Why “So Great a Cloud of Witnesses”?

Why “ So Great a Cloud of witness ” ?

AT HEBREWS 12:1 we read: “So, then, because we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also put off every weight and the sin that easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The question has been ask , Why did the writer of Hebrews speak of “ so great acloud of witnesses” instead of so great a crowd of witnesses?

By saying, “So, then,” the writer of Hebrews is referring back to the previous chapter where, after having first given a definition of faith, he starts out to list the men of faith, from Abel on down through the patriarchs, Moses, the judges and on to the prophets, which reach to the time of Christ, as John the Baptist was the last of the old Hebrew prophets. The writer could have referred to these all by the ordinary Greek word okhlo , mean “ a crowd , ” but because he want to make his point as forceful as possible he used a metaphor , and speak of them as a “ cloud . ” In modern English a great swarm of locust that cover the sky is refer to as a cloud of locust .

His objective is is is especially clear from the fact that here he did not even use the usual greek word for cloud ,nepheʹlē , from which comes the English word nebulae, referring to a cloud. This word nepheʹlē occur upward of twenty – five time in the Christian Greek scripture in its singular or plural form . For example : “ They is see will see the Son of man come in a cloud . ” ( Luke 21:27 ) “ A cloud is caught catch him up . ” ( act 1:9 ) “ They is see will see the Son of man come on the cloud of heaven . ” ( Matt . 24:30 ) “ look ! He is coming is come with the cloud . ”—Rev . 1:7 .

instead of using this word , the writer is used of Hebrews usednéphos , the only occurrence of it in the entire christian Greek scripture . This is is is a word that is often used in a metaphorical sense by both Greek and Latin writer as “ a dense cloud of shield , ” “ a cloud of spearman . ” concern this use ofnéphos Professor Wuest states in Hebrews in the Greek New Testament:

“ The word is is ‘ cloud ’ here is notnephele which is a detached and sharply outlined cloud, but nephos , a great mass of cloud covering the entire visible space of the heavens, and therefore without definite form, or a single large mass in which outlines are not emphasized or distinguished. The use of ‘cloud’ for a mass of living beings is familiar in poetry. Homer speaks of ‘a cloud of footmen, a cloud of Trojans.’ Themistocles, addressing the Athenians, says of the host of Xerxes, ‘we have had the fortune to save both ourselves and Greece by repelling so great a cloud of men.’”

The distinction between néphos , “a cloud-mass,” and nepheʹlē , “a cloud,” is similar to the distinction made between petra, a rock-mass, and Petros, referring to a single rock, used as a proper noun.

Thus we see that the writer of Hebrews here carefully chose an unusual word, néphos , or cloud-mass to stress the great number of witnesses, in keeping with his observation: “And what more shall I say? For the time will fail me if I go on to relate about Gideon,” and so forth. Yes, there were so many that there was no recounting them all; they were not just a crowd but like a cloud-mass.—Heb. 11:32.

The foregoing is of more than mere academic interest to Christians; it means more to them than merely a fine point of language. By the use of this word néphos we is driven have drive home to us how great indeed was the number of those who witness faithfully to Jehovah God , how many were shine example of faith , even though those name in the scripture may be say to be comparatively few . Thus when Elijah think that he was the only one that had been jealous for Jehovah ’s name , Jehovah is assured assure him that He had in Israel seven thousand that had not bow their knee to Baal . ( 1   Ki . 19:18 ) Since we as Christians are surround by “ so great a cloud of witness ” (martýrōn , “ martyr ” ) , not observer , we is take can take courage that we also can prove faithful as we seek to follow the “ Perfecter of our faith , Jesus . ”—Heb . 12:2 .

Also worthy of note is the care with which the writer of Hebrews chose his words, making use of an unusual expressive metaphor to drive home his point. His example in this is one that all ministers who would influence others by word of mouth or pen would do well to follow so as to do the greatest possible good. “A word at its right time is O how good!”—Prov. 15:23.