But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son, to whom it was said, “Your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac,” concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come. By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith, Joseph, when his end was near, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that he was a beautiful child, and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment. By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of the blood, that the destroyer of the firstborn should not touch them. By faith, they passed through the Red Sea as on dry land. When the Egyptians tried to do so, they were swallowed up. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith, Rahab the prostitute didn’t perish with those who were disobedient, having received the spies in peace. What more shall I say? For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked out righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, grew mighty in war, and caused foreign armies to flee. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth. These all, having had testimony given to them through their faith, didn’t receive the promise,
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39 16. Wherefore God is not ashamed, etc. He refers…
16. Wherefore God is not ashamed, etc. He refers to that passage, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6.) It is a singular honor when God makes men illustrious, by attaching his name to them; and designs thus to have himself distinguished from idols. This privilege, as the Apostle teaches us, depends also on faith; for when the holy fathers aspired to a celestial country, God on the other hand counted them as citizens. We are hence to conclude, that there is no place for us among God’s children, except we renounce the world, and that there will be for us no inheritance in heaven, except we become pilgrims on earth; Moreover, the Apostle justly concludes from these words, — “I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” that they were heirs of heaven, since he who thus speaks is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39 Tried of the Lord.
Tried of the Lord.
Although the promises of life were made in that only begotten Son Isaac, yet he appointed him to die, and so against hope he believed in hope.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv16–39 16 But now they desire a better country, that…
16 But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.
Ver. 16. God is not ashamed] But honoureth them as his confederates, because for his cause they renounced the world. No man ever did or suffered anything for God that complained of a hard bargain.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv16–39 But now they desire a better country, that is,…
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: having deserted this world, as strangers in it, they sought, desired, and hoped for with the greatest earnestness and fervency, a city in the country of heaven, Heb 11:10, in comparison with which they contemned and despised all others; a country where there is perfection of life, and fulness of glory: it excelleth all others as far as heaven doth earth, 2Ti 4:18; 1Pe 1:4. The state, society, enjoyments, and place, they longed for, were all heavenly, Phi 3:20,21; nothing lower than this world would satisfy them.
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: faith having carried them thus estranged from this world to the grave, endearing to them the promises, and engaging of them for heaven only, therefore God did not disdain them, he did not think it any disrepute to him to own them his, but esteemed it an honour and reputation to him, took np his joy and delight in them: see him owning them when dead, Exo 3:6,15; Mt 22:31,32; surnaming himself by them, and adopting them as his own, as Jacob did Joseph’s sons, Gen 48:5,6; so that though they are dead as to their bodies, yet they are alive as to their souls, and are owned by God in his name and title, and are assured, as to their dust, of a resurrection; for he will do it, giving them that rest that they never had in their pilgrimage.
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For he hath prepared for them a city; that heavenly state and place which they sought for, Heb 11:10, which infinitely transcended Cannan, and the Jerusalem in it, of which they were denizens while here, Eph 2:19; Phi 3:20; the pleasant, peaceful, rich, and glorious metropolis of the living God, Heb 12:22; 13:14; which shall make abundant amends for all their sorrows, sufferings, and restless wanderings on earth, where they shall enjoy pleasures, riches, honours, and rest for evermore, 1Pe 1:4.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39 The next person instanced in, for the fame of…
The next person instanced in, for the fame of his faith, is Abraham who was deservedly styled the father of the faithful; him God tries in a very extraordinary manner, by putting him upon offering up his son Isaac.
Where note, That where God gives much grace, he tries grace much; the greater the faith, the greater the trial; strong faith must prepare for strong trials. Here Abraham’s faith was tried, whether he would yield to God’s command against nature; his love was tried, whether his affection was not more strong to his son than to his God; and his fear was tried, whether he did reverentially acknowledge and stand in awe of God, by adoring his sovereignity and dominion over him. Trials are the best touchstone of faith, without which men will want the best evidence of its sincerity: and great trials in believers are an evidence of great faith.
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Observe farther, The excellency of Abraham’s faith and obedience upon this trial: he offered up his son Isaac: that is, he did it in part, and was ready to have done it thoroughly, had not God countermanded him.
Learn hence, that where there is a divine command obliging us to obedience, it is the wisdom and duty of faith to close its eyes against all insuperable difficulties and dangers. Abraham objected not against the horrid nature of the command to kill a son, his own son, his only son, the son of the promise, but deliberately, and upon due consideration, was ready to execute what God required.
Lord! what a strong faith was here, fortified with an impregnable resolution, that could make Abraham hold out three days against the violent assaults of his own nature, and the charming presence of his son, enough to melt his heart; yet nothing made him stagger in his duty, but he performs a most miraculous act of obedience, in defiance of all difficulties.
Observe lastly, The fruit and success of Abraham’s faith; he believed God could and would raise Isaac from the grave, and he receive him again in a figure as one snatched out of the very jaws of death. There is no such way to enjoy the continuance of an earthly comfort, as by resigning it up to God; Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v32 The apostle having given us a classis of many…
The apostle having given us a classis of many eminent believers, whose names are mentioned and the particular trials and actings of their faith recorded, now concludes his narrative with a more summary account of another set of believers, where the particular acts are not ascribed to particular persons by name, but left to be applied by those who are well acquainted with the sacred story; and, like a divine orator, he prefaces his part of the narrative with an elegant expostulation: What shall I say more? Time would fail me; as if he had said, "It is in vain to attempt to exhaust this subject; should I not restrain my pen, it would soon run beyond the bounds of an epistle; and therefore I shall but just mention a few more, and leave you to enlarge upon them." Observe, 1. After all our researches into the scripture, there is still more to be learned from them. 2. We must well consider in divine matters what we should say, and suit it as well as we can to the time. 3. We should be pleased to think how great the number of believers was under the Old Testament, and how strong their faith, though the objects thereof were not then so fully revealed. And, 4. We should lament it, that now, in gospel times, when the rule of faith is more clear and perfect, the number of believers should be so small and their faith so weak.
I. In this summary account the apostle mentions,
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1. Gideon, whose story we have in Jdg 6:11, etc. He was an eminent instrument raised up of God to deliver his people from the oppression of the Midianites; he was a person of mean tribe and family, called from a mean employment (threshing wheat), and saluted by an angel of God in this surprising manner, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of war. Gideon could not at first receive such honours, but humbly expostulates with the angel about their low and distressed state. The angel of the Lord delivers him his commission, and assures him of success, confirming the assurance by fire out of the rock. Gideon is directed to offer sacrifice, and, instructed in his duty, goes forth against the Midianites, when his army is reduced from thirty-two thousand to three hundred; yet by these, with their lamps and pitchers, God put the whole army of the Midianites to confusion and ruin: and the same faith that gave Gideon so much courage and honour enabled him to act with great meekness and modesty towards his brethren afterwards. It is the excellency of the grace of faith that, while it helps men to do great things, it keeps them from having high and great thoughts of themselves.
2. Barak, another instrument raised up to deliver Israel out of the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, Judges 4, where we read, (1.) Though he was a soldier, yet he received his commission and instructions from Deborah, a prophetess of the Lord; and he insisted upon having this divine oracle with him in his expedition. (2.) He obtained a great victory by his faith over all the host of Sisera. (3.) His faith taught him to return all the praise and glory to God: this is the nature of faith; it has recourse unto God in all dangers and difficulties, and then makes grateful returns to God for all mercies and deliverances.
3. Samson, another instrument that God raised up to deliver Israel from the Philistines: his story we have in Judges 13, 14, 15, and 16, and from it we learn that the grace of faith is the strength of the soul for great service. If Samson had not had a strong faith as well as a strong arm, he had never performed such exploits. Observe, (1.) By faith the servants of God shall overcome even the roaring lion. (2.) True faith is acknowledged and accepted, even when mingled with many failings. (3.) The believer's faith endures to the end, and, in dying, gives him victory over death and all his deadly enemies; his greatest conquest he gains by dying.
4. Jephthah, whose story we have, Judges 11, before that of Samson. He was raised up to deliver Israel from the Ammonites. As various and new enemies rise up against the people of God, various and new deliverers are raised up for them. In the story of Jephthah observe, (1.) The grace of God often finds out, and fastens upon, the most undeserving and ill-deserving persons, to do great things for them and by them. Jephthah was the son of a harlot. (2.) The grace of faith, wherever it is, will put men upon acknowledging God in all their ways (Jdg 11:11): Jephthah rehearsed all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh. (3.) The grace of faith will make men bold and venturous in a good cause. (4.) Faith will not only put men upon making their vows to God, but paying their vows after the mercy received; yea, though they have vowed to their own great grief, hurt, and loss, as in the case of Jephthah and his daughter.
5. David, that great man after God's own heart. Few ever met with greater trials, and few ever discovered a more lively faith. His first appearance on the stage of the world was a great evidence of his faith. Having, when young, slain the lion and the bear, his faith in God encouraged him to encounter the great Goliath, and helped him to triumph over him. The same faith enabled him to bear patiently the ungrateful malice of Saul and his favourites, and to wait till God should put him into possession of the promised power and dignity. The same faith made him a very successful and victorious prince, and, after a long life of virtue and honour (though not without some foul stains of sin), he died in faith, relying upon the everlasting covenant that God had made with him and his, ordered in all things and sure; and he has left behind him such excellent memoirs of the trials and acts of faith in the book of Psalms as will ever be of great esteem and use, among the people of God.
6. Samuel, raised up to be a most eminent prophet of the Lord to Israel, as well as a ruler over them. God revealed himself to Samuel when he was but a child, and continued to do so till his death. In his story observe, (1.) Those are likely to grow up to some eminency in faith who begin betimes in the exercise of it. (2.) Those whose business it is to reveal the mind and will of God to others had need to be well established in the belief of it themselves.
7. To Samuel he adds, and of the prophets, who were extraordinary ministers of the Old Testament church, employed of God sometimes to denounce judgment, sometimes to promise mercy, always to reprove sin; sometimes to foretell remarkable events, known only to God; and chiefly to give notice of the Messiah, his coming, person, and offices; for in him the prophets as well as the law center. Now a true and strong faith was very requisite for the right discharge of such an office as this.
II. Having done naming particular persons, he proceeds to tell us what things were done by their faith. He mentions some things that easily apply themselves to one or other of the persons named; but he mentions other things that are not so easy to be accommodated to any here named, but must be left to general conjecture or accommodation.
1. By faith they subdued kingdoms, Heb 11:33. Thus did David, Joshua, and many of the judges. Learn hence, (1.) The interests and powers of kings and kingdoms are often set up in opposition to God and his people. (2.) God can easily subdue all those kings and kingdoms that set themselves to oppose him. (3.) Faith is a suitable and excellent qualification of those who fight in the ways of the Lord; it makes them just, bold, and wise.
2. They wrought righteousness, both in their public and personal capacities; they turned many from idolatry to the ways of righteousness; they believed God, and it was imputed to them for righteousness; they walked and acted righteously towards God and man. It is a greater honour and happiness to work righteousness than to work miracles; faith is an active principle of universal righteousness.
3. They obtained promises, both general and special. It is faith that gives us an interest in the promises; it is by faith that we have the comfort of the promises; and it is by faith that we are prepared to wait for the promises, and in due time to receive them.
4. They stopped the mouths of lions; so did Samson, Jdg 14:5, Jdg 14:6, and David, Sa1 17:34, Sa1 17:35, and Daniel, Dan 6:22. Here learn, (1.) The power of God is above the power of the creature. (2.) Faith engages the power of God for his people, whenever it shall be for his glory, to overcome brute beasts and brutish men.
5. They quenched the violence of the fire, Heb 11:34. So Moses, by the prayer of faith, quenched the fire of God's wrath that was kindled against the people of Israel, Num 11:1, Num 11:2. So did the three children, or rather mighty champions, Dan 3:17-27. Their faith in God, refusing to worship the golden image, exposed them to the fiery furnace which Nebuchadnezzar had prepared for them, and their faith engaged for them that power and presence of God in the furnace which quenched the violence of the fire, so that not so much as the smell thereof passed on them. Never was the grace of faith more severely tried, never more nobly exerted, nor ever more gloriously rewarded, than theirs was.
6. They escaped the edge of the sword. Thus David escaped the sword of Goliath and of Saul; and Mordecai and the Jews escaped the sword of Haman. The swords of men are held in the hand of God, and he can blunt the edge of the sword, and turn it away from his people against their enemies when he pleases. Faith takes hold of that hand of God which has hold of the swords of men; and God has often suffered himself to be prevailed upon by the faith of his people.
