The writer sets out to prove from Scripture that the Son is greater than the angels. He asks his readers to search their memory of the Scriptures for any time God spoke to an angel this way. Barnes puts the point simply: "He never used language respecting the angels like what he employs respecting his Son. He never applied to any one of them the name Son." The first question draws on Psalm 2:7; the second on God's promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:14. Both press the same point: "Son" is a name God gave to Christ, not to angels.

The expected answer is: to none of them. The writer then shows what God does say about angels and about the Son. Of the Son: "let all the angels of God worship him" (Hebrews 1:6). Of the angels: "Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire" (Hebrews 1:7). But to the Son: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever" (Hebrews 1:8). The contrast answers the question.

Both quotations come from the Old Testament. Psalm 2:7 reads, "the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee." The second, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son," was God's promise to David about his son (2 Samuel 7:14). Barnes says that as first spoken these words referred to Solomon, and that the Messiah was included in the promise was "the common opinion of the Jews, of the early Christians." On "this day," Barnes notes that people have long been divided. He points to Acts 13:33, where Paul applies Psalm 2:7 to "the resurrection of the Redeemer," yet he confesses that this "does not seem to me to come up to 'all' that the writer here intended," and he does not think the writer means to teach eternal generation. Gill reads it differently: "today" designs eternity, "an everlasting now," though it may be applied to any time Christ is declared the Son, including His resurrection (Acts 13:33) and His ascension, which Gill thinks seems especially meant here.

Hebrews begins with God speaking. He spoke "by the prophets," and now "by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). This question lets God's own words show who the Son is. Gill says of Psalm 2:7, "this is said to Christ, and of him." No angel, however glorious, was ever called God's Son in this way.

This matters because the readers were in danger of letting slip what they had heard (Hebrews 2:1). If Jesus were only one more messenger, like the angels, His word could be treated lightly. But He is the Son, so the message spoken through Him is greater than any word "spoken by angels" (Hebrews 2:2-3). Knowing who Jesus is comes before knowing how to respond to Him.