1.15. The sense of the particle is probably not local (
somewhere
) but general (as we know, to quote familiar words).
peri; th'" eJbd
.] It has been remarked that the six days are defined in the record of creation by the evening and the morning, but to the seventh no such limits are given. See 4:9 note.
katevpausen
] The verb is used in an intransitive sense (though rarely) in classical Greek; and in the LXX. Ecclus. 5:6; 1 Macc. 9:73 & c. It is used in the commoner transitive sense below Heb. 4:8.
4:5.
ejn touvtw/ pavlin
] sc.
ei[rhken oJ qeov"
. The
touvtw/
is neuter:
in this
place, or phrase.
pavlin
]
again
, on the other side. The failure of those to whom the promise was originally made to attain it, is a second element in the argument. There is a rest; and yet further it has not been realised by men.
4:6. But when we recognise failure it is not that we acquiesce in it. The promise once made will have a fulfilment.
Some
must enter into the rest: those who were formerly called did not enter through disobedience; therefore another time was afterwards fixed when believers might gain by ready self- surrender that which God still offered. The conditional terms are thus two and not one; for the second clause (
kai; oiJ provt. eujaggel
.) cannot be considered to be only explanatory of the first.
ejpei; ou\n
] See Heb. 4:11 note.
ajpoleivpetai
] v. 9; 10:26. This certainty is left as a consequence of the unrepealed (though unfulfilled) promise.
oiJprovteron eujagg
.]
they to whom the good tidings were before preached
... Vulg.
quibus prioribus annunciatum est.
Only two generations are contemplated, that of Moses and that of Christ. The second generation of Israel who entered into Canaan are not considered to have received or enjoyed the fulness of the original promise.
dij ajpeivqeian
] O. L.
propter contumaciam.
The Vulgate rendering
propter incredulitatem
(and so v. 11; Rom. 11:30, 32; Col. 3:6 [O. L.
dissidentia
]; Eph. 2:2; 5:6: in Heb. 3:12, 19
ajpistiva
is so rendered) obscures the important difference between the state of mind and the active expression of it. Unbelief is manifested in disobedience (contrast 3:19). The two are placed in close connexion Rom. 11:20 ff., 30 ff.; comp. John 3:36.
Heb. 4:7.
oJrivzei
] O. L.
proefinivit
... Vulg.
terminat
... The Holy Spirit through the writer of the Psalm (Heb. 3:7)
defineth a certain day
,
Today
,
saying
... It seems more natural to take Today as the explanation of a certain day, than to connect it with saying as part of the quotation.
ejn D. levgwn
]
saying in the person of David
, who was regarded as the author of the whole Psalter; and not in the book of David (the phrases
ejn jHliva/
Rom. 11:2,
ejn tw'/ JWshev
Rom. 9:25, are not exactly parallel). The expression, which follows the common mode of speaking, is not to be regarded by itself as decisive of the authorship of the Psalm.
proeivrhtai
] Heb. 3:7, 15. 4:8-10. The words of the Psalmist convey also another lesson. In one sense it might be said that in the second generation those who were rescued from Egypt did enter into the rest which was refused to their fathers. But Canaan was not the rest of God. The rest of God is a Sabbath rest which man also is destined to share, a rest after finished labour. Therefore the