7. Out of weakness they were made strong. From national weakness, into which the Jews often fell by their unbelief; upon the revival of their faith, all their interest and affairs revived and flourished. From bodily weakness; thus Hezekiah, believing the word of God, recovered out of a mortal distemper, and he ascribed his recovery to the promise and power of God (Isa 38:15, Isa 38:16), What shall I say? He hath spoken it, and he hath also done it. Lord by these things men live, and in these is the life of my spirit. And it is the same grace of faith that from spiritual weakness helps men to recover and renew their strength.
8. They grew valiant in fight. So did Joshua, the judges, and David. True faith gives truest courage and patience, as it discerns the strength of God, and thereby the weakness of all his enemies. And they were not only valiant, but successful. God, as a reward and encouragement of their faith, put to flight the armies of the aliens, of those who were aliens to their commonwealth, and enemies to their religion; God made them flee and fall before his faithful servants. Believing and praying commanders, at the head of believing and praying armies, have been so owned and honoured of God that nothing could stand before them.
9. Women received their dead raised to life again, Heb 11:35. So did the widow of Zarepath (Kg1 17:23), and the Shunamite, Kg2 4:36. (1.) In Christ there is neither male nor female; many of the weaker sex have been strong in faith. (2.) Though the covenant of grace takes in the children of believers, yet it leaves them subject to natural death. (3.) Poor mothers are loth to resign up their interest in their children, though death has taken them away. (4.) God has sometimes yielded so far to the tender affections of sorrowful women as to restore their dead children to life again. Thus Christ had compassion on the widow of Nain, Luk 7:12, etc. (5.) This should confirm our faith in the general resurrection.
III. The apostle tells us what these believers endured by faith. 1. They were tortured, not accepting deliverance, Heb 11:35. They were put upon the rack, to make them renounce their God, their Saviour, and their religion. They bore the torture, and would not accept of deliverance upon such vile terms; and that which animated them thus to suffer was the hope they had of obtaining a better resurrection, and deliverance upon more honourable terms. This is thought to refer to that memorable story, 2 Macc. 7, etc. 2. They endured trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, and bonds and imprisonment, Heb 11:36. They were persecuted in their reputation by mockings, which are cruel to an ingenuous mind; in their persons by scourging, the punishment of slaves; in their liberty by bonds and imprisonment. Observe how inveterate is the malice that wicked men have towards the righteous, how far it will go, and what a variety of cruelties it will invent and exercise upon those against whom they have no cause of quarrel, except in the matters of their God. 3. They were put to death in the most cruel manner; some were stoned, as Zechariah (Ch2 24:21), sawn asunder, as Isaiah by Manasseh. They were tempted; some read it, burnt, 2 Macc. 7:5. They were slain with the sword. All sorts of deaths were prepared for them; their enemies clothed death in all the array of cruelty and terror, and yet they boldly met it and endured it. 4. Those who escaped death were used so ill that death might seem more eligible than such a life. Their enemies spared them, only to prolong their misery, and wear out all their patience; for they were forced to wander about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented; they wandered about in deserts, and on mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, Heb 11:37, Heb 11:38. They were stripped of the conveniences of life, and turned out of house and harbour. They had not raiment to put on, but were forced to cover themselves with the skins of slain beasts. They were driven out of all human society, and forced to converse with the beasts of the field, to hide themselves in dens and caves, and make their complaint to rocks and rivers, not more obdurate than their enemies. Such sufferings as these they endured then for their faith; and such they endured through the power of the grace of faith: and which shall we most admire, the wickedness of human nature, that is capable of perpetrating such cruelties on fellow creatures, or the excellency of divine grace, that is able to bear up the faithful under such cruelties, and to carry them safely through all?
IV. What they obtained by their faith. 1. A most honourable character and commendation from God, the true Judge and fountain of honour - that the world was not worthy of such men; the world did not deserve such blessings; they did not know how to value them, nor how to use them. Wicked men! The righteous are not worthy to live in the world, and God declares the world is not worthy of them; and, though they widely differ in their judgment, they agree in this, that it is not fit that good men should have their rest in this world; and therefore God receives them out of it, to that world that is suitable to them, and yet far beyond the merit of all their services and sufferings. 2. They obtained a good report (Heb 11:39) of all good men, and of the truth itself, and have the honour to be enrolled in this sacred calendar of the Old Testament worthies, God's witnesses; yea, they had a witness for them in the consciences of their enemies, who, while they thus abused them, were condemned by their own consciences, as persecuting those who were more righteous than themselves. 3. They obtained an interest in the promises, though not the full possession of them. They had a title to the promises, though they received not the great things promised. This is not meant of the felicity of the heavenly state, for this they did receive, when they died, in the measure of a part, in one constituent part of their persons, and the much better part; but it is meant of the felicity of the gospel-state: they had types, but not the antitype; they had shadows, but had not seen the substance; and yet, under this imperfect dispensation, they discovered this precious faith. This the apostle insists upon to render the faith more illustrious, and to provoke Christians to a holy jealousy and emulation; that they should not suffer themselves to be outdone in the exercise of faith by those who came so short of them in all the helps and advantages for believing. He tells the Hebrews that God had provided some better things for them (Heb 11:40), and therefore they might be assured that he expected at least as good things from them; and that since the gospel is the end and perfection of the Old Testament, which had no excellency but in its reference to Christ and the gospel, it was expected that their faith should be as much more perfect than the faith of the Old Testament saints; for their state and dispensation were more perfect than the former, and were indeed the perfection and completion of the former, for without the gospel-church the Jewish church must have remained in an incomplete and imperfect state. This reasoning is strong, and should be effectually prevalent with us all.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv16–38 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, .... Or…
By faith Abraham, when he was tried, .... Or tempted; that is, by God, Gen 22:1. This temptation or trial respects the command given by God to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac; which lays no foundation for a charge against God, either of sin or cruelty; for God's will is the rule of justice and goodness, and whatever he requires is just and good; and though his creatures are bound by the laws he prescribes them, he himself is not: besides, he is the Lord of life, the giver and preserver of it; and he has a right to dispose of it, and to take it away, when, and by what means, and instruments, he thinks fit; to which may be added, that the secret will of God was not that Isaac should die, but a command was given to Abraham to offer him up, for the trial of his faith and love; this was a temptation of probation, not of seduction, or to sin, as are the temptations of Satan; for God tempts no man with sin. The Jews speak (x) of ten temptations, with which Abraham was tried, and in all which he stood; and say, that this of the binding of Isaac was the tenth and last.
Offered up Isaac; he showed great readiness to do it; as soon as he had the command given him, he travelled three days' journey in order to it; took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it on his son; took fire, and a knife in his hand, with the one to burn the wood, with the other to slay his son; he built an altar, laid the wood in order on it; and bound his son, and laid him on that; and took the knife, and stretched forth his hand to slay him, and fully intended to do it, had he not been prevented: and all this he did by faith; he believed the equity, justice, and wisdom of the divine command; he was fully assured of the truth and faithfulness of God in his promises, however contrary this might seem thereunto; and he was strongly persuaded of the power of accomplishing them in some way or another. This was great faith, and it was greatly tried, as follows:
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and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son; he had a promise made him that he should have a son, and that a numerous issue should spring from him, which should inherit the land of Canaan; yea, that the Messiah himself should be of his seed: and he had received these promises; given credit to them, and firmly believed them, and fully expected the performance of them; as he had reason to do, since the first was fulfilled, the son was born; and yet now he is called to offer him up, on whom his expectation was placed; everything was trying; it was an human creature he was called to offer, whose blood is not to be shed by man; a child of his own, a part of himself; a son, an own son; an only begotten son; a son whom he loved; an Isaac, a son of joy; a son of promise; and his heir, the son of his old age, and who was now a grown up person. The Jews are divided about the age of Isaac at his binding: Josephus (y) says he was twenty five years of age; others say twenty six (z); some say (a) thirty six: but the more prevailing opinion is (b), that he was thirty seven years of age; only Aben (c) Ezra makes him to be about thirteen; rejecting the more commonly received account, as well as that he was but five years old, that being an age unfit to carry wood. Some Christian writers have thought he might be about three and thirty years of age, the age of Christ when he suffered, of whom he was a type.
(x) Targum in Cant. vii. 8. Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. & c. 31. Maimon. Jarchi & Bartenora in Misn. Abot, c. 5. sect. 3. (y) Antiqu. l. 1. c. 13. sect. 2. (z) Tzemach David, par. 1. fol. 6. 1. (a) Targum Jon. in Gen. xxii. 1. (b) Zohar in Gen. fol. 68. 2. & 74. 4. & 76. 2. Targ. Hieros. in Ex. xii. 42. Pirke Eliezer, c. 31, Juchasin, fol. 9. 1. Prefat. Echa Rabbati, fol. 40. 2. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 1. p. 3. Shalshelet Hakabala, fol. 3. 1. (c) In Gen. xxii. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 But they desire a better country, that is, an…
But they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly - This is a full convincing proof that the patriarchs had a Revelation and a promise of eternal glory in heaven. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: seeing he hath prepared for them a city - Worthy of God to give.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 Verse 16. But now they desire a better] They…
Verse 16. But now they desire a better] They all expected spiritual blessings, and a heavenly inheritance; they sought God as their portion, and in such a way and on such principles that he is not ashamed to be called their God; and he shows his affection for them by preparing for them a city, to wit, heaven, as themselves would seek no city on earth; which is certainly what the apostle has here in view. And from this it is evident that the patriarchs had a proper notion of the immortality of the soul, and expected a place of residence widely different from Canaan. Though to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the promises were made in which Canaan was so particularly included, yet God did not give them any inheritance in that country, no, not so much as to set a foot on; Ac 7:5. Therefore, if they had not understood the promises to belong to spiritual things, far from enduring, as seeing him who is invisible, they must have considered themselves deceived and mocked. The apostle therefore, with the highest propriety, attributes their whole conduct and expectation to faith.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39 Heb 11:17-18. By faith — Namely, by believing that…
Heb 11:17-18. By faith — Namely, by believing that God would perform his promise of giving him a numerous issue, notwithstanding that the command here referred to seemed to contradict and preclude the performance of it; Abraham, when he was tried — When God made that glorious trial of him, recorded Gen 22:9-10; offered up Isaac —
“In this trial of Abraham’s faith, there was the highest wisdom. For God, to whom all his creatures belong, and who may justly take away the life of any of them by whatever means or instruments he thinks fit, ordered Abraham with his own hands to sacrifice his only son Isaac, in whom all the promises were to be fulfilled, that the greatness of Abraham’s understanding, faith, and piety, becoming conspicuous, future generations might know with what propriety God made him the pattern of the justification of mankind, and the father of all believers, for the purpose of their receiving the promises in him. The sacrifice of Isaac was commanded also for the purpose of being a type of the sacrifice of Christ.” Isaac, indeed, was not sacrificed: but Abraham, in the full resolution of obeying God’s command, proceeded so far as to show that if he had not been hindered by God himself, he would actually have obeyed it. For he bound Isaac, laid him on the altar, stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son, Gen 22:10. Now, though Abraham was restrained from killing Isaac, his firm purpose to offer him was considered by God as equivalent to the actual offering of him, Gen 22:16 : Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son. But if Abraham, at God’s command, was willing himself to slay his only son, how much more willing should we be to part with our beloved children and friends when God himself takes them from us by death? And he that had received the promises — That his seed should be as the stars, and should inherit Canaan, and that all the nations of the earth should be blessed in his seed; offered up his only-begotten — Isaac is so called, because Abraham had no other son by Sarah, his legitimate wife; of whom it was expressly said, (Gen 21:12,) In Isaac shall thy seed be called — From him shall the blessed seed spring; and in him all the promises which I have made to thy seed shall be fulfilled. Observe here, reader, “1st, Faith must be tried; and of all graces it is most suited to trial: 2d, God proportions trials, for the most part, to the strength of faith: 3d, Great trials, in believers, are an evidence of great faith, though not understood, either by themselves or others, before such trials: 4th, Trials are the only touchstone of faith, without which men must want the best evidence of its sincerity and efficacy, and the best way of testifying it to others. Wherefore, 5th, We ought not to be afraid of trials, because of the admirable advantages of faith by them. See Jas 1:2; Jas 1:4; 1Pe 1:6-7. And 6th, Let them be jealous over themselves who have had no special instances of the trial of their faith: 7th, True faith, being tried, will in the issue be victorious.” — Owen.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv16–39 But now they desire a better country, that is,…
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly - That is, at the time referred to when they confessed that they were strangers and sojourners, they showed that they sought a better country than the one which they had left. They lived as if they had no expectation of a permanent residence on earth, and were looking to another world. The argument of the apostle here appears to be based upon what is apparent from the whole history, that they had a confident belief that the land of Canaan would be given to “their posterity,” but as for “themselves” they had no expectation of permanently dwelling there, but looked to a home in the heavenly country. Hence, they formed no plans for conquest; they laid claim to no title in the soil; they made no purchases of farms for cultivation; they lived and died without owning any land except enough to bury their dead. All this appears as if they looked for a final home in a “better country, even a heavenly.”
