HEBREWS 10:37-38

Most casual readers of a book like Hebrews would probably just skim right through these two verses with absolutely no conception of the fact that a whole book could probably be written by squeezing out every morsel of information in them. I am certainly not going to write that book right now, but I would like to give you a mere taste of how a Bible scholar might approach them. Much of what follows falls under the general category of CONTEXT, a short word that encompasses quite a bit. By contrast, the sermons I was subjected to while growing up tended to be totally devoid of any understanding of context and usually treated each individual verse or two as a stand-alone “sound bite” which might be quoted to make any of a number of points that the preacher wanted to make at the time, whether or not they happened to reflect what the author himself had in mind. By the way, there is no “accepted order” in which the bolded sections below must be discussed and the order below is somewhat random, but one will certainly be missing out on all the richness in Scripture if any of these categories are totally omitted from consideration.

I once visited a Sunday school in another church where the “teacher” took each individual verse in the larger passage for the day only one at a time and polled each of us as to what we thought it meant. He chastised me when I dared to refer to an adjacent verse for clarification. He told me that was not according of the rules adopted by their church. Needless to say, I didn't even bother sticking around for the church service the following hour.

Position in the Bible

It may seem hard to believe, but if you ask any random group of people who consider themselves Christians where the book of Hebrews is located, there will always be at least one who thinks from the title alone that it is probably found in the Old Testament. And there are others who might even believe that “Hebrews” is the name of the author or is addressed to those in some city named “Hebrews.” In either case it is probably an honest mistake made by those who know that New Testament books generally derive their titles in one of those two manners.

Audience

But once located properly within the NT, we can see that it is sandwiched in between the last of the Pauline letters and the set of “General Letters” intended for less specifically identified audiences. In such a position, one might expect that Hebrews would share some characteristics of both these groupings, and that turns out to be the case. Thus, some commentators, but by no means all, are convinced that the letter is by Paul himself. In addition, the absence of a specific geographic location for the audience puts it into the General Letter category.

Author

It is of course very helpful in interpreting any book of the Bible to know a little bit about who wrote it so that we can know where he is coming from and whether we should trust him (or her). But we should always keep in mind that not all books in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, have a designated author. And the same is also certainly true of the book of Hebrews. So as much as we would like to have absolute proof that Hebrews has a “kosher” pedigree so that it can properly be considered part and parcel of Scripture, we will always fall short of certainty in this case.

I realize that there are those fundamentalist Christians who treat any hint that Paul may not have written Hebrews as smacking of rank heresy. They go to great lengths to show correspondences between Paul's authentic writings and Hebrews. But it should also be pointed out that scholars such as David L. Allen, in his book Lukan Authorship of Hebrews, make an even more compelling case for Luke to be the anonymous author, and that is certainly not a heretical suggestion by any means.

Literary Context

This is in itself quite an extensive category to consider and may encompass anything as small as an individual figure of speech (hyperbole, simile, etc.) to an analysis of the overall literary structure. In the case of these two specific verses in particular, I have earlier demonstrated that the structure can be shown, as in Figure 1, to fit into an overall construction of two parallel sets of statements encompassing a rather large section of Scripture.

                                   Figure 1: Literary Structure of Hebrews 10:26-11:40

A. Sin Leads to God's Judgment (10:26-27)

        B. Prospect of Judgment for Disobedience (10:28-31)

                C. Believers' Past Behavior Under Trial (10:32-34)

                        D. Promise for Those Who Endure (10:35-39)

A'. Faith Leads to God's Approval (11:1-3)

        B'. Faithful Ones who did not Receive the Promise (11:4-16)

                C'. Believers' Past Faith Under Trial (11:17-31)

                        D'. Promise for Those Who have Faith (11:32-40)

If this analysis is true, then any interpretation one gives for 10:37-38 should be expected to have a close relationship to that expressed in 11:32-40.

But getting back to the specific verses in question, one thing stands out clearly in most English renderings. They are not printed as prose but indented in poetic lines instead. As such, that alone often, but not particularly in this case, may dictate a completely different way of understanding what the author has in mind since poetic passages may utilize literary techniques found only rarely in prose (parallelism of sound or meter and widespread use of non-literal language such as metaphors, similes, puns, etc.).

Old Testament Allusions

Another thing is made obvious in most English rendering, namely, Hebrews 10:37-38 is capped on either end by quotation marks. In this case, it obviously does not indicate any sort of dialogue between different participants. Instead it indicates a quotation from some other source. And as such, that source must be located in order to comprehend its importance in this new setting. In fact, the phrase “a little while” comes from Isaiah 26:20 while the remainder can be traced back to Habakkuk 2:3-4. Thus, these original passages must be considered in there own unique setting in order to get a better idea of how the author of Hebrews utilized them much later in time.

