For unto us was. — Rather, for we have had glad tidings preached unto us, even as they had. The object of these words is to support Hebrews 4:1, “a promise being left.” How fitly the good news of the promise might, alike in their case and in ours, be designated by the same word as the “gospel,” will afterwards appear.
The word preached. — Literally, the word of hearing, i.e., the word which was heard (1 Thessalonians 2:13). But this does not mean the word heard by them. As in Isaiah 53:1 (where the same word is found in the Greek version) the meaning is “our message,” “that which we have heard from God,” so here the words signify what was heard by those who declared the promise to the people, especially the message which Moses received from God.
Not being mixed with faith. — A change of reading in the Greek, which rests on the strongest authority, compels us to connect these words, not with the message, but with the people: “since they had not been united (literally, mingled) by faith with them that heard.” That the word of Moses and those associated with him in declaring God’s promise (perhaps Aaron, Joshua, Caleb) might benefit the people, speakers and hearers must be united by the bond of faith. Here the margin of the Authorised version preserves the true text, following the Vulgate and the earliest of the printed Greek Testaments (the Complutensian).