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God - Since they had such an elevated aim, he was willing to speak of himself as their God and Friend. They acted as became his friends, and he was not ashamed of the relation which he sustained to them. The language to which the apostle evidently refers here is what is found in Exo 3:6, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” We are not to suppose that God is ever “ashamed” of anything that he does. The meaning here is, that they had acted in such a manner that it was fit that he should show toward them the character of a Benefactor, Protector, and Friend.
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For he hath prepared for them a city - Such as they had expected - a heavenly residence; Heb 11:10. There is evidently here a reference to heaven, represented as a city - the new Jerusalem - prepared for his people by God himself; compare the notes on Mat 25:34. Thus, they obtained what they had looked for by faith. The wandering and unsettled patriarchs to whom the promise was made, and who showed all their lives that they regarded themselves as strangers and pilgrims, were admitted to the home of permanent rest, and their posterity was ultimately admitted to the possession of the promised land. Nothing could more certainly demonstrate that the patriarchs believed in a future state than this passage. They did not expect a permanent home on earth. They made no efforts to enter into the possession of the promised land themselves. They quietly and calmly waited for the time when God would give it to their posterity, and in the meantime for themselves they looked forward to their permanent home in the heavens.
Even in this early period of the world, therefore, there was the confident expectation of the future state; compare the notes on Mat. 22:3l-32. We may remark, that the life of the patriarchs was, in all essential respects, such as we should lead. They looked forward to heaven; they sought no permanent possessions here; they regarded themselves as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. So should we be. In our more fixed and settled habits of life; in our quiet homes; in our residence in the land in which we were born, and in the society of old and tried friends, we should yet regard ourselves as “strangers and sojourners.” We have here no fixed abode. The houses in which we dwell will soon be occupied by others; the paths in which we go will soon be trod by the feet of others; the fields which we cultivate will soon be plowed and sown and reaped by others. Others will read the books which we read; sit down at the tables where we sit; lie on the beds where we repose; occupy the chambers where we shall die, and from whence we shall be removed to our graves. If we have any permanent home, it is in heaven; and that we have, the faithful lives of the patriarchs teach us, and the unerring word of God everywhere assures us.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 37 By faith Abraham....offered up Isaac; i.e. was ready and…
By faith Abraham....offered up Isaac; i.e. was ready and willing to do it, when Isaac was his only son, by whom God had promised to give him a numberless progeny, but by faith he considered that God, who had miraculously given him a son, could if he pleased raise him to life again. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv20, 23, 30 The example of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph
IV
The example of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph
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Heb_11:20-22
20By faith [also] Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith 21Jacob, when he was a dying [while when dying], blessed both [each of]15 the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. 22By faith Joseph, when he died [while dying], made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Heb_11:20. Also.—The position of καί forbids our regarding the present as the mere appending of a new example of faith from the history of the Patriarchs. Either faith is here designated as of a nature which displays its inward confidence by the utterance of a blessing, and this in relation to a thing in the future; in which case the act of blessing evinces an undoubting faith that the word will be followed by the actual fulfilment (Theodoret, Lün.); or the καί, with its emphasizing force, introduces the blessing as an act of faith that even determines the future (Del.). In both cases περὶ μελλ. is dependent on εὐλογ. To connect it with πίστει (Peshito, Sykes) would yield a construction elsewhere without example in the New Testament, and opposed to the absolute use of πίστει elsewhere throughout the chapter.
Heb_11:21. Worshipped, leaning, etc.—In the Heb. text (Gen_47:31) it is said, “he bowed himself upon the head of his couch” (Knobel), or, “he turned himself about upon his bed, turning his face to its head” (Hofm., Del.). At all events, he rendered thanks to God in this way, as the aged David did in a similar case, 1Ki_1:47; while in his discourse with Joseph he had sat upright on his bed. In his weakness, he could neither arise nor prostrate himself. Our author here as elsewhere follows the Sept. with their pointing, הַמַּטֶּה instead of הַמִּטָּח; and has perhaps designedly brought this passage into connection with the act of blessing recounted Genesis 48, in order to express the devout frame of mind in which this blessing was uttered (Thol.). Perhaps, too, we are to take αὐτοῦ in the sense of the reflexive αὑτοῦ, and to refer the term to the pilgrim-staff of Jacob, Gen_32:10. The reference of this pronoun to Joseph, as well as the supplying of τῷ Ἰωσήφ with προσεκύνησεν (Chrys., Theodor., Theoph., etc.) is discountenanced by the utter absence of any mention of a staff of honor belonging to Joseph (which indeed Thom. Aqu. regards as symbolical of the cross of Christ, and Joseph as type of the Messiah), as well as by the connection of the passage, which points to no marks of homage which Jacob, in fulfilment of Joseph’s dream, may at last have rendered to him. But the rendering of the Vulg. et adoravit fastigium virgæ ejus, followed by Primas., Œc., Erasm., Calv., Bisp., Reuss, etc., who regard it as indicating the direction of his homage, and as acknowledging in act the future greatness of Ephraim, is grammatically inadmissible; for ἐπί τι nowhere occurs as expressing the object of προσκυνεῖν.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Believers care in the best way not only for their own future, but also for that of their children and remote posterity. Therefore they bless them, and God hears their prayer.
2. The blessings pronounced by believers are not mere utterances of pious wishes, but prophecies of the future, and actions which exercise a determining power upon history. Yet they are not sorcerers’ utterances which could exercise a mastery over the will of God, and magically determine the fate of other men. They originate and exert their influence only on the ground and in the power of a human will brought into contact with the will of God. It is God Himself who fills and guides the blessing, heart, hand and lips.
3. Faith strengthens and influences even the weak and dying, so that they look only to God’s promises, wait in blessing and in prayer clear to the end, desire, after their decease, to be gathered to their fathers and brought into the land of promise, and direct toward this all their arrangements.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
They who die in faith think: 1, of the promises which they have inherited; 2, of the prayers with which they are to finish their course; 3, of the benedictions with which they can influence their posterity.—Faith renders men: 1, equally potent in life and joyful in death; 2, equally bold and humble; 3, equally reflective and forecasting.—The best kind of concern for our posterity.
Starke:—As the Patriarchs with great industry transmitted the promises of Christ to their posterity, so should we be zealous to bring the Gospel of Christ to posterity.—The saints frequently do, under the direction and guidance of God, something in which they indeed have a good purpose, but in respect to which God has determined something still higher.—It matters little at the present time where we are buried, provided only that the soul comes into Abraham’s bosom; for the earth is every where the Lord’s. Psa_24:1.
Rieger:—By the early setting in order of his house, Jacob admonishes us of his daily dying, and of the renewed confession of his earthly pilgrimage.
Heubner:—Even in age, and amidst the great infirmities of age, Jacob was strong in his faith in the sure purpose and counsel of God.—The desire of Joseph to have his bones buried with his forefathers, indicates faith in a perpetual communion among believers through the power of God.
Footnotes:
[15]Heb_11:20.—Read after A. D*., 17, 23, 37, Vulg. It., πίστει καὶ περὶ τῶν μελλόντων.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv16–39 Proving the truth that the old fathers did not,…
Proving the truth that the old fathers did not, as some assert, "look only for transitory promises" [Article VII, Book of Common Prayer].
now--as the case is.
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is not ashamed--Greek, "Is not ashamed of them." Not merely once did God call himself their God, but He is NOW not ashamed to have Himself called so, they being alive and abiding with Him where He is. For, by the law, God cannot come into contact with anything dead. None remained dead in Christ's presence (Luk 20:37-38). He who is Lord and Maker of heaven and earth, and all things therein, when asked, What is Thy name? said, omitting all His other titles, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" [THEODORET]. Not only is He not ashamed, but glories in the name and relation to His people. The "wherefore" does not mean that God's good pleasure is the meritorious, but the gracious, consequence of their obedience (that obedience being the result of His Spirit's work in them in the first instance). He first so "called" Himself, then they so called Him.
for--proof of His being "their God," namely, "He hath prepared (in His eternal counsels, Mat 20:23; Mat 25:34, and by the progressive acts of redemption, Joh 14:2) for them a city," the city in which He Himself reigns, so that their yearning desires shall not be disappointed (Heb 11:14, Heb 11:16).
a city--on its garniture by God (compare Rev. 21:10-27).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 16. Now—In accepting the inheritance of Canaan, they read…
16. Now—In accepting the inheritance of Canaan, they read a title clear to a better… a heavenly country. And outside of the fleshly Israel there have been faithful souls belonging to the true Israel. Anaxagoras, the Athenian philosopher, (as Laertius tells us,) being asked, “Care you not for your country?” replied, “Speak gently, for I care ardently for my country,” pointing towards heaven. And Plato said, “Man is a heavenly plant, not an earthly.”
God is not ashamed—The God of the universe condescends to be God to these immigrant pilgrims. All the stars of limitless astronomy, lifeless things as they are, are not as dear to God as one faithful human soul.
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Their God—His title of honour is not merely that he was, but that he ever is, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For—In proof that he is specially their God.
Prepared… a city—The heavenly counterpart of which, the earthly is type and earnest.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv16–39 16. But now] “But, as the case now is.”
16. But now] “But, as the case now is.”
they desire] The word means, “they are yearning for,” “they stretch forth their hands towards.”
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is not ashamed to be called their God] Rather, “is not ashamed of them, to be called their God” (Gen_28:13; Exo_3:6-15.)
he hath prepared for them a city] The “inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us” (1Pe_1:4). This digression is meant to shew that the faith and hopes of the Patriarchs reached beyond mere temporal blessings.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39 (16) They confess themselves but sojourners (Heb_11:13), and thus…
(16) They confess themselves but sojourners (Heb_11:13), and thus make it plain that they are still seeking their true home (14); and yet, if. they had sought nothing more than an earthly home, there is one already, which was once theirs, and to which they might return (15); hence it is no earthly but a heavenly-country that they desire. This is the general current of thought in these verses, presenting a very close analogy to the argument of Heb_3:7 to Heb_4:11; here, as there, words which otherwise might appear to have but an earthly reference are seen to have a higher and a spiritual import. In Heb_11:8-9 we have before us only the land of inheritance, but in Heb_11:10 the heavenly rest; and in Heb_11:13 words which as read in Genesis might seem to refer to a wandering life in the land of Canaan are taken as a confession of sojourning upon earth. It is not necessary to suppose that the desires and yearnings of “the fathers” expressed themselves in the definite forms which later revelation has made familiar; in all that is essential the hope existed, whilst the mode of the fulfilment was unknown. Through faith the patriarchs were willing to connect their whole life and that of their children with waiting at God’s bidding for the fulfilment of a promise—wandering and sojourning until God’s own time should come when He would grant a home in a country of their own. And yet each of these servants of God recognised that relation to God in which lay the foundation of the promise to him to be personal and abiding. If these two thoughts be united, it will be easy to see how each one for himself would be led to regard the state of wandering in which he spent his life as an emblem of a state of earthly waiting for an enduring home; the sojourning in the land was a constant symbol of the sojourning upon earth. Hence (see the passages quoted in Heb_11:13) the same language is used from age to age after Canaan is received as an inheritance. (Comp. Heb_4:9; and see Exo_3:15, and Mat_22:31-32.)
But now.—See Heb_8:6; the meaning is not “at this present time,” but “as the case stands in truth.”
