Hebrews 4:4-8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For he spake in a certain place Namely, Genesis 2:2; Exodus 31:17; on this wise, God did rest, &c. These words the apostle quotes, because they show that the seventh-day rest is fitly called God's rest, and that the seventh-day rest was observed from the creation of the world. “God's ceasing from his works of creation is called his resting from all his works, because, according to our way of conceiving things, he had exerted an infinite force in creating the mundane system.” Macknight. And in this place again, If they shall enter That is, they shall not enter; into my rest Namely, the rest of Canaan, to be entered above three thousand years after the former. This is called God's rest, 1st, Because, after the Israelites got possession of that country, God rested from his work of introducing them; 2d, Because they were there to observe God's sabbaths, and to perform his worship free from the fear of their enemies, Luke 1:68; Luke 1:74. Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein As if he had said, From what has been spoken, it is evident that, besides the rest of God from the foundation of the world, and a seventh-day sabbath as a pledge thereof, there was another rest, which some persons were to enter into, namely, the rest in the land of Canaan; and they to whom it was first preached That is, published and offered by Moses in the wilderness; entered not in because of unbelief As was said above. Again, &c. And further, besides the two times of rest before mentioned, namely, those of the creation and of Canaan, he afterward, in this psalm, speaks of another; he limiteth a certain day That is, the Holy Ghost specifies and appoints another determinate time or season of rest besides those before mentioned, whose season was now past; saying in David In the psalm penned by him; after so long a time After they had entered into the rest of Canaan, and had possessed it for about five hundred years, he yet again calls upon them to seek after another rest: therefore there is another besides that of Canaan. For if Jesus That is, Joshua; had given them rest If that rest which they obtained under the conduct of Joshua, who brought them into Canaan, had been all which was intended by God for them, this latter exhortation by David had been needless. Upon the whole, the apostle proves that after the original rest at the creation, there was a second promised and proposed to the people of God, namely, in Canaan; but yet neither was that the rest intended in the place of the psalm here so often referred to; but a third, which yet remained for them, and was now offered to them, and that under the same promises and threatenings with the former, namely, to be conferred on obedient believers, and withheld from the unbelieving and disobedient.