Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
For if Jesus had given them rest - It is truly surprising that our translators should have rendered the of the text Jesus, and not Joshua, who is most clearly intended. They must have known that the Yehoshua of the Hebrew, which we write Joshua, is everywhere rendered , Jesus, by the Septuagint; and it is their reading which the apostle follows. It is true the Septuagint generally write , or ̔ , Jesus Nave, or Jesus, son of Nave, for it is thus they translate Yehoshua ben Nun , Joshua the son of Nun; and this is sufficient to distinguish it from Jesus, son of David. But as Joshua, the captain general of Israel, is above intended, the word should have been written Joshua, and not Jesus. One MS., merely to prevent the wrong application of the name, has ̔ , Jesus the son of Nave. Theodoret has the same in his comment, and one Syriac version has it in the text. It is Joshua in Coverdale' s Testament, 1535; in Tindal' s 1548; in that edited by Edmund Becke, 1549; in Richard Cardmarden' s, Rouen, 1565; several modern translators, Wesley, Macknight, Wakefield, etc., read Joshua, as does our own in the margin. What a pity it had not been in the text, as all the smaller Bibles have no marginal readings, and many simple people are bewildered with the expression.
The apostle shows that, although Joshua did bring the children of Israel into the promised land, yet this could not be the intended rest, because long after this time the Holy Spirit, by David, speaks of this rest; the apostle, therefore, concludes,
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Hebrews 4:8:
Joshua 11:23
Joshua 24:33
Psalms 95:10
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