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Wherefore God is not ashamed.—Rather, Wherefore God is not ashamed of them (compare Heb_2:11). Because of this lofty desire, or rather, because of the faith and love towards Him in which the desire was founded, and of which therefore the longing for a heavenly country was the expression, God is not ashamed of them, to be called (literally surnamed) their God (Gen_17:7; Gen_26:24; Gen_28:13; Exo_3:6; et al.). That He is not ashamed of them He has shown, “for He prepared for them a city.” Before the desire existed the home had been provided. (Comp. Mat_25:34.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35, 36, 38, 39 Vers. 17-19. By faith Abraham, when he was tried,…
Vers. 17-19. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up (literally, hath offered up, denoting an accomplished act of which the significance continues) Isaac: and he that had received (rather, accepted, implying his own assent and belief) the promises offered up his only begotten son, he to whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure. The above rendering varies slightly from the A.V in vers. 18, 19. For, in ver. 18, pro is more naturally connected with the immediate antecedent, oo anadexamenov , than with monogenh : and, in ver. 19, there is no need to supply "him" after egeirein : the Greek seems obviously to express belief in God"s general power to raise from the dead, not his power in that instance only. The offering of Isaac (specially instanced also by St. James, if 21), stands out as the crowning instance of Abraham"s faith. The very son, so king expected, and at length, as it were, supernaturally given, he in whose single life was bound up all hope of fulfillment of the promise, was to be sacrificed after all, and so seemingly all hope cut off. Yet Abraham is represented as not hesitating for a moment to do in simple faith what seemed God"s will, and still not wavering in his hope of a fulfillment somehow. Such faith is here regarded as virtually faith in God"s power even to raise the dead. (For a similar view of Abraham"s faith as representing "the hope and resurrection of the dead," comp. Rom_4:17, Rom_4:24) The expression, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called" (literally, "In Isaac shall be called to thee a seed"), quoted from Gen_21:12, means, not that the seed should be called after the name of Isaac, but that the seed to be called Abraham"s should be in Isaac, i.e. his issue. The concluding phrase, "Whence also he received him in a figure" (literally, "in a parable," en parabolh), has been variously interpreted. Notwithstanding the authority of many modern common-taters, we may certainly reject the view of parabolh carrying here the sense borne by the verb paraballesyai , that of venturing or exposing one"s self to risk, or that of the adverb parabolwv , unexpectedly. Even if the noun parabolh could be shown by any instance to bear such senses, its ordinary use in the New Testament as well as in the LXX must surely be understood here. It expresses (under the idea of comparison, or setting one thing by the side of another) an illustration, representation, or figure of something. Its use in this sense in the Gospels is familiar to us all; elsewhere in the New Testament it occurs only in this Epistle, Heb_9:9, where the "first taber nacle" is spoken of as a parabolh . Still, the question remains of the exact drift of this expression, en parabolh . It surely is, that, though Isaac did not really die, but only the ram in his stead, yet the transaction represented to Abraham an actual winning of iris son from the dead; he did so win him in the way of an acted parable, which confirmed his faith in God"s power to raise the dead as much as if the lad had died. For such use of the preposition en we may compare 1Co_13:12, blepomen di esoptrou en ainigmati , which may mean (notwithstanding the different view of it given doubtfully by the distinguished commentator on the Epistle in the "Speaker"s Commentary"), "We see, not actually, but in the way of an enigmatical representation, as through a mirror." The above seems a mere natural meaning of the phrase, en parabolh , than that of the commentators who interpret it "in such sort as to be a parable or type of something else to crone," viz. of the death and resurrection of Christ. It does not, of course, follow that the transaction was not typical of Christ, or that the writer does net so regard it; we are only considering what his language fit itself implies. Rendered literally, and with retention of the order of the words, the sentence runs: "From whence i.e. from the dead him i.e. Isaac, auton being slightly emphatic, as is shown by its position in the sentence, equivalent to illum, not eum; and this suitably after the general proposition preceding he did too in a parable win ekomisato , equivalent to sibi acquisivit; cf. ver. 39, ouk ekomisanto than ." With regard to what we may call the moral aspect of this peculiar trial of Abraham"s faith, a few words may be said, since a difficulty naturally suggests itself on the subject. How, it may be asked, is it consistent with our ideas of Divine righteousness, that even readiness to slay his son should be required of Abraham as a duty? How are we to account for this apparent sanction of the principle of human sacrifices? To the latter question we may reply, in the first place, that the narrative in Genesis, taken as a whole, affords no such sanction, but very much the contrary. All we are told is that the great patriarch, in the course of his religious training, was once divinely led to suppose such a sacrifice to be required of him. The offering of sons was not unusual in the ancient races among where Abraham lived; and, however shocking such a practice might be, and however condemned in later Scripture, it was due, we may say. to the perversion only of a true instinct of humanity that which suggests the need of some great atonement, and the claim of the Giver of all to our best and dearest, if demanded from us. That Abraham should be even divinely led to suppose for a time that his God required him to express his acknowledgment of this need and this claim by not withholding from him as much as even the heathen were accustomed to offer to their gods, is consistent with God"s general way of educating men to a full knowledge of the truth. But the sacrifice was ill the end emphatically forbidden by a voice from heaven; to Abraham thenceforth, and to his seed for ever, it was made dearly known that, though God does require atonement for sin and entire submission to his will, he does not require violence to be done to tender human feeling, or any cruel rites.
Vers. 17-19. Faith sorely tried and sublimely triumphant.
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"By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac," etc. Our subject naturally divides itself into two branches.
I FAITH SORELY TRIED. The supreme trial of Abraham"s faith will appear if we consider the sacrifice which be was summoned to make. He was commanded:
1. To offer up as a burnt offering his only and much-loved son, Isaac. "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." "By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac; yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son." Isaac was called his "only son" because Ishmael had been finally sent forth from the paternal home, and because Isaac was the only son which Sarah the wife of Abraham bare unto him. He was now a young man, and inexpressibly dear to the hearts of his parents; and his father is commanded by God to offer him up as a sacrifice. Being a human sacrifice, Abraham"s conviction of the sacredness of human life would rise up against the fulfillment of the command. Can such a behest proceed from him who had so solemnly asserted the sacredness of human life? (Gen_9:5, Gen_9:6) Being his own son, his only son, his Isaac, the laughter of his heart, his deep and pure and strong paternal instincts would rebel against the dread summons. Is it possible that the holy and Divine Father can make such a demand upon any human father?
2. To offer up his son who was in a special sense the gift of God to him. Isaac was the child of Divine promise, and he was born when his parents were far advanced in years, and when in the ordinary course of nature his birth was impossible. (cf. vers. 11, 12 Gen_17:16-19 Gen_18:10, 14 21:1-3) For twenty-five years Abraham had waited for the fulfillment of the promise; twenty-five years more had elapsed since the birth of Isaac, during which he had been growing ever more and more precious and beloved; and now God is asking back the gift so long waited for, and which had become so inexpressibly dear. Can such a demand proceed from that God whose "gifts are not repented of"? Can it be that he should try his servant thus?
3. To offer up his son upon whose life the fulfillment of the hopes which God had inspired seemed to depend. Isaac was not only the son of promise, but the other promises made to Abraham were connected with him as to their fulfillment. The promise that he should inherit Canaan, that he should be the father of a countless posterity and the founder of a great nation, that in his posterity all nations should be blessed, all these were to be fulfilled in Isaac. "To whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called." Only the descendants of Isaac were to be known as Abraham"s seed, and only in them were the promises to be fulfilled. (cf. Gen_17:19, 21 21:12) These promises the patriarch "had gladly received." "He had as it were with open arms accepted and taken to himself each and all of the promises;" he had drawn from them assured hopes hopes which he had cherished during many years. But if Isaac be sacrificed as a burnt offering, how shall these hopes be realized? nay, how shall they not each and all expire, leaving the soul of the patriarch in dark disappointment? It seems that God is asking him to give back the promises which he had made to him, and which had so long sustained and cheered him. But is it possible that "the faithful God, which keepeth covenant with them that love hint and keep his commandments to a thousand generations," should make a demand like this? Can it be his voice that summons to the terrible sacrifice?
4. And there is a sore aggravation of this trial. Abraham is himself to be the sacrificing priest. He is to kill and to present this precious and awful offering. The knife that was to slay the victim must be driven into the heart by the hand of his own father, and the same hand must kindle the fire for the consumption of the sacrifice. When Ishmael seemed near unto death in the wilderness of Beersheba, his mother laid him "under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him at the distance as it were of a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the boy. And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept." But for Abraham there is no such relief. He must "see the death of " his beloved son; and more terrible, himself must strike the death-inflicting blow. Can it be God, the good and the holy One, that commands this? And is it possible that any loving father can comply with the terrible requirement?
II FAITH SUBLIMELY TRIUMPHANT. Abraham made the awful sacrifice. "By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac... his only begotten son." Virtually he as fully offered Isaac as if he had sheathed the knife in his heart and consumed his body on the altar. And he did it by faith. The triumph was the triumph of faith.
1. Faith in the righteousness and supremacy of the authority of God. Abraham believed that God had a right to his obedience in this also; that "the Judge of all the earth" would not command what was wrong. The reason of the command to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering was dark and utterly mysterious to the patriarch; moreover, it pierced his inmost soul with sharpest and bitterest sorrow, and convulsed his being with fierce agony; yet God was supreme and righteous, therefore he would obey him. Faith was victorious.
2. Faith in the unlimited power of God. "By faith Abraham offered up Isaac,... accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead." How extraordinary and astonishing was this faith in that early age!
3. Faith in the unchanging fidelity of God to his word. Abraham believed that God would fulfill his promises, however unlikely or even impossible that fulfillment might appear to him. How he would do so after Isaac was sacrificed the patriarch knew not. But he felt assured of the fact. And so by faith he obeyed the dread command, and offered up to God his only begotten son. Faith in God triumphed over doubts and fears, the questionings and reasonings of the intellect, and the pathetic pleadings and passionate appeals of the heart. And how God honored this sublime and conquering faith! Isaac was truly offered to God, yet he was untouched by the sacrificial knife. He was given by his father to God, and then given back by God to his father unhurt, and inestimably more beloved and more sacred. And high is the encomium given to Abraham: "Now I know that thou fearest God," etc. (Gen_22:12) We know what it was that God required of Abraham. It was not the sacrifice of Isaac, but the complete surrender of himself to God. When that was made the Divine purpose in this awful trial was accomplished, and" the last and culminating point in the Divine education of" the patriarch was attained. And still God requires this from us. He demands the unreserved surrender of ourselves to him, "Whatever is dearest to us upon earth is our Isaac." And when God summons us to give that Isaac up to him, his object in so doing is to lead us to present ourselves wholly and heartily to him as "living sacrifices." "He that loveth father or mother more than me," etc.. W.J. (Mat_10:37-39)
Vers. 17-19. Abraham"s faith in offering Isaac.
This is to be considered here as an illustration of faith. All our modern difficulties as to the right and wrong of Abraham"s conduct never occurred to the writer of this Epistle. A human sacrifice was not abhorrent to Abraham"s views of religious necessity. Here we have simply to look at the faith a father showed when called to give up his only son. See
I FAITH TRIUMPHING OVER NATURAL INCLINATIONS. Not over natural affections; for Abraham, having loved his son, loved him to the end. The very depth and intensity of his natural affection make his faith appear the stronger. We must not for a moment admit that natural affection could be even deadened in his heart to allow him to do such a thing. But assuredly his natural inclinations must have had a struggle with his faith before they surrendered. It is an almost universal tendency among parents to wish that their children should have the rewards and comforts of life. Wherever failure and suffering may come, they are not to come to them. The mother of James and John showed this feeling very strongly. This is the way in which natural affection gets spoiled and made a hideous thing through selfishness. This is the way in which natural affection often defeats itself, and instead of doing the best thing for children does the worst. Here surely is an example for parents in dealing with their children. Let them try to find out what God would have them do, what is really best upon a large view of the future, and not what seems best, not what is easiest and most comfortable. God called both Abraham and his son to self-sacrifice, and his view was far better than any inclination or judgment of their own.
II FAITH TRIUMPHING OVER PLAUSIBLE OBJECTIONS. Was there ever a finer chance for the tempter to make the worse appear the better reason, to strengthen natural inclination by plausible representations as to what was the Divine will? It seems most reasonable to say, "Isaac is the child of promise: the future for generations depends on his life; whatever else may happen to him, it is clear he is not to die now." And only too often in life plausible reasons for what turns out in the end an utterly wrong course are found with very little ingenuity. It is not enough that a way should seem right to love and prudence. Opportunities may come seeming on the surface of them to have signs of Providence, and yet all the time the real pointings of Providence may be neglected. The mind gets led away with unconscious sophistries. Now, it is in view of just such circumstances that God comes in with his clear authority to take the place of our plausible views and arguments. There are times when distinct, impressive intimations are not needed, when ordinary common sense and right feeling are quite enough. But also there are times when one clear, significant word from above will settle everything to the humble and docile mind.
III FAITH ASSURED OF THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD. Notice that God did not come in with this trial of faith at the beginning of his dealings with Abraham. He showed him first of all much of his power and his guiding hand. The child whom he asked in sacrifice had first of all been given in miracle. Divine demands are always proportioned to strength and to previous experiences. And so, however hard the trial might be to the feelings of the father, yet it had its eminently reasonable side when it appealed to the experience of the believer. God was putting honor upon Abraham in judging him fit for such a demand as this. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 39 Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac
Heb_11:17-19
Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac
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Abraham offering Isaac
I.
ABRAHAM WHEN HE WAS TRIED. Some lives abound in tests, others are marvellously free from trial. Some are let off with few lessons, others destined for exalted service have hard tasks to master and difficult problems to solve. Observe how Abraham had been tried all along. When at the outset he left his country, and during his subsequent journeyings, the Divine command became more and more explicit. Meanwhile, as a providential antithesis, Abraham was gradually stripped of his earlier associates. His father died at Haran. Then came to him the repetition of the old command, with the significant addition to leave his fathers house. This involved his leaving his brother Nahor and family. Later on even Lot separated from him under conditions which must have made the separation doubly painful. When, therefore, the command came to offer up Isaac the trial reached its greatest depth and intensity. There are crucial tests in every true life, for which every preceding trial has prepared the way. Such was this supreme test in Abrahams life. The greatness of the test appears in the exceptional character of the demand. It appeared as a direct contradiction of Gods promise. The detail was painful in the extreme.
