Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 3:11
So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
11. So I sware in my wrath ] The reference is to Num 14:28-30; Num 33:13.
They shall not enter ] This is the correct rendering of the idiom (here used by a Hebraism) “ if they shall enter.”
my rest ] The writer proceeds to argue that this expression could not refer to the past Sabbath-rest of God: or to the partial and symbolic rest of Canaan; and must therefore refer to the final rest of heaven. But he does not of course mean to sanction any inference about the future and final salvation either of those who entered Canaan or of those who died in the wilderness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
So I sware in my wrath – God is often represented in the Scriptures as swearing – and usually as swearing by himself, or by his own existence. Of course this in figurative, and denotes a strong affirmation, or a settled and determined purpose. An oath with us implies the strongest affirmation, or the expression of the most settled and determined purpose of mind. The meaning here is, that so refractory and perverse had they showed themselves, that he solemnly resolved that they should never enter into the land of Canaan.
They shall not enter into my rest – Margin, As in the original, if they shall enter. That is, they shall not enter. The word ( im) if has this negative meaning in Hebrew, and this meaning is transferred to the Greek word if; compare 1Sa 3:17; 2Sa 3:35; 2Ki 6:31. It is called my rest here, meaning that it was such rest as God had provided, or such as he enjoyed. The particular rest referred to here was that of the land of Canaan, but which was undoubtedly regarded as emblematic of the rest in heaven. Into that rest God solemnly said they should never enter. They had been rebellious. All the means of reclaiming them had failed. God had warned and entreated them; he had caused his mercies to pass before them, and had visited them with judgments in vain; and he now declares that for all their rebellion they should be excluded from the promised land. God speaks here in the manner of human beings. Men are affected with feelings of indignation in such circumstances, and God makes use of such language as expresses such feelings. But we are to understand it in a manner consistent with his character, and we are not to suppose that he is affected with the same emotions which agitate the bosoms of people. The meaning is, that he formed and expressed a deliberate and solemn purpose that they should never enter into the promised land. Whether this rest refers here to heaven, and whether the meaning is that God would exclude them from that blessed world, will be more appropriately considered in the next chapter. The particular idea is, that they were to be excluded from the promised land, and that they should fall in the wilderness. No one can doubt, also, that their conduct had been such as to show that the great body of them were unfit to enter into heaven.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 11. So I sware in my wrath] God’s grief at their continued disobedience became wrath at their final impenitence, and therefore he excluded them from the promised rest.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
So I sware in my wrath: such were their provocations and temptations of their Redeemer, that he determined their punishment; the certainty of which he fixed by an irreversible oath, which is the highest confirmation of vengeance when it cometh from wrath; as of his promise, when it issueth from grace, Num 14:27-36; Psa 95:11; compare Heb 6:17,18. And the spring of it here is wrath, enraged by their murmurings and unbelief.
They shall not enter into my rest: the punishment is expressed in an expostulatory form, which is vehemently asserting the negative of the question; They shall never enter into my rest. If they enter in, then I am neither true nor God. The rest literal was the land of Canaan, Deu 12:9; in the truth of that type, heaven. It is the Redeemer who speaks this, whose rest is by way of efficiency, purchase, and donation; he gives entrance into it, and shuts out of it, Mat 7:21-23. This is a shutting them out of all peace, into eternal sorrow, anguish, distress, and trouble, and every other evil contrary unto this rest.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. Soliterally, “as.”
I swareBENGELremarks the oath of God preceded the forty years.
notliterally, “Ifthey shall enter . . . (God do so to me and more also),” 2Sa3:35. The Greek is the same, Mr8:12.
my restCanaan,primarily, their rest after wandering in the wilderness: still, evenwhen in it, they never fully enjoyed rest; whence it followedthat the threat extended farther than the exclusion of theunbelieving from the literal land of rest, and that the rest promisedto the believing in its full blessedness was, and is, yet future:Psa 25:13; Psa 37:9;Psa 37:11; Psa 37:22;Psa 37:29, and Christ’s ownbeatitude (Mt 5:5) all accordwith this, Heb 3:9.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
So I sware in my wrath,…. Swearing is ascribed to God, to show the certainty of the thing spoken of; as of mercies, when he swears in love, and by his holiness; so here, of punishment, when he swears in wrath, in indignation, in sore displeasure, and the threatened evil is irrevocable and inevitable:
they shall not enter into my rest; into the land of Canaan, called God’s rest, because he promised it, and gave it to the Israelites as their rest; and where he himself had a place of rest; and where he gave the Messiah, the author of peace and rest; and which was a type of heaven, that rest from toil and labour, which remains for the people of God; and into which it is said this generation did not enter; for the Jews say f,
“the generation of the wilderness have no part in the world to come:”
but this seems too harsh, for doubtless there were many who died in the wilderness, that went safe to heaven, notwithstanding all their sins and provocations.
f Tzeror Hammor, fol. 118. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
As I sware ( ). “Correlating the oath and the disobedience” (Vincent). First aorist active indicative of , old verb for solemn oath (6:13).
