Recent Interpretation of Hebrews Chapters 3–4: Critical Issues and Scholarly Trends

Introduction

Chapters 3–4 of the Letter to the Hebrews have been the focus of a considerable degree of scholarly attention over the last two decades. This level of interest is evident, for example, in the number of recent PhD theses which have centred on this section of the epistle: between 2007 and 2013 no fewer than eight revised dissertations treating Hebrews 3–4 extensively were published in Mohr Siebeck’s WUNT II Series alone. This statistic is noteworthy in itself, and perhaps even more striking is the fact that so many of these studies return to questions which were of concern to previous generations of commentators, albeit from new angles. Three particular issues, often inter-related, seem to have emerged as critical for contemporary discussion of Hebrews 3–4: how these chapters fit into the overall structure of the text; the interpretation of the Jewish scriptures within them; and the meaning of the contested term ‘rest’ (Heb 3:11, 18; 4:1, 3–11), which has significant implications for judgements about the author’s background of thought. This paper will review representative recent publications relating to each of these areas, and seek to identify some common themes and trends among them.

The Structure and Coherence of the Epistle

Commentators in every era have struggled to make sense of the overarching argument of Hebrews. Puzzled by frequent shifts of subject and the juxtaposition of expositionary and exhortatory passages, many have concurred with James Rendel Harris’s conclusion that there are notable fissures in the author’s train of thought. ¹ Chapters 3 and 4 exemplify these difficulties well, since the discussion of Moses and the rebellious wilderness generation does not seem to fit naturally with the surrounding discourse about the priesthood of Jesus (Heb 2:10, 17–18; 3:1; 4:14–5:10), and, furthermore, the citation from Ps 94:7–11 LXX at Heb 3:7 is introduced rather abruptly. Valiant attempts have been made throughout the last century to identify the main theme of the epistle, with suggestions ranging from priesthood to sacred space, ² and from pilgrimage to covenant, ³ but any consensus remains elusive. Several present-day studies address this question, including Christopher Richardson’s consideration of Jesus’ faith as a central christological motif in Hebrews. ⁴ He is in a minority in arguing that Jesus is presented as ‘the ideal believer whom God’s people must consider and imitate …’ ⁵ The debate about whether ‘the faith of Christ’ should be understood as an objective or subjective genitive in the Pauline letters (e.g. Rom 3:22, 26; Gal 2:16, 20; 3:22, 26; Phil 3:9) has a long history, but little attention has been paid to date to whether Hebrews might shed any light on this question. Hebrews 12:2 forms the most obvious plank in Richardson’s argument, with its description of Jesus as ‘the pioneer of our faith,’ but he also draws on Heb 2:13; 3:1–6; 4:15; and 11:1. He is certainly correct to note that Jesus’ qualities of faithfulness and endurance are highlighted in passages such Heb 3:1–6 and 12:1–2, but these do not necessarily imply anything about Jesus’ faith in God or about the content of his beliefs. Thus Richardson perhaps needs to maintain clearer distinctions throughout between the terms ‘faith’ and ‘faithfulness.’ It should also be recognized that there are large parts of the letter in which this topic does not appear to be prominent, including Heb 1:1–2:9 and 5:11–10:4.

The search for a main theme is one aspect of Hebrews scholarship, but recent decades have also seen a greater focus on determining how the text’s literary structure may provide an important key to understanding its coherence and message. The pioneer in this area was, of course, Albert Vanhoye, whose work has become a significant point of reference for subsequent structural analyses of the letter. ⁶ Vanhoye’s study identifies the literary devices which mark the opening and closing of major sections of Hebrews, pointing to the author’s use of features such as inclusio, repetition, hook words, and the announcement and resumption of a new subject. This leads him to propose a concentric five-fold division of Hebrews, with the presentation of Jesus as high priest at its mid-point (Heb 9:11). ⁷

Vanhoye’s methodology has since been developed by others, most notably George Guthrie. ⁸ Guthrie examines the two main genres in Hebrews, exposition and exhortation, arguing that they function like two interconnected backbones which run side by side throughout the letter, but eventually converge. This is not a literary or rhetorical structure commonly attested in the Graeco-Roman world, however, ⁹ and Guthrie’s analysis perhaps underplays the connection between the doctrinal and hortatory sections of the text. He also pays particular attention to ‘cohesion shifts,’ or places where a break in the discourse marks the start of a new section. Such transitions may be signalled by a change in speaker, in verb tense or mood, in temporal or spatial references, or by a new topic. Guthrie certainly succeeds in identifying some key literary features of Hebrews and in highlighting the boundaries of major units, but he is criticized by, for example, Westfall, for focusing on disjunctures in the discourse to the neglect of conjunctions, which are another important way of signalling continuity and discontinuity within a text. ¹⁰ It should also be recognized that an element of subjectivity will enter into the judgements that all scholars make about such matters as section breaks or the significance of repeated phrases. As the differences between the outlines of Hebrews given in all the major commentaries well illustrate, then, this question of its structure is far from resolved.

