The Firstborn · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Firstborn
A word about rank, not birth order — and Scripture demonstrates it by pulling the two apart five separate times, then stops and defines the term in a single clause.
What It Stands For
a place in the family, not a place in the queue
The Hebrew is bekor (H1060), and the lexicon gives the two senses in one line: firstborn, and hence, chief. That second word is doing most of the work in the Bible. Adam Clarke states it as plainly as anyone has:
First-born. is not always to be understood literally in Scripture. It often signifies simply a well-beloved, or best-beloved son; one preferred to all the rest, and distinguished by some eminent prerogative. Thus God calls Israel his son, his first-born, Exo 4:22. See also Sirach 36:12. And even Ephraim is called Gods first-born, Jer 31:9.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Psalm 89:27
What made the position worth having was concrete. Adam Clarke sets out the components, and they are three separate things a man could lose independently:
Reuben as the first-born had a right to a double portion of all that the father had; see Deu 21:17 The eminence or dignity mentioned here may refer to the priesthood; the power, to the regal government or kingdom - In this sense it has been understood by all the ancient Targumists.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Genesis 49:3
How welcome he was to his parents his name bespeaks, Reuben, See a son. To him belonged the excellency of dignity above his brethren, and some power over them.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Genesis 49:3
A double portion, the priesthood, and the rule. In Jacob’s own family those three ended up in three different hands, the portion to Joseph, the priesthood to Levi, the rule to Judah, and not one of them stayed with the man who was born first.
Five Times the Title and the Birth Order Come Apart
and the verse that defines the word
| Who | Where they stood by birth | What Scripture says |
|---|---|---|
| Reuben | First by birth, and the text says so plainly | “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel”Genesis 49:4 |
| Israel | A nation younger than the empire being addressed | “Israel is my son, even my firstborn”Exodus 4:22 |
| Ephraim | The younger of Joseph's two sons | “Ephraim is my firstborn”Jeremiah 31:9 |
| David | The youngest of eight | “I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth”Psalm 89:27 |
| Christ | Not the first person in Scripture to be raised from the dead | “the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence”Colossians 1:18 |
I will indeed appoint him as My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.Two clauses. The first confers the title; the second says what the title is.
He shall be regarded and treated by me as the first-born son is in a family; that is, with distinguished favor and honor.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Psalm 89:27
Higher than the kings of the earth - Than other kings; the most exalted among kings and rulers.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Psalm 89:27
“I will make him my firstborn” is a sentence English cannot quite hold. Nobody is made the first child born; that is either true or it is not. The psalm is using the word for something that can be conferred, and, one clause later, for something that can be measured against other kings.
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.Everything the position carried, listed by the man giving it away.
Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it.And the sentence that removes it, forty years after the act that caused it.
Jacob charges him particularly with the sin for which he was disgraced, thou wentest up to thy father's bed - It was forty years ago that he had been guilty of this sin, yet now it is remembered against him.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Methodist
Genesis 49:4
Reuben is the proof of the whole distinction, and he is a hard proof. He is not disowned; his name stays on a tribe and later on a gate of the city. What he loses is a standing, which is exactly the thing the word names.
A Nation Called Firstborn
Exodus 4:22, and the night that made the word cost something
Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,Said about a nation, to the ruler of an older and larger one.
The expression would be perfectly intelligible to Pharaoh, whose official designation was son of Ra. In numberless inscriptions the Pharaohs are styled own sons or beloved sons of the deity. It is here applied for the first time to Israel; and as we learn from Exo 4:23, emphatically in antithesis to Pharaohs own firstborn.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Exodus 4:22
Barnes has found what makes the sentence land. Pharaoh was addressed in his own vocabulary, and then contradicted in it. The Egyptian king held the title son of the god by office. Moses is sent to tell him that a nation of his slaves holds it by God’s own naming — and the next verse puts Pharaoh’s literal firstborn on the other side of the sentence.
And when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of man and beast. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the firstborn male of every womb, but I redeem all the firstborn of my sons.’The reason given for the standing instruction, and it is a memory rather than a principle.
“Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn Israelite from the womb. The Levites belong to Me,And the substitution, one tribe taken instead of every family's eldest.
The command is addressed to Moses. It was to declare the will of God that all firstborn were to be consecrated to Him, set apart from all other creatures. The command is expressly based upon the Passover. The firstborn exempt from the destruction became in a new and special sense the exclusive property of the Lord: the firstborn of man as His ministers, the firstborn of cattle as victims. In lieu of the firstborn of men the Levites were devoted to the temple services.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Exodus 13:2
To sanctify, קדש kadash, signifies to consecrate, separate, and set apart a thing or person from all secular purposes to some religious use
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Exodus 13:2
Notice the logic Barnes traces. The firstborn who lived through that night were not merely spared; they were bought, and belonged to God from then on. Every later use of the word carries that in it, including the one applied to the nation itself.
