Hebrews 3:11

11 As I swore in my anger, '{They will never enter} into my rest.'"

Hebrews 3:11 Meaning and Commentary

Hebrews 3:11

So I sware in my wrath
Swearing is ascribed to God, to show the certainty of the thing spoken of; as of mercies, when he swears in love, and by his holiness; so here, of punishment, when he swears in wrath, in indignation, in sore displeasure, and the threatened evil is irrevocable and inevitable:

they shall not enter into my rest;
into the land of Canaan, called God's rest, because he promised it, and gave it to the Israelites as their rest; and where he himself had a place of rest; and where he gave the Messiah, the author of peace and rest; and which was a type of heaven, that rest from toil and labour, which remains for the people of God; and into which it is said this generation did not enter; for the Jews say ^F6,

``the generation of the wilderness have no part in the world to come:''

but this seems too harsh, for doubtless there were many who died in the wilderness, that went safe to heaven, notwithstanding all their sins and provocations.

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 Tzeror Hammor, fol. 118. 1.

Hebrews 3:11 In-Context

9 where your fathers tested [me] by trial and saw my works

10 [for] forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and I said, 'They always go astray in their heart, and they do not know my ways.'

11 As I swore in my anger, '{They will never enter} into my rest.'"

12 Watch out, brothers, lest there be in some of you an evil, unbelieving heart, [with the result that you] fall away from the living God.

13 But encourage one another {day by day}, as long as it is called "today," so that {none of you become hardened} by the deception of sin.

Footnotes

• [a] Literally "if they will enter"
• [b] A quotation from Ps 95:7b-11