More recently, Vanhoye’s approach has been taken forward in a particular new direction by Cynthia Long Westfall. ¹¹ She employs a method called discourse analysis, which seeks to analyse the way language operates in a text within units larger than individual clauses and sentences. ¹² Like Guthrie, therefore, she uses grammatical and literary features such as conjunctions and variations in verb person, number or mood to identify the boundaries of units of text: the introduction of the hortatory subjunctive verb form in Heb 4:11, for instance, is taken as a deliberate signal of the start of a new section. Westfall reads Heb 3:1 as an important key to the epistle’s overall message, which she sums up as the presentation of Jesus as ‘the apostle and high priest of our confession’ (throughout Heb 1:1–10:25), and the consequent invitation to the hearers to become ‘partners in this heavenly calling’ (Heb 10:19–13:25). In her stated intention to consider both the text in its social environment and the way in which language is used by the author of Hebrews, ¹³ Westfall echoes the concerns of rhetorical and socio-rhetorical criticism. Commentators from this perspective such as Craig Koester and David DeSilva seek to explain how Hebrews actually functions to persuade or educate its audience. ¹⁴ Thus DeSilva stresses the means employed by the author to try to encourage his hearers to remain committed to the Christian movement. ¹⁵ DeSilva and Koester appeal to the power of the cultural values of honour and shame, for instance, to illuminate both the claims made for Jesus in Hebrews and its paraenetic concerns, thereby offering new insights into the message and social context of Hebrews. In this reading, the emphasis on Jesus’ exalted status as son in comparison to the angels (Heb 1:4–2:9), and to significant religious figures like Moses (Heb 3:1–6) and the Levitical priests (Heb 7:1–28), serves to highlight just how foolish and shameful it would be for the audience to relinquish the benefits offered to them by such a powerful patron, which include entry into God’s promised rest (Heb 4:1–13). ¹⁶

To sum up the situation in relation to the Hebrews chapters 3–4, then, commentators continue to hold different views about whether Heb 4:14–16 belongs with the preceding discussion or marks the start of another section which extends to Heb 5:10. There does, however, seem to be a growing acceptance of the possibility that it serves as a transitional paragraph looking both backwards and forwards. ¹⁷ Likewise, Heb 3:1 is generally taken as the beginning of a new unit, although Koester argues that Heb 3:1–6 carries on the theme introduced at 2:10. ¹⁸ The widespread recognition that this paragraph is connected to the ensuing citation of Ps 94:7–11 LXX is, however, significant for the discussion of the use of the Old Testament in the letter, the second major concern which stands out in current scholarship and to which we now turn.

The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Hebrews 3–4

Recent study of the scriptural interpretation of chapters 3–4 of Hebrews has benefited firstly from careful research into the text forms underlying the quotations which provide the basis for this section of the letter. Martin Karrer and Gert Steyn are the names currently particularly associated with this endeavour, ¹⁹ ably following in the footsteps of earlier scholars like J.Cecil McCullough. ²⁰ The last two decades have witnessed a growing appreciation among New Testament commentators of the extent of textual pluriformity in the first century CE, so that the task of establishing the Vorlage of the Old Testament citations in the New has become more complicated than in the past. This shift in thinking has resulted, however, in a much fuller picture of the variety of text forms available to the author of Hebrews, who usually cites his sources accurately. ²¹ In the case of the lengthy psalm quotation in chapter 3, there are some minor differences from the standard Septuagint reading, which may derive from his use of an alternative version, ²² or represent his preference for Attic Greek verb forms. ²³ The text is also altered so that it can speak directly to this generation (Heb 3:10) rather than to that one which lived in the wilderness period (Ps 94:10 LXX).

There is one more significant divergence between the citation of Ps 94:9–10 LXX in Hebrews and all the known Septuagint witnesses: the additional particle ‘therefore’ (Greek διό) is introduced between two clauses of the citation at Heb 3:10. This has the effect of linking the period of 40 years here to the Israelites’ testing of God in the wilderness rather than to the duration of God’s wrath, as in the Psalm. I have previously suggested that this may be an example of an exegetical technique used elsewhere in Hebrews (e.g. Heb 2:12–13; 10:5–9), whereby the Psalm text is divided into two separate quotations which are then interpreted in turn. ²⁴ This proposal has not, however, been taken up by others, and the most common view is that the author wished to present the wilderness period in a positive light, not as a time of punishment. ²⁵ All explanations of this problem, however, need to deal with the fact that the interpretation that follows assumes the traditional reading that it was indeed God’s anger which lasted for 40 years (Heb 3:17).

