The passage before us is confessedly difficult, and there are a number of ways in which the language of the

apostle can be construed. The A.V. renders Hebrews 2:16 thus:

`For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham'.

The words printed in italics reveal the point of the problem, and the A.V. margin translates the verse as follows,

omitting the italicized words, and telling us that the Greek reads:

`He taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold'.

What the A.V. puts into its margin, the R.V. places in its text. The student will discover that there is a great

variety of opinion among the commentators and the following is a fair presentation of their differing views.

Parkhurst in his Lexicon says:

`The text therefore means that Christ, when He came to redeem us, did not assume a glorious, awful and angelic

appearance, but, etc., etc.'.

This is promptly denied by his Editor who follows with a note:

`There appears little ground for assigning this sense to epilambanomai. Ernesti says that the ancient Greek church

always interpreted the verb in this place to assist'.

Moses Strut disposes of the A.V. idea of the nature of angels by saying that both usus loquendi and context is

against this meaning:

`For the apostle had just asserted above that Jesus took on Him a human nature, and it would be a mere repetition'.

Moses Strut thinks it means `to aid'. Dr. Owen proceeds by lengthy argument and characteristic subdivision to

prove the meaning to be `assumo, accipio, to take unto, or to take upon', and that:

`The apostle teacheth us by it, that the Lord Christ took to Him, and took on Him, our human nature of the seed of

The idea of `relieving' or `helping' is fitly expressed by antilambanomai (Luke 1:54; Acts 20:35; 1 Tim. 6:2),

but the writer of Hebrews passes by this word. The reader is probably no wiser by all this than before, and we have

endeavoured to indicate the exceedingly ambiguous results of past scholarship in elucidating this passage. We shall

therefore be justified in saying, that as there is no agreement among the learned themselves, we must turn once more

to the Fountain-head. One writer complains that the other usages of the word `to take hold' do not help him; the

reason seems that they do not help his idea of what it means. Let us examine the word afresh, epilambanomai.

Matthew 14:31

`Stretched forth His hand, and caught him'.

Mark 8:23

`He took the blind man by the hand'.

Luke 9:47

`And Jesus ... took a child'.

Luke 14:4

`He took him, and healed him'.

Luke 20:20,26

`Take hold of His words'.

Luke 23:26

`They laid hold upon one Simon'.

Acts 9:27

`But Barnabas took him'.

Acts 16:19

`They caught Paul and Silas'.

Acts 17:19

`They took him'.

Acts 18:17

`The Greeks took Sosthenes'.

Acts 21:30,33

`They took Paul'.

Acts 23:19

`Took him by the hand'.

1 Tim. 6:12,19

`Lay hold on eternal life'.

Heb. 2:16

Heb. 8:9

`I took them by the hand'.

An impartial examination shews that the word is colourless. There is no moral meaning inherent to it.