VER. 8.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 319
*Inoods is of no signification at all in the Greek tongue, it being only their man- ner of pronunciation of 279, “ Jeshua,” which is “a saviour ;” which name was given to the Lord Christ because of the work he had todo. So also was it to this Jesus the sonof Nun. The wickedness of the perfidious Jews in writing his name >, and the horrible abuse they make thereof, are known to the learned, and there is no need to acquaint others with them.
Ovbx ay repli HAAnS 4Epees, “ concerning another day.” The apostle having de- seribed the rest he discourseth of by the especial day of rest that was in the several estates of the church peculiarly to be observed, now by a synecdoche expresseth the whole rest itself and all the concernments of it by the name of a “ day.”
*Eadcaer, “he would not have spoken;” that is, either God absolutely, or the Holy Ghost, whose immediate work the inspiration of the psalmist was, whose words these are,
Mere ravre, “after these things;” the things which befell the people in the wilderness, and what they afterwards attained under the conduct of Joshua,
Ver. 8.—For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not after these things have spoken concerning another
day.
The confirmation of his principal assertion from the words of David, concerning the rest prepared and proposed in the gospel unto believers, is that which our apostle still insists on, as was declared. Hereon was his whole exhortation of the Hebrews founded, and hereinto was it resolved. And on the same truth depended all the reasonings and motives whereby he enforced his exhortation. _ This, therefore, was fully to be established and clearly vindicated. And that which, last of all, remained to his purpose was the removal of an objection which, among the Jews, it was evidently liable and ob- noxious unto. And this he doth by the due stating of the time when those words were spoken which he had pleaded in evidence of his assertion. The objection laid down by way of anticipation is plain in the words; and it is this: ‘Although the people which came out of Egypt entered not into the rest of God that was pro- mised, by reason of their unbelief and disobedience, as you have proved, yet the next generation, under the conduct of Joshua, went into and enjoyed the rest which they were excluded from. This, therefore, was the rest intended; which we being in the enjoyment of, what ground have you to propose another rest unto us? This is the force of the objection. And two things are comprised in the apostle’s answer unto it:—TFirst, A denial of the supposition on which the objection is founded. This is done virtually in the manner of the proposal of the objection itself: “ For if Jesus had given them rest ;’—that is, whatever be pretended and pleaded, he did not do so; that is, not that full and ultimate rest which in all these things God aimed at. Secondly, He gives the reason of this his denial; which is this, that five hundred years after, God in David, and by him, proposeth another rest, or another day of rest, and invites the people
320 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. Iv.
unto an entrance, after they were so long fully possessed of all that Joshua conducted them into; and whereas there was no new rest for the people to enter into in the days of David, and the psalm wherein these words are recorded is acknowledged to be prophetical of the days of the Messiah, it unavoidably follows that there is yet a rest and a day of rest remaining for the people of God, which he lays down as his conclusion in the verse ensuing.
This interpretation of the words perfectly satisfieth the argument in hand; but yet I judge there is more in them than a mere answer unto the objection mentioned, though expositors look no farther. And this is, that the apostle also designs to teach the Hebrews that all those things which were spoken about the rest of God in the land of Canaan, and in Mosaical institutions, had not the reality or substance of the things themselves in them, Heb. x. 1; so that abso- lutely neither did God rest nor were the people to look for rest in them. They had no other end nor use, but only to teach them to look out after and to prepare for that rest which was promised from of old; so that Joshua did not give them real rest, but only that which was a typical instruction for that season in what was to come. And therefore in David the same matter is carried still on, and di- rection is still given to look out after the rest to come. And we may learn hence, principally, that,—
Obs. I. There is no true rest for the souls of men but only in Jesus Christ by the gospel.
Notwithstanding all that was done to and for the Israelites by Joshua, yet he gave them not rest, he brought them not into the full and complete rest of God; “God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” And the reasons hereof are:—First, because God himself resteth not in any thing else, and in his rest alone it is that we can find rest. It is in vain for us to seek for rest in that wherein God resteth not. We have seen that at the beginning, when he had created man, he entered into his rest, in that satisfaction which he took in the effects of his own power, wisdom, and goodness, Exod. xxxi. 17. He provided likewise rest in himself for man, and gave him a day as a pledge of his entrance into it, Gen. ii. 2. In this condition trouble and disquietment entered into the whole creation, by the sin and apostasy of Adam. God no more rested in the works of his hands, but cursed the earth, Gen. iii. 17, 18, made the whole creation subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20, and re- vealed his wrath from heaven against the ungodliness of men, Rom. i. 18. And hereof he hath in all ages since given signal instances; as in the flood of waters wherewith he drowned the old world, and the fire from heaven wherewith he consumed Sodom and Go- morrah, And of the same kind are those severe judgments by