They shall not enter ( ). Future middle of with as an anacoluthon for the Hebrew im (not). Really it is a condition of the first class with the conclusion not expressed, common in the LXX as here (Robertson, Grammar, p. 1024).
Into my rest ( ). Old word from (Heb 4:8), to give rest, in LXX, in N.T. only in Acts 7:49; Heb 3:11. Primarily the rest in Canaan and then the heavenly rest in which God dwells.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “So I sware in my wrath,” (hos omosa en te orge mou) “So (as) I swore (pledged my honor) in my wrath; Criminal obstinacy or resistance to the word and will and commands of God brings eventual fiery judgement to the offender. One can not do despite to the spirit of Grace without suffering the consequence, Rom 2:4-7; Luk 12:47; Num 14:28-38.
2) “That they shall not enter into my rest),” (ei eiseleusontai eis ten katapausin mou) “To the effect that they shall not enter into my rest,” place of rest, the promised land, an earthly refuge from Egypt’s bondage, Num 32:13.
The promised land was never reached by many of the children of God, of the Israelites, because of their unbelief, doubting his promise of daily help. They lost earthly blessings, their influence, a good name, and their lives because of unbelief in or doubt of God’s power to give them victory over the Philistines. Tho their lives, like that of Moses, was cut short because of unfaithful testimony and doubt and discouragement, they died under the chastening hand of God, like Moses; But as he appeared as God’s servant on the Mount of Transfiguration so shall all believers in Jesus Christ, even those chastened to the point of death, appear with the Lord in The Resurrection, 1Co 11:31-32; 2Co 5:10-11; Heb 10:28-31.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. So I sware, etc. It was the punishment of their madness, that they were deprived of the rest promised them. Moreover, the Lord calls the land, where they might have had their dwelling, his rest. For they had been sojourners in Egypt and wanderers in the wilderness; but the land of Canaan was to be, according to the promise, their perpetual inheritance; and it was in reference to this promise that God called it his rest: for nowhere can we have a settled dwelling, except where we are fixed by his hand. But their right to a sure possession was founded on what God said to Abraham,
“
To thy seed will I give this land.” (Gen 12:7.)
By God swearing, If they shall enter, etc., the atrocity of their evil conduct is made more evident and is more forcibly set forth, for it is an evidence of wrath greatly inflamed. “If they shall enter,” is in the form of an oath, in which something is to be understood, as an imprecation, or some such thing, when men speak; but when God speaks, it is the same as though he said, “Let me not be deemed true,”, or, “Let me not be hereafter believed, if such a thing shall not be so.” However, this defective mode of speaking recommends fear and reverence to us, so that we may not rashly swear, as many do, who are often in the habit of pouring forth dreadful curses.
But as to the present passage, we ought not to think that they were then for the first time denied entrance into the land by God’s oath, when they tempted him in Rephidim; for they had long before been excluded, even from the time they had refused to march forward at the report of the spies. God then does not here ascribe their expulsion from the land to this instance of tempting him as to the first cause; but he intimates that by no chastisement could they have been restored to a sound mind, but that they continually added new offenses: and thus he shows that they fully deserved to be thus severely punished, for they never ceased to increase more and more his wrath by various sins, as though he had said, “This is the generation to which I denied the possession of the promised land, for during whole forty years afterwards it betrayed its obstinate madness by innumerable sins.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) So.Rather, as (Heb. 4:3). It is with these as it was with their fathers, the generations that came out of Egypt, unto whom God sware, They shall not enter into My rest (Num. 14:21-24). The form in which these words appear below (Heb. 4:3; Heb. 4:5) in the Authorised version, If they shall enter into my rest, is an imitation of the original construction. See Num. 14:23, where they shall not see is. as the margin shows, expressed in Hebrew by if they (shall) see the land.
Into my rest.Into the land where Jehovah shall give rest to His people and shall dwell with them. (See Deu. 12:9; 1Ki. 8:56; Psa. 132:14; Isa. 66:1; 1Ch. 6:31; 2Ch. 6:41.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. I sware Made an affirmation, to be held as sure and firm as the divine existence. So Num 14:21, “As truly as I live;” and Num 14:28-29, “As truly as I live your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.”