II. THE OBEDIENCE OF ABRAHAM WAS
1. Prompt. The command came in the night. Early in the morning Abraham rose up, &c. Nothing was said to Sarah, to Isaac, or to the young men, that would have made Abrahams obedience to that command more difficult. The obedience was as spontaneous as the command startling.
2. Persistent. Abraham had the sustaining force which enabled him to maintain his purpose unwaveringly during the trying period of suspense between the command and the full obedience to it.
3. Perfect. When Abraham lifted up the knife the sacrifice was complete. Isaac had already been sacrificed upon the altar of a fathers heart. Only the tragedy, and not the real sacrifice, was prevented.
III. Further, GOD SUPPLEMENTED ABRAHAMS OBEDIENCE, AND COMPLETED THE PROVISION FOR THE SATISFACTION OF HIS OWN COMMANDMENT, BY POINTING TO THE RAM IN THE THICKET. The great principle had already been enunciated by Abraham, God will provide
Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. The question of Isaac which called forth this answer--Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?--is the representative question of the world. Man in all ages has been seeking a lamb for a burnt offering. Abrahams answer is the reply of God in Jesus Christ. The history of sacrifices outside the Christian religion is the history of man offering sacrifices to God; the story of the Christian religion is that of God offering a perfect sacrifice for man. (D. Davies.)
Abrahams faith
I. THE SUPPORTS WHICH ABRAHAMS FAITH DERIVED FROM PAST EXPERIENCE.
1. Consider the call and the promises given to him in Gen_12:1-7. These were satisfactory and convincing, when we consider them in detail, and likewise who made them.
2. Consider the circumstances of the promises made to him, and the covenant entered into with him (Gen_15:1-21.).
3. Abraham had the experience of a third call of gracious promises made to him, and a covenant-seal appended to both (Gen_17:1-8). The seal of circumcision is appended in verse 10. Here is not only promising and entering into covenant, but giving proof and sensible experience. What could be more encouraging than the intercourse with God in these transactions?
4. What could be more experimentally satisfactory than the communion which Abraham had with the three angels?
5. Then follows the scene referred to in our text, and the trial of Abrahams faith, so much celebrated in Scripture.
II. Considering all the foregoing circumstances, we may perceive THE WARRANT WHICH ABRAHAM HAD TO TRUST IN HIS COVENANT GOD IN ALL TIME TO COME,
1. He could not otherwise have been convinced of the benevolence of Him who condescended to eat and drink with him under the tree. Such condescension and humility must have convinced him of the goodness of that God who had showed him such favour and friendship.
2. He must have been convinced of the tender regard of that God who had heard his prayer in behalf of Ishmael--had changed his wifes name from Sarai to Sarah--promised that she should have a son--and mentioned his name (Gen_17:15-21).
3. He must have been convinced of the compassion of God to men, from the six different answers to his prayer for the inhabitants of Sodom.
4. He must have been convinced of the power and goodness of that Lord, who had, contrary to all human appearance, both made and fulfilled the promise of granting him Isaac.
5. Abraham was fully convinced that God was able to raise Isaac up even from the dead; and that, as He had given him, He had full right to take him away, as He might think best.
Improvement:
1. Such as would imitate the faith of Abraham, should take notice of Gods dealings with them in the course of His providence.
2. Such as notice not the dealings of God with them are in the dark as to the length which they have proceeded in the Divine life; and, if they continue in this state, must die in darkness at last. (James Kidd, D. D.)
The excellency of Abrahams faith and obedience
I. THE FIRMNESS AND STEADFASTNESS OF HIS FAITH will appear, if we consider what objections there were in the case, enough to shake a very strong faith. There were three great objections against this command, and such as might in reason make a wise and good man doubtful whether this command were from God.
1. The horrid nature of the thing commanded.
2. The grievous scandal that might seem almost unavoidably to follow upon it.
3. And the horrible consequence of it, which seemed to make the former promise of God to Abraham void.
II. We will consider THE CONSTANCY OF HIS RESOLUTION TO OBEY GOD, notwithstanding the harshness and difficulty of the thing. He was to offer up his son but once; but he sacrificed himself and his own will every moment for three days together. It must be a strong faith, and a mighty resolution, that could make him to hold out three days against the violent assaults of his own nature, and the charming presence of his son, enough to melt his heart as often as he cast his eyes upon him; and yet nothing of all this made him to stagger in his duty, but being strong in faith, he gave glory to God, by one of the most miraculous acts of obedience that ever was exacted from any of the sons of men.
III. I come to consider THE REASONABLENESS OF HIS FAITH, in that he was able to give satisfaction to himself in so intricate and perplexed a case. The constancy of Abrahams faith was not an obstinate persuasion but the result of the soberest consideration. As for the objections I have mentioned.
1. The horrid appearance of the thing, that a father should slay his innocent son. Why should Abraham scruple the doing this at the command of God, who, being the author of life, hath power over it, and may resume what He hath given, and take away the life of any of His creatures when He will, and make whom He pleaseth instruments in the execution of His command?
2. As to the scandal of it, that could be no great objection in those times, when the absolute power of parents over their children was in its full force, and they might put them to death without being accountable for it.
3. As to the objection from the horrible consequence of the thing commanded, that the slaying of Isaac seemed to overthrow the promise which God had made before to Abraham, that in Isaac his seed should be called; this seems to him to be the great difficulty, and here he makes use of reason to reconcile the seeming contradiction of this command of God to His former promise. So the text tells us that he offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called; reasoning that God was able to raise him up from the dead.
IV. SOME OBSERVATIONS AND INFERENCES.
1. Human nature is capable of clear and full satisfaction concerning a Divine revelation. For if Abraham had not been fully and past all doubt assured that this was a command from God he would certainly have spared his son.
(1) God can work in the mind of a man a firm persuasion of the truth of what He reveals, and that such a revelation is from Him.
(2) God never offers anything to any mans belief, that plainly contradicts the natural and essential notions of his mind; because this would be for God to destroy His own workmanship, and to impose that upon the understanding of man which, whilst it remains what it is, it cannot possibly admit.
2. The great and necessary use of reason in matters of faith. For we see here that Abrahams reason was a mighty help to his faith. Here were two revelations made to Abraham, which seemed to clash with one another; and if Abrahams reason could not have reconciled the repugnancy of them, he could not possibly have believed them both to be from God; because this natural notion that God cannot contradict Himself, every man does first and more firmly believe than any revelation whatsoever. I know there hath a very rude clamour been raised by some persons against the use of reason in matters of faith; but how very unreasonable this is will appear to any one that will but have patience to consider these following particulars:
(1) The nature of Divine revelation; that it doth not endow men with new faculties, but propoundeth new objects to the faculties, which they had before. Reason is the faculty whereby revelation is to be discerned; for when God reveals anything to us, He reveals it to our understanding, and by that we are to judge of it.
(2) This will farther appear if we consider the nature of faith. Faith is an assent of the mind to something as revealed by God; now all assent must be grounded upon evidence; that is, no man can believe anything unless he have or thinks he hath some reason to do so.
(3) This will yet be more evident, if we consider the method that must of necessity be used to convince any man of the truth of religion. Suppose we had to deal with one that is a stranger and enemy to Christianity, what means are proper to be used to gain him over to it? The better way would be to satisfy this mans reason by proper arguments that the Scriptures are a Divine revelation, and that no other book in the world can with equal reason pretend to be so; and if this be a good way, then we do and must call in the assistance of reason for the proof of our religion.
(4) Let it be considered farther that the highest commendations that are given in Scripture to any ones faith, are given upon account of the reasonableness of it. Abrahams faith is famous, and made a pattern to all generations, because he reasoned himself into it notwithstanding the objections to the contrary, and he did not blindly break through these objections, and wink hard at them; but he looked them in the face, and gave himself reasonable satisfaction concerning them.
(5) None are reproved in Scripture for their unbelief, but where sufficient reason and evidence was offered to them.
(6) To show this yet more plainly, let us consider the great absurdity of declining the use of reason in matters of religion. There can be no greater prejudice to religion than to decline this trial. To say we have no reason for our religion is to say it is unreasonable.
3. God obligeth no man to believe plain and evident contradictions as matters of faith. Abraham could not reasonably have believed this second revelation to have been from God, if he had not found someway to reconcile it with the first.
4. The great cause of the defect of mens obedience is the weakness of their faith. Did we believe the commands of God in the gospel, and His promises and threatenings, as firmly as Abraham believed God in this case; what should we not be ready to do, or suffer, in obedience to Him?
5. We have great reason to submit to the ordinary strokes of Gods providence upon ourselves, or near relations, or anything that is dear to us. Most of these are easy compared with Abrahams case; it requires a prodigious strength of faith to perform so miraculous an act of obedience.
6. We are utterly inexcusable if we disobey the easy precepts of the gospel. (Abp. TiIlotson.)
The supreme test of faith
I. THAT GOD ALONE KNOWS HOW TO ASCRIBE WORK AND DUTY PROPORTIONATE UNTO THE STRENGTH OF GRACE RECEIVED. He knew that Abrahams faith would carry him through this trial, and thereon He spared him not. As He will enjoin nothing absolutely above our strength, so He is not obliged to spare us in any duty, be it never so grievous, or of what difficult exercise soever it be, which He will give us strength to undergo; as He did here to Abraham.
II. THAT OFTTIMES GOD RESERVES GREAT TRIALS FOR WELL-EXERCISED FAITH. So this trial betel Abraham, when his faith had been victorious in sundry other instances. So He hath called many to lay down their lives by fire, blood, and torments, in their old age.
III. THAT FAITH MUST BE TRIED; AND THAT OF ALL GRACES IT IS SUITED SUITED UNTO TRIAL.
IV. THAT GOD PROPORTIONS TRIALS FOR THE MOST PART UNTO THE STRENGTH OF FAITH.
V. YEA, GREAT TRIALS IN BELIEVERS ARE AN EVIDENCE OF GREAT FAITH IN THEM, THOUGH NOT UNDERSTOOD EITHER BY THEMSELVES OR OTHERS BEFORE SUCH TRIALS.
VI. TRIALS ARE THE ONLY TOUCHSTONE OF FAITH, WITHOUT WHICH MEN MUST WANT THE BEST EVIDENCE OF ITS SINCERITY AND EFFICACY, AND THE BEST WAY OF TESTIFYING IT UNTO OTHERS.
VII. WE OUGHT NOT TO BE AFRAID OF TRIALS BECAUSE OF THE ADMIRABLE ADVANTAGES OF FAITH IN AND BY THEM (see Jam_1:2-4; 1Pe_1:6-7).
VIII. LET THEM BE JEALOUS OVER THEMSELVES WHO HAVE HAD NO ESPECIAL INSTANCES OF THE TRIAL OF THEIR FAITH.
IX. TRUE FAITH, BEING TRIED, WILL IN THE ISSUE BE VICTORIOUS.
X. DIVINE REVELATIONS DID GIVE SUCH AN EVIDENCE OF THEIR BEING IMMEDIATELY FROM GOD TO THOSE WHO RECEIVE THEM, THAT THOUGH IN ALL THINGS THEY CONTRADICTED THEIR REASON AND INTEREST, YET THEY RECEIVED THEM WITHOUT ANY HESITATION.
XI. The great glory and commendation of the faith of Abraham consisted in this, THAT WITHOUT ALL DISPUTE, HESITATION, OR RATIONAL CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE CONTRARY, BY A PURE ACT OF HIS WILL HE COMPLIED WITH THE AUTHORITY OF GOD, which in some sense may be called blind obedience wherein the soul resigns the whole conduct of itself to another.
XII. IT IS A PRIVILEGE AND ADVANTAGE TO HAVE AN OFFERING OF PRICK TO OFFER TO GOD, IF HE CALL FOR IT. And such are our lives, our names, our reputations, our relations, estates, liberties, as Abraham had his Isaac. It is so, I say, if we have hearts to make use of it.
XIII. OBEDIENCE BEGUN IN FAITH, WITHOUT ANY RESERVES, BUT WITH A SINCERE INTENTION TO FULFIL THE WHOLE WORK OF IT, IS ACCEPTED. WITH GOD AS IF IT WERE ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE. SO the confessors of old, delivered--by Divine providence from death, when the sentence of it was denounced against them, were always reckoned in the next degree to martyrs.