And that standing is not withdrawn later in the story. Paul, writing about Israel at the point where the question is most pressed, says plainly that God does not take His callings back:
For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.Cited here because it governs how Exodus 4:22 is read for the rest of the Bible.
The Verse the Church Had to Answer
Colossians 1:15, and one word of difference
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.Read on into verses 16 and 17 before deciding what this one means. Paul explains himself immediately.
And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.The same word, three verses later, in a place where it plainly cannot mean 'first in time'.
In the fourth century this verse was the centre of the largest argument the church has ever had. If firstborn of every creature means the first creature made, then the Son is a made thing. The answer given was not a clever manoeuvre; it was the observation this whole page is built on, firstborn in Scripture is a word about standing, and there is a different Greek word for first-created.
The Apostle saith that Christ is the image of the Father-for he calls Him the image of the invisible God, the first-begotten of all creation. First-begotten, mark you, not first-created, in order that He may be believed to be both begotten, in virtue of His nature, and first in virtue of His eternity.
Ambrose of Milan· Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book 1, 397Latin, fourth century
Colossians 1:15
but because in Him the creation came to be; and as before the creation He was the Son, through whom was the creation, so also before He was called the First-born of the whole creation, not the less was the Word Himself with God and the Word was God.
Athanasius of Alexandria· Discourses Against the Arians 2.63, 373Alexandrian, fourth century
Colossians 1:15
and that he is placed first not because of his nature but because of the rights of the eldest, this must be said to them first of all—it is not possible for the same person to be the only begotten and the firstborn as well.
Gregory of Nyssa· On Perfection, 395Cappadocian, fourth century
Romans 8:29
Gregory of Nyssa’s move is the one worth following, because it argues from the Bible’s own vocabulary rather than from a creed: the Arian reading requires Christ to hold His place by the rights of the eldest, as Reuben did over his brothers — and Reuben is precisely the case in which those rights did not hold.
Two words, and the reason both titles have to stand togetheronly-begotten and firstborn, held at once
He who is first begotten is called first-born, whether he is only-begotten or the first of a number of brothers. If then the Son of God was called first-born, but was not called Only-begotten, we could imagine that He was the first-born of creatures, as being a creature. But since He is called both first-born and Only-begotten, both senses must be preserved in His case.
John of Damascus· An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, 749Greek, eighth century
Colossians 1:15
but as He Himself is born alone and timelessly of the essence of God the Father, He may with reason be called Only-begotten Son, first-born and not first-created. For the creation was not brought into being out of the essence of the Father, but by His will out of nothing.
John of Damascus· An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, 749Greek, eighth century
Colossians 1:15
Christ is called "only begotten" because he has no brothers and is the Son of God by nature, the Word in the beginning by whom all things were made. But by his assumption of humanity and by the dispensation of the incarnation, through which even we who are not sons by nature have been called into the adoption of sons, he is said to be the "firstborn" of many brothers.
Augustine of Hippo· Augustine on Romans 55, 430Latin, fifth century
Romans 8:29
Adam Clarke adds a background detail that makes the phrase feel much less strange: the same construction was used in Jewish idiom of God Himself.
As the Jews term Jehovah בכורו של עולם becoro shel olam, the first-born of all the world, or of all the creation, to signify his having created or produced all things; (see Wolfius in loc.) so Christ is here termed, and the words which follow in the 16th and 17th verses are the proof of this.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Colossians 1:15
"Firstborn of all creation" applied to his status before the emergence of the created order, whereas "firstborn from the dead" refers to the fact that he was raised first of all the brothers who will share in salvation.
Severian of Gabala· Commentary on Colossians, 425Syrian, fifth century
Colossians 1:18
The first-born from the dead - At the head of those who rise from their graves. This does not mean literally that he was the first who rose from the dead for he himself raised up Lazarus and others, and the bodies of saints arose at his crucifixion; but it means that he had the pre-eminence among them all
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Colossians 1:18
Barnes makes the decisive observation, and it is a plain reading rather than a theological one: Jesus was not the first person in the Bible to come out of a grave. He raised Lazarus Himself. So when Colossians 1:18 calls Him the firstborn from the dead and then says why — that in all things he might have the preeminence — the chapter has defined its own term, three verses after using it.
Where It Points
a title that needs brothers to exist
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.The one use of the word that would be meaningless on its own, it requires other people.
in joyful assembly, to the congregation of the firstborn, enrolled in heaven. You have come to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,And the word in the plural, applied to an assembly rather than an individual.
See what superb honor! for what the Only-begotten was by Nature, this they also have become by grace. And still he was not satisfied with this calling of them conformed thereto, but even adds another point, "that He might be the first-born." And even here he does not come to a pause, but again after this he proceeds to mention another point, "Among many brethren." So wishing to use all means of setting the relationship in a clear light.
