Hebrews 4:9

The “therefore” of verse 1 (oûn, a particle of consequence) draws the lesson of Hebrews 3. There the writer told how Israel, delivered from Egypt, hardened their hearts in the wilderness, and how that generation was kept out of the land because of their unbelief (Hebrews 3:19). The letter was most likely written to Jewish Christians who knew the Exodus and the wilderness wanderings well, who faced persecution, and who were tempted to go back to the familiar ways of Judaism. To them the word “rest” called up the Sabbath, the land of Canaan where Israel would settle after its wandering, and the final rest of God’s people with him. The whole of Hebrews 3–4 builds on those pictures.

“Let us therefore fear” uses phobéō, which means to be alarmed and, by extension, to be in awe of and revere. The writer counts himself in that “us”. The fear he asks for is a reverent awe that takes God’s warnings and God’s promises with full seriousness, and it makes us watchful and diligent. It belongs with faith, because it is the fear of missing what God has offered.

What we could miss is a promise, epangelía, an announcement or promise, which Strong’s describes as “especially a divine assurance of good”. It is a promise “of entering into his rest”, and the rest is God’s own. The word for rest through most of this passage is katápausis, literally a “reposing down”, and by a Hebrew turn of speech an abode: ceasing from labour, and a settled place to dwell. Hebrews 4 is built around this word. The promise is “being left us” (kataleipomenēs), which means that it still stands open for this generation, though the wilderness generation failed to enter.

The danger is that “any of you should seem to come short of it.” The verb for coming short, hysterekenai, means to fall behind, to lack, or to fail to reach the goal. The word “seem” (dokei) puts the warning gently, and the failure it speaks of is a real one. “Any of you” makes it personal, since each hearer answers for how he receives God’s promise.

“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them” uses euangelízō, to announce good news. The verb is passive, so the writer says, in effect, that we have had good news proclaimed to us as they did. In the New Testament the word speaks above all of the gospel of Jesus, and the Greek Old Testament also uses it of good news in general. What Israel heard was the good news of God’s promise and provision, the land he would give them and the rest they would find there. What we hear is the good news of the rest God gives in Christ. The same God speaks in both, and he has always given his people good news to believe.

“But the word preached did not profit them.” The verb ōpheléō means to be useful or to be of advantage. The message itself was good and able to bring them into the rest. The fault lay with its hearers, and the writer names it: the word was “not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” The verb synkeránnymi means to mix together, to combine or blend. God’s word has to be joined to faith in the one who hears it, taken in and trusted, or it stays outside him and leaves him as he was.

The same truth runs through Scripture. Paul says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). James calls us to be doers of the word as well as hearers (James 1:22–25). Jesus’ explanation of the parable of the sower shows the one word received in different ways by different hearers (Matthew 13:18–23). Hebrews itself goes on to speak of the power of the word of God (Hebrews 4:12), and later describes faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). The power is in the word, and faith is how the hearer receives it.

Verse 3 states the other side plainly: “For we which have believed do enter into rest.” The verb pisteúō means to believe what is true and to credit what someone says, and also to trust and rely on a person, to entrust oneself to him. It is the faith the wilderness generation lacked. “Do enter” is present, so those who believe are entering God’s rest now, and the rest is a present reality for them as well as a hope.

Then the writer brings back the oath from Psalm 95:11, already quoted in Hebrews 3:11: “As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest.” The “if” (ei) follows a Hebrew form of oath in which “if they shall enter” means “they shall never enter”, so God’s word was final for that generation. The word for his wrath, orgḗ, is traced by Strong’s from desire, a reaching out of the mind, to strong passion, justifiable abhorrence and punishment. Here it is God’s righteous anger at a people who had seen him bring them out of Egypt and still refused to trust him. The account of their rebellion is in Numbers 13–14.

“Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world” explains how God could swear that oath while his rest still stood. His rest was ready long before Israel reached the edge of Canaan, for God finished his works of creation at the beginning and rested from them, as the next verse shows. The rest existed, and the wilderness generation stayed outside it. God planned this rest from the beginning, and human failure leaves it standing. The work that brings us into it was also settled in his purpose from the start, for Revelation speaks of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

“For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise” introduces a quotation from Genesis 2:2. The verb eréō means to say or speak, and the writer gives the words of Scripture as God’s own speech. “In a certain place” (poú) points to a passage he can expect his readers to know without naming the book. hébdomos is simply “seventh”, the ordinal of seven.

“And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.” The verb katapaúō means to settle down, to cease or cause to cease, to give rest. God’s works, érgon (labour, a deed, an act), are here his works of creation. He ceased from them because they were complete. The almighty God rests from finished work, and that rest is his own before he shares it with anyone. The Sabbath that Israel kept was established at creation and set down in the Law (Exodus 20:8–11), and the land of Canaan was promised to Israel as a rest from their wanderings and their enemies (Deuteronomy 12:9–10). Both rests rose out of this first one.

Verse 5 sets the psalm next to Genesis: “And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.” The writer has quoted the oath already (Hebrews 3:7–11), and by bringing it back here, pálin (“again”), he lays the two Scriptures side by side. Genesis says that God entered his rest at creation. The psalm calls it “my rest”, with moû, “of me, my”. So the rest the wilderness generation was barred from was God’s own rest, which he has kept since the world was made. And because that rest is still there, the oath shut out the unbelieving and left the promise standing for others.

Verses 6 to 8 make the argument that gives this passage its title. Since God’s rest exists and God means people to enter it, “it remaineth that some must enter therein”. The verb apoleípō means to leave behind, and in the passive to remain. The promise still stands, and God’s purpose for his rest will be fulfilled: “some” (tìs) will enter it, though those who first heard of it stayed out.

