Hebrews 4

Hebrews 4:1

Upon those words of God ch. iii. 15. (an ominous admonition if it be not heeded) we have great reason to fear, lest that promise of coming to God’s rest (as for those others, to Canaan) being made to us, a promise of deliverance from our persecutors, and peaceable days of professing the gospel attending it, (see note [c] ch. iii.) we may yet (see note [f] Matt. iii.) by our disobedience miss of attaining to it.

Hebrews 4:2

For as they had the law of God, the Decalogue, delivered unto them, so we have the gospel, the new law of God, preached by Christ on that other mountain, Matt. v. vi. vii. But as then, so here, this word of God being only heard, and not digested by faith, will not be profitable, or stand them in any stead that have heard it, it being the practice of the gospel precepts, patience and constancy, &c. which will advantage any. Or, we must to our hearing God’s word add both obedience and communion with all orthodox Christians, or else the word will benefit us nothing.

[a] not being mixed] If συγκεκριμένος be the right reading, then questionless that being joined with λόγος, the English rendering is proper, being not mixed with faith—. But it is certain that St. Chrysostom read it συγκεκριμένους in the accusative case plural, so as to be joined with ἐκείνους, them, who are said not to have been profited. This is clear by that passage in him, ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ μὴ συγκρασθῆναι οὐκ ὠφελήθησαν, “for by not being mixed they were not profited,” which supposes the not mixing and not profiting to belong to the same persons. And so Theophylact expressly reads it, μὴ συγκεκριμένους, and upon that reading proceeds all his interpretation. If therefore this be the right reading, as not improbably it is, then the rendering is evidently this; “But the word that was heard did not profit those who were not by faith joined or united to them which heard.” Thus Theophylact interprets μὴ συγκεκριμένους, τουτέστι μὴ ἑνωθέντας μηδὲ συμφρονήσαντας διὰ τῆς πίστεως τοῖς ἀκούσασιν, ἀλλ’ ὑπορραγέντας αὐτῶν, “not mixed, that is, not united or agreeing by faith with them that heard,” (that is, saith he, “that believed,” οὗτοι γὰρ τῷ ὄντι ἀκούσαντες ἂν λέγουτο, “for these are said to be hearers indeed,) but breaking off from them.” To this St. Chrysostom accords in these words, Ὁ δὲ λέγει τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν—. “This is that which he saith, They heard,” saith he, “as we hear, but they received no profit: do not you therefore think that by the hearing the word preached ye shall be profited, seeing they also heard but were profited nothing, because they believed not.” What there follows in St. Chrysostom of those that were with Caleb and Joshua, that ἐπειδὴ μὴ συνεκράσθησαν τοῖς ἀπιστήσασι, διέφυγον τὴν κατ’ ἐκείνων ἐξενεχθεῖσαν τιμωρίαν, “seeing they were not joined with the unbelievers, that is, agreed not with them, they escaped the punishment which went out against them.” Theophylact professeth not to understand; “This,” saith he, “Chrysostom saith according to his great and deep wisdom,” ἐμοὶ γοῦν τῷ ἀναξίῳ οὐκ ἔδωκε νοῆσαι πῶς αὐτό εἶπεν, “but he hath not given me, unworthy man, to understand how he said it.” Where yet I suppose the riddle not so inextricable, viz. that that passage of St. Chrysostom was rather delivered ex abundanti, “over and above” what was necessary to the interpreting of the words, than designed to set down who were the συγκεκριμένοι. That he had set down clearly before, viz. that the disobedient or unbelieving Jews were they: which being said, he further adds, on the other side, that Caleb and Joshua, and those that were with them, associated not with the unbelievers, &c., which certainly was true also; for as the unbelievers joined not with them, so neither they with the unbelievers. Having thus expatiated, he retires again, and observes somewhat from the critical notation of the word; he saith not (saith he) οὐ συνεφώνησαν, they consented not, but οὐ συνεκράσθησαν, they mixed not, joined not with them; in which words he speaks not of Caleb and Joshua, as in the last period he had

Hebrews 4:3

For as there is such a thing as a rest yet future for us to hope for, so it is most certain, that this is only for constant persevering believers to enter into; and such must we be, if we mean to enter into God’s rest. By God’s rest I mean not that which is so oft called by that name, the sabbath of the seventh day after the creating of the world in six days; there are more rests of God beside and after that. That mentioned in the psalmist, psalm xcv. 8, is called God’s rest, though it were many years after the creation of the world: and so there is now a yet future rest for

Hebrews 4:4

For one place of scripture speaks of that first sabbath immediately after the creation thus, And God &c.

Hebrews 4:5

And another in the psalmist, long after, mentions this other rest as still future: which, as it cannot refer to that after the creation, so neither can it to that of the Israelites in Canaan, being written after them both; but in the first sense, to David’s time, being a promise to them of that age, that if they would then come in and hearken to the voice of God, after all their former rebellions, their land should be truly what it was promised to be, a rest to them; no Midianite, Philistine, or Canaanite should disturb them; their ark should be no more captive, but rest with them for ever in Jerusalem: and in a second, mystical sense, to these times of the gospel, to which the Jews acknowledge that psalm to belong, and wherein God by Christ was present among them, (the highest completion of what was obumbrated by the ark or temple,) but should be taken away from them if they did not timely believe on him.

