dr . Sykes in supposing that the homage from all the messengers of God , is , in the passage of Deut ., required to be paid to the chosen people , whose father God is called in this very chapter , and who are
elsewhere in the book of Exodus collectively spoken of as God ' s first-born son ; that the introducing again into the world is the restoration of their prosperity after their afflictions , which is the subject of this part of the Song of Moses , and that the application of the words to the resurrection of Christ is an accommodation . Our doubt is , wbether the writer of the epistle makes any reference at all to the original connexion of the words he quotes . He may mean merely , that by the resurrection of Christ he was so gloriously
exalted , that those words of Scripture might well be applied to him , •* Let all the messengers of God do homage to him . " When he introduceth again the first-begotten ( from the dead ) into the world , he saith , the Scripture saith , i . e . we may apply the words of Scripture , ' Let all the messengers of God do homage to him" ) . " And concerning these messengers the Scripture saith , ' Who maketh his messengers winds , and his ministers a flame of fire . ' " ( It represents them as mere servants fulfilling his commands , like the winds
* Dr . Smith thinks " its variations in the different MSS . of the LXX . itself afford a presumption against its genuineness" ( i . e . as a part of the original LXX . ) . May it not be more jusily said , looking at Dr . S . 's own comparison of the present Hebrew with the Aldine , Vatican , and Alexandrine editions of the LXX ., that the parallelism between the two first sentences , one of which is retained in the Hebrew , the other in the Aldine Greek , is favourable to the genuineness of both , the same sort of parallelism being found in ] the following clauses , and that the difference between the Vatican and Alexandrine— " be strong in him "—" strengthen them , " proves the existence of an original iu another languages of which both these are translations ?
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I > i \ J . P . Smith's Soriplure Testimony to the Messiah * 16 £
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/21/
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