Hebrews 13:23
Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty: with whom (if he come shortly) I will see you.
Open Hebrews 13:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cognoscite fratrem nostrum Timotheum dimissum : cum quo (si celerius venerit) videbo vos.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- γινώσκετε τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἡμῶν Τιμόθεον ἀπολελυμένον, μεθʼ οὗ ἐὰν τάχιον ἔρχηται ὄψομαι ὑμᾶς.
Haydock's commentary
Our brother, Timothy, is set at liberty. From which we may conjecture that Timothy had been a prisoner, though it is not known where, nor on what occasion. (Witham)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Argument
The affection of Paul for him is a sufficient evidence of his character. For he elsewhere says of him, “Ye know the proof of him, that as a son with a father, he hath served with me in the Gospel.” ( Philip. ii. 22 .) And to the Corinthians again he writes: “I have sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord.” ( 1 Cor. iv. 17 .) And again: “Let no man despise him, for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do.” ( 1 Cor. xvi. 10, 11 .) And to the Hebrews he writes, “Know that our brother Timothy is set at liberty.” ( Heb. xiii. 23 .) Indeed his love for him is everywhere apparent, and the miracles that are now wrought still attest his claims.
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Argument
[2.] Why, then, not being a teacher of the Jews, does he send an Epistle to them? And where were those to whom he sent it? It seems to me in Jerusalem and Palestine. How then does he send them an Epistle? Just as he baptized, though he was not commanded to baptize. For, he says, “I was not sent to baptize”: not, however, that he was forbidden, but he does it as a subordinate matter. And how could he fail to write to those, for whom he was willing even to become accursed? Accordingly he said, “Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.”
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 13.17
I suppose that they were not at all unfavorably disposed towards Timothy: wherefore he also put him forward. For ( ver. 23 ) “know ye,” he says, “that our brother Timothy is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.” “Set at liberty,” he says; from whence? I suppose he had been cast into prison: or if not this, that he was sent away from Athens. For this also is mentioned in the Acts.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).