Jamieson, Fausset and Brown on Hebrews 9:18

18. Whereupon--rather, "Whence."

dedicated--"inaugurated." The Old Testament strictly and formally began on that day of inauguration. "Where the disposition, or arrangement, is ratified by the blood of another, namely, of animals, which cannot make a covenant, much less make a testament, it is not strictly a testament, where it is ratified by the death of him that makes the arrangement, it is strictly, Greek 'diathece,' Hebrew 'berith,' taken in a wider sense, a testament" [Bengel]; thus, in He 9:18, referring to the old dispensation, we may translate, "the first (covenant)": or better, retain "the first (testament)," not that the old dispensation, regarded by itself, is a testament, but it is so when regarded as the typical representative of the new, which is strictly a Testament.