Hebrews 1:1--Syntax and Rhetoric

Greek text (Hebrews 1:1): πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως πάλαι ὁ θεὸς λαλήσας τοῖς πατράσιν ἐν τοῖς προφήταις.

The passage has been rendered: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (KJV). The nominal phrase ὁ θεὸς is the subject. The alliterative construction πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως is “a familiar literary figure” whose matter-of-fact sense could be understood as “in many parts and in many ways.” Bruce also opts for the translation, “at various days and in many ways” which preserves the alliteration found in the original text. The five-fold use of the phoneme π principally accentuates the rhetorical figure of Hebrews 1:1; the overall effect of the construction is to emphasize how ὁ θεὸς speaks to the forefathers of Israel. It is through the prophets (ἐν τοῖς προφήταις).

See Frederick Fyvie Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 44.

Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1993), 91. Cf. Hebrews 5:8; 13:14.