CHAPTER 6
HEBREWS 1 AND THE SON BEGOTTEN “TODAY”
MADISON N. PIERCE
“YOU ARE MY SON; today I have begotten you.”1 The Epistle to the Hebrews quotes this text from Psalm 2:7 near the opening of the Epistle, but what does the author mean that the Son was begotten today? Is Hebrews advocating an adoptionist Christology? If so, then how does that cohere with the author’s depiction of the Son in the rest of the Epistle? If not, then what does he mean by the word “today?” There are two noteworthy yet divergent views on this verse: (1) the “day” is the day of Jesus’s enthronement and exaltation, and (2) the “day” is eternity—the span of Jesus’s existence.
This chapter will argue that even though this quotation is sometimes used in service of an adoptionist Christology, the author of Hebrews intends to use this quotation of Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews 1:5 to claim that Jesus is the Son of God eternally. This reading supports the doctrine of “eternal generation,” which teaches that the Father by necessity generated the Son in eternity past. To support this thesis, I will first outline Hebrews 1:1–5 and show how 1:5 in particular fits within the chapter as a whole. Second, I will discuss some representative modern readings that offer a helpful contrast to my own. Then, I will show how the Old Testament context does and does not relate to the use of Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews and connect this context with the author’s exegetical method. Finally, I will draw these threads together in order to offer my own explanation of the passage and show how it reasonably supports reading “today” as a metaphorical temporal designation. Before I proceed to a summary of Hebrews 1, let me summarize this issue further.
In the Nicene Creed, the summary of orthodox teaching about Jesus is succinct and yet holds together the humanity and divinity of God’s Son in a way that, to borrow the Creed’s syntax, is thorough, not erudite, and simple, not simplistic. The slightly expanded version from AD 381 reads:
We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us, humanity, and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made human [emphasis added].
That Jesus is God of God and Light of Light means that he is wholly God, that he is fully one with the Father—he is as it were “like from like.” Yet another crucial part of his identity is the fact that he was mothered by the Virgin Mary. He is eternal and yet lived a human life in which he was born and died. He is eternal and “begotten, not made”—a teaching referred to by many theologians as the doctrine of eternal generation, which in this chapter will be primarily referred to in terms of “eternal begetting”—is thought to be a part of orthodox theological instruction; however, it has become common among biblical scholars to insist that these ideas cannot be found explicitly within our Bible.2 The biblical authors, they claim, had only a rudimentary understanding of God, and it was not for several hundred years—until the Council of Nicaea in AD 325—that people really took an interest in some of these more complex theological distinctives. I am not thoroughly convinced. This chapter considers the use of Hebrews 1:5 as test case to illustrate how some interpretations take more complex routes in hopes of arriving at a less complex theological conclusion.
SUMMARY OF PASSAGE
Though biblical scholars are encouraged to set aside their theological biases and approach the text “critically,” it is sometimes the case that avoiding supposedly anachronistic theology might actually damage a plain—or at least plainer—reading of some texts. One passage that offers a helpful example is Hebrews 1. The author opens his Epistle with this grand summary: “At many times and in various ways, God, who formerly spoke to our ancestors through the prophets, in these last days speaks to us through the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb 1:1–3a). The Son is a secondary agent of creation and heir of all things. He likewise emanates or radiates God’s glory and replicates his very essence.
This section of Hebrews has since fueled many theological treatises. Athanasius, one example among many, writes of the first description of the Son in Hebrews 1:3: “As the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, ‘who being the brightness of his glory and the stamp of his nature.’ . . . For when did anyone see light without the brightness of its radiance that one may say of the Son, ‘There was once when he was not,’ or ‘Before his generation he was not’?”3 Light and brightness can be distinguished, but they cannot be separated. Athanasius implies that this image clearly depicts the relationship between the Father and Son. Likewise, at another point in his Orations against the Arians, Athanasius also explicates the next description of the Son as the “exact representation of his being” (χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ): “He is true God, existing consubstantially (homoousios) with the true Father. . . . For he is the ‘very stamp’ of the Father’s ‘being,’ and ‘light’ from ‘light,’ and the ‘power’ and true ‘image’ of the Father’s substance.”4 Athanasius interprets χαρακτήρ as “stamp” and/or “image.” This language is also used in the minting of coins.5 The Father is seen via the Son (cf. John 1:18)—he is imprinted upon his likeness. For Athanasius, Hebrews offers a substantive glimpse of something in accord with later Nicene theology. Early readers, especially but not only Athanasius, found these verses in Hebrews to be influential in their understanding of God.
