Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 11:25
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
25. with the people of Cod ] Heb 4:9.
the pleasures of sin for a season ] The brevity of sinful enjoyment is alluded to in Job 20:5, “The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.” The special sin would have been the very one to which the readers were tempted apostasy.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God – With those whom God had chosen to he his people – the Israelites. They were then oppressed and down-trodden; but they were the descendants of Abraham, and were those whom God had designed to be his special people. Moses saw that if he cast in his lot with them, he must expect trials. They were poor, and crushed, and despised – a nation of slaves. If he identified himself with them, his condition would be like theirs – one of great trial; if he sought to elevate and deliver them, such an undertaking could not but be one of great peril and hardship. Trial and danger, want and care would follow from any course which he could adopt, and he knew that an effort to rescue them from bondage must be attended with the sacrifice of all the comforts and honor which he enjoyed at court. Yet he chose this. He on the whole preferred it. He left the court, not because he was driven away; not because there was nothing there to gratify ambition or to he a stimulus to avarice; and not on account of harsh treatment – for there is no intimation that he was not treated with all the respect and honor due to his station, his talents, and his learning, but because he deliberately preferred to share the trials and sorrows of the friends of God. So every one who becomes a friend of God and casts in his lot with his people, though he may anticipate that it will be attended with persecution, with poverty, and with scorn, prefers this to all the pleasures of a life of gaiety and sin, and to the most brilliant prospects of wealth and fame which this world can offer.
Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season – We are not to suppose that Moses, even at the court of Pharaoh, was leading a life of vicious indulgence. The idea is, that sins were practiced there such as those in which pleasure is sought, and that if he had remained there it must have been because he loved the pleasures of a sinful court and a sinful life rather than the favour of God. We may learn from this:
(1) That there is a degree of pleasure in sin. It does not deserve to be called happiness, and the apostle does not call it so. It is pleasure, excitement, hilarity, merriment, amusement. Happiness is more solid and enduring than pleasure; and solid happiness is not found in the ways of sin. But it cannot be denied that there is a degree of pleasure which may be found in amusement; in the excitement of the ball-room; in feasting and revelry; in sensual enjoyments. All which wealth and splendour; music and dancing; sensual gratifications, and the more refined pursuits in the circles of fashion, can furnish, may be found in a life of irreligion; and if disappointment, and envy, and sickness, and mortified pride, and bereavements do not occur, the children of vanity and sin can find no inconsiderable enjoyment in these things. They say they do; and there is no reason to doubt the truth of their own testimony in the case. They call it a life of pleasure; and it is not proper to withhold from it the appellation which they choose to give it. It is not the most pure or elevated kind of enjoyment, but it would be unjust to deny that there is any enjoyment in such a course.
(2) It is only for a season. It will all soon pass away. Had Moses lived at the court of Pharaoh all his days, it would have been only for a little season. These pleasures soon vanish, because:
(a) life itself is short at best, and if a career of pleasure is pursued through the whole of the ordinary period allotted to man, it is very brief.
(b) Those who live for pleasure often abridge their own lives. Indulgence brings disease in its train, and the volaries of sensuality usually die young. The art has never been yet discovered of combining intemperance and sensuality with length of days. If a man wishes a reasonable prospect of long life, he must be temperate and virtuous. Indulgence in vice wears out the nervous and muscular system, and destroys the powers of life – just as a machine without balance-wheel or governor would soon tear itself to pieces.
(c) Calamity, disappointment, envy, and rivalship mar such a life of pleasure – and he who enters on it, from causes which he cannot control, finds it very short. And,
(d) compared with eternity, O how brief is the longest life spent in the ways of sin! Soon it must be over – and then the unpardoned sinner enters on an immortal career where pleasure is forever unknown!
(3) In view of all the pleasures which sin can furnish, and in view of the most brilliant prospects which this world can hold out, religion enables man to pursue a different path. They who become the friends of God are willing to give up all those fair and glittering anticipations, and to submit to whatever trials may be incident to a life of self-denying piety. Religion, with all its privations and sacrifices, is preferred, nor is there ever occasion to regret the choice. Moses deliberately made that choice; nor in all the trials which succeeded it – in all the cares incident to his great office in conducting the children of Israel to the promised land – in all their ingratitude and rebellion – is there the least evidence that he ever once wished himself back again that he might enjoy the pleasures of sin in Egypt.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God: the same faith influenced his will, the cause of his former renunciation; for being in the present fruition of all court favours, and under the offers of all worldly delights by Egypt, and of all worldly discontents by God, faith determined his choice, made him a fellow sufferer in all the oppressions, afflictions, persecutions of his natural brethren the people of God, the most privileged society in the world for hope, as the most exercised by trials for Gods sake: he knew there would be eternal rest and glory into which they would issue him, besides glorious effects they would have on his soul while he was enduring them; and that they were but passing, and would quickly have an end, Rom 8:18; 2Co 4:17,18.
