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Ver. 3. ἀγενεαλόγητος, resolved in ver. 6 into μὴ γενεαλογούμενος, does not occur in classical nor elsewhere in Biblical Greek. The dependence of Levitical priests on genealogies and their registers is illustrated by Neh. 7:64. μήτε ἀρχὴν ἡμερῶν … “having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” i.e., again, as he is represented in Scripture. No mention is made of his birth or death, of his inauguration to his office or of his retirement from it. The idea is conveyed that so long as priestly services of that particular type were needed, this man performed them. He is thus the type of a priest who shall in his single person discharge for ever all priestly functions. ἀφωμοιωμένος δὲ τῷ υἱῷ τ. Θεοῦ “but made like to the Son of God”. δὲ attaches this clause to the immediately preceding, “having neither etc.,” but in this respect made like to the Son of God, see 1:2, 9:14 and 1:10, 12. “Such a comparison is decisive against attributing these characteristics to Melchisedek in a real sense. They belong to the portrait of him, which was so drawn that he was “made like” the Son of God,—that by the features absent as well as by the positive traits a figure should appear corresponding to the Son of God and suited to suggest Him” (Davidson). μένει ἱερεὺς εἰς τὸ διηνεκές “abideth a priest continually”. This statement, directly resting upon the preceding clause, is that towards which the whole sentence (vv. 1, 3) has been tending. It is the permanence of the Melchisedek priesthood on which stress is laid. See below. εἰς τὸ διηνεκές is not precisely “for ever,” but “for a continuance,” or permanence. Appian (De Bell. civ., i. 4) says of Julius Cæsar that he was created Dictator εἰς τὸ διηνεκές, permanent Dictator. “The permanent character of the priesthood is here described, not its actual duration” (Rendall). It was not destined to be superseded by another. Bruce is not correct in saying: “The variation in expression (εἰς τὸ διηνεκές instead of εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, 6:20) is probably made out of regard to style, rather than to convey a different shade of meaning”. But he gives the sense well: “If he had had in history, as doubtless he had in fact, a successor in office, we should have said of him, that he was the priest of Salem in the days of Abraham. As the case stands, he is the priest of Salem.”
Marcus Dods, “The Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament: Commentary, vol. 4 (New York: George H. Doran Company, n.d.), 308.
For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of God the Most High, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom also Abraham divided a tenth part of all; the first designation on the one hand being interpreted means king of righteousness, and then, on the other hand [he was] also king of Salem which is king of peace, fatherless, motherless, having no genealogy, having no beginning of days nor termination of life, but likened [in these respects in the historical record] to the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
Kenneth S. Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961), Heb 7:1–3.
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