The author of Hebrews begins with his own summary of who the Son is, but, as we shall see, he does not stop there. Rather than having his readers take his word on the matter, the author then goes on to quote God’s words—not as a written text but as God’s spoken communication about the Son. Since the Son later responds to the Father’s words in Hebrews 2, some even refer to this as an “inner-Trinitarian conversation.”6 For the author, grounding these claims in God’s words makes them authoritative. The author does not call Jesus “Son”—God does.
In addition to this speech, to make clear just how remarkable the Son is, the author of Hebrews compares him with God’s prior mediators—the angels. They are not worthy recipients of God’s speech, even though they are powerful divine beings. Even so, the Son is of course superior:
For to whom among the angels did God ever say,
“You are my Son;
today I have begotten you”
and again,
“I will be his Father;
he will be my Son.” (1:5)
In each of these quotations from Scripture, first Psalm 2:7 and then 2 Samuel 7:14, the author of Hebrews capitalizes on an ambiguity or tension within the text or its subsequent interpretation in order to identity the addressee of the speech as Jesus.7 But modern interpreters have of course found ambiguity in the author of Hebrews’s work as well. In the next section I will summarize some representative views of Hebrews 1:5 that I find problematic. These views will offer a helpful contrast to my own, which I will offer at the close.
MODERN READINGS
The primary view of Hebrews 1:5 among biblical scholars is that this verse takes place at the exaltation of Jesus. Though the author does not quote Psalm 110:1, “sit at my right hand,” until the end of these seven quotations about the Son’s superiority, an allusion to this verse first appears in Hebrews 1:3. The author says that “after [ Jesus] provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.” With this allusion and the subsequent quotation of Psalm 110:1 in Hebrews 1:13, the author brackets the series of quotations inside references to the Son sitting at the right hand of the Father. Some contend that this frame is put in place so that readers envision the throne room throughout the seven quotations, seeing the Son firmly at rest in his heavenly session.8 Many interpreters locate the Father’s part of the conversation between the Father and Son precisely in that setting—in the heavens at the exaltation.
Nevertheless, the key question is whether all the acts and events depicted in the quotations occur in this setting as well, as so many claim. Victor Rhee, for example, states that “Christ was begotten as the Son [at] the same time that he was appointed as high priest”—which for Rhee is at the exaltation.9 L. D. Hurst likewise claims, “The author’s main interest was not in a uniquely privileged, divine being who becomes man; it is in a human figure who attains to an exalted status.”10 For some, such as Kenneth Schenck, Christ was always the Son because someday he would function as such.11 In other words, Christ always had the potential to sit at the Father’s right hand. This understanding upholds the sonship of Jesus throughout his life but implies that the Son is superior to the angels and worthy of the worship described in Hebrews 1:6 based on what he becomes, not on what he was—and of course always is.
Others avoid the issue of the “begetting” and what it entails by relying upon the time and place at which the declaration is spoken. They explicitly state that their view is incompatible with reading Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews 1:5 in terms of the Son’s eternal generation, even though their primary aim is simply to locate the speech at the exaltation.12 I will argue in what follows that locating this speech at the exaltation is compatible with an “eternal” interpretation of the begetting. Those interpreters are right: it happened today.
