Hebrews 4:12

12. For The momentous reason for our taking warning, the character of the word by which our unbelief is searched out and we condemned.

Word of God The solemn word, in form of oath, which excludes from rest. Hebrews 4:3, and Hebrews 3:11. This divine word is terribly searching of spirit, soul, and body; searching whether that fatal unbelief lurks, the least particle, in any secret corner of our being. The many personal attributes here ascribed to the word has induced many eminent commentators, ancient and modern, to find here the Word of John 1:1, and to identify it with the second Person of the Trinity. The view of Delitzsch on this point seems most plausible which is about this. The divine Word is the true expression of the divine nature, both as revealed person and as revealed truth. As the personal Word is the formative energy in the realm of physical things, so he is the actuating energy in the spiritual realm. He is the soul of spiritual truth, which from him derives its penetrative power upon and within the human soul. Hence, this description of the searching power of the word has a blending and identification of the person and the utterance, united in the term Word. And as the Son, by virtue of his being sent forth from the Father, is Apostle, and as the expression of the Father he is the Word, so this passage constitutes the climax of that terribleness of the administration of the apostle which calls for transition to the gracious High Priest, which follows in the next verse. This view is confirmed by a strong similar passage in Philo, of which this is a great improvement, and which we thus translate: “You may contemplate the uncomprehended God, cutting in succession all the natures of bodies and things, which seem to be compacted and unified, with the cleaver of all things, his Word, which, being sharpened to its keenest edge, ( ακμη ,) divides unceasingly all sensible things, and afterwards goes through, even to the atoms and the so-called indivisibles.”

Quick That is, living; full of a pervading, searching life.

Powerful Intensely energetic in its search.

Sharper With an omniscient keenness of edge.

Two-edged sword Cutting either way, according as the presence of the element of unbelief may be.

Piercing Rather, with a personification, going through; for both this word and sword are living. It is not a sword, which is an instrument, but which is vital and self-active.

Even Expressive of the surprising extent to which the live word can penetrate.

Dividing asunder The question is raised by commentators, does this mean a separation of soul from spirit, and of joints from marrow; or does it mean that the word so subtly inserts itself into the interstices between, as we may say, the particles of these four entities as to separate particle from particle? The very fact that they are ranged in couplets seems to indicate that a separation between the two units of each couplet is meant. Yet the language of Philo seems to imply an interpenetration of the ultimate elements. And Lunemann and Alford find that meaning in the text. Says Alford: “The word pierces to the dividing, not of the soul from the spirit, but of the soul itself and of the spirit itself; the former being the lower portion of man’s invisible part, which he has in common with the brutes, ‘the irrational of the soul’ of Philo; the latter, the higher portion, receptive of the Spirit of God, ‘the rational of the soul’ of the same; both which are pierced and divided by the sword of the Spirit, the word of God.”

It is, of course, not meant that the word produces a literal separation of the joints and marrow. But these two parts are mentioned as the residences of mental operations; the former of activities and the latter of sensations; and it is between these mentalities that the word inserts its penetrative and divisive energy.

Discerner Rendered by Alford “judger,” as being derived from a word signifying to judge. It continues the personification expressed in quick, or living, and going through; implying a discerning power in the word.

Thoughts Thoughts in action, thinkings, trains of mental operations.

Intents Mental intentions, out of which spring volitions and actions.

Heart Note on Romans 10:10.