My rest To the Israelites the words meant a failure to attain Canaan; with the deeper implications underlying of a death under the divine wrath. To the spiritual Israel the literal Canaan had no significance except as a type of the eternal rest.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“As I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.”
And the result was that God turned against them because of their permanently set attitude of heart, with the result that He swore in His reaction to their behaviour (humanly speaking described as ‘in His anger’), ‘They shall not enter into my rest’. In the case of Israel that rest was Canaan (Deu 12:9), the place where they were to enjoy peace, and rest, and security. In other words they lost their future hope of life in a sphere of blessing and protection by disobedience. Beware, the writer is saying, lest you do the same.
It should be noted that this is not talking about the final destiny of the people of Israel as determined before God. Some who died in the wilderness no doubt died in the mercy of God. But the point is that almost none reached Canaan.
The General Application (Heb 3:12-15).
So his readers are to look to their hearts to ensure that in contrast their faith is strong so that they do enter into their rest.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Heb 3:11. My rest. Canaan is so called, as they reposed there, after the labours of a long war, as well as the fatigues of a tedious march; and perhaps, as entering upon a course of stated worship, it might appear as a kind of sabbath-keeping. The word my is here added, both because God was the cause of this rest, and because the ark, which was supposed to be the place of his residence, ceased to be carried about. Under these images David Kimchi supposed that the signs of the Messiah were adumbrated.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Heb 3:11 . ] as accordingly I (as to the sense equivalent to: so that I ; see Winer, Gramm. , 7 Aufl. p. 431; in the Hebrew ) sware (comp. Num 14:21 ff; Num 32:10 ff.; Deu 1:34 ff.) in (not: by) my wrath.
] not enter, shall they, into my rest. is an exact imitation of the negative Hebrew particle in formulas of swearing, and is to be explained from an aposiopesis of the latter clause. Comp. Mar 8:12 ; Ewald, Krit. Gramm. p. 661; Winer, Gramm., 7 Aufl. p. 466; Buttmann, Gramm. des neutest. Sprachgebr. p. 308.
] in the sense of the psalmist, the undisturbed possession of the land of Canaan promised by God; comp. Deu 12:9-10 : , , . Afterwards, because with the possession of the promised land the expected full repose and happiness had as yet by no means come in, the meaning of the promise was sublimated, just as that of the kindred Psa 37:9 , into the everlasting Messianic blessedness This reference obtains, as is evident from the following disquisition, with our author also.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
Ver. 11. They shall not enter ] This the apostle propounds to unbelievers of his time, that they may beware. Alterius perditio tua sit cautio. Seest thou another suffer shipwreck? look well to thy tackling.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Heb 3:11 . . “As I sware,” i.e. , justifying my oath to exclude them from the land. , the common form of oath with which supposes that some such words as “God do so to me and more also” have preceded the “if”. The oath quoted in Psa 95 is recorded in Num 14:21-23 . , “into my rest,” primarily, the rest in Canaan, but see on chap. 4.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
They, &c. Literally If (App-118. a) they shall.
into. Greek. eis. App-104.
rest. Greek. katapausis. See Act 7:49.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Heb 3:11. , as [so] I sware) The oath preceded the forty years.-, if) The Apodosis omits something for the sake of euphemism, which has the force of the oath itself: here is negative, as is affirmative, ch. Heb 6:14.-, they shall enter) by My ways.- , into My rest) in the promised land. The people, the sheep; Psa 95:7. , rest, is their benefit [their peculiar privilege], Psa 23:2.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
I sware: Heb 3:18, Heb 3:19, Heb 4:3, Num 14:20-23, Num 14:25, Num 14:27-30, Num 14:35, Num 32:10-13, Deu 1:34, Deu 1:35, Deu 2:14
They shall not enter: Gr. If they shall enter
my rest: Heb 4:9
Reciprocal: Exo 23:21 – he will not Jos 5:6 – sware that Psa 90:7 – For we Psa 95:11 – I sware Psa 106:26 – Therefore Eze 20:15 – I lifted Heb 4:1 – his Heb 4:5 – General Heb 6:18 – two
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Heb 3:11. God swore or made a solemn decision against the disobedient people. This was caused by His wrath or grief as mentioned in verse 10. The decision was that they should not be permitted to enter into my rest. This rest refers to their settlement in the promised land, which the Lord had designed should come to his people after the weariness of the wandering. God calls it his rest because he designed it to be an antitype of the rest on the seventh day from His works of creation.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Heb 3:11. So; rather as, though without much difference in meaning: the acts corresponded to the punishment is the meaning of as; the punishment corresponded to the acts is the meaning of so. The former is the common meaning of the Greek.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 11
In my wrath; in my displeasure.–Into my rest; into the promised land of rest and plenty.