Tasted the good word of God. — There is a change of construction in the Greek which suggests that the words rather mean, tasted that God’s word is goody — tasted the excellence of God’s word, and of the powers, &c. God’s word was “spoken through the Lord” (Hebrews 2:3); the Hebrew Christians had heard and received this word, and had proved for themselves its excellence. (Comp. 1 Peter 2:3.)
Powers of the world to come. — Literally, powers of a coming (or, future) age. As has been before remarked, the last word is different from that which we find in Hebrews 2:5, the one relating to time, the other to the world as inhabited by man. Perhaps we may say that this is the only difference; the same future is contemplated in both places, namely, the age of the Messianic reign. We have seen (see Hebrews 1:2) that in the earliest days of the Church little account was taken of the period separating the pre-Christian age from that of the full manifestation of the kingdom of God; the “powers” received from God by those who believed (Hebrews 2:4) belonged to no earthly state, but were as truly anticipations of a future age of glory as was the “heavenly gift” an anticipation of the “heavenly fatherland” (Hebrews 11:16).