Hebrews 11:39 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

These all, having obtained a good report Μαρτυρηθεντες, being witnessed unto, as persons who did or suffered great things by faith. The expression does not imply that all the Israelitish judges, captains, and other worthies mentioned in this chapter, as well as the ancients, were truly righteous persons, justified by their faith, and made heirs of eternal salvation; for the apostle's design in this part of his epistle being to show, by examples from the Jewish Scriptures, the influence which faith in the divine revelations and promises hath to excite men to perform those difficult and dangerous enterprises which he assigns to them in particular, the witness which was borne to some of them means only the praise which was given to them in Scripture on account of the faith which they showed in performing these particular great actions. Received not the promise The great promised blessings, namely, Christ the promised seed, come in the flesh, as the accomplishment of all the types and shadows, whether of the Mosaic or the patriarchal dispensation. They received the promise that the Messiah should come, as is said of Abraham, (Hebrews 11:17,) but did not receive the accomplishment of it. This the apostle positively asserts; but that the Christians in his days had received it, as is signified Hebrews 11:40. “It is therefore not only untrue and unsafe,” as Dr. Owen observes, “but contrary to the fundamental principles of our religion, the faith of Christians in all ages, and the design of the apostle in this whole epistle, to interpret this promise, as some do, of any thing but the coming of Christ in the flesh, of his accomplishment of the work of our redemption, with the unspeakable privileges and advantages that the church hath received thereby. That this promise was made to the elders from the beginning of the world, that it was not actually accomplished to them, being necessarily confined to one season, called the fulness of time, and that herein lies the great difference of the two states of the church, that under the Old Testament and that under the New, with the prerogative of the latter above the former, are such weighty sacred truths, that without an acknowledgment of them no important doctrine, either of the Old Testament or of the New, can be rightly understood. This then was the state of believers under the Old Testament; they had the promise of the exhibition of Christ, the Son of God, in the flesh, for the redemption of the church; this promise they received, saw afar off, as to its actual accomplishment, were persuaded of the truth of it, and embraced it, Hebrews 11:13. The actual accomplishment of it they desired, longed for, and looked after, (Luke 10:24,) inquiring diligently into the grace of God contained therein, 1 Peter 1:11-13. Hereby they enjoyed the benefits of it, even as we do; yet they received not its actual accomplishment in the coming of Christ, the reason of which the apostle gives in the next verse.