“They to whom it was first preached” are the wilderness generation, those who first (próteron) had the good news (euangelízō) proclaimed to them. They “entered not in because of unbelief.” The word is apeítheia, which Strong’s defines as “disbelief (obstinate and rebellious)”, a refusal to be persuaded that shows itself in disobedience. In the wilderness it took the form of grumbling against God, rejecting what he provided, and refusing his command to go up and enter the land (Numbers 14). Moses later recounted that rebellion to the next generation (Deuteronomy 1), and the psalm records God’s oath against them (Psalm 95:10–11).

“Again, he limiteth a certain day.” horízō, from a word for a boundary, means to mark out, to appoint or decree. God fixed a day and named it “To day”. He did so “in David”, that is, in Psalm 95, which the writer gives to David, who lived centuries after Israel entered Canaan. “After so long a time”, long after the wilderness and long after the conquest, God was still calling his people to hear his voice and enter. That shows his patience, and it shows that a rest beyond the land was still to come.

“To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” is quoted from Psalm 95:7–8. sḗmeron is the ordinary word for “today”, or “now, at present”, and the urgency comes from the way the psalm and this passage use it: whenever God speaks, the day to answer him is the day he speaks. Proverbs warns against boasting of tomorrow (Proverbs 27:1), and Paul says that now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). Because God has appointed this day, it is his to set and his to close.

“Harden” is sklērýnō, to make hard or stubborn. In Scripture the heart is the seat of the mind, the will and the feelings, and a heart is hardened by resisting God’s voice until it grows stiff and unresponsive to him. The psalm’s command shows that hardening is something people do, and something they can be warned against. It was the way of the generation that fell in the wilderness (Hebrews 3:16–19), and it ends in exclusion from the promised rest.

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” This is the conclusion of the whole argument, and ára (“therefore”) marks it as a result drawn from what went before. The rest of Canaan was real, and God still spoke of a “To day” after it, so a rest remains (apoleípō, the same verb as in verse 6) for God’s people.

Here the writer changes his word for rest. In place of katápausis he uses sabbatismós, which appears only here in the New Testament. It means a “sabbatism”, a Sabbath-keeping or Sabbath rest, and Strong’s defines it figuratively as “the repose of Christianity (as a type of heaven)”. The word ties the rest that remains to God’s own rest on the seventh day, and it makes that rest the fulfilment of everything the Sabbath pictured: peace with God, communion with him, and an end of labour and striving.

“The people of God” (laós, people) are those who belong to God by faith in Christ, Jews and Gentiles together. They stand in contrast to the unbelieving generation that perished in the wilderness, and the rest is theirs as a gift of grace, received by faith.

Verse 10 says what entering the rest means: “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” “Entered” is eisérchomai, to go in or into, to come into an experience, and “ceased” is katapaúō once more. “His own works” (érgon) are a person’s own efforts to make himself right with God, by religious performance, by keeping the Law, or by his own merit. To enter God’s rest is to stop striving for righteousness and to trust in what God has done. Paul teaches the same when he says that we are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8–9) and that righteousness comes through faith (Romans 3:20–28).

“As God did from his” makes the comparison. God rested because his work was finished. We rest because the work that saves us is finished, and Jesus said so from the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Hebrews later speaks of Christ’s one sacrifice for sins, which needs nothing added to it (Hebrews 10:12–14). This rest leaves room for obedience and service, and they now flow from a heart at peace with God.

“Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.” “Labour” is spoudázō, to make haste, to make an effort, to be earnest and diligent. The writer calls for an earnest faith that keeps hold of the promise, and “therefore” (oûn) draws that call from the whole argument. “That rest” (ekeînos, “that one”) is the rest he has been describing, God’s own rest, which remains for his people.

“Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” “Lest” (hína mḗ) gives the purpose of the diligence, and “any man” (tìs) makes the warning cover every one of us. “Fall” is píptō, to fall, literally or figuratively. The “example” (hypódeigma) is the pattern the wilderness generation set. Their unbelief, apeítheia, the obstinate distrust that led to disobedience, kept them out of Canaan, and the forty years of wandering ended with that generation dead in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26–35). The writer has already warned his readers to beware of an evil heart of unbelief (Hebrews 3:12–13), and he later reminds them of their need for endurance (Hebrews 10:36). Peter gives a like call, to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10).

All the rests of the Old Testament point to Jesus Christ. God’s rest at creation, the weekly Sabbath and the land of Canaan were shadows, and he is the substance they pictured. He is the true Joshua, who leads his people into the promised rest of communion with God. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), so to receive him by faith is to mix the word with faith as verse 2 requires. He is the Lamb of God (John 1:29), whose sacrifice frees believers from the burden of sin and from trying to make themselves righteous under the law, so that righteousness is given through faith in him (Romans 3:21–24).

Hebrews goes straight on from this passage to Christ as our great High Priest, through whom we may come boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14–16). He is the mediator of the new covenant, through whom we receive an eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:15), and through him we have boldness to enter the holiest (Hebrews 10:19–22). He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), and he enables us to persevere until we come into the fullness of God’s rest. The peace he gives passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

God has a rest of his own, the rest of finished work, and he keeps on offering to share it. A whole generation fell short of it, and the offer stood. Joshua brought Israel into the land, and God spoke of another day. In David’s psalm he named that day “To day”, and it is still the day in which he speaks to us. His word profits all who mix it with faith, and the rest it promises is entered by believing.

That rest is Christ’s gift to the weary, who hear him say, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The diligence this passage calls for is the diligence of trusting him, and the fear it asks of us is the fear of missing so great a gift. Those who come to him cease from their own works as God did from his, and a Sabbath rest remains for them, now in part and one day in full.