CONTEXT OF OLD TESTAMENT QUOTATIONS
Since readings of Hebrews 1:5 need to take the context of Hebrews’s quotations into account, let us turn briefly to the Old Testament. In Hebrews 1:5, the author quotes two verses from the Greek version of the Old Testament: Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14. In the former, the speaker tells his audience how the Lord bestowed upon him an inheritance—the nations (2:8)—and vowed to be his Father (2:7). Traditionally, this psalm was associated with David or another ruler in the Davidic line, primarily due to the messianic language, which is often linked to the Davidic monarchy.13 The next verse, 2 Samuel 7:14, has a more concrete historical setting; these are words spoken to David via the prophet Nathan about his descendent (τὸ σπέρμα) being called “son” by YHWH, often thought to be Solomon. In both Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7, the texts portray a metaphorical father–son relationship between God and the human king,14 which according to Joseph Fitzmyer entails “divine sponsorship, support, or assistance for the king, and by implication the dynasty.”15 This assumes that the verse does not necessitate that the Son is truly the Son of God—one who is “like from like.” As for the setting, the “today” of the proclamation is thought to be the coronation for the king.16 This statement conferring sonship language to the human king is a “performative utterance” that “adopts” the person as God’s son.17
Thus two elements to bear in mind as we progress are (1) the timing of these passages and by extension the setting at the enthronement and (2) the quality or type of sonship they imply. If one or both elements are intended to carry over into the use of these passages in the New Testament, then Jesus too might be God’s metaphorical offspring who is praised as Son only at his exaltation and not in his preexistence or earthly life.
Were this imposition of the broader interpretive framework to be stressed, the consequences for the otherwise well-developed Christology of Hebrews would be significant.
EXEGETICAL STRATEGIES IN HEBREWS 1
But is this what the author of Hebrews is trying to communicate by these quotations? Explicitly he tells his readers that he is comparing the Son and the angels, but what other comparisons arise through his reading of these passages in this way? The author is taking portions of Jewish Scripture and identifying one of its characters as Jesus. This character-or person-centered exegesis, often referred to as “prosopological” or “prosoponic” exegesis,18 relates to an ancient literary method that can be traced to Greco-Roman rhetorical education. Although the interpretive move of reading Jesus into Old Testament texts may seem rather natural to us now due to its frequency in the New Testament and early Christian literature, it still requires further discussion and evaluation in light of its Jewish context.
This technique found throughout Hebrews is also found in at least one episode from Jesus’s teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. In Matthew 22:42–45, Jesus asks the Pharisees,
“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They reply, “The son of David.” “How then,” Jesus asks, “is it that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”
Jesus points to a tension in the common interpretation of this text that sees the “lord” as a son of David. David is, after all, a great king, and to call his descendant or child “lord” is a bit strange if something is not truly significant about the individual. Though none of the Gospels end up explicitly identifying the “Lord” of the psalm, the clear implication is that it is Jesus. This interpretation of Psalm 110 attempts to resolve the potential tension of David referring to his child as “lord.”
Hebrews 1:5 likewise seeks to address a tension found in the common identification of the “son” begotten today as one within the Davidic line. Even though this psalm is distinctive in its lack of connection to David in the Greek version of Scripture, it does contain a reference to the Christ—the Messiah or the anointed one. But who is the anointed one? Hebrews identifies him with Jesus. Likewise, who is the one among David’s offspring that 2 Samuel 7:14 says will be a king forever? Only one among David’s many, many descendants—Jesus.
These quotations are used by the author in a creative way to establish the superiority of the Son over the angels. The author, as we shall see, shows that the Son is the only one truly qualified to be called “Son” by God. While the author uses his quotations to assert who the Son is, he uses the introductory formula, “for to whom among the angels did God ever say,” to make a point about who the Son is not. In Hebrews 1:5, the addressee—the Son—and the nonaddressees—the angels—are both of great importance. The author makes clear that this speech is exceptional; however, even though part of the author’s purpose is to elevate the Son over the angels, by calling him “Son” he actually introduces a correlation rather than a contrast. This is because the angels sometimes are called “sons of God” in Scripture,19 as in Genesis 6:1–4 (LXX): “Then humans began to become numerous on the earth, and daughters were born to them, and the sons of God, seeing that the human daughters were beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they chose . . . when the sons of God had intercourse with the human daughters, they gave birth.”
