"Continually" (Heb. 13:15)
ThE sEcReT kEy To WoRsHiP iN hEbReWs
Anyone who has followed my academic work knows I have, for some time, focused on identifying the “sacrifice of praise” at Hebrews 13:15.
That article has recently been published in the Journal of Theological Interpretation (2025) 19.1. Here’s the abstract:
At Heb 13:15, the auctor exhorts his audience to bear up the “sacrifice of praise” (θυσίαν αἰνέσεως). While liturgical scholars commonly cite this term as a reference to the Eucharist, critical biblical scholars restrict the range of possible interpretations too tightly to permit such a reading. This article offers three biblical arguments that would allow taking the θυσίαν αἰνέσεως to refer to an embodied, ritual form of liturgical worship. First, it compares the θυσίαν αἰνέσεως to the thanksgiving offering, a liturgical concept that is called by the same name at Lev 7:12 in the LXX. Second, it suggests that the auctor has already alluded to the thanksgiving offering in his quotation of Ps 22:22 at Heb 2:12. Third, it argues that Hebrews’ epiclesis does not reject the Levitical world but reconfigures its elements as it develops its own, positive liturgical theology.
But in my wanderings through the Greek text, I’ve lighted upon a surprising new datum that I haven’t yet seen attested in the literature. Buckle up for a short essay on the word “continually.”
The “Continually” sacrifice in the OT
It’s introduced in two passages in Torah. Here’s Exodus 29:38-46:
Now this is what you are to prepare on the altar every day continually (tāmîḏ): two lambs a year old. The first lamb you are to prepare in the morning, and the second lamb you are to prepare around sundown. With the first lamb offer a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of oil from pressed olives, and a fourth of a hin of wine as a drink offering. The second lamb you are to offer around sundown; you are to prepare for it the same meal offering as for the morning and the same drink offering, for a soothing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord. This will be a regular burnt offering (ʿōlāh tāmîḏ) throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you to speak to you there. There I will meet with the Israelites, and it will be set apart as holy by my glory. So I will set apart as holy the tent of meeting and the altar, and I will set apart as holy Aaron and his sons, that they may minister as priests to me. I will reside among the Israelites, and I will be their God, and they will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out from the land of Egypt, so that I may reside among them. I am the Lord their God.
And here’s Numbers 28:1-10:
The Lord spoke to Moses: “Command the Israelites: ‘With regard to my offering, be sure to offer my food for my offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to me at its appointed time.’ You will say to them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you must offer to the Lord: two unblemished lambs one year old each day for a continual burnt offering (ʿōlāh ha-tāmîḏ). The first lamb you must offer in the morning, and the second lamb you must offer in the late afternoon, with one-tenth of an ephah of finely ground flour as a grain offering mixed with one quarter of a hin of pressed olive oil. It is a continual burnt offering (ʿōlāh tāmîḏ) that was instituted on Mount Sinai as a pleasing aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord. And its drink offering must be one quarter of a hin for each lamb. You must pour out the strong drink as a drink offering to the Lord in the holy place. And the second lamb you must offer in the late afternoon; just as you offered the grain offering and drink offering in the morning, you must offer it as an offering made by fire, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord.’”
This offering will come to be called, for a shorthand, “the continually” (ha-tāmîḏ). See, for example, the late attestations in Daniel 8:11, 12, 13:
[The small horn] also acted arrogantly against the Prince of the army, from whom the daily sacrifice (ha-tāmîḏ) was removed and whose sanctuary was thrown down. The army was given over, along with the daily sacrifice (ha-tāmîḏ), in the course of his sinful rebellion. It hurled truth to the ground and enjoyed success. Then I heard a holy one speaking. Another holy one said to the one who was speaking, “To what period of time does the vision pertain – this vision concerning the daily sacrifice (ha-tāmîḏ) and the destructive act of rebellion and the giving over of both the sanctuary and army to be trampled?”
Rather than describe its significance myself, I’ll let Peter L. Trudinger do so:
The importance attached to regular performance of the Tamid Service is attested to by certain references in historiographical contexts. In these texts, the Tamid service is portrayed as the central element in the worship of Yahweh.
The first example is found in the story of the oppression under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In Daniel, a reference to the service as dymth occurs five times (Dan 8:11, 12, 13; 11:31; 12:11). The context is always that of the disruption of the orthodox worship of God in the Temple. This state is characterized by the profanation of the sanctuary, handing over the “host” (abx), cessation of the Tamid, and installation of the “abomination of desolation.” From the perspective of the second part of Daniel, the daily service epitomizes the pious worship of God and the sacred relationship established through that worship.