One extremely useful resource for this sort of study for those who wish to delve a little more deeply into the subject is Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by Beale and Carson. The chapter on Hebrews by George Guthrie expends three large pages just discussing the use of Old Testament sources in Hebrews 10:37-38. I will not even attempt to summarize his findings here except to say that he divides his discussion into separate sections dealing respectively with both the OT and NT immediate contexts, other putative Jewish sources, the textual background, and the theological perspective of the author of Hebrews as expressed in this short passage.

Textual Considerations

Behind the scenes of any translation of the Bible into another language is another crucial step of which most readers are not aware, namely, making sure one has a definitive Greek or Hebrew text from which to work. That step is necessary because in no case do we possess the originally dictated scroll from the author himself. However, instead we have a wealth of early handwritten copies of most New Testament books which we can compare with one another in order to derive a “master text” which can then be translated into any other language. In the case of our two verses in Hebrews, only the text of one is somewhat in question.

Two textual scholars, Comfort and Metzger, have weighed in on v. 38 specifically. Comfort feels the manuscript evidence is evenly divided between those which say “my righteous one” and those which read “the righteous one.” But Metzger goes into even more detail and adds the evidence of Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11, both of which also quote from Habakkuk. Metzger feels that some early scribes were unduly influenced by these Pauline passage which read “the” instead of “my.” Metzger's judgment, however, is that the word 'my' “undoubtedly belongs in the text, being strongly supported by early and reliable witnesses [i.e. manuscripts].” In this particular case, the end result in the two cases is quite different in that one reading seems to refer to the Messiah while the other one talks about the believers instead. And these differences in readings may be reflected in the various modern translations.

Translations

That last comment segues neatly into this next section since those who do not have easy access to some of the scholarly sources given above can still consult and compare modern renderings in their language of choice. Regarding the controversy between “the” and “my” mentioned above, those translations opting for “my” include just about all English versions, although Jerusalem Bible reads “the” and NIV footnotes this an an alternative reading.

Turning to some English paraphrases, it is interesting that TEV reads “my righteous people” in place of the singular “one.” And The Message feels it should read “anyone.”

Commentaries

Sometimes the court of last appeal is the scholarly commentary. However, here the reader must be warned that (1) the opinions expressed may or may not represent the last word on the subject and (2) the theological background (anywhere from fundamentalist to liberal) of the authors must sometimes also be taken into account. I also fully recognize that exceedingly few practicing Christians go to the trouble of purchasing even one commentary on the Bible to use as a reference source. And consulting the Internet to give its omnipotent opinion will generally just give you a generic AI sort of answer to your questions unless you happen to search further and come across some highly prejudiced source, such as the one you are now reading, whose pronouncements should be taken with a large dose of salt.

Here are some short quotations from commentaries on the passage in question so that you can get a rough idea of the sort of information one might glean from them or similar writings of a more scholarly than devotional nature.

F.F. Bruce: “Here it is not simply for the fulfillment of the vision that the prophet is told to wait, but for a person, presumably an expected deliverer. When this deliverer appears, he will vindicate the righteousness of God and put down the oppressor; if, however, he draws back, that will indicate that he is not God's chosen agent. But if he does not draw back, but shows himself to be indeed God's chosen agent, His 'righteous one', then by his faithfulness he will win his life. The deliverer in question is not called 'the Lord's anointed' in so many words, but the Septuagint interpretation of this passage is essentially messianic.”

G.W. Buchanan: “The text quoted from Isaiah [in v. 37] was 26:30. Isaiah urged the people to hide themselves for a little while...until the wrath would pass over. The wrath came when God visited his people to punish them for their iniquity (Isa 26:20-21). The people's fortunes were believed to reflect God's attitude toward them. If they suffered, God was angry; if they prospered, God was pleased with them. The author of Hebrews lived under the same belief. He used this passage to encourage his people to endure the wrath they now faced, because it would soon pass away when God came to visit them with blessing, fulfilling his promise to them.”

“With a slight variation, the author of Hebrews [in v. 38] masterfully spliced a passage from Habakkuk to the one from Isaiah, as if they initially constituted one Old Testament quotation...The author of Hebrews omitted just one syllable (ti) to change the meaning to suit his needs: 'because coming, he will come' (LXX Hab 2:3) became 'the coming one will come'...This type of change is typical of pesher exegesis. In Habakkuk, that which would come was the vision (Hab 2:3), but in Hebrews, 'the coming one' would be the Lord or his Messiah.”

O. Michel: “Heb. represents an independent tradition of teaching. It makes extensive use of OT motifs, and draws upon the history of the patriarchs in connection with words of the pistis-group [i.e. relating to faith]. In its exhortation, Heb. takes up the promise of faith and the warning against unbelief (Heb. 10:37f. = Hab. 2:3f.). Above all, Heb. 11:1 presents an instructive definition which combines OT and Hel[lenistic] motifs.”

Ellingworth discusses the placement of mou ('my') in the various manuscripts which contain this word in v. 37. He concludes that if it occurs after dichaios ('righteous') then the meaning is “my righteous one will live by (his) faith.” However, those manuscripts which place it after pisteos ('faith') give rise to the reading “the righteous one will live by faith in me.”