The spiritual ear and eye are of the first importance. Peter in his second epistle uses

the word myopia ("cannot see afar off") of those who had become forgetful of the

purification of old sins (1: 9). We trust our readers will immediately remember the strong

emphasis upon "purification for sins" found in Hebrews, especially the fact that in the

opening summary this alone is written of the Lord's work on earth. "When He had made

purification for sins" (Heb. 1: 3) (see also Volume 9:, p. 150).  II Pet. 1: speaks of

"adding to your faith", a parallel expression to the words of Heb. 6:, "things that

accompany salvation". These added things have in view the rich furnishing of the entry

into the aionian kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (II Pet. 1: 11). So in

Hebrews the perfecting is connected with the aionian salvation.

This reference to the dullness of hearing is additionally a gathering up of the words of

the great historic type of chapters 3: and 4:  "Today if ye will HEAR His voice."

"Some, when they had HEARD, did provoke." "The word preached did not profit them,

because they were not united by faith with them that HEARD." Dullness of hearing,

moreover, is another mode of expressing the truth of Heb. 2: 1:

"Hearing" together with "seeing" may be reckoned as the chiefest of the senses. How

sad to allow any precious sense, even in the physical realm, to be atrophied through lack

of use! How doubly sad to have the precious gift of hearing spiritually and then through

not having "the senses EXERCISED" (Heb. 5: 14) to fail, to come short, to drift! Over

against this drifting and dullness the apostle places endurance, obedience, suffering,

steadfastness unto the end. Surely we, too, need the exhortation of the Lord, "Take heed

how you hear".

Not only were there many things to say about Melchisedec, but the apostle said that

they were "hard to be interpreted (not uttered)".  The word translated "uttered" is

dusermeneutos which is cognate with hermeneuo and occurs in Heb. 7: 2 again in

connection with this same Melchisedec:

Paul had no difficulty concerning "utterance", his difficulty was "to make intelligible

to you" (Moffatt). This difficulty of interpretation could reside in the apostle himself, or

could arise from some quality or lack in his hearers. This is what he actually said. Their

dullness of hearing, made for dullness of teaching. It is good to remember that there

could be no "buyers" if there were no "sellers", no "borrowers" if no "lenders", and the

teacher is dependent upon the hearer. If the hearer be "dull" the "interpretation" will be

thereby rendered difficult. That this is an integral part of the Apostle's lesson here, the

structure makes manifest, the words "dull" and "slothful" (Heb. 5: 11; 6: 12) being the

only occurrences of the Greek word nothros in the New Testament. Schrevelius says

this word means "to run, race, scud along" and being so, we can see how well it suited

the purpose of the Apostle who was urging his readers `to go on unto perfection', to `run

. . . . . the race set before them'. These dull and slothful ones were not laying aside every

weight, but were evidently cumbered with useless impediments, "the other things" that