Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Which - Tabernacle and its services, was a figure, , a dark enigmatical representation, for the time then present - for that age and dispensation, and for all those who lived under it.
In which, ' ̔ , during which, time or dispensation were offered both gifts and sacrifices - eucharistic offerings and victims for sin, that could not make him that did the service, whether the priest who made the offering, or the person who brought it in the behalf of his soul, perfect as pertaining to the conscience - could not take away guilt from the mind, nor purify the conscience from dead works. The whole was a figure, or dark representation, of a spiritual and more glorious system: and although a sinner, who made these offerings and sacrifices according to the law, might be considered as having done his duty, and thus he would be exempted from many ecclesiastical and legal disabilities and punishments; yet his conscience would ever tell him that the guilt of sin was still remaining, and that it was impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take it away. Thus even he that did the service best continued to be imperfect - had a guilty conscience, and an unholy heart.
The words ' ̔ , in which, referred in the above paraphrase to , the time, are read ' ̔ by ABD, and several others, one copy of the Slavonic, the Vulgate, and some of the fathers, and thus refer to , the tabernacle; and this is the reading which our translators appear to have followed. Griesbach places it in his margin, as a very probable reading; but I prefer the other.
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Hebrews 9:9:
Leviticus 16:2
John 14:6
Hebrews 10:2
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