Interpreters typically identify the “sons of God,” and their sin of gigantic proportions, with the angels.20 If the angels are sons, then how is this Son distinct? While the author of Hebrews does not explicitly acknowledge this potential counterpoint for his readers, a few clues in the text answer the hypothetical objection. First, no singular angel is ever called “son,” just as the author suggests with his introductory formula. Further, Jesus is not simply Son; he is the “firstborn” (Heb 1:6).21 With this more specific designation, the author minimizes any lingering counterarguments about another “son of God.” Even if one claimed that the references to the angels as “sons of God” in Scripture suggest a multiplicity of sons, this Son has supremacy.
Even though no single angel was called “son,” a single human is, namely, the Davidic king. He bears this title in Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14.22 Further, in Psalm 89:27, the king is called the firstborn (πρωτότοκος), which is likely referenced in the next introductory formula in Hebrews 1:6: “but again when he brings the firstborn (πρωτότοκον) into the world, he says . . .”23 Within the Psalms, these texts can plausibly be applied to someone within the Davidic line, but the author of Hebrews has made certain that his readers know the words are about the exalted Son. The author has reinterpreted them by identifying Jesus as a character within these texts.24
As I have suggested, this technique often takes place when an interpreter finds a tension with a common reading. In this case, the author of Hebrews, perhaps in line with a previous tradition,25 proposes that nearly every text that refers to a human king as the “son of God” (or “firstborn”) should instead be read exclusively christologically. In other words, his cognitive framework suggests that an ordinary human cannot be the Son of God, so he looks for another character behind these texts. What he finds is the Christ.26 As a result, the author suggests that something is distinct about God’s bestowal of the title son here—it is unfit for a (human) king.
If the author of Hebrews is not using every element of the Old Testament context, and is perhaps even creating some distance between his reading and common readings of Psalm 2, then the assumption that numerous elements of Psalm 2 obviously influence other elements for Hebrews 1 requires further evaluation. This is especially true for the two facets of these texts that I mentioned previously—the timing and the type of sonship in view.
Delaying our discussion of the timing momentarily, let us consider the type of Father–Son relationship depicted elsewhere in Hebrews. Is it purely metaphorical and/or spiritual in nature? In one sense, this is a difficult question to answer because an integral part of Hebrews’s theology points to the one Son Jesus extending salvation, his inheritance, and other blessings as Son of God to his brothers and sisters. So how might we determine that Hebrews envisions a distinct relationship between Jesus and God the Father when the author so often connects Jesus to humanity? Here, the theological discussions of the fourth century assist us again. For Jesus to be a distinct and actual Son of God, he needs to be one with God, connected and coherent with him in ways that we are not—in ways that Hebrews 1 says Jesus is indeed connected. He is the exact representation of God’s being—his ὑποστάσις (1:3). He has inherited a name from his Father that makes him superior to the angels (1:4). He is called God by God in Hebrews 1:8–9 and Lord, the Greek equivalent to the Divine Name, YHWH, in Hebrews 1:10–12. Jesus is Son of God, God himself, and Lord. His depiction early in Hebrews is consistent with God the Father. He is indeed “like from like.”
It seems, therefore, that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is indeed aware of the broader context of Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7, but that he finds a rationale within these texts to think that the extraordinary king discussed is none other than Jesus. By reading the text in this way, he not only introduces a comparison between Jesus and the great King David, but also suggests that no mere mortal could be spoken of in this way. The true Son of God is not a son like the angels or David, but is one who is coeternal and divine.
“TODAY” AND ETERNITY IN HEBREWS
Turning to my own reading of Hebrews 1:5, I find a number of compelling reasons that, particularly when taken together, suggest that the author could have the eternal generation of the Son in view. The first relates to the relationship between the timing of the speech and that of the begetting. In the psalm itself, the depiction of the “enthroned one,” who is installed on Mount Zion, certainly supports a view that locates Hebrews 1 at the exaltation of the Son to the Father’s right hand. But it is from the throne that the Anointed One says,
I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me,
“You are my son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance,
and the ends of the earth your possession.”
