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For dio; kaiv see Lk. 1:35; Acts 10:29; (13:35;) 24:26; Rom. 4:22?; 15:22; 2 Cor. 1:20; 4:13; 5:9; Phil. 2:9.

jAfj eJno;" tou' jAbraavm. eij de; kai; ajmfotevrou" e{na nohvsaimen oujc aJmarthsovmeqa : e[sontai gavr, fhsivn, oiJ duvo eij" savrka mivan (Theodt.).

The classical phrase kai; tau'ta is found here only in N. T.; kai; tou'to occurs Rom. 13:11; 1 Cor. 6:6, 8; 3 John 5. For nenekrwmevnou compare Rom. 4:19.

kaqw;" ta; a[stra ...] Gen. 22:17; 32:12. At first the promise is of an heir, and then of a countless progeny. Comp. Heb. 6:13 note.

The references in the O. T. to Abraham as ‘the one’ are significant: Mal. 2:15; Is. 51:1 f.; Ezek. 33:24.

( b ) Characteristics of the patriarchal life of faith (Heb. 11:13-16). The life of the patriarchs was a life of faith to the last, supported by trust in the invisible which they had realised, resting on complete surrender, directed beyond earth (11:13). They shewed that the true satisfaction of human powers, the ‘city’ which answers to man's social instincts, must be ‘heavenly’ (11:14-16).

13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them afar, and having confessed that they are strangers and sojourners on the earth. 14 For they that say such things make it plain that they are seeking after a fatherland ( a country of their own ). 15 And if indeed they had thought of that from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is a heavenly fatherland; wherefore God is not ashamed of them , not ashamed to be called their God; for He (hath) prepared for them a city.

11:13. Having described the victories of faith gained by the patriarchs the writer marks the great lessons of their death and of their life. ‘These all’—the three to whom the promises were given, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with Sarah, the representative of faithful womanhood—‘died in faith’; and in life they had realised the promises which they had not outwardly received in a threefold order of growing power. They had seen them: they had welcomed them: they had acknowledged that earth could not fulfil them.
kata; p. ajpevqanon ] they died in faith , literally ‘according to faith’ (Vulg. juxta fidem ), that is, under the influence and according to the spirit of Faith, inspired, sustained, guided by Faith. Faith was the rule of their lives, the measure of their growth, even to the end. They faced death as men who retained their hold on the invisible, which was offered to them in the promises of God, though earth ‘gave them no pledge.’ So their departure was transformed into ‘a going home.’ For kata; pivstin compare Matt. 9:29 kata; th;n p. genhqhvtw soi : Tit. 1:1, 4; 5:7.

By ou|toi pavnte" we must understand the first representatives of the patriarchs and not (as Primasius and others) the whole array of their descendants (Heb. 11:12).
mh; kom. ... ajllav ] The clause does not simply state a fact ( ouj
komis.
... ajlla; ), but gives this fact as the explanation of the assertion that the
patriarchs ‘died in faith’: ‘They died in faith inasmuch as they had not received the outward fulness of the promises—the possession of Canaan, the growth of the nation, universal blessing through their race—but had realised them while they were still unseen and future.’

For komisavmenoi see Heb. 10:36 note; 11:39.


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