XIV. THE POWER OF FAITH IN ITS CONFLICT WITH, AND CONQUEST OVER NATURAL AFFECTIONS, WHEN THEIR UNAVOIDABLE BENT AND INCLINATIONS ARE CONTRARY TO THE WILL OF GOD, WHEREBY THEY ARE EXPOSED TO RECEIVE IMPRESSIONS FROM TEMPTATIONS, IS AN EMINENT PART OF ITS GLORY, AND A BLESSED EVIDENCE OF ITS SINCERITY. (John Owen, D. D.)
The sacrifice of Isaac:
I. WE OFTEN TALK OF TRIALS. It may be questioned whether there ever was a trial of the kind at all equal to this. All ages, says Bishop Hall, have stood amazed at it; and still the mystery of the Divine mandate is not greater than the strength of Abrahams faith.
1. This command has reference to a son, an only son; and what is more, the son of Abrahams old age; and what is still more, for aught that appears, a dutiful, obedient son: one who must have been beloved for his unobtrusive excellences.
2. In addition to this you are to bear in mind that this son was the embodiment of a promise and covenant that Abraham held dearer than all earthly good, dearer than his own life. When you consider that that covenant had in it the germ of the covenant of grace, it is clear that he looked upon Isaac as, in some sort, an incarnate representation of salvation. His loss was enough to shake the very foundations of the fathers faith.
3. We may remark that Abraham was commanded to perform this act with his own hand. It must not be entrusted to another. He must be the priest to immolate this innocent victim.
4. You are to observe further that it was a protracted trial. A three days journey, with all its painful exercises of mind, must be interposed to try Abrahams faith and obedience.
5. You must notice the cruel nature of the sacrifice itself. There must be first the knife, and afterwards the fire. A fathers hand carried them both.
6. Analyse the command itself, and you will see that it amplifies every circumstance calculated to harrow up the fathers feelings. The very terms in which God makes known His will are expressly chosen to touch every fibre of his heart, and set his subsequent obedience in the strongest light.
7. Look at the scandal it would involve; scandal upon God, upon religion, and upon himself. Did none of these painful consequences suggest themselves to the patriarchs mind, and stagger his resolution? He may have thought of them, but they did not move him. He knows and believes that the Judge of all the earth will do right, and that it is his province only to obey.
II. Let us turn to glance at THE CONDUCT OF ABRAHAM UNDER THIS FEARFUL DISPENSATION.
1. We read of no remonstrances, no expostulations, no questionings, no doubts, no evasions, no appeal by prayers.
2. Observe his promptitude and diligence in the duty. He rose up early in the morning to begin the most doleful journey he ever performed. Who would not have thought that to be a little leisurely would have been a pardonable delay? What a strange haste is this on such a terrible errand!
3. Observe farther how steadfastly he keeps out of his way everything that might obstruct him in his purpose. We do not find that he informed Sarah whither he was going, or with what object. He would not expose his resolution to her natural tears and importunities. A little further on he is careful to dismiss even the young men that attended them, that he may be spared their entreaties, and perhaps reproaches, at least till it shall be too late to alter his resolution. What man but Abraham would have cleared his way so carefully of all lawful excuses and impediments. Who does not see his determination to seek no deliverance, but that which comes distinctly and directly from God.
4. Again, notice the terms in which he dismisses these attendants: Abide ye here; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again unto you. Take this in connection with what the apostle tells us, and you will see the secret of his fortitude; it was his faith. He accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead. Still he trusts in the covenant.
5. Let us proceed a little further; there is one yet more piercing trial for the heart of the patriarch. Unsuspecting Isaac, bearing his heavy burden, like our blessed Redeemer carrying His own Cross, as yet little dreaming that he must soon meet a disclosure enough to scorch the fathers lips to utter, as the sons ears to hear; Isaac, I say, pondering upon the intended sacrifice, begins to wonder where the victim is to be found, We have the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb? Oh, cutting stroke! Can Abraham bear this and yet dissemble? Does not suppressed nature assert itself yet, in a burst of uncontrollable emotion? Did neither eye, nor cheek, nor manner, betray the horrid secret? No; calm, collected, determined, he still conceals, and where he meant evasion, prophesies, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
6. How that disclosure was made at last, I know not; but it must have been made. How Abraham prevailed on his son to submit, I know not. No doubt, Isaac helped to build the altar whereon he must be consumed. No doubt he considered that the author was God; the actor, Abraham; the work, a sacrifice; and approved himself a son of Abraham by a voluntary submission. Just when the stroke was about to descend, the voice was heard from heaven, Abraham, Abraham, lay not thine hand upon the lad &c. So easily, so quickly can the Lord turn sorrow into joy! He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
III. Let us now proceed to consider THE DESIGN OF THIS TRANSACTION, AND THE PRINCIPAL INSTRUCTION IT CONVEYS.
1. In the first place we may inquire whether it is not reasonable to suppose that God intended to give, by the sacrifice of Isaac, a shadow of the great redemption? To this question we reply by appealing, first, to the fulness of its signification considered in this view; secondly, to the general consent of Jewish expositors themselves; thirdly, and chiefly, to the strange and revolting nature of the command given to Abraham, which is hard to be vindicated, or even understood, on any other supposition. On these grounds we plead for a mystical interpretation of the subject. We invite you to contemplate in this shadow the sacrifice which God the Father made when He gave up His only beloved Son to death for your sakes; and the voluntary subjection of Christ, who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, that He might take away your sins. You may even behold in Isaac an image of your Saviour bearing His own Cross; and see him preparing to suffer almost upon that very hill which afterwards became the altar whence the greater victim sent up to heaven the virtue of His atonement, to plead for ever on behalf of a guilty world.
2. In this transaction a great example of faith and obedience is proposed for our consideration. Abraham exhibits a confidence in the Divine promises, which could not be shaken either by his reason or by his afflictions. There are such times of trial in the experience of every believer; and then it is seen who are the seed of Abraham. When God is trusted still amidst the wrecks of human hope; when His covenant is held fast, though Providence be wrapt in impenetrable mystery, and every earthly interest sacrificed on the altar of His service; I see revived the spirit of the patriarch, and recognise that filial resemblance which hinds up in his family the whole Church of God, in both dispensations, from his own age to the end of time.
3. We may observe that this narrative exemplifies the essential connection between faith and works.
4. When reason fighteth against faith, is wisdom to quit that reason which would make us quit the promises. Reason is limited and fallible; and, therefore, it is bound to pay homage to Divine authority. May not this darling idol be the very Isaac which you are called upon to sacrifice? If you withhold it, when God commands, you cannot be blessed with faithful Abraham.
5. And finally, let all Christians remember, in times of tribulation, that God often reserves delivering mercy till their greatest extremity. Wait, believe, obey; in these three words lies the whole scope of piety. May they be realised in our experience and practice, for Christs sake. (D. Katterns.)
Character tested:
The surest way to know our gold is to look upon it and examine it in Gods furnace, where He tries it for that end that we may see what it is. If we have a mind to know whether a building stands strong or no, we must look upon it when the wind blows. If we would know whether that which appears in the form of wheat has the real substance of wheat, or be only chaff, we must observe it when it is winnowed. If we would know whether a staff be strong, or a rotten, broken reed, we must see it when it is leaned on, and weight is borne upon it. If we would weigh ourselves justly, we must weigh ourselves in Gods scales, that He makes use of to weigh us. (Jonathan Edwards.)
Abrahams faith:
He founded his faith upon Gods fidelity and omnipotency. These are the Joachin and the Boaz, the two main pillars whereupon faith resteth. (J. Trapp.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 16. Desire a better country. They desired a country…
16. Desire a better country. They desired a country better than Chaldea, better even than Canaan. They had a faith which looked for a heavenly country.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv17, 21, 23, 30, 32 Heb_11:19. Received him in a figure.—Lit. “in a parable.”…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Heb_11:19. Received him in a figure.—Lit. “in a parable.” Stuart thinks the reference is to Abraham’s having originally received Isaac as one born of parents who were virtually dead. But the reference is clearly to the scene on Mount Moriah; and it must mean that when, in full purpose, Abraham had laid his son on the altar, he was potentially sacrificed, and Abraham received him again as one brought back from the death to which he had devoted him.
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MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_11:17-20
Faith under Divine Discipline.—A special reference is made to Abraham, because in his case Divine discipline took an unusual and extraordinary form. Reference has already been made to the general features of his life, as a sojourner in a strange land, which was indeed the land of promise, though of it he only had a present possession by faith. It was his, because he was quite sure that it would be his. He had the “substance” of what he “hoped for.” But there was one most singular and striking incident in Abraham’s later life, which provided too important an illustration of one sphere of faith for it to be passed over. He who had been called to forsake his early home, and go forth, responsive to Divine leadings, not knowing whither he went, was now called to give up, and even himself to sacrifice, that very child in whom all the promises of God and all the hopes of Abraham seemed to centre. He gave up his father’s home in faith. Could he break up his own home in faith, and with his own hand destroy all hope of a race in whose history God’s promises could be fulfilled? Perhaps a man’s faith has never been put to a severer test than was Abraham’s in that hour of strain. No wonder that early legends represent Sarah as never recovering from the shock of Isaac’s being taken away to be sacrificed, and from that time pining away to her death. Two forms of Divine discipline are indicated in this paragraph.
I. The relation of faith—which makes real the spiritual—to times of trial.—Trials come into every man’s life; but we have to consider the trials which come into the good man’s life—the renewed, spiritual man’s life. And they cannot be explained in any ready, offhand way. Two cases—three, if we class our Lord with men—are given in Holy Scripture, in order to check our satisfaction in general, and hastily made, and surface explanations. We must think about this strange trial of Abraham. We must wonder why Job, “the perfect man and upright,” was so severely afflicted. We stand in awe before the mystery of the agony of the cross, and say, “Why did the innocent One suffer?”
1. This is clear—the punishment of transgressions will not explain all the trials through which good men are called to pass. Job’s friends may persist in it that suffering is always penalty. It is not. The trial to which Abraham was now subjected was not penalty or punishment in any sense whatever. No hint is given of any moral or spiritual failure on the part of Abraham which Divine justice was bound to recognise. The sufferings which came to Job were not penalty or punishment in any sense whatever. When they came upon Job, he was a man standing fully in the Divine acceptance. It is a small, poor, and unworthy view that persists in seeing penalty everywhere. God reproves, in every age, the Job-friends who do that sort of thing.
2. The idea of Divine discipline will not sufficiently explain all the cases of trial which come before us. We may take a comprehensive view of Divine discipline, and say that it includes:
(1) the correction of evils which are ever ready to develop into sin; and also
(2) the culture of moral virtues and graces into strength and completeness; and also
(3) the mastery of life-conditions and relations in the power of moral principle; but we have only got a little way then toward the understanding of Abraham’s trial. On the face of the narrative there is no special call for a discipline of correction or of culture. In the case of Job it is not God who finds it necessary to discipline Job. It is God permitting Job to be tempted and tried, when He knows that he does not need it. Exactly this brings in the perplexity and difficulty of the poem. There was no need for subjecting the ever-acceptable Son to the discipline of the cross. That must be explained from some other point of view. Christian men and women, in their times of trial, would be greatly comforted and strengthened, if we would assure them that trial need not be punishment, and it need not be discipline. Faith in God, in the unseen, in the spiritual, brings round to us another and a better explanation.
3. Much of the trial that comes to good men is vicarious. It does not strictly belong to them; it belongs to others. It has no more necessity than the necessity which God finds for witnessing to some truth, and using them as witnesses. The trial may simply be the service which God asks us to render to our sphere, our age, or the world. This comes out clearly enough in the three cases already called to mind. The trial of Abraham has taught the generations. “Ye have heard of the patience of Job.” Christ, “lifted up, draws all men unto Him.” But what a faith of unseen and eternal things is involved in an obedience like Abraham’s, unquestioning, prompt, entire, almost cheerful—an obedience which involved so severe a trial and loss! It was a triumph indeed of faith that Abraham could see God wanting a witness, and not therefore finally intending to take away his son. Faith in man—the obedience of faith—has never surpassed this: “Accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead; from whence he did also in a parable receive him back.” We shall never explain all the cases of trial to which spiritual men are subjected, nor understand the sublime heights to which the faith of spiritual men may reach, until we fully recognise that much of human suffering is vicarious, as was that of our Divine Lord.