This is reported speech from the past.27 By the time the speaker speaks, he has already been proclaimed Son, but when this decree takes place is not further specified by the author. In the psalm, it is contemporaneous with his appointment, but neither Hebrews nor the psalm indicates when that appointment happens. What we do know is at the time of the decree the promise to make the nations the king’s inheritance remains in the future. Psalm 2:8 is of course not quoted in Hebrews 1:5; however, Hebrews 1:2 contains a likely reference to it: the Son is the one “whom [God] appointed heir of all things.”
While this initially suggests that the Son has indeed received his inheritance, other elements in Hebrews suggest a tension. After showing how Psalm 8 ties to the future of humanity (as brought about by Jesus), Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we do not yet see all things in subjection to him.” Here the marriage of Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 found in Hebrews 1 remains key to the author’s understanding of the Son, and this combination of texts recurs when the author discusses Christ’s priesthood in Hebrews 5 as well, confirming the likely link in the author’s conceptual framework. What Hebrews 2 suggests is that the full inheritance for the Son is the subjection of all things, and that remains unfulfilled. This may mean that the promise of the inheritance and the reception of the inheritance itself are separate. This is certainly the case for Abraham and others in Hebrews 11—since theirs is a promise not yet obtained (11:39). Returning to Hebrews 1, this sequence is somewhat challenging to untangle with multiple texts in view, but the sequence of events appears to be as follows: the Son was said to be begotten and appointed heir, he reported the Father’s speech, and then he fully inherited all things.
But, we may ask, if the day of the speech is not the day of the begetting, then why has the author chosen a quotation that apparently locates the begetting “today” when he quotes the text? After all, if he desired to avoid this complication, then he could have quoted only 2 Samuel 7:14 and not Psalm 2:7. But seeing Psalm 2 as an avoidable complication is a flawed hypothetical assumption that misses the point. For this author, “today” is far more than a twenty-four-hour timespan. Using Psalm 2:7 allows him the opportunity to say something particular about the Son.
Let us turn now to the author’s other uses of this word “today” to explore this strategy further. Among the eight uses of this language in Hebrews, perhaps the most recognizable is Hebrews 13:8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” For our purpose, the most helpful occurrences are found in Hebrews 3–4. There the author quotes Scripture yet again, but this time the speaker is the Holy Spirit. With the words of Psalm 95:7–11, the Spirit exhorts the community:
Today if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness
where your ancestors tested [me] with scrutiny
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore, I became angry with that generation and said,
“They always go astray in their hearts,
and they do not know my ways.”
As I swore in my wrath,
“They shall never enter my rest.”
The psalmist says, “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Although this quotation is directed to the audience with second-person plural language, the author’s discussion moves beyond implicit address to explicit imperatives in the exhortation that follows. Beginning in Hebrews 3:13, the author says, “Encourage one another each day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ so that none among you becomes hardened by the deceit of sin.” For the author to command this behavior each day that is called “today” assumes that it will continue forever because on no known occasion will this day not be “today.”
Thus, the author draws upon the relative dimension of the word “today,” which is always in the present, so that the words of the psalm and his subsequent exhortation are valid forever. This is likewise in effect in Hebrews 13:8. The fact that “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” of course means that in our past, present, and future Jesus is eternal and consistent.28 It would be enough to say that Jesus is the same forever, but the author uses “today” and “yesterday” for effect. In more colloquial terms, Jesus is the same forever and ever and ever.
Saint Augustine also reads the “today” in this way. In his Psalms commentary, he writes of this passage:
The word today denotes the actual present, and as in eternity nothing is past as if it had ceased to be, nor future as if it had not yet come to pass, but all is simply present, since whatever is eternal is ever in being, the words, “Today I have begotten you,” are to be understood of the divine generation. In this phrase, the orthodox catholic [i.e., universal] belief proclaims the eternal generation of the Power and Wisdom of God who is the only-begotten Son.29
Similarly, in the Confessions when he comments on Psalm 102:27, also spoken about Jesus in Hebrews 1:12, Augustine says to God, “Your years are but a day, and your day is not recurrent, but always today. Your ‘today’ yields not to tomorrow and does not follow yesterday. Your ‘today’ is eternity. Therefore, you did generate the Co-eternal to whom you said, ‘Today I have begotten you.’ ”30 For Augustine, God’s day lasts forever.