Then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: the same faith made him to reject the enticing pleasures of sin, which could not be avoided by his continuance in Pharaohs court, either in dissembling himself to be no Israelite, professing himself to be an Egyptian, taking part with them in their cruel carriage to his brethren, living after their vicious course in all manner of voluptuousness; and the pleasures which he was to enjoy were sinful, transitory, and momentaneous, neither satisfying nor enduring, and must be attended with a sting in the end of them, even eternal anguish and torment, whereas his afflictions would end in eternal joys and pleasures, Mar 9:43,44,47; Lu 16:25.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
25. He balanced the best of theworld with the worst of religion, and decidedly chose the latter.”Choosing” implies a deliberate resolution, not a hastyimpulse. He was forty years old, a time when the judgment is matured.
for a seasonIf theworld has “pleasure” (Greek, “enjoyment”)to offer, it is but “for a season.” If religion bring withit “affliction,” it too is but for a season; whereas its”pleasures are for evermore.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,…. The Israelites, who were God’s chosen and peculiar people, and were the true worshippers of him; Moses chose to be with those: the company and conversation of such is most eligible to every good man, because God is with them; his word and ordinances are with them; there are large provisions of grace in the midst of them; so that it is profitable, delightful, and honourable, to be among them, and is attended with comfort, peace, and satisfaction: but then those are a poor, and an afflicted people; affliction is with them, for the sake of God, and Christ, and the truths which they profess, and the worship and service they are engaged in; and their afflictions are many and grievous: and now Moses chose to suffer these with them, to suffer the same afflictions they did, and to sympathize with them: and this was more eligible to him,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: meaning, either the pleasures, honours, and riches in Pharaoh’s court, attended with sin; as indulging himself in the luxury of a court, when his brethren were in distress; approving Pharaoh’s cruelty and persecution, at least conniving at it, and not opposing it, which could not be without sin; carrying himself as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, when he was an Hebrew; and preferring his own ease to the deliverance of his people; and now these, had he continued at court, would have been but for a short season: or else sinful lusts in general are intended, in which men promise themselves much pleasure, when it is only imaginary, and lasts but for a while neither; and both may be intended, and are what the Jews call m , “pleasures for a moment”, or momentary ones. And the reasons which might induce Moses, and so every good man, to such a choice, may be taken partly from the nature of afflictions themselves, which are such that God has chosen for them, and appointed them unto, and which he gives them to suffer for his name, and which are an honour to them, and issue in their good, and in the glory of God; and partly from the nature of sinful pleasures; there is no solidity, nor satisfaction, in the best of worldly enjoyments; there can be no true pleasure in sin; there is always bitterness in the end, and it issues in death, if grace prevent not: now it was by faith Moses made this choice, for it is manifestly contrary to flesh and blood: it showed him to be a man thoroughly acquainted with the nature of sin; and that he looked beyond the things of sense and time, to those of eternity.
m Aben Ezra in Psal. xxiii. 4.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Choosing rather ( ). “Rather having chosen” (second aorist middle of , to take for oneself a position).
To be entreated with (). Present passive infinitive of the double compound (from , , ), to treat ill with (associative instrumental case), only known example save one in the papyri (second century A.D.), though in Heb 11:37; Heb 13:3.
To enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ( ). Literally, “to have temporary pleasure of sin.” is old word from , to enjoy, in N.T. only here and 1Ti 6:17. (from , ) is a common Koine word as the antithesis to (eternal) as in Matt 13:21; Mark 4:17; 2Cor 4:18 (only N.T. examples). To have been disloyal to God’s people would have brought enjoyment to Moses in the Egyptian Court for a short while only.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
To suffer affliction with [] . N. T. o, o LXX, o Class. The verb kakoucein to treat ill, ver. 37; ch. 13 3; LXX, 1Ki 2:26; 1Ki 11:39. Rend. “to be evil entreated.”
Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season [ ] . Lit. than to have temporary enjoyment of sin. The emphasis is first on temporary and then on sin. For ajpolausiv enjoyment, see on 1Ti 6:17. Proskairov for a season, temporary, rare in N. T. o LXX Once in Paul, see 2Co 4:18.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Choosing rather,” (mallon helomenos) “Making a continuing choice rather or instead,” It is declared that he went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens;” Exo 2:11. This indicates that he had care and compassion for them, in their afflictions, by voluntary choice, Rom 12:15.
