Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;
Parallel translations
- WEB nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own,
- BSB Nor did He enter heaven to offer Himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own.
- NKJV not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—
- NASB nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year by year with blood that is not his own.
- NLT And he did not enter heaven to offer himself again and again, like the high priest here on earth who enters the Most Holy Place year after year with the blood of an animal.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Christ did not need to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest did each year with blood not his own. His was a different kind of offering altogether.
Overview
The author contrasts the high priest's yearly entry with borrowed (animal) blood against Christ's offering of himself. Repetition was the mark of the old system's insufficiency. Christ's sacrifice needs no repeating, setting up the decisive statement of the next verse.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Heb 9:12Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
- Heb 9:7But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people:
- Heb 9:14How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
- Heb 9:26For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
- Heb 10:19Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
- Exod 30:10And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations: it is most holy unto the LORD.
- Lev 16:2–34And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
- Heb 10:10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
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Christ at the center
Hebrews is sustained worship of Christ: better than angels, Moses, and the priests; the great High Priest after Melchizedek who by one sacrifice perfects forever those he saves.
How Hebrews 9:25 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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