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"To test, try, as a metal". This meaning is borne out by the passages in Heb. 11:, "By
faith Abraham, when he was TRIED (peirazo, "tempted"), offered up Isaac" (11: 17).
Shall we say that God tempted Abraham to sin when he made the great demand
concerning Isaac? God forbid! because Scripture positively declares that God never
tempts man to sin (James 1: 13) and also because a reading of Gen. 22: reveals that this
"temptation" was a "testing" of Abraham's faith, "Now I know that thou fearest God,
seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me" (Gen. 22: 12).
The contexts of the references to temptation in Heb. 2: and 4: introduce such words
as "succour", "sympathy" ("cannot be touched with"), "infirmities", but we can scarcely
speak of "sympathy" and "infirmities" when we speak of "sin" as it appears in Scripture.
The word translated "succour" (Heb. 2: 18) and "help" (Heb. 4: 16) occurs once more
in Heb. 13: 6, "So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper". This is associated,
not with "sin" or "forgiveness", but with the promise that the believer would never be
forsaken and in connection with "what man shall do" unto us, not what we might
inadvertently do ourselves.
Another word which occurs in Hebrews must be included in our examination and that
is the word peira. This occurs twice in Hebrews:
"By faith they passed through the Read Sea as by dry land, which the Egyptians
assaying (making the attempt) to do, were drowned" (Heb. 11: 29).
"Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings" (Heb. 11: 36).
In neither passage can the idea of "tempting" be discovered. In the first passage
"attempt" gives good English and incidentally reveals that, in our own mother-tongue, the
word "tempt" means a "trial" or "ATtempt". The other reference (Heb. 11: 37) is but a
variant of the word translated "tempted", and needs no comment.
To complete the tale of occurrences of peirazo in Hebrews, one more reference must
be included. In Heb. 5: 13 we find the negative, apeiros, where it is translated
"unskillful", which accords with the classical rendering "untried" and "inexperienced"
and with the LXX usage.
"Surely they shall not see the land which I sware to their fathers; but their children
which are with Me here, as many as know not good or evil, every inexperienced (apeiros)
youth, to them will I give the land" (Numb. 14: 23).
The reader will recognize the influence of this LXX rendering in Heb. 5: 13, 14,
where the unskillful "babe" is contrasted with the "perfect", who discerns "good and
evil".
As they stand, the words, "yet without sin", in Heb. 4: 15, suggest to the English
reader, "yet without sinning", as if our Lord was actually tempted to steal, to murder, to
commit adultery, but resisted. We only allow ourselves to write this in order to bring this
doctrine and its consequences into the light, for there is no necessity so to translate or
interpret the words choris hamartias. In his Lexicon choris is rendered by Dr. Bullinger