This is likewise the case for Philo of Alexandria, a well-educated Jewish author who was roughly contemporary with the Apostle Paul and perhaps also contemporary with the author of Hebrews. Commenting on Deuteronomy 4.4, Philo writes, “[Moses] adds, ‘You are alive to this day’; and this day is interminable eternity, from which there is no departure . . . the unerring proper name of eternity is ‘today’ ”31 Philo’s comment is particularly salient for understanding Hebrews since he and the author both show the influences of similar traditions, even to the point that some have claimed the author of Hebrews draws upon Philo’s work.
Whether or not this is the case, Philo attests to the possibility of a metaphorical and eternal understanding of “today” in the first century, as does Augustine in later centuries. These writers corroborate the author of Hebrews’s reading of Psalm 2:7 as an eternal event, as though he says: “You are my Son; forever I have begotten you.” This corresponds with his teaching elsewhere in Hebrews. Jesus is one whose throne is forever in Hebrews 1:8–9. His priesthood and priestly ministry is forever in Hebrews 7, but especially Hebrews 7:24. Jesus is indeed the same yesterday, today, and forever.
CONCLUSION
This chapter began with a concern regarding claims that Hebrews contains an adoptionist Christology. After summarizing the issue at hand, I proceeded through a discussion of modern interpreters who mistakenly argue that all the events of Hebrews 1 take place at the enthronement. This led into an analysis of the original contexts of the Old Testament quotations and the reading strategy of the author of Hebrews. I then transitioned to my own reading of Hebrews 1:5 within its context in the Epistle as a whole.
Casting some doubt on traditional understandings of the timing in Psalm 2 and showing other places in Hebrews and in the works of others that view “today” as a metaphorical timespan, I think we are in a position to conclude that Hebrews 1:5 supports the eternal generation of the Son and that it may even be the preferred reading of the verse. This suggests that theologians of the third and fourth centuries could likewise draw these conclusions from Hebrews and that this and other theological positions attributed to them could therefore be traced to the New Testament. Hebrews 1:5 and its support of eternal generation serve as a mere test case, but I hope it encourages other biblical scholars to reevaluate their conclusions about the Bible’s support for other doctrinal positions as well. “You are my Son; today I have begotten you” is not just a claim about Jesus reaching an exalted status. It is a declaration of his eternal relationship with the Father that is always in effect.
1. Unless noted otherwise, Scripture translations are original to the author.
2. For example, L. D. Hurst cautions against the “tendency to homogenize the thinking of the New Testament writers and to read later theological concerns into their statements.” This must be “resisted,” he says, if the “purity of the discipline is to be preserved” (“The Christology of Hebrews 1 and 2,” in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright [Oxford: Clarendon, 1987], 163). Among many other proponents of a separation between “biblical studies” and “theology” are: John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Presbyterian, 2007), esp. 177; Michael V. Fox, “Bible Scholarship and Faith-Based Study: My View,” SBL Forum, February 2006, http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=490; G. F. E. William Wrede, “The Tasks and Methods of ‘New Testament Theology,’ ” in The Nature of New Testament Theology (London: SCM, 1973), 68–116. This is in contrast to Francis Watson, for example, who writes, “Biblical interpretation should no longer neglect its theological responsibilities,” in Text, Church and World: Towards a Theological Hermeneutic for Biblical Studies (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), vii.
3. C. Ar. 1.4.12. This translation and the next are updated from NPNF2 vol. 4 by Erik M. Heen and Philip D. W. Krey, eds., Hebrews (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005).
4. C. Ar. 1.3.9.
5. Michael P. Theophilus, “The Numismatic Background of Χαρακτήρ in Hebrews 1.3,” Australian Biblical Review 64 (2016): 69–80; cf. Walter Bauer et al., eds., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 1077–78.