II. The relation of faith to the hope of the future.—It is stranger than it seems, that God should have ever held out a prospect before men and generations, and fulfilled His promise, but seldom, if ever, to the man or to the generation. Spiritual men live by faith. Their future is always the “good time coming.” Even to-day men’s faith is exercised concerning the coming of the Son of man, which is hardly yet on the eastern horizon-line. How faith can stand related to the hope and promise of the future is seen in Isaac, who “blessed Jacob and Esau even concerning things to come.” He lived under promise of the possession of Canaan. He died almost as much a stranger as his father had been. He never had the promise fulfilled. But faith held it firm, and made it real. He confidently passed the promise on to his sons. He blessed them in assuring them of God’s blessing. And so still we sing concerning our “good time coming.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_11:17. The Offering of Isaac.—Abraham’s offering of his son is one of the perplexing things of God’s word, because it seems to commend the immoral thing, murder, in connection with God’s worship. But we too readily judge the Divine requirements in patriarchal days by our modern sentiments concerning human sacrifice, forgetting that these should not be projected back into the earlier ages of the world, when men, being in the child-stages, had to be taught by action and ceremonial and symbol, rather than by words. Ancient Easterns had thoughts about God’s absolute proprietary rights in man which we seem to have lost; and we now know that the Accadians, or early inhabitants of Chaldea, sacrificed their firstborn sons in times of special trouble, and their practice the Semitic race had, to some extent at least, copied.
I. Abraham’s sacrifice was a burnt-offering.—This kind of offering was the foundation of the sacrificial system. All the other offerings—peace-offerings, meat-offerings, trespass-offerings, sin-offerings, thank-offerings—were but the detailed adaptation of the burnt-offering to the varieties of human conditions and experiences. The burnt-offering was presented ages before the Mosaic system was established. Can we get to understand this original, simplest, and yet most significant and spiritually suggestive form of sacrifice? It was called a “burnt-offering” because the victim was wholly consumed by fire, and so, as it were, sent up to God on the wings of fire. The victim must be selected with extreme care. It must be pure, unblemished, and as nearly perfect an animal as possible. It was regarded as a whole, an entire and complete offering, only when the life of the creature had been taken. Then, as a complete body, and a whole, completed life, it was ready for offering to God. Then it was laid on the altar, and entirely consumed. What was the idea of such a sacrifice, as it came to the mind of a devout and spiritual worshipper? Can we at all enter into the thought of a serious-minded patriarch or Jew? It must have been this: he passed to God an entire life, a pure, clean beast—gave it to God wholly, body and life; and by so doing he, in a representative way, passed to God himself—himself wholly, body, will, life. He gave to God a representative of what he himself wished to be, what he thus solemnly pledged himself that he would strive to become. Or, to put the same thing in more formal language, the burning of this whole creature by fire “marked it as an expression of perpetual obligation to complete, sanctified self-surrender to Jehovah.” And, therefore, in the Mosaic system, every morning and evening a lamb was sacrificed as a burnt-offering on behalf of the whole covenant people; and the evening victim was to be so slowly consumed that it might last till the morning—an expressive symbol of that continual self-dedication to God which is the duty of man. In the light of this spiritual idea of a “burnt-offering,” we can see something of the Divine purpose in this strange command given to Abraham, that he should offer as a sacrifice his only and beloved son. Evidently God asked for an expression, through that singular burnt-offering, of Abraham’s entire devotion to Himself. He desired to read the patriarch’s very heart through an act of obedience and devotion. He purposed to show the perfect trust and loyalty of His servant, to all the ages, by means of an unusual burnt-offering.
II. Abraham’s sacrifice anticipated the Great Burnt-offering.—It was the sonship of Isaac made him an acceptable offering. His submission and obedience were so different from the yielding of a mere animal, because it had a will in it; and so the sacrifice of Isaac, the son, alone fittingly suggested the obedient sanctified will of Jesus, the Son of God. “Every burnt-offering was a type of the perfect offering made by Christ, on behalf of the race of man, of His human nature and will to the will of the Father.” And this burnt-offering, Christ—the only begotten and well-beloved Son—is our burnt-offering, yours and mine. We could not make Him ours if we were not sure that God was well pleased with Him. But God has provided Him for us; so we stand beside the strange Calvary altar, shaped for human seeing like a cross, and see our sacrifice go up to God, with the confidence that God will “smell a sweet savour,” and accept us as we give ourselves to Him in that burnt-offering.
Faith inspiring Self-sacrifice.—Observe that it was faith in God’s word, in what Abraham intelligently apprehended to be God’s word to him. The demand it made was a personal one, the full surrender of a personal possession. To a father it was the supreme, the extreme demand. To Abraham, because of peculiar circumstances associated with Isaac, it was truly a sublime demand, and response to it a model of self-sacrifice. By showing and illustrating what a height of self-sacrifice Abraham reached, it may be shown what an inspiring, elevating, ennobling power faith was to him.
Heb_11:17-18. The Strain that Feeling may put on Faith.—In the record of this incident given in Genesis 22 there is a very tender bit of conversation. The aged patriarch is journeying on an errand which he can explain to nobody, and the darling of his life is the companion of his journey. We know the great things that were in his heart—he was taking his only son, the heir of all he had, the heir of all he hoped for, to his death by his own fatherly hand. The youth wondered much over the object of this sudden and mysterious journey, until at last he could keep back his questionings no longer. There were evident signs of his father’s intention to offer sacrifice; he himself was carrying the wood needed for a fire; and his father had in his hands the bowl with fire and the sacrificial knife. But Isaac knew well that on such occasions his father also took the necessary victim with him; but this time they had brought no lamb from the flock. So he said, “My father.” And Abraham said, “Here am I, my son.” And Isaac said, “Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?” And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering.” Surely a wonderful answer! But it must have cut that father to the quick to speak those silencing, those trustful words. In him faith triumphed over feeling.
Heb_11:19. A Figurative Resurrection.—“Whence he did also in a parable receive him back.” Abraham received Isaac back, figuratively, from the dead, because so far as Abraham’s purpose and intention were concerned he was dead, “potentially sacrificed.” In one Jewish writer it is said that Isaac was actually killed and raised to life again.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 11
Heb_11:17. Abraham’s Faith.—The trial by faith is by finding what we will do for God. To trust Him when we have the securities in our own iron chest is easy, and not thankworthy; but to depend on Him for what we cannot see, as it is most hard for man to do so, so it is most acceptable to God when done, for in that act we make confession of His Deity. Faith without works of this kind is like a fish without water: it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action, especially where we trust God without seeing Him, is a stone laid.—Feltham.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v36 “Better” is not antithetical to bad, but to good.…
ARGUMENT 15
THE BETTER RESURRECTION.
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“Better” is not antithetical to bad, but to good. Hence the logical sequence follows that while there is a bad resurrection for the wicked, there are also two resurrections for the righteous — the good and the better, the first and the last. It is stated positively
“Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power, they shall be priests of God and Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” (Rev 20:6)
This Scripture, as well as others, settles the question of the two resurrections without the possibility of cavil. I am sorry this important revelation has been obscured by the spiritualization of the first resurrection. This is a gross and flagrant error, utterly untenable, as it breaks up and destroys the antithesis, doing away with the corporeal resurrection altogether, and plunging headlong into the Swedenborgian heresy. The Greek is ezeean in both cases, which simply means, “they lived.” If it is spiritual in one sense it is in the other, and physical resurrection is forever gone. Hence we see the utter untenability of this construction and receive unequivocally the doctrine of the two resurrections. In the rapture described by Paul (1Th 4:13-18), we have another graphic account of the first resurrection, when the Lord shall come after His bride, preparatory to His millennial kingdom. Php 3:11,
“If perchance I may attain unto the resurrection which is out from among the dead.”
The Old Testament saints were not ignorant of the glorious reality of the Lord’s bridehood. Therefore they suffered the most terrible tortures of martyrdom that they might have a place in the first resurrection; which will take place before the millennium, the last resurrection being postponed till the final judgment. It is certainly a glorious privilege to rise and shout o my grave a thousand years before the general resurrection, especially when we consider the glorious privileges of the bridehood to reign with Christ during the millennial ages.
36-38. Here the Holy Ghost describes the terrible tortures inflicted by a wicked world and a fallen Church on the Old Testament martyrs. They shouted in the fires anticipating the glories awaiting them in the Lord’s bridehood and the first resurrection.
39. “All these having received the witness of the Spirit through faith, obtained not the promise.”... While the Bible is flooded with thousands of promises, especially considering the synonymy of promise and commandment in the Greek and Hebrew, by which the number is doubled, the great Messianic promise of the Lord’s incarnation and the world’s literal and actual redemption by the bleeding Christ on the cross, his triumphant resurrection, glorious ascension and mediatorial coronation and intercession throughout the Bible is magnified as “the promise” by way of pre-eminence and exaltation. While the saints of all ages lived in glowing anticipation of this wonderful prophetical fulfillment, and the realization of the Messianic promise, yet they all died without the sight. Contrastively with the verification of this promise, theirs was a dispensation of Christian imperfection. Yet their stalwart and sanguine hope swept onward through the lights of type and prophecy into the personal experience of Christian perfection. This grand faith brigade lived, testified and shouted, in the realization of Gospel experiences many centuries in advance of their age and generation, while the rank and file of the Church barely reached perfection in the article of death, passing into eternity in a state of spiritual infancy, like the great bulk of the Gospel Church of the present day. Their case was apologizable, as they were in harmony with their dispensation, while the unsanctified millions of the Church of the present day, both clerical and laic, are blundering along amid the fogs of carnality, three thousand years behind the age.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv16, 24
Hebrews
THE FUTURE WHICH VINDICATES GOD
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Heb 11:16
THESE are bold words. They tell us that unless God has provided a future condition of social blessedness for those whom He calls His, their life’s experience on earth is a blot on His character and administration. He needs heaven for His vindication. The preparation of the City is the reason why He is not ‘ashamed to be called their God.’ If there were not such a preparation, He had need to be ashamed. Then my text, further, by its first word ‘wherefore,’ carries our thoughts back to what has been said beforehand; and that is, ‘They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly.’ Therefore God ‘is not ashamed of them,’ as the Revised Version has it, with a fuller rendering, ‘to be called their God.’ That is to say, the attitude of the men who look ever forward, through the temporal, to the things unseen and eternal, is worthy of their relation with Him, and it alone is worthy. And if people professing to be His, and professing that He is theirs, do not so live, they would be a disgrace to God, and He would be ashamed to own them for His.
So there are two lines of thought suggested by our text; two sets of obligations which are deduced by the writer of this Epistle from that solemn name - ‘The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.’ The one set of obligations refers to Him; the other to us. There are, then, three things here for our consideration - the name; what it pledges God to do; and what it binds men to seek. Let me ask you to look at these three things with me.
I. First of all, then, regard the significance of the name round which the whole argument of our verse turns.
The writer lays hold of that wonderful designation, by which the God of the whole earth knit Himself, in special relationship of unity and mutual possession, to these three poor men - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he would have us ponder that name, as meaning a great deal more than the fact that these three were His worshippers, and that He was their God, in the sense in which Moloch was the God of the Phoenicians; Jupiter, the god of the Romans; or Zeus of the Greeks. There is a far deeper and sacreder relation involved than that. ‘The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob’ means not only that His name was in some measure known as a designation, and in some measure honoured by external worship, by the patriarchs, but it involved much in regard to Him, and much in regard to them. It is the name which He took for Himself, not which men gave to Him, and, therefore, it expresses what He had made Himself to these men. That is to say, the name implies a direct act of self-revelation on the part of God. It implies condescending approach and nearness of communion. It implies possession, mutual and reciprocal, as all possession of spirit by spirit must be. It implies still more wonderfully and profoundly that, just as in regard to the relations between ourselves, so, in regard to the loftiest of all relations, God owns men, and men possess God, because, on both sides of the relationship, there is the same love. Other forms of connection between men and God differ from this deepest of all in that the attitude on the one side corresponds to, but is different from, the attitude on the other. If we think of God as the object of trust, on His side there is faithfulness, on our side there is faith. If we think of Him as the object of adoration, on His side there is loftiness, on our side there is lowliness. If we think of Him as the Supreme Governor, His commandment is answered by our obedience. But if we think of Him as ours, and of ourselves as His, the bond is identical on either part. And though there be all the difference that there is between a drop of dew and the boundless ocean, between the little love that refreshes and bedews my heart, and the great abyss of the same that lies, not stagnant though calm, in His, yet my love is like God’s, and God’s love is like mine. And that is the deepest meaning of the name, ‘the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob’: - mutual possession based upon common and identical love.
And then, of course, in so far as we are concerned, the name carries with it the most blessed depths of the devout life, in all its sacredness of intimacy, in all its sweetness of communion, in all its perfectness of dependence, in all its victory over self, in all its triumphant appropriation, as its very own, of the common and universal good. It is much to be able to say ‘Our God, our help in ages past.’ It is more to be able to say ‘My Lord and my God.’ And that appropriation deprives no other of his possession of God. I do not rob you of one beam of the sunshine when it irradiates my vision. We take in of the common land that which belongs to us, and no other man is the poorer or has the less for his. My God is thy God; and when we each realise our individual and personal relation ‘to Him, as expressed by these two little words, then we are able to say, in close union, ‘Our God, the God and Father of us all.’ So much, then, for the name.
