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"My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously
wrought in the lower parts of the earth."
Verse 13 speaks of the period of birth, but this verse speaks of something far more
mysterious. This secret thing wrought in the lower parts of the earth the LXX calls "my
hypostasis", and this hypostasis is to birth (13) what the substance of Heb. 1: 3 is to
express image.
While the verse which follows does not contain the same word in the LXX, it is
nevertheless an expansion of the meaning of hypostasis.
"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect, and in Thy book all my
members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none
of them" (compare Heb. 10:, `In the volume of the book', etc.).
In the earlier verses of the Psalm there is found this same thought of something hidden
and unseen except by God, see verses 2 and 4. Another passage where the word occurs
in the LXX is Psa. 39: 5, "Behold thou hast made my days as an handbreath, and
mine age (hypostasis) as nothing". Here the word "age" is in Hebrew cheled, something
that creeps imperceptibly, and so not manifest. "Time slips our notice and unheeded
flies". The Syriac version used cheled to translate, "to creep in", in II Tim. 3: 6.
Psa. 69: 2 gives an example of the simpler concept of "standing". Our own word
"understanding" is a faculty of the mind, a meaning we can very well imagine a would-be
expositor ridiculing who simply used the dissecting knife and limited himself to the
etymology "stand", "under".
In the N.T. we find hypostasis used in the sense of "confidence", a most natural
development of the idea of underlying reality, II Cor. 9: 4, 11: 17, Heb. 3: 14.
Heb. 11: 1 reads, "now faith is the substance of things hoped for", something real, though
not seen. The unseen faith of the worthies that occupy Heb. 11: was manifested in their
lives. Their hypostasis had its express image in their lives and conduct. One thing was
common to them all. They lived, suffered, and died for something "unseen", or "seen
afar off"; they endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.
If faith is the substance of things hoped for, we can use either term with good sense.
Instead of the words, "By faith Abel, . . . . Noah, . . . . Abraham", we can say, "By
the substance (the deep hidden reality) of things hoped for, Abel, Noah, Abraham did this
or that.
Christ is the charakter of God's hypostasis. No law or set of laws, no fasts, feast, or
sacrifices, no series of typical man could ever be the express image; Christ alone is that.
It is this thought that permeates the epistle to the Hebrews. It is because of this that the
title occurs here. It is essential to its true understanding that we remember that it would
not have been employed if the theme of the epistle had not demanded it. Because Christ
and Christ alone is the express image, He is above angels (Heb. 1:), above Moses and
Joshua (3:, 4:), above the high priesthood of the order of Aaaron (5:-8:), above all