Hebrews 4:6
The rest that still remains
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγελίζομαι euangelizomai · to speak good news
Original
Translations
Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience,
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
since then, it remains for some to enter into it, and those who first heard good news did not enter in because of unbelief—
그러면 거기 들어갈 자들이 남아 있거니와 복음 전함을 먼저 받은 자들은 순종치 아니함을 인하여 들어가지 못하였으므로
그러므로 어떤 사람들이 반드시 그 안식에 들어가야 하는 일이 남아 있는 줄을 알거니와 처음에 복음 선포를 받은 그들은 믿지 아니하여 들어가지 못하였으므로
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Heb 4:1-10 as a whole
The privileges we have under the gospel, are greater than any had under the law of Moses, though the same gospel for substance was preached under both Testaments. There have been in all ages many unprofitable hearers; and unbelief is at the root of all unfruitfulness under the…
Read the whole commentary →Wesley
Nothing on this verse itself.
Read the whole commentary →
Note
The first generation to hear the good news never entered the rest it promised. Hebrews does not conclude that the door is shut. It concludes that the rest is still waiting to be entered.
Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience,
Hebrews 4:6The verse is the first half of a sentence. The writer has just repeated the oath of Psalm 95, "They shall never enter My rest" (Hebrews 4:5), and now he sets two facts side by side. God has prepared a rest, so someone must enter it; and those who first heard of it did not. The sentence ends in the next verse: long after the wilderness, "God again designated a certain day" (Hebrews 4:7), speaking through David, and called it Today. From this the writer draws his conclusion: "There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9).
The gospel word is the verb , here an aorist passive participle, euangelisthentes: those who had good news brought to them. The wilderness generation is named not as people who preached but as people who were preached to. In verse 2 the perfect described the church as people who have heard and now stand in that hearing; this aorist looks back on a generation whose story is over. Against it stands the present tense of apoleipetai, "it remains." Their failure did not cancel the promise. It left it open.
They failed to enter because of , a word whose root sense is refusing to be persuaded, and so disobedience. The BSB and the 개역한글 (순종치 아니함) translate it so. The KJV has "unbelief," as do the LSV and the 흠정역 (믿지 아니하여). Hebrews itself shows that both are right. At the end of chapter 3 the same people are "those who disobeyed" (Hebrews 3:18) and, a verse later, people kept out by their , "unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19). Not trusting God's promise and not following His word are one refusal seen from two sides. One more difference turns up in verse 8, where the KJV reads "if Jesus had given them rest." Iēsous is the Greek form of the name Joshua; the 흠정역 follows the KJV with 예수, while the BSB, the LSV and the 개역한글 say "Joshua," the one the verse means. The man who led Israel into the land did not give them the rest God had in view.
Wesley's brief note on these verses takes the psalm as speaking "of a rest yet to come" Wesley. Matthew Henry spells it out: "It is evident, that there is a more spiritual and excellent sabbath remaining for the people of God, than that of the seventh day, or that into which Joshua led the Jews" Matthew Henry. He ends by naming the way in, for God has always declared "faith in his promises, through his Son, to be the only way of entering that rest" Matthew Henry.
The story of those who heard first and did not enter is a warning, and it is also an invitation. The rest still remains, and the day God has set for entering it is still called Today.