Charles Ellicott Commentary Hebrews 2:2

"For if the word spoken through angels proved stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;" — Hebrews 2:2 (ASV)

The word spoken by angels.—Or rather, through angels : the word was God’s, but angels were the medium through which it was given to men. In accordance with the tone of the whole passage, where the focus is not on the reward of obedience but on the peril of neglecting duty, “the word” must denote divine commands delivered by angels. As the close parallel presented by Hebrews 10:28-29 seems to prove, this refers especially to the commands of the Mosaic law. Therefore, this verse must be connected with the other passages (Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19; compare also to Acts 7:38) that highlight the ministry of angels in the giving of the Law. The nature of the argument in this Epistle gives special importance to this subject here.

The only passage in the Pentateuch that can be quoted in illustration is Deuteronomy 33:2: The Lord came from Sinai. . . . He came from amid myriads of holy ones. The Greek version (introducing a double rendering of the Hebrew) adds, at His right hand were angels with Him; and two of the Targums likewise speak of the “myriads of holy angels.”Psalms 68:17 is difficult and obscure, but very possibly agrees with the passage just quoted in referring to angels as the attendants of Jehovah on the mount. Nowhere in the Old Testament is this idea developed further; but there are a few passages in Jewish writers that clearly show that such a ministry of angels as is spoken of here was a tenet of Jewish belief in the apostolic age.

Philo, after stating that angels derive their name from reporting the Father’s commands to His children and the children’s needs to the Father, adds: “We are unable to receive His abundant and pure benefits if He Himself offers them to us without employing others as His ministers.” Much more important are the words of Josephus (Ant. xv. 5, § 3), who introduces Herod as reminding the Jews that they had learned the noblest of the ordinances and the holiest of the things contained in the laws from God through angels.

Jewish writers quoted by Wetstein speak of the “angels of service” whom Moses had known from the time of the giving of the law. Moreover, they speak of the angel who, when Moses through terror had forgotten all that he had been taught during the forty days, delivered the law to him again. Such speculations are of interest as they show the place that this tenet held in Jewish doctrine and belief. Here and in Galatians 3:19 (see Note there), this mediation of angels is cited as a mark of the law’s inferiority; in Acts 7:53, where no such comparison is made, the implied contrast is between angels and men as givers of a law.

Was steadfast.—Rather, proved steadfast or sure; evidence of this was given by the punishment that overtook the transgressor, whether inflicted by the direct visitation of God or by human hands faithfully executing the divine will. Of the two words, well rendered transgression and disobedience, the one points especially to the infraction of a positive precept, while the other is more general. The former relates more commonly to “thou shalt not;” the latter, rather, to “thou shalt.” The two words are united here so that every violation of the command may be included. The use of reward in a neutral or unfavorable sense (2 Peter 2:13; Psalms 94:2, and others) is not uncommon in our older writers (Compare to “the reward of a villain,” in Shakespeare).