Hebrews 13 Bible study: The God of peace

The letter's last chapter opens: "Let brotherly love continue. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers." (13:1-4). These notes explain 13:1-4 no further than their words, and apply none of them to anyone's life today.

Leviticus 4:12→leads toHebrews 13:11-12

The bull for the anointed priest's sin is burned "outside of the camp" (4:12), and so is the bull for the congregation (4:21). The anointed priest had carried its blood into the Tent of Meeting and sprinkled it before the veil (4:5-6, 4:16-17). Leviticus later makes this the rule: "No sin offering, of which any of the blood is brought into the Tent of Meeting to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be eaten. It shall be burned with fire" (Leviticus 6:30). Hebrews writes, "For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside of the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside of the gate" (Hebrews 13:11-12). What Hebrews sets side by side is the place: the bodies burned outside the camp, and Jesus suffering outside the gate. Hebrews doesn't name a chapter; the sin offerings of the Day of Atonement, whose blood was also brought in, are burned outside the camp too (Leviticus 16:27).

φιλαδελφίαphiladelphiasay fil-ad-el-FEE-ah

Strong's: "fraternal affection". "Let brotherly love continue." (13:1): behind brotherly love is this one noun. Hebrews has it only here (counted in RP2018, and in all eight editions TAGNT compares). Favor's Romans 12 studies it where the WEB gives it as love of the brothers (Romans 12:10), and counts it in the New Testament.