Hebrews 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer warns that God's promise of entering his rest is still open, and urges readers not to fall short of it as the earlier generation did. Using Genesis and Psalm 95, he argues that because God later set another day, called "Today," a Sabbath rest still remains for God's people. He then describes God's word as living and able to expose every thought and intention. He points to Jesus, the great high priest who was tested as we are yet did not sin, as the reason to come to the throne of grace with confidence.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • The hearers are told to fear.
   • A promise of entering God's rest remains open.
   • The fear is that any of them should be found to have fallen short of that rest.
2. 4:2
   • The good news was announced to us just as it was to them.
   • The message they heard did not benefit them.
   • The message did not benefit them because it was not joined with faith in those who heard it.
3. 4:3
   • We who have believed enter into the rest.
   • God said, as an oath sworn in his anger, that they would not enter his rest.
   • God's works were completed from the foundation of the world.
4. 4:4
   • God has spoken somewhere about the seventh day.
   • God rested on the seventh day from all his works.
5. 4:5
   • In another place God again says that they shall not enter his rest.
6. 4:6
   • It remains that some are to enter that rest.
   • Those to whom the good news was announced first did not enter.
   • They failed to enter because of disobedience.
7. 4:7
   • God again appoints a certain day.
   • God calls that day 'Today.'
   • God speaks of it in David after so long a time.
   • It was said beforehand: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.'
8. 4:8
   • Joshua did not give them rest.
   • If Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterward of another day.
9. 4:9
   • A sabbath rest remains for the people of God.
10. 4:10
    • Whoever has entered God's rest has also ceased from his own works.
    • That ceasing is like God's ceasing from his own works.
11. 4:11
    • The hearers are told to make every effort to enter that rest.
    • The purpose is that no one fall by the same example of disobedience.
12. 4:12
    • The word of God is living.
    • The word of God is active and effective.
    • The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword.
    • The word of God pierces to the division of soul and spirit.
    • The word of God pierces to the division of joints and marrow.
    • The word of God judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13. 4:13
    • No created thing is hidden from God's sight.
    • All things are naked and laid bare to God's eyes.
    • It is ambiguous whether the closing phrase means that God is the one with whom we have to do or the one to whom we must give account.
14. 4:14
    • We have a great high priest.
    • That high priest has passed through the heavens.
    • That high priest is Jesus the Son of God.
    • The hearers are told to hold fast their confession.
15. 4:15
    • We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.
    • Our high priest was tempted in every respect as we are.
    • Our high priest was without sin.
16. 4:16
    • The hearers are told to approach the throne of grace with boldness.
    • The purpose is to receive mercy.
    • The purpose is to find grace for help at the right time.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

"His rest" points back to Psalm 95, quoted in the previous chapter. After Israel left Egypt, the generation that traveled through the desert refused to trust God, and he swore that they would never reach the settled life in the promised land that lay at the end of the journey. That settlement was called their "rest," and this whole chapter argues from that story. In the King James, "let us therefore fear" means let us be on our guard, not let us be frightened; and "seem to come short" translates a verb meaning to be found or shown to be, so the sense is being found to have missed it, not merely appearing to.

4:2

"Unto us was the gospel preached" is one Greek verb meaning to have good news announced to you; it does not imply a sermon or a church service. "Them" is the desert generation of verse 1. The last clause is genuinely uncertain in the manuscripts: some read "the message was not combined with faith in those who heard it," others "they were not united by faith with those who did hear it," that is, with the few like Joshua and Caleb who trusted God.

4:3

The quotation is Psalm 95:11. "If they shall enter into my rest" looks unfinished in English because it copies a Hebrew way of swearing: the speaker says "if such and such happens..." and leaves the curse on himself unspoken. The force of it is an absolute denial, "they shall certainly never enter." The Greek translation the writer is using kept the Hebrew idiom word for word.

