Hebrews 2:16 For truly he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. There is no sympathy like that of those who are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Let some stranger see a child fall into yonder river, and his irresistible impulse is to plunge in and rescue that child. But his zeal to do so is mere indifference compared with the heartrending agony that tears the soul of the child's mother. Some years since, in a wild valley of Dauphine, in France, an eagle, we are told, swooped down from its lofty eyrie, clutched a helpless infant in its sharp talons, and soared aloft with it to the peak of an almost inaccessible mountain. The peasants, looking on with horror at the sight, in confusion and excitement, knew not what to do. But not so the mother. Hearing of the disaster, love gave wings to her feet, and so she leaped, nay, flew almost, from crag to crag, until, mounting higher and higher, she reached the summit and clasped the uninjured captive to her bosom. Kinship intensifies sympathy. It is just of that the apostle would have us to gather a clear and strong idea. Christ is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, one of ourselves; bound up with us in the bundle of life, bound to us by ten thousand close and tender ties, along which there thrill and throb the vibrations of a strength — a Divine, a supernatural strength, that flows down indeed to the heart of even the feeblest and lowliest of His sufferers upon earth. (Bp. of Algoma.) Parallel Verses KJV: For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.WEB: For most certainly, he doesn't give help to angels, but he gives help to the seed of Abraham. |