6. Markus Barth, “Old Testament in Hebrews: An Essay in Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (New York: Harper, 1962), 62; Hans Hübner, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1990), 3:24, 28; cf. Michael Theobald, “Vom Text zum ‘lebendigen Wort’ (Hebr 4,12): Beobachtungen zur Schrifthermeneutik des Hebräerbriefs,” in Jesus Christus als die Mitte der Schrift: Studien zur Hermeneutik des Evangeliums, ed. Christof Landmesser, Hans-Joachim Eckstein, and Hermann Lichtenberger (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 774.
7. This technique is now formally referred to as “prosopological” (or “prosopographic” or “prosoponic”) exegesis. For a recent discussion of this technique and its use in the NT, see Matthew W. Bates, The Hermeneutics of Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of Paul’s Method of Interpretation (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012), ch. 4; Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). For the origins of this discussion, see Carl Andresen, “Zur Entstehung und Geschichte des trinitarischen Personbegriffes,” ZNW 52 (1961): 1–39; Marie-Josèphe Rondeau, Les commentaires patristiques du Psautier (IIIe-Ve siècles), vol. 2., Exégèse prosopologique et théologie (Rome: Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1985).
8. For example, Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 96–97; Joshua W. Jipp, “The Son’s Entrance into the Heavenly World: The Soteriological Necessity of the Scriptural Catena in Hebrews 1.5–14,” NTS 56, no. 4 (2010): 559.
9. Rhee, “The Role of Chiasm for Understanding Christology in Hebrews 1:1–14,” JBL 131, no. 2 (2012): 360–61.
10. Hurst, “The Christology of Hebrews 1 and 2,” 163. The line of interpretation fits with interpretations of Jesus’s baptism as the moment that the Father “adopts” or “appoints” Jesus as Son. When the heavens open, the Father speaks a combination of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1. See, e.g., James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 35–36.
11. Schenck, “Keeping His Appointment: Creation and Enthronement in Hebrews,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 19, no. 66 (1997): 104.
12. For example, Cockerill, Epistle to the Hebrews, 103–4; Rhee, “The Role of Chiasm,” 360–61.
13. Eric F. Mason, “Interpretation of Psalm 2 in 4QFlorilegium and in the New Testament,” in Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and the New Testament, ed. Florentino G. Martínez (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 67–82; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), esp. 74–75. For a more thorough summary of the history of interpretation for this passage, see Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, King and Messiah: The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1976). Some additional (particularly recent) material can be found in Gert Jacobus Steyn, A Quest for the Assumed LXX Vorlage of the Explicit Quotations in Hebrews (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 34–36.
14. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger claims the use of the prefixed preposition -ל also confirms a metaphorical interpretation in 2 Sam 7:14 (King and Messiah, 61). The Greek tradition translates the phrase: ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ εἰς πατέρα, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι εἰς υἱόν.
15. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins, 66. For an argument in favor of a more literal divine begetting, see Gard Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation? Psalm 2:6 in Light of Egyptian Royal Ideology,” VT 60, no. 3 (2010): 323–36. Luke Timothy Johnson also points to the fact that “Both speak of a Son who is also a king” (Hebrews: A Commentary [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006], 77).
16. William Hugh Brownlee, “Psalms 1–2 as a Coronation Liturgy,” Biblica 52, no. 3 (1971): 321–36.
17. Mettinger, King and Messiah, 266–67. Here Mettinger also lists some Assyrian parallels for adoption and marriage taking place as a result of similar declarations.
18. Fred Sanders prefers “prosoponic” exegesis and has a useful discussion of the phenomenon and its implications for Trinitarian theology (The Triune God [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016], 224–37). In earlier studies, Carl Andresen uses the term “prosopographic exegesis” (“Zur Entstehung und Geschichte des trinitarischen Personbegriffes”), but Marie-Josèphe Rondeau, whose study remains the most comprehensive with regard to patristic exegesis, suggests that “prosopological exegesis” should be preferred since “prosopographic” already has an established meaning. See Rondeau, Les commentaires patristiques, 2:8, no. 7. Matthew Bates goes a step further by arguing that “prosopological exegesis presupposes the divine Logos . . . as the ultimate author” (Bates, Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation, 218). See also Matthew W. Bates, “Justin Martyr’s Logocentric Hermeneutical Transformation of Isaiah’s Vision of the Nations,” JTS 60, no. 2 (2009): 538–55.
