Section 5:11–6:12

Grow up in your faith, and do not give up

In Section 5:11–6:12 the author interrupted his teaching about God appointing Christ as the high priest in order to tell his listeners to mature in their faith and to warn them not to stop believing in Christ. After this warning (6:4–12), he will continue to teach them in 6:13–7:28 about the priesthood of Jesus and Melchizedek.

Remember to translate the section before choosing a heading for it. Some other possible headings are:

Warning about abandoning Christ
-or-
Do not be lazy but become mature followers of Christ

Paragraph 5:11–14

In verses 11–14 the author told his listeners that they were like babies who do not understand much about God and his Word. He told them that they ought to be like teachers, not like babies.

5:11a

We have much to say about this: The author put the phrase about this at the beginning of the sentence to emphasize it. In some languages it is more natural to begin the sentence in a different way, as modelled by the Berean Standard Bible. In other languages it may be preferable to follow the Greek word order. For example:

About this we have much to say (New Revised Standard Version)

We: Here the author used the word We to refer to himself, as was common for Greek authors. The word We does not include the readers, and it does not indicate that there is more than one author of Hebrews. In many languages it is more natural and accurate to use “I” here. See the examples in the following note on “have much to say.”

have much to say: In Greek the phrase have much to say is more literally “much (is) the word.” It indicates that the author wants to explain much more about Christ being our high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Some other ways to translate the phrase are:

there is much to tell you
-or-
There are many more things I would like to tell you

The author already said something about Christ and Melchizedek in 5:7 and 10. So in some languages it may be helpful to indicate that he has more to say about that topic. For example:

There is much more we would like to say about this (New Living Translation (2004))

about this: The phrase about this refers to the topic that the author has been discussing in 4:14–16 and 5:1–10. That topic is that Christ is our great high priest and his priesthood is like the priesthood of Melchizedek (5:10).

Some ways to refer back to this topic are:

• Refer to the topic in a general way. For example:

About this topic/matter

• Refer to the topic more specifically. For example:

There is much that I could say here concerning the priesthood of Jesus and Melchizedek

5:11b

but it is hard to explain, because you are dull of hearing: In this part of the verse the author tells his listeners why it is difficult to explain Christ’s high priesthood to them. The reason is that they are dull of hearing. As a result, it is hard to explain the topic to them in a way that they can understand. Some other ways to translate this result and its reason are:

it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand (New International Version)
-or-
it is not easy to explain it to you because you do not seem to really listen

In some languages it is more natural to change the order of the reason and result so that the reason comes first. For example:

But you don’t seem to listen, so it’s hard to make you understand. (New Living Translation (1996))

hard to explain: The Berean Standard Bible phrase hard to explain is one word in Greek. This word often refers to a topic that is difficult to understand in itself. However, in this context the author indicates that his topic is hard to explain to them because they are lazy in listening to it. They do not think about it carefully enough to understand it. Some other ways to translate this word are:

difficult to make it clear to you
-or-
hard to make you know/understand

because you are dull of hearing: This clause tells the reason why it was difficult for the author to explain the high priesthood of Christ to his listeners. The reason is that they were too lazy (slow) to understand it. The word the Berean Standard Bible translates as dull means “slow/lazy” and is translated as “sluggish” in 6:12, but it does not occur anywhere else in the NT.

Some other ways to translate this clause are:

because you are so slow to understand (Good News Translation)
-or-
you have become too dull/lazy to understand it

In some languages there is a figure of speech for this meaning. For example:

your heads/ears have become too hard

The author said this to encourage his listeners to try harder to understand what he wanted to teach them. Translate this meaning in a natural way in your language.

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