Bible · NudgeRead the passage
Hebrews 2:16
For most certainly, he doesn’t give help to angels, but he gives help to the offspring of Abraham.
In the King James Version
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
What was happening around this
The unnamed author/homilist of Hebrews addresses a Christian audience as “brothers” (v. 17) while explaining why Jesus shared human “flesh and blood” and suffered. Jennifer Vija Pietz describes 2:10–18 as the section in which Jesus’ incarnation and suffering are connected to his help for human beings; the text itself does not name the audience, and authorship (including the traditional Pauline attribution) is contested. The nearby vv. 14–15 concern death and the devil, and v. 17 moves to priesthood and atonement.
Source: Pietz, “Commentary on Hebrews 2:14–18,” Working Preacher
The verses on either side
- “I will put my trust in him.” Again, “Behold, here I am with the children whom God has given me.”
- Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
- and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
- For most certainly, he doesn’t give help to angels, but he gives help to the offspring of Abraham.
- Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in all things, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.
- For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.
Where this comes up