8 but bringing forth thorns and briars, it is found worthless and nigh to a curse, whose end [is] to be burned.
And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed be the ground on thy account; with toil shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; and thorns and thistles shall it yield thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
Unless any one abide in me he is cast out as the branch, and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
And he said to the vinedresser, Behold, [these] three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none: cut it down; why does it also render the ground useless? But he answering says to him, Sir, let it alone for this year also, until I shall dig about it and put dung, and if it shall bear fruit -- but if not, after that thou shalt cut it down.
For behold, the day cometh, burning as a furnace; and all the proud and all that work wickedness shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, so that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
And Jehovah could no longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, [and] because of the abominations that ye had committed; and your land is become a waste, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as at this day.
I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard: My well-beloved had a vineyard upon a fruitful hill. And he dug it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine; and he built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What was there yet to do to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? -- And now, let me tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trodden under foot; and I will make it a waste -- it shall not be pruned nor cultivated, but there shall come up briars and thorns; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah the plant of his delight: and he looked for justice, and behold, blood-shedding; for righteousness, and behold, a cry.
and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in fury, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as [it appears] this day.
And answering he said to it, Let no one eat fruit of thee any more for ever. And his disciples heard [it].
for ye know that also afterwards, desiring to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, (for he found no place for repentance) although he sought it earnestly with tears.
but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and heat of fire about to devour the adversaries.
And now be thou cursed from the ground, which hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.
Then shall he say also to those on the left, Go from me, cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
And already the axe is applied to the root of the trees; every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.
and say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flashing flame shall not be quenched; and all that it meets from the south to the north shall be burned thereby.
Son of man, what is the wood of the vine more than any wood, the vine-branch, which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will [men] take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is given to the fire for fuel: the fire consumeth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned; is it fit for [any] work? Behold, when it was whole, it was used for no work; how much less when the fire hath consumed it, and it is burned, should it yet be used for any work? Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will set my face against them: they shall go forth from [one] fire, and [another] fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah when I set my face against them.
And he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but he shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.
For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume its boughs. When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come [and] set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour.
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and tares instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
And the generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sicknesses wherewith Jehovah hath visited it, [that] the whole ground thereof is brimstone and salt, [and] burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, and no grass groweth in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his fury:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hebrews 6
Commentary on Hebrews 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
In this chapter the apostle proceeds to persuade the Hebrews to make a better proficiency in religion than they had done, as the best way to prevent apostasy, the dreadful nature and consequences of which sin he sets forth in a serious manner (v. 1-8), and then expresses his good hopes concerning them, that they would persevere in faith and holiness, to which he exhorts them, and sets before them the great encouragement they had from God, both with respect to their duty and happiness (v. 9-20).
Hbr 6:1-8
We have here the apostle's advice to the Hebrews-that they would grow up from a state of childhood to the fullness of the stature of the new man in Christ. He declares his readiness to assist them all he could in their spiritual progress; and, for their greater encouragement, he puts himself with them: Let us go on. Here observe, In order to their growth, Christians must leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ. How must they leave them? They must not lose them, they must not despise them, they must not forget them. They must lay them up in their hearts, and lay them as the foundation of all their profession and expectation; but they must not rest and stay in them, they must not be always laying the foundation, they must go on, and build upon it. There must be a superstructure; for the foundation is laid on purpose to support the building. Here it may be enquired, Why did the apostle resolve to set strong meat before the Hebrews, when he knew they were but babes? Answer.
Hbr 6:9-20
The apostle, having applied himself to the fears of the Hebrews, in order to excite their diligence and prevent their apostasy, now proceeds to apply himself to their hopes, and candidly declares the good hope he had concerning them, that they would persevere; and proposes to them the great encouragements they had in the way of their duty.