II. Now a word or two, in the second place, as to what that name pledges God to do.
He is ‘not ashamed’ of it, ‘for He hath prepared for them a city.’ Now I do not need to enter at all upon the question as to whether the three patriarchs to whom my text has original reference had any notion of a future life. It matters nothing where .or how they thought that that coming blessing towards which they were ever looking was to be realised. The point of the text is that, in any case, they were servants of a future promised to them by God, as they believed, and that that future shaped their whole life.
Think of what their life was. How all their days, from the moment when Abraham left his home, to the moment when the dying Jacob said, with a passion of unfilled expectancy, which yet had in it no hesitancy or doubt or rebuke, ‘I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord,’ that future shaped their whole career! And then, if the end of all was that they lay down in the dust and died, having been lured on from step to step by dazzling illusions dangled before them, which were nothing but dreams, what about the God who did it? and what about their relation to Him! Would there be anything in such a God deserving to be worshipped, Might He not be ashamed of ‘being called their God’ if that was all that they got thereby? God needs the City for His own vindication.
Now that seems to be a daring way of putting it, hut it is only another form of expressing a very plain thought, that the facts of the religious life here on earth are such as necessarily do involve a future of blessedness, and a heaven.
I need not, I suppose, dwell for more than just in a sentence upon the first plain way in which this truth may be illustrated - namely, that nothing but a future life of blessedness, such as we usually connote by the simple name ‘heaven,’ saves God’s veracity and the truthfulness of His promises. If we believe that the awful silence of the universe has ever been broken by a divine voice; if we believe that God has said anything to men - apart, I mean, from the revelation of Himself made by our nature and in our daily experience - we must believe that He has promised a life to come. And unless such a life do await those who, humbly and with many faults and imperfections, have yet clung to Him as theirs, and yielded themselves to Him as His possession, then
‘The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth’s base built on stubble.’
Let God be true and every man a lie. Unless there is a heaven, He has flashed before us an illusion like that which has tempted many a wanderer into the bog to perish. He has fooled us with a mirage, which at the distance looked like palm-trees and cool, flashing lakes, and when we reach it is only burning sand, strewn with bleached bones of the generations that have been cheated before us. ‘God is not ashamed... for He hath prepared a city.’
But, then, there is another thought, closely con-netted with the preceding, and yet capable of being dealt with separately, and that is that there is a blot ineffaceable on the divine character unless the desires which He Himself has implanted have a reality corresponding to them. That is true, of course, in the most absolute sense, in regard to all the physical necessities and yearnings which the animal nature possesses. In all that region God never sends mouths but He sends meat to fill them; and need is the precursor and the prophecy of supply. So it is in regard to the whole creation; so it is in regard to that in us which we share in common with them. Care never irks the full-fed beast. No ungratified desires torture the frame of the short-lived creatures. ‘Foxes have holes, and the birds of air have their roosting-places’; and all beings dwell in an environment absolutely corresponding to their capacities, and fitted to satisfy their necessities. But amongst ‘them stalks the exile of creation, man; blessed, though he sometimes thinks he is cursed, with longings which the world has nothing to satisfy; and with ideals which are never capable of realisation amidst the imperfections and fleetingnesses of time. And is that to be all? If so, then God is a tyrant and not a god, and there is little to love in such a character, and He might be ashamed, if He is not, to have made men like that, so ill-fitted for their abode, and to have bestowed upon them the possibility of imagining that to which realisation shall be for ever denied.
And if that is true in regard of many of the desires of life, apart altogether from religion, it becomes still more manifestly and eminently true in regard of Christian experience and devout emotions. For if there is any one thing which an acceptance of Christianity in the heart and life is sure to do, it is to kindle and make dominant longings, yearnings rising sometimes to pain, which the world is utterly unable to satisfy. Is it ever to be so? Then, oh then, better for us that we should never have known that name; better for us that we had nourished a blind life within our brains; better for us that we had never been born. But ‘He hath prepared for them a city,’ where wishes shall be embodied, and the ideal shall be reality, and desires shall be fulfilled, and everything that has dwelt, silently and secretly, in the chambers of the imagination shall come forth into the sunlight. Morning dreams are proverbially true. ‘We are not of the night, nor of the darkness: we are the children of the day,’ and our dreams are one day to pass into the sober certainty of waking bliss.
Then there is another thought still, and that is that it would be a blot ineffaceable on the divine character if all the discipline of life were to have no field in the future on which its results could be manifested. These three poor men were schooled by many sorrows. What were they all for? For the City. And in like manner the facts of our earthly life and our Christian experiences are equally inexplicable and confounding unless beyond these dim and trifling things of time there lie the sunlit and solemn fields of eternity, in which whatsoever of force, valor, worthiness, manhood, we have made our own here shall expatiate for ever more.
I do not mean that life is so sad and weary that we need to call another world into existence to redress the iralante of the old. I think that is only very partially true, for we are always apt in such considerations to minimize the pleasures on the whole, and to exaggerate the pains on the whole, of the earthly life. But I mean that the one true view of all that befalls us here on earth is discipline; and that discipline implies an end for which it is applied, and a realm in which its results are to be manifested. And if God carefully trains us, passes us through varieties of condition, in order to evolve in us a character conformed to His will; puts us to the long threescore years and ten of the apprenticeship, and then has no workshop in which to occupy us afterwards, we are reduced to a state of utter intellectual bewilderment, and life is an inextricable tangle and puzzle.
You may go into certain prehistoric depots, where you will find lying by thousands flint weapons which have been carefully chipped and shaped and polished, and then, apparently, left in a heap, and never anything done with them. Is the world a great cemetery of weapons prepared and then tossed aside like that? We need a heaven where the faithfulness of the servant shall be exchanged for the joy of the Lord, and he that was faithful in a few things shall be made ruler over many things.
III. And now a word about my last thought; and that is, what this name binds Christian people to seek.
My text in its former part says, ‘They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.’ If Abraham, instead of stopping under the oak tree at Mature, had gone down into Sodom with Lot, and taken up his quarters there; or if he had become a naturalized citizen of Hebron, and struck up alliances with the children of Heth, would the Sodomites or the Hebronites or the Hittites have thought any the better of him therefore? As long as he kept apart from them, he witnessed to the promise, and God looked upon him and blessed him. But if, professing to look for ‘the city which hath the foundations,’ he had not been content to dwell in tabernacles, God would have been ashamed of him to be called his God.
Translate that into plain English, and it is this. As long as Christian people live like pilgrims and strangers, they are worthy of being called God’s, and God is glad to be called theirs. And as long as they do so, the world will know a religious man when it sees him, and, though it may not like him, it will at least respect him. But a secularized Church or individuals who say that they are Christians, and who have precisely the same estimates of good and evil as the world has, and live by the same maxims, and pursue the same aims, and never lift their eyes to look at the City beyond the river, these are a disgrace to God and to themselves, and to the religion which they say they profess.
I cannot but feel - and feel, I think, in growing degree - that one main clause of the woful feebleness of our average Christianity is that our hopes and visions of the City which hath the foundations have become dim, and that, to a very large extent, the thoughts of ‘the rest that remaineth for the people of God’ is dormant in the minds of the mass of professing Christian people.
Oh, dear friends! if we will yield to that sweet, strong appeal that is made to us in the frame, and, feeling that God is ours and we are His, will turn our hearts and thoughts more than, alas! we have done, to that blessed hope, Jesus will not be ashamed to call us brethren, nor God be ashamed to be called our God. Let us beware that we are not ashamed to be called His, nor to ‘declare plainly that we seek a country.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv25, 26, 33, 38, 39 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sin
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv17, 23, 30, 39 The example of the patriarchs:
The example of the patriarchs:
v. 17. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son,
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v. 18. of whom it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called;
v. 19. accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence he also received him in a figure.
v. 20. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
v. 21. By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
v. 22. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning his bones.
The history of Abraham was by no means exhausted by the incidents mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. There is another lesson recorded here: By faith Abraham offered up Isaac when he was put to the test, and he that had received the promises sacrificed his only-begotten, to whom it had been said that through Isaac shall the offspring be reckoned to thee; since he concluded that God was able to raise also from the dead, whence he also received him in type. Gen 22:1-24. God had given Abraham the promise after the birth of Isaac: In Isaac shall thy seed be called, Gen 21:12. Ishmael was thus ruled out, as were the children of Abraham by Keturah, who were born later. Isaac, therefore, was the only-begotten son of Abraham, the son of promise, the father having received the promises of God with a believing heart; the descendants of Isaac were to be known as the true seed, the heirs of the promise. But now God determined to test Abraham’s trust and faith by a trial of such severity as to have daunted every other heart. Abraham was to offer up, to sacrifice, this only son to the Lord. And this he prepared to do exactly in accordance with God’s instructions, as the account in Genesis tells us. This he could do only because his faith had taught him to come to the conclusion, to hold the opinion, that even from the dead God is able to raise up. It was this firm belief in the almighty power of God, together with faith in His promises, that enabled Abraham to deliver his only son to death. This faith God rewarded at once; for the father received his son back from the very jaws of death, he snatched him out of death, "not actually, because Isaac had not been dead, but virtually, because he had been given up to death. He had passed through the likeness of death, and his restoration to Abraham was a likeness of resurrection" (Dods). How gloriously was the faith of Abraham here established!
Of the other patriarchs similar demonstrations of faith are recorded: By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning future things. Gen 27:1-46. It had been a matter of some dispute between Isaac and Rebecca as to which son was to receive the Messianic promise. When, therefore, Isaac determined to give his blessing to his sons before his death, he instructed Esau to appear before him first. But through the dispensation of God it was Jacob that received the blessing of the first-born, a fact which was acknowledged by Isaac when he refused to change the blessing, giving to Esau, instead, a blessing concerning his well-being in this world only. It was the faith of Isaac which caused him to confirm the blessing which he had laid upon Jacob as the Lord’s choice for the bearer of the Messianic blessing, Gen 28:3. The same faith lived also in Jacob almost a hundred years later: By faith Jacob, dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bending in prayer over the head of his staff. Shortly before the aged Jacob died, in the land of Goshen, he had Joseph bring his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, in order to transmit to them the blessing of his own children. Gen 48:1-20. He gave each an individual blessing, crossing his hands in spite of Joseph’s protest, SO that his right hand rested upon the head of the younger and his left upon the head of the older. In the distinction thus made in the blessing as it was afterward verified in the destiny of their descendants, in their inheritance of the Promised Land, Jacob showed his faith. Note: There is an addition to the story as related in Genesis, since we are here told that Jacob, shortly before his death, not only bowed himself upon the bed’s head in an attitude of worship, but did so while leaning upon his staff. Of Joseph, finally, it is said: By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the exodus of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones. Gen 50:24-25. The fact that Joseph, in such a solemn manner, assured his brothers that they would not be left in Egypt, but that God would lead them forth thence into the land which He had promised to their fathers, and that he, for his own person, relied so firmly in the promise of the Lord that he gave orders concerning the transfer of his mummy to the land of Canaan at the time of that deliverance, shows that Joseph shared the faith of his fathers in the Messianic promises, which included the possession of the land of Canaan for the children of Israel. His faith in the coming Messiah caused him to trust implicitly in the other promise connected with the assurance of His coming.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 20, 23, 27, 29, 32, 35, 39 when he was tested
when he was tested
This can be stated in active form. AT: "when God tested him" (See: Active or Passive)
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to whom it had been said
This can be stated in active form. AT: "to whom God said" (See: Active or Passive)
that your descendants will be named
Here "named" means assigned or designated. This sentence can be stated in active form. AT: "that I will designate your descendants" (See: Active or Passive) (See: Metonymy)
God was able to raise up Isaac from the dead
"God was able to cause Isaac to live again"
to raise up ... from the dead
In this verse, "to raise up" is to make alive again. The words "from the dead" speak of all dead people together in the underworld.
figuratively speaking
"in a manner of speaking." This means that what the author says next is not to be understood literally. God did not bring Isaac back from death literally. But because Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac when God stopped him, it was as if God brought him back from the dead.
it was from them
"it was from the dead"
he received him back
"Abraham received Isaac back"
translationWords
faith
Abraham
test
sacrifice
Isaac
promise
descend
die
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 11:17-31 Great examples of faith take the reader from…
11:17-31 Great examples of faith take the reader from Abraham’s family to Rahab. These examples build up evidence that faith is the only appropriate response to God.
11:17-19 Abraham offered Isaac: See Gen 22:1-18. God never intended for Abraham to offer his son but was testing Abraham’s faith, which he expressed through his obedience.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.