In addition to this focus on textual form, some recent research has also explored the exegetical methods applied to the scriptural citations in Hebrews 3–4. In a detailed study of this subject, for example, I have identified some of the precise hermeneutical techniques in operation in these chapters, and have drawn comparisons with the interpretation of scripture in early Jewish literature, especially the targumim and midrashim. Examples of these methods include: the provision of new context for citations containing first person divine speech; the placing of heavy stress on certain words or phrases within a scriptural text, such as ‘rest’ or ‘servant’; and the importance of the introductions to exegetical sections of the letter, like Heb 3:1–6, for framing the interpretation which follows (see also Heb 1:1–4; 8:1–2; 11:1–3). ²⁶

This recognition of the early Jewish context of Hebrews, and the attempt to provide a more rigorous description of the exegetical methods employed in it, are, then, significant features of current scholarship. There is also a growing appreciation of the extent to which the author was aware of the wider context of his citations. ²⁷ Peter Enns, for instance, has pointed to the connections drawn in both Psalm 94 LXX and Hebrews chapter 4 between the themes of creation and exodus (see e.g. Ps 94:5–6 LXX; Heb 4:3–9). ²⁸ This issue, together with other key questions of text form and exegetical method, has also been explored systematically by Guthrie in the section on Hebrews in a major commentary on the use of the Old Testament in the New published in 2007. ²⁹

Other commentators have turned their attention to the question of how the author’s use of the Old Testament contributes to his overall purpose and argument. David Allen, for instance, explores the way in which the Book of Deuteronomy functions within the epistle, especially within its exhortatory sections. ³⁰ He argues persuasively that Hebrews is conceived as a ‘new Deuteronomy,’ and that the central Deuteronomic imagery of land in particular becomes an important symbol of the salvation which the community are on the threshold of attaining: ‘The frequent textual citation of Deuteronomy, the replication of key themes such as covenant and land, the adoption of the Song [of Moses, Deut 32] and its association with the end of the Mosaic era all point to an over-arching re-presentation of the Deuteronomic choice between life and death, apostasy and faithfulness, blessing and curse. Deuteronomy’s paraenesis becomes Hebrews’ paraenesis.’ ³¹ For Allen, the exposition of Ps 94:7–11 LXX as well as the use of Deuteronomy indicates that the term ‘land’ in Hebrews should not be interpreted only in a spiritual sense, because it is clearly associated with Canaan as well as heaven. ³²

One further interesting feature to have emerged from recent study of the scriptural interpretation in Hebrews 3–4 is a reprising of the suggestion that a Joshua-Jesus typology is in play, indicated especially by Heb 4:8, which reads in Greek: εἰ γὰρ αὐτοὺς Ἰησοῦς κατέπαυσεν οὐκ ἂν περὶ ἄλλης ἐλάλει μετὰ ταῦτα ἡμέρας (‘For if Jesus had given them rest, he would not speak later of another day’). The obvious correspondences between the Greek form of the names Jesus and Joshua has attracted attention from the time of the early church fathers onwards. Rendel Harris was one of the earliest modern commentators to propose, as long ago as 1919, that Hebrews draws a connection between Jesus and both scriptural Joshuas, the successor of Moses and the post-exilic high priest of Zechariah 3. ³³ The possibility that the author of Hebrews intended to link Jesus with the first Joshua has been noted by many scholars since then, including Allen and Attridge, ³⁴ but the idea that the priestly Joshua also may be in view has not been widely pursued.

In a recently published revised PhD thesis, however, Bryan Whitfield has returned to Rendel Harris’s suggestion, and concludes that the figure of Joshua in Zechariah 3 has contributed to the presentation in Hebrews of Jesus as a priest, which he regards as its main theme. ³⁵ As there are no obvious direct parallels between Hebrews and this chapter, he makes a case that interpretation of the Zechariah text has influenced the development of a tradition about the ascension of the priestly figure Levi to heaven, as attested in sources such as the Testament of Levi and Jubilees. He then argues that this understanding of a priest who stands in heaven is reflected also in Hebrews. ³⁶ Some of the links that Whitfield advances between these Second Temple Jewish writings and Zechariah 3 appear rather tenuous, but he does succeed in general terms in highlighting this passage as a possibly neglected inter-text of the epistle. It should also be noted that his engagement with critical studies of Hebrews which have appeared in print since 2003 is sparse, perhaps partly because there was a considerable time-gap between the completion of his thesis and its publication.