Hebrews 4:6

Seeing then there is such a thing as a rest for some to enter into, and the Israelites that came out of Egypt, through their disobedience, failed of entering into it;

Hebrews 4:7

And again, seeing the psalmist, so long after the Israelites’ entering into Canaan, speaks of a set time of entering into his rest, and that at that time still future, and yet further typical of somewhat under the gospel;

Hebrews 4:8

(For if Joshua, which is in the Syriac dialect called Jesus, (see Acts vii. 45,) had completed that prophecy by leading them into it whom Moses had

Hebrews 4:12

[b] the word of God] That ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, the word of God, should signify Christ, the eternal Word, is not impossible, it being among the Jews the known title of the Messias, (see note [b] on Luke i.) and to that the mention of eyes, ver. 13, doth somewhat incline it. But this phrase being not elsewhere found in this sense in the New Testament, save only in St. John’s writings, who is therefore called θεολόγος, it is more reasonable here to take it for the word of God, that is, that which had been delivered by Christ, and particularly that severe sanction and denunciation of judgment against all that hold not fast to him in time of temptation, those that openly or clancularly deny him by their words or actions. For it must be observed, that this Epistle being accommodated to the present condition of the Christians in Judæa, who were now daily solicited by the Gnostics, and drawn off from their constancy and purity, doth labour by all arguments to fortify them. And in this chapter doth it by two arguments, one depending on the other: first, from the advantages which they shall reap by a constant adhering to Christ; not only eternal rest in heaven, an ample reward for all their persecutions whatever they are, but even in this life more peaceable days of professing and worshipping Christ, when the unbelieving Jews the persecutors should be destroyed, and that time was now at hand, ch. x. 37. And this hath formerly been explained to be meant by the ἀνάπαυσις, rest, that is here spoken of, a rest from the labours, that is, wearisome persecutions and pressures that lay upon them. This he resembles to the Israelites’ Canaan, as in the refreshment that it yielded the people of God after a sad travail in the wilderness, so in the propriety that the faithful servants of God had in it, none but they admitted to it; when they that had been brought out of Egypt, and received the law from God’s mouth at Sinai, and so were highly favoured and dignified by him, yet upon their murmuring and falling back toward Egypt in their hearts, through impatience of hardships and the like, (herein directly parallel to the Gnostics, and those that were seduced by them, who either secretly or openly forsook Christ in time of persecutions,) were cut off

Hebrews 4:13

[c] opened] The notion of τραχηλίξασθαι here hath been much doubted of. I conceive it is most clearly that which Phavorinus thus expresses, Τραχηλίξειν, διχοτομείν λέγεται, ἤγουν τὰ διὰ τῆς ῥάχεως σχίζειν, it signifies “to cut in two, to divide down the spina dorsi,” (τράχηλος signifying, saith he, τοὺς σπονδύλους τῶν κογχυλίων, “the spondyls of the back-bones;”) and so it belongs clearly to the custom of the priests in examining the sacrifices whether they were entire and without blemish or no. This is called δοκιμάζειν and ἐξετάζειν ἱερεῖα, “to try and search the sacrifices,” (as in Lucian Περὶ Θυσ. Οἱ δύοντες στεφανώσαντες τὸ ζῶον, καὶ πολὺ γε πρότερον ἐξετάσαντες εἰ ἐντελὲς εἴη, &c. προσάγουσι τῷ βωμῷ, “The priests put a crown on the beast’s head, and having first searched it a great while, if it be perfect they bring it to the altar,”) and among the fathers μωμοσκοπεῖν, to look as a momus or censor, and consider whether there were in the sacrifice any מום or blemish, whether all were ἄμωρα καὶ ἀσινῆ, immaculate and unhurt. They that did this were the μωμοσκόποι, who to that end used to flay the body first, and then cut it down the neck or back-bone called τράχηλος, and being so cut to lay it upon the altar, that the priest might search and look into the inwards, and, as Philo saith, ὅσα ἐπὶ γαστρὶ καὶ μηροῖς ἀνακίκρυπται, “whatsoever is hid in the belly,” &c. To which refers that of Solomon, Prov. xx. 27. The spirit of the man is the candle of the Lord, searching the hidden parts of the belly. As therefore the entrails of the sacrifice and the most secret parts are conspicuous to the priest by the help of the μωμοσκόπος, and by cutting the sacrifice thus down the τράχηλος, neck or back-bone, so are all before the word of God, the most secret things, discerned and seen into: and that is the meaning of γυμνὰ and τετραχηλισμένα, naked, in reference to flaying, taking off the skin with which the flesh was clothed and covered, and cut down the back also. Thus saith Isidore Pelusiote, Ep. 1. 1. 94, that the phrase here used is ἐκ μεταφυρᾶς τῶν ἱερείων τῶν εἰς θυσίαν προσαγομένων, “by a

HAMMOND ANNOTT. VOL. II. Z

Hebrews 4:19

And so the short is, that unbelief and falling from God upon our carnal fears, or impatiences, or murmurings at the present persecutions and hardships that befall Christians, will deprive us of all reward of our faith, as it did the Israelites, that followed Moses for a time, but afterwards fell off.

LET us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.