2) “To suffer affliction with the people of God,” (sugkachoucheisthai to las tou theou) “To be ill treated in colleague, fellowship, or affinity with the people of God,” In such a course of life Moses was blessed, Daniel and three Hebrew children were blessed, and our Lord pronounced blessings upon his people (the church) in the sermon on the Mount, 2Ti 3:12; Rom 8:18; Mat 5:11-12; 1Pe 4:12-14.
3) “Than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,” (e proskairon echein hamartias apolausin) “Than to have or hold the privilege of enjoyment of sin in Egypt for a limited time in the expanse of eternity, or in relation to eternity; He chose well 1Jn 2:15-17; that men might not only receive Christ by faith, but also take hold of his yoke of service thru voluntary obedience, knowing that there is an accounting hour of judgement for every deed done in the body, good or evil, Ecc 12:13-14; 2Co 5:10-12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(25) Choosing.Better, having chosen. His act was an expression of his deliberate choice. He joined his people because it was the people of God. To stand aloof for the sake of ease and pleasure would for him have been apostasy from God (sin, comp. Heb. 10:26). The faith of Moses had brought conviction of the things not seen, which are eternal *; hence he looked not at the things seen which are for a season (2Co. 4:18, where the same word is used).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
25. Choosing Our author expresses Moses’s choice in very New Testament terms; designedly, for it is as an example to his Hebrew fellow-Christians that he pictures the great founder of Hebraism. These, too, had to desert the popular and government favour, to suffer rather than enjoy for a season. In choosing Christian faith rather than Judaism, they are the true followers of Moses.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Heb 11:25. Choosing rather to suffer affliction Three months after Moses was born, he was exposed in a bed of bulrushes on the river Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter coming by, and guessing it to be one of the Hebrew children, committed him to the care of a nurse of that nation. As he grew up, Pharaoh’s daughter had him educated, and adopted him for her own son: and Pharaoh, havingno male child, designed him for the heir of his kingdom. Thus arrived to maturity of age, brought up in a manner which kindles the fires of ambition, and surrounded with dignities and honour, he deliberately refused to be the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and to succeed to so opulent a kingdom. The Egyptians he knew, from what had happened to Joseph, were so strongly bigoted to idolatry, that they would not be persuaded to quit it: and unless he complied with the national religion, he was certain that he could not possess the throne. He nobly rejected the offer; he not only rejected this offer, but likewise chose to suffer with the Hebrews, a circumstance which illustrates his character. For, had he refused the kingdom, and chosen the quiet condition of a subject in the middle vale of life, his self-denial had not been so great; and it is too rare to find a man that would choose rather to be oppressed and persecuted, than to receive honour, and to command reverence.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Heb 11:25 . Justificatory explanation of the , Heb 11:24 : in that he preferred to suffer evil treatment with the people of God, in place of possessing a temporary sinful enjoyment .
] in Holy Scripture a ; in profane literature, on the other hand, of very frequent occurrence. Instances in Wetstein.
The compound only here; the simple form alone (Heb 11:37 ; Heb 13:3 ) is found elsewhere.
] see at Heb 4:9 .
] an enjoyment only temporary, of brief duration, sc. of the earthly joys of life. Contrast to the enjoyment of everlasting blessedness.
] not genit. objecti (Theophylact, Schlichting, Stengel, al. ), but genit. auct. : Enjoyment, such as (the committing of) sin affords. By is meant apostasy from God, by the abandoning of the communion with the people of God.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
Ver. 25. Choosing rather to suffer ] The happiest choice that ever the good man made. It was a heavy charge that Elihu laid upon Job, that he had chosen iniquity rather than affliction, Job 36:21 . The Church is said to come from the wilderness (of troubles and miseries), leaning on her beloved,Son 8:5Son 8:5 . The good soul will not break the hedge of any commandment to avoid any piece of foul way. Quas non oportet mortes praeeligere? saith Zuinglius. What deaths had we not better choose, what punishment undergo, yea, what hell not suffer, rather than go against our consciences rightly informed by the good word of God?