19. In the Greek text, this phrase occurs in Gen 6:2, 4, as well as Pss 28:1, 88:7—sometimes likely referring to angels or other divine beings (Gen 6:2, 4; Ps 88:7) and sometimes to humans (Ps 28:1). In the Hebrew, three additional references in Job also contain this phrase (1:6; 2:1; 38:7), but the Greek tradition translates 
as ἄγγελοι in each instance. These alterations in LXX Job may suggest a growing reticence among some to refer to the angels in this way. Ps 88:7, conversely, reads “holy ones” in the Hebrew, but υἱοί θεοῦ in the Greek.
20. Sven Fockner and others have challenged the identification of these sons with angels (“Reopening the Discussion: Another Contextual Look at the Sons of God,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32, no. 4 [2008]: 435–56); however, this potential misinterpretation does not account for the texts in Job and the Psalms or later “Watcher” traditions. If it is a misreading of the Hebrew text, then it is an influential one.
21. For a discussion of the author’s later reference to humanity as an “assembly of the firstborn” (ἐκκλησία πρωτοτόκων) in Heb 12:23, Amy L. B. Peeler, You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews (London: T&T Clark, 2014), 168–72.
22. Compare also parallels in 1 Chr 17:13; 22:10. One additional text to note is 4Q246, which refers to the “Son of God” and the “Son of the Most High.” While the text is traditionally interpreted to be messianic, it is fragmentary and could, with more material, reveal a possible exception. For more, see John J. Collins, Scepter and the Star (New York: Doubleday, 1996).
23. This additional messianic king text is likely in view since it not only fits the author’s argument but is also the only context in which πρωτότοκος is used of an individual firstborn of God in the LXX. For more on this reading, see Peeler, You Are My Son, 52–55. See also George B. Caird, “Son by Appointment,” in The New Testament Age: Essays in Honor of Bo Reicke, ed. William C. Weinrich (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 1:75; Ardel B. Caneday, “The Eschatological World Already Subjected to the Son: The Οἰκουμένη of Hebrews 1.6 and the Son’s Enthronement,” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, ed. Richard Bauckham et al. (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 33.
24. One text that the author cannot reinterpret is 1 Chr 28:6: “He said to me, ‘Solomon, your son, will build my house and my courts, for I chose him as my son, and I will be his father.’ ” This text does not diminish the author’s argument, as he does not say, “To whom among the humans?” but it does complicate his mission to present this son as wholly unique.
25. Even setting aside the question of Hebrews’s use of a testimonia, which most now reject, 4QFlorilegium demonstrates that a number of texts similar to those Hebrews uses (e.g., Ps 89:23; 2 Sam 7:11–14; Isa 8:11) were being read as messianic.
26. This seems even more likely with the introduction of Ps 89:26–29, which provides an allusion to (or citation of) every necessary text (except 1 Chr 28:6; see n24 above).
27. For a more thorough discussion of the reported speech in Ps 2, see Bates, The Birth of the Trinity, 62–71.
28. “Forms of a formula indicating that God was, is, and will be appear in various sources . . . so that Heb 13:8 implies Jesus’ divinity” (Craig Koester, Hebrews [New York: Doubleday, 2001], 559).
29. Enarrat. Ps. 2:6. This is a more modern version of the translation offered here: Augustine, St. Augustine on the Psalms, ed. Scholastica Hebgin and Felicitas Corrigan (New York: Paulist, 1960), 1:27.
30. Augustine, Confessions and Encheiridion, ed. Albert Cook Outler, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 12.16 (p. 254).
31. See Philo, On Flight and Finding. On the Change of Names. On Dreams., trans. F. H Colson and G. H. Whitaker, LCL 275 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 56–57 (pp. 40–41). This translation is primarily based upon C. D. Yonge, ed., The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 326.