Josephus also includes cessation of the Tamid as one of the atrocities carried out by Antiochus (J.W. 1.32; Ant. 12.251, 254, cf. J.W. 1.39; Ant. 12.316). The behavior of the Syrian can be contrasted with that of Pompey, whose capture of the city did not interrupt the sequence of Tamid rituals but who, on the contrary, ordered the afternoon Tamid to be performed the same day he captured the city (J.W. 1.148, 153). Josephus also paints a picture of the priests continuing to perform the ritual despite the battle raging around them ( J.W. 1.148–150; Ant. 14.65–68). Their regard for the ritual exceeded concern for their personal safety. The final episode in Josephus’s references to the Tamid service is placed at the end of the Roman siege in 70 C.E. The twice daily service had, according to Josephus, been continued for the length of the siege. (This itself is testimony to the importance of the Tamid ritual, since the siege had been accompanied – so Josephus tells – by a food shortage that led to the defenders committing atrocities within their own ranks.) When the service ceased, the morale of the defenders collapsed (J.W. 6.94). The city fell soon thereafter. While some allowance must be made for exaggeration on the part of Josephus, it is hard to imagine he could have made so much of the continuation or disruption of the Tamid service if the ritual had not already occupied a place of prominence in the religious affections of the majority of Jews in the first century C.E.1
The “Continually” in the LXX
The LXX does not always translate the tāmîḏ the same way. But it does, on five occasions, translate it dia pantos, woodenly “through always.” Here are those occasions. The fifth one is ironic:
Numbers 28:10 — “This is the burnt offering for every Sabbath, besides the continual (dia pantos) burnt offering and its drink offering.”
Numbers 28:15 — “And one male goat must be offered to the Lord as a purification offering, in addition to the continual (dia pantos) burnt offering and its drink offering.”
Numbers 29:16 — “along with one male goat for a purification offering, in addition to the continual (dia pantos) burnt offering with its grain offering and its drink offering”
Numbers 29:38 — “along with one male goat for a purification offering, in addition to the continual (dia pantos) burnt offering with its grain offering and its drink offering.”
Isaiah 65:3 — “These people continually (dia pantos) and blatantly offend me as they sacrifice in their sacred orchards and burn incense on brick altars.”
Here’s my point: The LXX uses dia pantos to translate tāmîḏ.
The “Continually” in the NT
The phrase dia pantos appears three times in the New Testament, each of them very suggestive!
Mark 5:5
“Continually (dia pantos), night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.”
The verse begins with the phrase dia pantos nuktos kai hēmeras, literally, “continually, night and day.” English translations translate dia pantos variously and often move it to the middle of the sentence, where they find it makes more lexical sense.
But word order matters, no?
My point is this: Keeping dia pantos next to the phrase “night and day” (nuktos kai hēmeras) retains the cultic association of dia pantos with the tāmîḏ, which was also offered “night and day.” I argue Mark uses dia pantos ironically, as if this man’s continual cries and cuts were a dark parody of the continual psalm-singing and lamb-offering of the tāmîḏ offering. When Jesus delivers this man, he delivers him from his demonic devotion.
Luke 24:52-53
“So they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually (dia pantos) in the temple (en tō hierō) blessing God (eulogountes ton theon).”
These are the witnesses to the ascension, and this is the final sentence of Luke’s gospel.
Whereas Mark had maintained the association between dia pantos and night and day cries and cuts, Luke maintains the association between dia pantos, the temple, and the praise of God.
One simple interpretation of this text is this:
“So they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they resumed their devotion of tāmîḏ worship, praising God for Christ’s ascension.”
And here’s a more polemical interpretation:
“So they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. But instead of participating in tāmîḏ worship, they praised God at the same times, and in the same place, but in their own way.”
Either way, I take this as a reference, supportive or subversive, of tāmîḏ worship.
The “Continually” in Hebrews 13:15
“Through him then let us continually (dia pantos) offer up a sacrifice of praise (thusian aineseōs) to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, confessing (homologountōn) his name.”
What has the author done here?
He has creatively combined two Levitical institutions—daily worship (LXX: dia pantos) and the thanksgiving offering (LXX: thusian aineseōs)—in his vision for new covenant worship.
Why?
For one, one of the chief purposes of Hebrews is to persuade Jewish believers not to revert to the worshiping community they came from: “We have an altar that those who serve in the tabernacle have no right to eat from…” and “not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing” (13:10; 10:25).
This community needs a new vision for daily worship.
For another, there’s no more need for atonement: “Every priest stands day after day serving and offering the same sacrifices again and again – sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when this priest [Jesus] had offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, he sat down at the right hand of God” (10:11-12).
If there’s no need for atonement, what kind of sacrifices should be offered? The thanksgiving sacrifice (Heb: zeḇaḥ tôḏâ; LXX: thusian aineseōs) had never been associated with atonement, so that’s the way to go.
New covenant worship, per Heb. 13:15, is regular, morning and evening prayer, centered on thanksgiving.
In other words, Anglicanism lol.
Peter L. Trudinger, The Psalms of the Tamid Service: A Liturgical Text from the Second Temple (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 36-37.
That is the correct conclusion.
Also, I think you were intending to mention Gary Anderson, but you left the name out when you said, "Rather than describe its significance myself, I’ll let do so:"