A Mini-Commentary on Hebrews, Part 5
Hebrews 4:1–13
(avg. read time: 4–8 mins.)
4:1 Therefore, let us take care lest, while the promise to enter his rest remains open, any of you should seem to stop/come up short of it;
4:2 for we also received the good news/gospel even as those ones did, but the hearing of the word/message did not benefit them, since they had not been united in faith with the ones who heard.
4:3 For we who have believed are entering the rest, just as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4:4 For he has said somewhere about the seventh day thusly, “And God rested on the seventh day from all of his works,”
4:5 and in this text again, “They will not enter my rest.”
4:6 Therefore, since it remains open for any to enter it and the predecessors who received the good news/gospel did not enter because of disobedience/disbelief;
4:7 again, he has fixed/appointed a certain day, “Today,” saying by David much later, as has already been said,
“Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
4:8 For if Joshua gave them rest, he would not have spoken after these days about another day.
4:9 Then the Sabbath remains open for the people of God,
4:10 For the one who enters his rest also rests from his works just as God from his own.
4:11 Therefore make every effort to enter that rest, in order that in him no one should fall by the pattern of disobedience/untrustworthiness.
4:12 For the word of God is living and active/energetic and sharper [hapax] than any two-edged sword and piercing [hapax] until it bifurcates [only in Hebrews] soul and spirit, joint [hapax] and marrow [hapax], and discerning thoughts and insights of the heart.
4:13 No creature is hidden [un-revealed, hapax], but all things are naked and laid bare [hapax] before his eyes, to whom we must render an account [lit. “the word/account in/to us”].
As I noted in the previous post, 4:1–11 seems especially concerned to note that the typological argument is not so much that the rest the Christians enter replaces the one of the Jews, even though the form is now different (promised land vs. the new creation kingdom of God). Rather, the same promise of rest is open to the Christians as it was to the Jews of the exodus until they crossed the threshold of disobedience and untrustworthiness (such that they became faithless or treacherous in that they were no longer allegiant to God, being in violation of the covenant). Unlike later theologians, the author of Hebrews is not suggesting replacing one people with another people or one rest with another rest. Instead, the people are continuous—with the Israelites functioning as predecessors to the Christians—and the promise of rest is continuous. Indeed, what maintains the continuity of this promise and of the gospel spoken to the predecessors and the gospel spoken to the audience is the same God who has been proclaiming it and operating through it throughout history. What is different is that the covenant is new and that the form of rest is superior, as noted above. This same logic will carry over into chapter 11, as the author argues in both cases that the form that consummately fulfills these promises are part of the new covenant, but the promise remains continuous throughout both covenants and every phase of salvation history.
Multiple features demonstrate this emphasis of continuity. First, the associated verbs καταλείπω (in the circumstantial genitive participle form in v. 1) and ἀπολείπω (in the present passive form in vv. 6 and 9) convey the sense that the promise to enter God’s rest/Sabbath remains open to the author’s generation even as it was open to the generation of the exodus. Second, the author warns that the same fate of stopping short and not entering the rest is a potential fate for contemporary believers even as it was the for the Israelites of the exodus generation (3:16–4:1; 4:6). They may suffer the same fate if they take the same path and follow the same pattern (ὑπόδειγμα) of disobedience. Third, the Israelites of the past generation are said to have received the same gospel as the audience (vv. 2, 6), even if the gospel the audience has received is clearer in the light of Christ. Fourth, the author argues that the generation of Joshua did not enter God’s rest, even though they entered the promised land (vv. 6–8), whereby he implies a point he will make more fully later: the faithful of the past had to wait for the time of Jesus to become heirs together with the present faithful of the fullness of God’s promises. Only now that this eschatological horizon has arrived can it be said that the faithful can receive God’s rest in full, for it is only in the new creation that they can enter that rest once and for all with no more barriers. The eschatological rest prefigured in the Sabbath from creation to new creation and the promises of the promised land has been available for God’s people throughout, but it is now about to come to fruition because of the eschatological events that have already happened in Christ.
Two other features of this section of text are worth noting in terms of the use of Scripture. First, v. 4 cites Gen 2:2, although it is slightly altered from the LXX. The subject is added from its placement earlier in the verse and there is an added preposition afterward, but it otherwise matches the LXX. Once again, this is presented as divine speech about the origin of the Sabbath at the completion of creation and establishing the rest into which God promises entry for others who are faithful (vv. 3–4, 10). This rest is the acknowledgment of God’s kingship over the creation that he has established, but the consummation of that rule will not be until the new creation in which all of God’s people will enter his rest, the eternal Sabbath that is the eternal kingdom. The fact that this creation text is tied with the eschatological goal of rest entails the presence of a new creation theme here as the God who rested then is enveloping his people into his own rest, promising it as the goal toward which his covenant with them is building.
Second, v. 7 states that God spoke the psalm in question by David. Although the text was earlier attributed to the Holy Spirit, the prophetic mediator is identified here as well. In fact, the identification of the author is important to the argument here as it serves the point that God still promised this rest long after Joshua had led the Israelites into the promised land and the previous generation had died off. The historical/traditional author has not disappeared in the paradigm of prosopological exegesis, and it can indeed be important to remember this author; it is simply that the author is a mediator for the divine speech and is therefore subsumed under the divine authorial purpose.
The chapter closes with two smaller sections, one on the word of God and the other on Jesus as the high priest, which we will address next time. The first section follows the closing exhortation in v. 11 to make every effort to enter the rest, lest any should fall. For, says the author of Hebrews, the word of God is living and active, piercing and separating all things in judgment. Nothing can be hidden from God, and all will be laid bare before the one to whom all must give an account at the final judgment. God’s word has these characteristics because it is a manifestation of God’s power, wisdom, and will. I have written more about the referents for “the word of God” and associated phrases elsewhere. For now, this statement on the word of God is notable not only for its imagery that connects the word with judgment, but for its unusual language. These two verses have six hapax legomena, one word that appears only twice in the NT with both occurrences being in Hebrews, and four more words that occur four times or less in the NT. That is eleven out of fifty-one words that are unique or rare in the NT. This is emblematic of the book as a whole, in which there are one hundred and thirty-three hapax legomena for the NT (including nine that never appear in Greek literature before Hebrews), twenty-one words that occur multiple times but only in Hebrews, and two hundred and two other uses of words that make five appearances or less in the NT. In some cases, the special vocabulary has to do with the author’s unique Scripture citations, but that is not always the case. Besides the author’s syntactical and rhetorical skill, these indications show an author with an expansive vocabulary, despite his work not being as long as others or him (probably) not having as many texts in the NT as others.