Hebrews 1:2--"These Last Days"

The next verse of the Hebrews encomium reads: ἐπ’ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων ἐλάλησεν ἡμῖν ἐν υἱῷ ὃν ἔθηκεν κληρονόμον πάντων δι’ οὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας.

One translation: “in these last days did speak to us in a Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He did make the ages” (YLT). What is the referent or timing of “these last days” (ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων)? Goodspeed thinks that the author of Hebrews “conceives himself to be living at the end of an epoch” in the first century and he is anticipating the Messiah's yet future appearance. DeSilva also writes that ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων in Hebrews 1:2 “signals the arrival of the end time.” Furthermore, the expression “last days” is used in Scripture with eschatological overtones that signify the “end of the days.” Note how Numbers 24:14; Jeremiah 23:20; 25:19; Daniel 10:14; Acts 2:17; 2 Timothy 3:1; Hebrews 9:26; James 5:3; 1 Peter 1:5, 20 utilize this expression. The writer evidently wants to say that the “last days” in this context arrives by means of God speaking through his enfleshed Son (John 1:14; 1 Timothy 3:16). The account is building up a cumulative argument for the preeminence or superiority of Christ. See Moffatt, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 4.

Sources: Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, The Epistle to the Hebrews (New York: Macmillan, 1908), 31.

David Arthur DeSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 85.