<p>2:3- see on Acts 1:1.</p><p><i>How shall we escape- </i>The rejected will have a desire to escape but having no place to run (Heb. 2:3, quoting Is. 20:6 concerning the inability of men to escape from the approach of the invincible Assyrian army). Rev. 20:11 likewise speaks of the rejected 'heavens and earth' fleeing from the Lamb's throne and finding no place to go. Before the whirlwind of God's judgment, the false shepherds of Israel &quot;shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape&quot; (Jer. 25:35). The rejected will see that the Lord is coming against them with an army much stronger than theirs, and they have missed the chance to make peace (Lk. 14:31). They will be like the Egyptians suffering God's judgments in the Red Sea, wanting to flee but having no realistic place to run to. Uzziah hasting to go out from the presence of the Lord after he was judged for his sin was a foretaste of this (2 Chron. 26:20). But the &quot;escape&quot; in view may specifically refer to escape from the tribulation to come upon Jerusalem in the last days (Lk. 21:36 s.w.), and this had special relevance if indeed as suggested on 1:1 Hebrews is addressed primarily to the Jerusalem church.</p><p><i>If we neglect so great a salvation?</i>- &quot;So great a salvation&quot; is the LXX for &quot;A great deliverance&quot; (Gen. 45:7), brought about by the suffering of Joseph-Jesus at the hands of his brethren. &ldquo;Such <i>great</i> salvation&quot; (Heb. 2:3) might imply that a lesser salvation could have been achieved by Christ, but He achieved the greatest possible. &quot;He is able also <i>to save them to the uttermost</i> that come unto God by him&quot; (Heb. 7:25) may be saying the same thing. Indeed, the <i>excellence</i> of our salvation in Christ is a major NT theme. It was typified by the way Esther interceded for Israel; she could have simply asked for her own life to be spared, but she asked for that of all Israel. And further, she has the courage (and we sense her reticence, how difficult it was for her) to ask the King yet another favour- that the Jews be allowed&nbsp; to slay their enemies for one more day, and also to hang Haman's sons (Es. 9:12). She was achieving the maximum possible redemption for Israel rather than the minimum. Paul again seems to comment on this theme when he speaks of how Christ became obedient, &quot;<i>even</i> to the death of the cross&quot; (Phil. 2:8), as if perhaps some kind of salvation could have been achieved without the death <i>of the cross</i>. Perhaps there was no theological necessity for Christ to die <i>such</i> a painful death; if so, doubtless this was in His mind in His agony in the garden. &ldquo;If <i>it</i> be possible, let this cup pass from me&quot; (Mt. 26:39) may not simply mean 'If it's possible, may I not have to die'. The Lord could have meant: 'If <i>it</i>- some unrecorded possible alternative to the cross- is <i>really</i> possible, then let <i>this</i> cup pass'- as if to say 'If option A is possible, then let the cup of option B pass from me'. But He overrode this with a desire to be submissive to the Father's preferred will- which was for us to have a part in the greatest, most surpassing salvation, which required the death of the cross.</p><p><i>Which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those that heard</i>- This is the standard proof for a non-Pauline authorship of Hebrews. But see on 1:1. The &quot;us&quot; and &quot;we&quot; in Hebrews refers to the wider readership and don't have to demand that the author includes himself in the reference. There are other examples of this e.g. &quot;Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die&quot; (1 Cor. 15:32). &quot;We&quot; should no longer be tossed around by false teachings (Eph. 4:14) surely precludes Paul personally. In Hebrews, the &quot;we&quot; who need to take more earnest heed to the Gospel is surely the readership rather than the author (Heb. 2:1). The personal notes at the end of chapter 13 are hard to interpret as written by anyone other than Paul. Even if the &quot;we&quot; must include Paul, &quot;Those that heard&quot; would refer to the disciples, whom Paul was not among. They &quot;confirmed&quot; the Lord's own message. It could be argued that Paul is saying that he had heard the message directly from the Lord on the Damascus road, as he emphasizes in Galatians; and what he heard was corroborated by the witness of the disciples. Read this way, the argument would be that the &quot;us&quot; referred to someone who had heard the message spoken through the Lord Jesus directly, and had the content of it confirmed to him by the disciples. And that &quot;us&quot; could only be Paul personally. In this case, this verse confirms rather than questions Paul's authorship.</p>