The pleasures of sin for a season ] Job fitly calleth sparks the sons of fire, being engendered by it upon fuel, as pleasures are by our lusts upon the object. But they are not long lived, they are but as sparks, they die as soon as begotten, they perish with the use, Col 2:22 . Good God, saith Lysimachus, for how short pleasure how great a kingdom have I lost! May not the voluptuous epicure say so much better? Oh, what madmen are they that bereave themselves of a room in that city of pearl for a few carnal pleasures in this land of Cabul, or of dirt, as Hiram called the cities that Solomon had given him, 1Ki 9:13 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
25 .] choosing rather ( with an accus. of a noun or an infin. of a verb, is very common in the best Greek. Wetst. has accumulated two whole columns of examples) to suffer affliction with (reff.) the people of God, than to possess a temporary enjoyment of sin (is gen. objective, of the thing enjoyed (as usually, see examples in Bleek) or gen. subjective, of the thing to which the enjoyment belongs? Delitzsch maintains the latter (so also Bleek), resting on the nature of the contrast: participation of the lot of God’s people being set against the enjoyment of sin: so that the lot of God’s people is parallel with , the latter signifying apostasy from God and his people. But surely the antithesis is a false one. It is on the one hand, which is opposed to on the other: the possession of affliction (with God’s people), to the possession of the enjoyment of sin. Thus we have , Xen. Hier. i. 26: , id. Mem. ii. i. 33 al. And I do not see how the other view accords with the anarthrous ),
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Choosing = Having chosen. Greek. haireomai. See Php 1:1, Php 1:22.
suffer affliction with. Greek. sunka koucheomai. Only here.
people. Greek. laos. See Act 2:47.
enjoy the pleasures = have enjoyment (Greek. apolausis. See 1Ti 6:17).
sin. Greek. hamartia. App-128.
for a season. Greek. proskairos. See 2Co 4:18.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
25.] choosing rather ( with an accus. of a noun or an infin. of a verb, is very common in the best Greek. Wetst. has accumulated two whole columns of examples) to suffer affliction with (reff.) the people of God, than to possess a temporary enjoyment of sin (is gen. objective, of the thing enjoyed (as usually, see examples in Bleek) or gen. subjective, of the thing to which the enjoyment belongs? Delitzsch maintains the latter (so also Bleek), resting on the nature of the contrast: participation of the lot of Gods people being set against the enjoyment of sin: so that the lot of Gods people is parallel with , the latter signifying apostasy from God and his people. But surely the antithesis is a false one. It is on the one hand, which is opposed to on the other: the possession of affliction (with Gods people), to the possession of the enjoyment of sin. Thus we have , Xen. Hier. i. 26: , id. Mem. ii. i. 33 al. And I do not see how the other view accords with the anarthrous ),
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Heb 11:25. ) Resolve it into, and he chose; but , because he esteemed, Heb 11:26.-, to suffer affliction with) The people had been oppressed. The antithesis is , enjoyment.-, for a season) It is opposed to faith expecting future things: it is therefore put emphatically before , to have.-, of sin) in which he would have been involved in the court of Egypt, which was given to idolatry. At the same time the concrete, sinners, i.e. Egyptian sinners, is intended by the abstract. The antithesis is , of God.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
sin
Sin. (See Scofield “Rom 3:23”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Choosing: Heb 10:32, Job 36:21, Psa 84:10, Mat 5:10-12, Mat 13:21, Act 7:24, Act 7:25, Act 20:23, Act 20:24, Rom 5:3, Rom 8:17, Rom 8:18, Rom 8:35-39, 2Co 5:17, Col 1:24, 2Th 1:3-6, 2Ti 1:8, 2Ti 2:3-10, 2Ti 3:11, 2Ti 3:12, Jam 1:20, 1Pe 1:6, 1Pe 1:7, 1Pe 4:12-16
the people: Heb 4:9, Psa 47:9, 1Pe 2:10
the pleasures: Job 20:5, Job 21:11-13, Psa 73:18-20, Isa 21:4, Isa 47:8, Isa 47:9, Luk 12:19, Luk 12:20, Luk 16:25, Jam 5:5, Rev 18:7
Reciprocal: Exo 2:21 – content Pro 1:29 – not Pro 20:17 – is sweet Joh 16:33 – In the 2Co 4:18 – we Rev 11:18 – and that
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Heb 11:25. Pleasures of sin refers to the life he was connected with while a part of the royal family of Egypt. A season would be the comparatively short time in this world, for sinful pleasures will all cease at the judgment and endless punishment will follow. On the other hand the faithful people of God, though afflicted by the enemy in this life. will enjoy endless pleasure in the world to come.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Observe here, 1. The common lot and usual condition of God’s people in this world; it is an afflicted state and condition.
2. That wicked men oft-times enjoy pleasures in the ways of sin, whilst good men meet with much affliction in the work of holiness.
3. That notwithstanding this, all wise and good men do rather choose afflicted godliness, than pleasant and prosperous wickedness.
4. That a spiritual eye can see an excellency in the people of God, when in the lowest suffering condition; will join itself unto them, and appear with them, and for them, though it be with great loss, and much hazard. Moses here chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the short sinful pleasures of Pharaoh’s court.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Verse 25
The people of God; the Israelites.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
11:25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the {p} pleasures of sin for a season;
(p) Such pleasures as he could not enjoy, unless he provoked God’s wrath against him.