Richard Ounsworth has also taken up the question of a Jesus-Joshua typology, independently of Whitfield, and focusing only on the relationship between Jesus and Joshua son of Nun. ³⁷ He contends that the overall message of Hebrews is that since Joshua was more faithful than Moses and the rest of his contemporaries in the wilderness era, he was able to bring the next generation of Israelites into the promised land, but he could not bring them to God’s ultimate rest, so this task was accomplished by his namesake, Jesus. This argument depends on regarding the scriptural narrative of Numbers 14 as underlying the discussion of Psalm 94 LXX in Heb 3:7–4:11, a point which is widely accepted by commentators. In this Pentateuchal text, the faith of Joshua is emphasized, and contrasted with the attitude of the rest of the wilderness generation; it is this faith which enables him (and Caleb) to gain access to land of Canaan. ³⁸

Ounsworth discusses the meaning of the term ‘typology’ in some detail, arguing for the view that typological relationships were understood in the ancient world to be real and not merely literary correspondences, ³⁹ and drawing attention to the ‘typological modelling’ present in works of rewritten bible and some Qumran texts, in which connections between biblical characters and events are highlighted. ⁴⁰ He also notes that a Joshua-Jesus typology does emerge in some later early Christian writings, which may indicate that their authors read Hebrews in this way. ⁴¹

Ounsworth’s work is well-argued and interesting, but perhaps lacks the familiarity which might be expected with the full range of literature on the subject of the interpretation of the Old Testament in the New. ⁴² In any case, the main problem with every attempt to present a case for a Joshua-Jesus typology remains the fact that no such relationship is made explicit in the epistle, although comparisons between Jesus and other scriptural figures, such as Moses in Heb 3:1–6, are quite unambiguous. Joshua’s ability to guide the Israelites into Canaan is not stressed in Hebrews 3–4, and, furthermore, both Ounsworth and Whitfield have to expend considerable effort on justifying his omission from the catalogue of exemplars of faith in chapter 11. Whitfield suggests that Joshua is deliberately left out of this list because the name of the new and greater Joshua is being held in reserve for the climax of this section, Heb 12:2. ⁴³ Such explanations are not fully convincing and it is probably safest, as Ounsworth himself appears to recognize, to go no further than accepting that some readers of Hebrews may possibly infer a typological connection between Joshua and Jesus, without assuming that the author definitely intended to draw out this relationship. ⁴⁴

The Concept of God’s ‘Rest’

The third major theme in recent study of Hebrews 3–4 is the search to make sense of the contested term ‘rest,’ which occurs in the citation of Ps 94:11 LXX (Heb 3:11) and is then repeated several times in these chapters. Throughout the history of scholarship, this concept has always been central to debates about the religious and philosophical background of the epistle, a subject which continues to engage commentators today. The issue turns on whether ‘rest’ should be regarded as having a primarily future referent, as is suggested in some early Jewish sources such as 2 Bar 7:31, ⁴⁵ or whether it should be viewed as something already attained, such as the land of Israel. Likewise there is a variety of opinion about whether ‘rest’ is best interpreted with Käsemann and Hofius spatially as an actual place in heaven, perhaps the heavenly temple, or rather, with Attridge, as a condition, or the state of God’s eternal sabbatical repose. ⁴⁶ These questions continue to generate a wealth of studies, especially because there is currently a resurgence of interest in the eschatology of Hebrews. No fewer than four revised PhD dissertations on this theme have appeared in print between 1997 and 2008, ⁴⁷ and several articles devoted to the specific concept of ‘rest’ have also been published, most notably by Andrew Lincoln and Nicholas Moore. ⁴⁸ Of the monographs considered here, Jon Laansma’s provides the deepest and most wide-ranging analysis. Judith Wray, on the other hand, is in the minority in playing down both the significance of ‘rest’ as a theological metaphor within Hebrews and the link between this term and the letter’s christology. Ounsworth’s examination of a Joshua-Jesus typology (discussed above) also touches on this area, as he envisages Canaan as a ‘type’ of the eschatological ‘rest’ into which the new Joshua can lead his followers. ⁴⁹

