7 It is for your training that you undergo these things; God is acting to you as a father does to his sons; for what son does not have punishment from his father?
Give your son training while there is hope; let not your heart be purposing his death.
He who keeps back his rod is unkind to his son: the loving father gives punishment with care.
Keep in mind this thought, that as a son is trained by his father, so you have been trained by the Lord your God.
Do not keep back training from the child: for even if you give him blows with the rod, it will not be death to him. Give him blows with the rod, and keep his soul safe from the underworld.
Why then are you looking with envy on my offerings of meat and of meal which were ordered by my word, honouring your sons before me, and making yourselves fat with all the best of the offerings of Israel, my people?
And this will be the sign to you, which will come on Hophni and Phinehas, your sons; death will overtake them on the same day.
I will be to him a father and he will be to me a son: if he does wrong, I will give him punishment with the rod of men and with the blows of the children of men;
Now all his life his father had never gone against him or said to him, Why have you done so? and he was a very good-looking man, and younger than Absalom.
Now by the living Lord, who has given me my place on the seat of David my father, and made me one of a line of kings, as he gave me his word, truly Adonijah will be put to death this day. And King Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, and he made an attack on him and put him to death.
Making strong the souls of the disciples, saying to them that they were to keep the faith, and that we have to go through troubles of all sorts to come into the kingdom of God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hebrews 12
Commentary on Hebrews 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 12
The apostle, in this chapter, applies what he has collected in the chapter foregoing, and makes use of it as a great motive to patience and perseverance in the Christian faith and state, pressing home the argument,
Hbr 12:1-3
Here observe what is the great duty which the apostle urges upon the Hebrews, and which he so much desires they would comply with, and that is, to lay aside every weight, and the sin that did so easily beset them, and run with patience the race set before them. The duty consists of two parts, the one preparatory, the other perfective.
Hbr 12:4-17
Here the apostle presses the exhortation to patience and perseverance by an argument taken from the gentle measure and gracious nature of those sufferings which the believing Hebrews endured in their Christian course.
Hbr 12:18-29
Here the apostle goes on to engage the professing Hebrews to perseverance in their Christian course and conflict, and not to relapse again into Judaism. This he does by showing them how much the state of the gospel church differs from that of the Jewish church, and how much it resembles the state of the church in heaven, and on both accounts demands and deserves our diligence, patience, and perseverance in Christianity.