4:4

The quotation is Genesis 2:2. "In a certain place" means simply "somewhere"; ancient writers often cited scripture without naming book or chapter, since the divisions we use did not yet exist and the audience was expected to know the text. "On this wise" means "in this way."

4:5

"That other place" is Psalm 95 again, the same verse quoted back in verse 3.

4:6

The King James "unbelief" here renders a Greek word whose root sense is refusing to be persuaded, and so disobeying. It covers both failing to believe a message and refusing to act on it, which is why modern translations often say "disobedience." The same word lies behind "unbelief" in verse 11.

4:7

"He limiteth a certain day" does not mean he restricts it; in 1611 "limit" could mean to fix or mark out a boundary, so the sense is that God appoints a particular day. "Saying in David" means in the book of Psalms, traditionally credited to David; the quotation is Psalm 95:7 to 8, written centuries after the desert generation died, which is the point the writer is pressing. To "harden your heart" is a standard Hebrew idiom for stubbornly refusing to listen, used of Pharaoh in Exodus.

4:8

The King James says "Jesus" because Greek uses one name, Iesous, for both Jesus and Joshua; the two are the same Hebrew name, Yeshua. Here it means Joshua son of Nun, who led Israel into Canaan after Moses died. The argument is that if settling the land under Joshua had been the rest God meant, God would not still be offering one in David's psalm long afterward.

4:9

The Greek word here is not the one used for "rest" everywhere else in the chapter. It is a rare word, found nowhere else in the New Testament, built from the word Sabbath: a sabbath-keeping, a sabbath-style rest. That is why translations render it "a Sabbath rest" and tie it back to God resting on the seventh day in verse 4.

4:11

"Let us labour" translates a verb meaning to be diligent or make every effort, not to do physical work. The King James wording produces an apparent paradox in English, working hard in order to rest, that is not in the Greek.

4:12

"Quick" is the older English word for living or alive, as in "the quick and the dead"; it has nothing to do with speed. A "twoedged sword" is a short sword sharpened on both edges, so that it cuts whichever way it is swung. The Greek of the middle clause is compressed and can be read two ways: that the word pierces as far as the point where soul and spirit divide, and where joints and marrow divide, or that it divides soul from spirit and joints from marrow. Either way the image is of a blade reaching the innermost part of a person. "Discerner" renders a word meaning able to sift and pass judgment, the root of our word "critic."

4:13

"Creature" in 1611 English meant anything created, not an animal. "Naked and opened" is one vivid Greek verb whose literal sense is to seize by the neck and bend the head back, used of a wrestler's hold and of pulling back a sacrificial animal's throat to expose it; the picture is of being held fully exposed with nothing hidden. "Him with whom we have to do" translates a phrase that can mean either "to whom we must give account" or, more loosely, "with whom our business lies"; the Greek uses the same noun, logos, that was translated "word" in verse 12.

4:14

The high priest was the single senior priest of Israel, the only person permitted to pass through the curtain into the innermost room of the temple, and only once a year. "Passed into the heavens" borrows that image: Jesus goes through into God's presence as the high priest went through the curtain. "Profession" here means what we profess or state publicly, a declaration of what we believe, not an occupation.

4:15

"Touched with the feeling of our infirmities" translates a verb meaning to feel along with someone, the root of "sympathy"; "infirmities" means weaknesses, not illnesses in particular. The King James keeps the Greek's double negative, "not... which cannot," a deliberate understatement. "Tempted" renders a word that covers both enticement to do wrong and testing by hardship of any kind, so the sense is wider than temptation in the modern sense.

4:16

"Boldly" translates a noun meaning freedom to speak openly, the standing a citizen had to address a public assembly or a subject had to address a king; it is about frankness and confidence of access, not brashness. "Throne of grace" keeps a royal image in which approaching a monarch uninvited was dangerous. "Grace" is favor freely given to someone with no claim on it. "Grace to help in time of need" renders a phrase meaning help that arrives at just the right moment.