These recent studies are generally concerned to situate the understanding of ‘rest’ in Hebrews within the context of first century apocalypticism, as was first proposed by C. K. Barrett, ⁵⁰ rather than against the backdrop of Greek philosophical speculation and the dualistic outlook of Philo with which the author was previously linked by a number of commentators, most notably the French scholar Ceslas Spicq in the 1950s. ⁵¹ Jody Barnard has made a particular contribution to this debate by providing a detailed exploration of the significance of Jewish apocalyptic and mystical traditions for the interpretation of Hebrews. ⁵² The time of eschatological ‘rest’ was regarded within some strands of early Judaism as involving participation in heavenly worship (cf. Heb 11:16; 12:22). A marked tendency is emerging in current scholarship, therefore, to explain the bringing together in Heb 4:3–4 of the ideas of ‘rest’ and the ‘sabbath’ by looking back to the connections drawn between the expected eschatological ‘rest’ and the sabbath in Qumran texts such as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice ⁵³ and in other Second Temple Jewish writings (e.g. 1 En 39:4; 45:3; 4 Ezra 7:36-8; 2 Bar 73:1; 85:9-11; TDan 5:10-13; JosAsen 8:9). Thus the translation ‘sabbath celebration’ rather than ‘sabbath rest’ for σαββατισμός is increasingly being preferred at Heb 4:9. As Barnard explains, this is seen as better expressing the idea that ‘rest’ ‘is the Sabbath into which God himself entered at creation, and is therefore the state that believers may experience in the immediate presence of God, a nuance that is also attested in the Jewish scriptures (e.g. Exod 33:14; Isa 66:1).’ ⁵⁴ This understanding of the term has, for some commentators, become the key to resolving the problem of the narrative coherence of the letter: Laansma and Moore, for example, both put forward a similar argument that the author aims to present Jesus as the high priest who has already entered into the heavenly temple and who is now, therefore, able to offer the believing community the opportunity to follow him and participate in sabbath worship around the celestial throne. ⁵⁵ The dominant view today, therefore, seems to be that there is both a future and a presently realized dimension to the eschatology of Hebrews, since the followers of Jesus do enter that ‘rest’ (Heb 4:3) but must also continually strive to attain it (Heb 4:11). ⁵⁶

Given that the pendulum has now swung firmly away from comparing Hebrews with Philo, then, it is perhaps surprising to see Stefan Nordgaard Svendsen returning to this question of the relationship between Philo and Hebrews, albeit from a very different angle. He fully accepts that the author of the epistle does not share Philo’s Platonic metaphysical outlook, but argues that he has been influenced by Philo’s exegesis of the scriptures, on the basis that the typological approach he employs is a variation of the allegorical method. ⁵⁷ Thus he finds an allegorical interpretation of several scriptural themes in Hebrews, including the land of Canaan in chapters 3–4; the wilderness tabernacle (Heb 8:1–6; 9:1–10); and the high priest (Heb 9:11–10:18). ⁵⁸ His work thus brings together two of the major areas of investigation highlighted here, namely the interpretation of the Old Testament in Hebrews and its religious and philosophical background.

Svendsen’s study is thought-provoking, and demonstrates a sound understanding of Philo’s thought and of the Platonic and Stoic philosophies which shaped him. Ultimately, however, his argument is not fully convincing. First, many of the exegetical methods found in Hebrews can be paralleled just as easily in other forms of early Jewish interpretation as in Philo. Second, he does not succeed in firmly establishing his claim that the author is using allegory in re-presenting the theme of land or the tabernacle or the high priest, since all these symbols are applied in Hebrews to concrete, contemporary events and people, rather than to archetypal ideas as in Philo’s writings. ⁵⁹ Third, Svendsen himself has to acknowledge that the allegorical method is not the technique employed most frequently in Hebrews to exegete scripture, thus weakening considerably the case for wholesale Philonic influence on the author. ⁶⁰

Conclusions

In conclusion, this review of recent significant work on Hebrews chapters 3–4 has demonstrated that fresh and interesting approaches are being found to address anew the long-standing questions posed by this section of the epistle, such as the influences on the author, his interpretation of the Jewish scriptures, and his eschatological and christological thought. These contemporary studies are characterized firstly by the search for greater precision, leading to better-informed conclusions about the text-form underlying the quotations, more accurate descriptions of the author’s exegetical methods, and a greater clarity about the meaning of terms like ‘typology.’ Second, this new generation of commentators are generally sensitive to both the diversity of late Second Temple Jewish thought, and to the immense value of the extant literature from this period for understanding Hebrews. This has resulted in a fuller picture of the traditions behind some of the epistle’s major themes such as ‘rest’ and the priesthood of Jesus, as well as more nuanced accounts generally of the relationship it sets forth between Moses and Jesus, and between the people of Israel and the Christian community. Finally, there is a marked tendency to try to discover a coherence of theme and argument within Hebrews, although a firm consensus about the letter’s overall message and structure has yet to emerge.