If in verse 1 God is made the subject of the sentence, it may be important to introduce “the high priest” as the subject of verse 2; for example, “Since a high priest is himself weak in many ways.”
He himself is weak is more literally “he himself is surrounded by weakness.”
In choosing a term for weak, it is important to avoid an expression which will mean merely physical weakness. Sometimes misunderstanding may be avoided by speaking of “a person who is weak in his heart” or “someone who is not strong toward God.”
The central meaning of be gentle is that of reacting in a moderate way to anything which might arouse anger. Like feel sympathy in 4.15, it also suggests feeling and the possibility of suffering. Unlike to be gentle in English, the Greek word is a rare one, not found anywhere else in the Greek Bible. Is able to be gentle may be expressed as “is able to feel in his heart for others” or “is able to understand how others feel.”
Those who are ignorant and make mistakes are probably a single group of people. However, the Greek for make mistakes suggests something more worthy of blame than to be ignorant, which means simply “not to know.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “he has understanding for those who have done wrong unintentionally.” The Old Testament background suggests that the writer means those who make mistakes because of their ignorance; see comment on weaknesses in 4.15. The distinction is between those sins which can be dealt with by some kind of sacrifice and those which cannot. It is important to make it clear in translation that those who are ignorant and make mistakes are one group of people, not two. Therefore this phrase may be rendered as “those who make mistakes because they do not know any better” or “those who do wrong because they do not know that what they are doing is wrong.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .