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Heb_4:6-7. The author, founding his reasoning, on the one hand, on the truthfulness of God, and on the other, on the actual state of matters declared from ἀλλά , Heb_4:2, to κατάπαυσίν μου , Heb_4:5, now returns to the statements: καταλειπομένης ἐπαγγελίας , Heb_4:1, and καὶ γάρ ἐσμεν εὐηγγελισμένοι καθάπερ κἀκεῖνοι , Heb_4:2, in order, by means of the opening words of the psalm cited, to render clear the truth contained in these statements concerning the non-fulfilment of the promise as yet, and also the necessity for not closing the heart against the same.[65]
The sense is: since then it still remains, i.e. is to be expected with certainty, that some enter therein (inasmuch, namely, as God carries also into effect that which He promises), and the earlier recipients of the promise did not enter in because of their unbelief, He marks out anew a definite day, etc. From this relation of the first half of the protasis to the second, as that of a general postulate to a special historic fact, is explained also the indefinite τινάς in the first clause. Wrongly Delitzsch, according to whom ΤΙΝΆς signifies: “others than those.” Some, again, find in ἘΠΕῚ ΟὖΝ ἈΠΟΛΕΊΠΕΤΑΙ ΤΙΝᾺς ΕἸΣΕΛΘΕῖΝ the meaning: since then the promise, of entering into His rest, is still left, i.e. awaits its fulfilment. So substantially Bleek: “since it now remains, that the divine rest has not yet been already closed by the complete(?) fulfilment of the prophecy relating thereto, in such wise that no more entrance exists for them.” Against this, however, pleads the fact that the author would then have illogically co-ordinated, the one with the other, the two protases Heb_4:6, since the first would surely contain the result of the second. For the sequence of thought would then be: the former recipients of the promise came short of attaining salvation, and the consequence thereof is that the κατάπαυσις stands open for others. It must thus have been written: ἐπεὶ οὖν ἀπολείπεται τινὰς εἰσελθεῖν εἰς αὐτήν , τῶν πρότερον εὐαγγελισθέντων οὐκ εἰσελθόντων διʼ ἀπείθειαν .
οἱ πρότερον εὐαγγελισθέντες ] sc. the Israelites in the wilderness.
[65] Ebrard has here, too, entirely misapprehended the connection. He says: “Vv. 6–8, the author passes to a new thought, to a new point of comparison between the work of Christ and the work of Moses. The opposition between the work of the one and that of the other is twofold.… The first imperfection in the work of Moses consisted (Heb_4:2-5) in the fact that his work conferred no power for fulfilment,—did not combine by faith with the hearers,—and on that account did not avail to lead into rest; the second consists in the fact that the rest itself, into which the Israelites might have been led by Moses, and then by Joshua were led in, was only an earthly typical rest, whereas Christ leads into an actual rest, which intrinsically corresponds to the Sabbath-rest of God.”