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Heb_11:35. Ἔλαβον γυναῖκες ἐξ ἀναστάσεως τοὺς νεκροὺς αὐτῶν ] Women received back their dead (their sons) through resurrection. Those meant are the widow of Sarepta (1Ki_17:17 ff.), whose son was awakened out of death by Elijah, and the Shunammite woman (2Ki_4:18 ff.), whose son was raised by Elisha. Far-fetched is the supposition of Biesenthal (in Guericke’s Zeitschr. f. die ges. luther. Theol. u. Kirche, 1866, H. 4, p. 616 ff.): reference is made to the tradition, preserved to us in the rabbinical and talmudic literature, of the cessation of the dying away of the male population in the wilderness on the 15th Ab.
Syntactically Heb_11:35 begins a new proposition (against Böhme, who, as unnaturally as possible, makes the statement ἔλαβον … αὐτῶν still dependent on οἵ , Heb_11:33, and regards γυναῖκες as apposition to οἵ ).
With ἄλλοι δέ , to the close of Heb_11:38, the discourse passes over to examples of a suffering faith, which remained still unrewarded upon earth.
ἄλλοι δὲ ἐτυμπανίσθησαν ] Others, on the other hand, were stretched on the rack. Allusion to the martyr-death of Eleazar (2Ma_6:18 ff.), and of the seven Maccabean brothers, together with their mother (2 Maccabees 7.). τυμπανίζεσθαι means: to be stretched out upon the τύμπανον (comp. 2Ma_6:19; 2Ma_6:28), an instrument of torture (probably wheel-shaped, Josephus, de Macc. c. 5, 9, 10 : τροχός ),—to be stretched out like the skin of a kettledrum, in order then to be tortured to death by blows (comp. 2Ma_6:30).
οὐ προσδεξάμενοι ] not accepting, i.e. since the expression, by reason of the objective negation οὐ , blends into a single notion: disdaining.
τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν ] the deliverance, namely the earthly one, which they could have gained by the renouncing of their faith. Comp. 2Ma_6:21 ff; 2Ma_7:27 ff.
ἵνα κρείττονος ἀναστάσεως τύχωσιν ] that they might become partakers of a better resurrection. Motive for the contemning of earthly deliverance. Comp. 2Ma_7:9; 2Ma_7:11; 2Ma_7:14; 2Ma_7:20; 2Ma_7:23; 2Ma_7:29; 2Ma_7:36, as also 2Ma_6:26. κρείττονος stands not in opposition to the resurrection of the ungodly unto judgment, Dan_12:2 (Oecumenius: κρείττονος … ἢ οἱ λοιποὶ ἄνθρωποι · ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἀνάστασις πᾶσι κοινή , ἀλλʼ οὗτοι ἀναστήσονται , φησίν , εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον , καὶ οὗτοι εἰς κόλασιν αἰώνιον . Comp. Theophylact), neither does it form any antithesis to ἐξ ἀναστάσεως in the beginning of the verse (Chrysostom: οὐ τοιαύτης , οἵας τὰ παιδία τῶν γυναικῶν ; Theophylact, who does not, however, decide; Bengel, Schulz, Böhme, Bleek, Stein, de Wette, Stengel, Ebrard, Delitzsch, Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbr. p. 617, Obs.; Alford, Maier, Kurtz, and others), which is too remote; but corresponds to the ἀπολύτρωσιν immediately preceding. A much higher possession was the resurrection to the eternal, blessed life, than the temporal deliverance from death; which latter could be regarded, likewise, as a sort of resurrection, but truly only as a lower and valueless one.