Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
For when for the time - Considering the time which has elapsed since you were converted. You have been Christians long enough to he expected to understand such doctrines. This verse proves that those to whom he wrote were not recent converts.
Ye ought to be teachers - You ought to be able to instruct others. He does not mean to say, evidently, that they ought all to become public teachers, or preachers of the gospel, but that they ought to be able to explain to others the truths of the Christian religion. As parents they ought to be able to explain them to their children; as neighbors, to their neighbors; or as friends, to those who were inquiring the way to life.
Ye have need - That is, probably, the mass of them had need. As a people, or a church, they had shown that they were ignorant of some of the very elements of the gospel.
Again - This shows that they "had been" taught on some former occasion what were the first principles of religion, but they had not followed, up the teaching as they ought to have done.
The first principles - The very elements; the rudiments; the first lessons - such as children learn before they advance to higher studies. See the word used here explained in the notes on Galatians 4:3, under the word "elements." The Greek word is the same.
Of the oracles of God - Of the Scriptures, or what God has spoken; see the notes on Romans 3:2. The phrase here may refer to the writings of the Old Testament, and particularly to those parts which relate to the Messiah; or it may include all that God had at that time revealed in whatever way it was preserved; in I Peter 4:11, it is used with reference to the Christian religion, and to the doctrines which God had revealed in the gospel. In the passage before us, it may mean" the divine oracles or communications," in whatever way they had been made known. They had shown that they were ignorant of the very rudiments of the divine teaching.
And are become such - There is more meant in this phrase than that they simply "were" such persons. The word rendered "are become" - ́ ginomai - sometimes implies "a change of state," or a passing from one state to another - well expressed by the phrase "are become;" see Matthew 5:45; Matthew 4:3; Matthew 13:32; Matthew 6:16; Matthew 10:25; Mark 1:17; Romans 7:3-4. The idea here is, that they had passed from the hopeful condition in which they were when they showed that they had an acquaintance with the great principles of the gospel, and that they had become such as to need again the most simple form of instruction. This agrees well with the general strain of the Epistle, which is to preserve them from the danger of apostasy. They were verging toward it, and had come to that state where if they were recovered it must be by being again taught the elements of religion.
Have need of milk - Like little children. You can bear only the most simple nourishment. The meaning is, that they were incapable of receiving the higher doctrines of the gospel as much as little children are incapable of digesting solid food. They were in fact in a state of spiritual infancy.
And not of strong meat - Greek. "Strong food." The word "meat" with us is used now to denote only animal food. Formerly it meant food in general. The Greek word here means "nourishment."
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Hebrews 5:12:
Romans 3:2
1 Corinthians 3:2
Galatians 4:3
Hebrews 5:14
Hebrews 5:14
Hebrews 6:1
James 3:1
1 Peter 2:2
1 Peter 2:2
1 Peter 4:11
2 Peter 3:10
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