Hebrews 4:2 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Unto us was the gospel preached, &c.— For we are made partakers of the good tidings, as they also were: But the word which they heard, did not profit them, &c. The children of Israel had a promise of rest made to them; and so have we, as well as they. The word gospel signifies properly, as we have often observed, good news, or good tidings; which is the meaning of the word ευηγγελισμενοι here: but as that term is now appropriated by custom to the particular good tidings of Christ, it renders this passage very obscure, to call the good tidings of a rest, the gospel. The meaning is, "We Christians have had the joyful tidings of God's rest, or a state of happiness, in a cessation from all our labours, preached, to us, as well as the children of Israel had to them." The last clause might be rendered more properly, Being not through faith mixed with (that is, digested and turned into) nourishment, as it were, by those who heard it. Faith is here considered as the means by which the word of God is thus incorporated in the hearers. See ch. Hebrews 3:16.

Hebrews 4:2

2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the worda preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.