Hebrews 2:4

4 [while] God was testifying at the same time by signs and wonders and various miracles and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will.

Hebrews 2:4 Meaning and Commentary

Hebrews 2:4

God also bearing them witness
The apostles of Christ; God testifying to their mission and commission, and the truth of the doctrine they preached:

both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles;
such as taking up serpents without hurt, healing the sick, causing the lame to walk, and raising the dead, and casting out devils, and the like; all which were for the confirmation of the Gospel preached by them: a sign, wonder, or miracle, for these signify the same thing, is a marvellous work done before men, by the power of God, to confirm a divine truth; God is the sole author of miracles; and they were done in the first ages of Christianity, when they were necessary, to give evidence of the truth of it, and to establish men in it; and these were various, as before observed: and gifts of the Holy Ghost; such as besides gifts of healing and working miracles, gifts of foretelling things to come, discerning of spirits, speaking with divers kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues, ( 1 Corinthians 12:8 1 Corinthians 12:9 1 Corinthians 12:10 ) according to his own will; either according to the will of God, who bore testimony by these miracles and gifts; or according to the will of the Holy Spirit, who distributed them to men severally as he pleased, ( 1 Corinthians 12:11 ) .

Hebrews 2:4 In-Context

2 For if the word spoken through angels was binding and every transgression and act of disobedience received a just penalty,

3 how will we escape [if we] neglect so great a salvation which had [its] beginning [when it] was spoken through the Lord [and] was confirmed to us by those who heard,

4 [while] God was testifying at the same time by signs and wonders and various miracles and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will.

5 For he did not subject to angels the world to come, about which we are speaking.

6 But someone testified somewhere, saying, "What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you care for him?

Footnotes

• [a] *Here "[while]" is supplied as a component of the temporal genitive absolute participle ("was testifying at the same time")