For we which have believed. — The emphasis is two-fold, resting both on “believed” and on “we enter.” The former looks back to Hebrews 4:2, “by faith” — “for it is we who believed that enter.”... The latter looks forward to the remainder of the verse, the purport of which is that the rest exists, and that “entering into the rest” may still be spoken of.
As I have sworn... — Rather (as above), as I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest, (See Hebrews 3:11.) If in the Scripture (Psalms 95:8) God warns men of a later age not to imitate the guilt of those whom He excluded from His rest, it follows (see below on Hebrews 4:10) that the time for entering into the rest of God was not then past and gone.
Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. — And therefore the rest into which God will enter with His redeemed people is not that which succeeded the works of creation. This caution is added because the words used by the Psalmist (Psalms 95:11) are derived from Genesis 2:2-3; though the same words are used, yet, we are reminded, the thought is widely different. The next two verses simply expand and support the thought contained in this: “For whereas we read in one Scripture that God ‘rested’ on the seventh day, another records His sentence on the disobedient people, ‘They shall not enter into My rest.’”