John Chrysostom· Homily on Romans 15, 407Greek, fourth century
Romans 8:29
Chrysostom’s line is the point of the whole word: what the Only-begotten was by Nature, this they also have become by grace. The title cannot be held alone. A firstborn among many brethren is a rank that only exists because of the people it is measured among.
The Jews gave the title בכור bechor, first-born, to those who were very eminent or excellent; what we would term the head or top of his kin. The Church of the first-born is the assembly of the most excellent.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Hebrews 12:23
They who were first-born among the Hebrews enjoyed special privileges, and especially pre-eminence of rank; see the notes on Col 1:15.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1851Presbyterian
Hebrews 12:23
Both are reading the plural as a title of eminence, which is the consistent sense of the word across the whole page. It is worth being exact about what that does and does not do: Hebrews confers a standing; it does not revoke one. Exodus 4:22 is still on the page, and Romans 11:29 is the reason it stays there.
Among the kings the seed of David were to be most favoured and indulged with most love and paternal regard from God: but in Jesus we see this in the highest degree verified, for he has preeminence in all things, inasmuch as by inheritance he has a more glorious name than any other, and is higher than the kings of the earth. Who can rival heaven's Firstborn?
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, on Psalm 89, 1885Baptist
Psalm 89:27
What Scripture says outright
- Psalm 89:27
The title is conferred (“I will make him”) and then defined (“higher than the kings of the earth”) inside one verse.
- Colossians 1:18
Paul gives the purpose of the title in the same sentence he uses it: that in all things he might have the preeminence.
- Genesis 49:3-4
Reuben is named the firstborn and told he shall not excel, two sentences apart. Birth and standing, stated separately.
- Exodus 4:22
God names Israel His firstborn son. The claim is made outright, and Romans 11:29 says His callings are not withdrawn.
What readers have heard in it
Readings and inferences, named as such.
- Colossians 1:15
That “firstborn of every creature” makes Christ the first created being. The reading has a long history and a name; the next three verses are Paul’s own answer, and the Greek has a separate word for first-created.
- Hebrews 12:23
That “the church of the firstborn” means the church has taken Israel’s place as God’s firstborn. Hebrews confers a title; it withdraws none, and the letter never says it does.
- Genesis 49:4
That Reuben was disowned. He was not, his name stays on a tribe, in the census, and on a gate in Ezekiel’s city. A rank was moved, not a son.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
the title, in the order the Bible confers it
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power.
The full weight of the title, listed out by a dying father: dignity, power, the beginning of his strength.
Uncontrolled as the waters, you will no longer excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, onto my couch, and defiled it.
And then it is taken off him in the next sentence. He stays a son and stays in the twelve; the rank is what goes.
Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,
A message to Pharaoh, in Pharaoh's own vocabulary, and the word is used of a nation, not a person.
And when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of man and beast. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the firstborn male of every womb, but I redeem all the firstborn of my sons.’
The night that made the word cost something, and the standing instruction that came out of it.
“Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel in place of every firstborn Israelite from the womb. The Levites belong to Me,
And a substitution: a whole tribe taken instead of the firstborn of every family in the nation.
And Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied, “but he is tending the sheep.” “Send for him,” Samuel replied. “For we will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”
The youngest, and out with the sheep, not even brought in for the meeting.
I will indeed appoint him as My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
The verse that settles the vocabulary: the title is conferred, and the next clause says what it means.
They will come with weeping, and by their supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk beside streams of waters, on a level path where they will not stumble. For I am Israel’s Father, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”
The younger brother named firstborn, in the chapter that promises a new covenant.
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.
Firstborn among many brethren, a title that requires the brethren to exist.
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
The most argued-over use of the word, and the next three verses are Paul's own explanation of it.
And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.
The same word again, three verses later, where the meaning cannot be chronological, and Paul says what it is: preeminence.
The Voices
with the work named
Adam Clarke supplies the sentence the page could be built on alone, that firstborn is not always to be understood literally, and the Jewish idiom that makes Colossians 1:15 sound ordinary rather than alarming. Albert Barnes finds the two things nobody else does: that Pharaoh’s own official title was son of the god, and that Jesus had already raised people from the dead before Colossians calls Him the firstborn from among them.
Ambrose gives the distinction in five words, first-begotten, not first-created. Athanasius refuses the syllogism the Arians built. Gregory of Nyssa answers it out of the Bible’s own vocabulary, by way of Reuben. John of Damascus holds both titles together without collapsing either. And Chrysostom states the reason the word matters to a reader at all: what the Only-begotten was by nature, these have become by grace.
Where to Go Next
Where the title is Christ's
Where the title cost something
Nearby in the index
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: