Tw'n lalhqhsomevnwn in Hebrews 3,5 97 “in a son”. Putting these two preliminary assessments together, the result is that in 3,5 God is “speaking in a prophet” (Moses) to give witness to a “speaking in a son” (Christ). A common reason for minimizing this conclusion is that the author of Hebrews does not seem to develop any theme touching on the Eucharist (20). The text which Hebrews seems to have in mind in Heb 3,5 is Heb 9,20, where Moses and the word lalevw are found in the same context, the only such instance in Hebrews: When every command according to the law had been spoken (lalhqeivsh") by Moses to the entirety of the people, and after he had taken the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop he sprinkled the book itself and all the people, saying, “This (tou'to) is the blood of the covenant which God ordered for you” (9,19-20). What is intriguing about the words which Moses “speaks” (21) in 9,20 is the fact that the citation from Ex 24,8 which they purport to reproduce have been altered slightly (22). Some commentators say that the alteration has been done for reasons which have to do only with the author’s arguments in the epistle. But most authors concur that the alteration seems to have been done in order to allude to the words of the institution of the Eucharist by Christ (23). (20) As regards Heb 9,20: “The author, it is true, shows no sign of direct or explicit concern with the eucharist as regularly celebrated in the church. He is, however, concerned in the passage with the inaugural ceremony of the old covenant, and this strongly suggests a corresponding allusion to the inaugural ceremony of the new covenant, that is, to the initial celebration of the Lord’s Supper” (ELLINGWORTH, Hebrews, 469). The burden of the present paper, of course, is that since the author of Hebrews is directly and explicitly concerned with the Eucharist (cf. above, n. 16), the inauguration of the old covenant by Moses presages the Eucharistic inauguration of the new by Jesus. (21) The word attributed to Moses in 9,20, levgw, is to be understood as the usage in which levgw follows lalevw in continuing its sense. Cf. above, n. 11. (22) The principle change is the substitution of tou'to for ijdou, of the Septuagint. Interestingly enough, this is not indicated in N-A27 but it is in The Greek New Testament, B. ALAND, K. ALAND, J. KARAVIDOPOULOS, C.M. MARTINI and B.M. METZGER (eds.) (Stuttgart 7th printing 42003) 759, a text which is supposed to depend on N-A27. Cf. LANE, Hebrews 9–13, 245. (23) The reason for the refusal to credit with certitude the change as alluding to the Eucharist is the inability of the authors to see any relevance for an allusion to the Eucharist in Hebrews. The strength of the argument which sees an allusion to the Eucharist does not depend only on the substitution of the New Testament’s tou'to for the Septuagint’s ijdouv but on the typology implied. Underlying the text is the supposition that the action of Moses in instituting the old covenant is a prefiguring of Christ instituting the new. Cf. ELLINGWORTH (Hebrews, 469) for the authors involved and for the argumentation. Ellingworth observes that the argumentation falls short of “proof”, but that is something which should be taken for granted in any exegetical endeavor: literary analysis by its nature yields plausibility, not proof. An author for whom there is no doubt about the allusion is O. Michel. With regard to the alleged allusion in Heb 9,20 he observes: “Hebr spricht nur in Andeutungen vom Herrenmahl (z.B., 1310), doch setzt er Lehre und Feier voraus”. And in a note to this sentence he observes: “Wenn Hebr nicht ausführlich von den Sakramenten spricht, so hängt dies mit der Beschränkheit seines Themas, vielleicht auch mit der Arkandisziplin, auf keinen Fall aber mit einer Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber dem Herrenmahl oder einer unkultischen Beurteilung des Gottesdienstes zusammen. Der Bundesgedanke und die Exegese von Jer 3131-34 sind nor auf Grund der Abendmahlstiftung, die Polemik Hebr 1310