Introduction
When I was a child, I thought like a child. Therefore, when I read the Scriptures in the King James Version, I dared to ask questions I never heard adults pose. So, in my reading, I came upon Hebrews 4:8-9—“For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” I was yet ignorant. I did not know that the Greek word for “Jesus” and “Joshua” was identical, Ἰησοῦς. I did know the name meant “Savior.” So, I took the text at face value, as a reference to Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, not Joshua, the son of Nun. This reading made sense to my young mind because, during our family Bible reading, I came to realize how the Book of Joshua closes with Joshua leading the Israelites into the promised land to take possession of it by settling it. So, “the Lord gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass” (Joshua 21:43-45). So, though I did not realize it, my naïve understanding of the text avoided what I later came to think contradicted the claims of Joshua 21. I lacked the wherewithal to explain my nascent understanding, but I believed that Christ was present among the Israelites.
As I continued to read, I came upon Hebrews 11:24-26—“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.” This passage confirmed my youthful thinking that the Jesus mentioned in Hebrews 4:8 must be Jesus Christ. What may have restrained adults from receiving the text as I, did not trouble me. Though I did not have categories to explain my belief, I accepted that Moses somehow knew Christ, albeit before his incarnation.
Uncluttered by erudition, my youthful reasoning dared to take the text at face value. I understood the text to mean that Moses believed in the Messiah. That the Messiah had not yet come in the flesh at the time of Moses did not dissuade my belief because I had been taught that the Messiah, being the Son of God, is eternal. Hence, nascent as my belief was, I was confident that Moses’s belief in the Messiah was somehow warranted by the numerous things of which he wrote—his face-to-face encounter with the Lord on Mount Sinai, the Passover Lamb, the Exodus, the Lord’s covenant presence signified by the pillars of cloud by day and of fire by night (Ex. 13:21-22), and so much more. Therefore, it was also not difficult to accept the mention of Ἰησοῦς in Hebrews 4:8 as a direct reference to Jesus of Nazareth rather than Joshua the son of Nun.
Then, Bible college instructors challenged the bliss of my youthful reasoning. A first-year instructor required us to use The Berkeley Version of the Bible, which became our primary version for all our Bible courses. It translates Hebrews 4:8, “Now, if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.” This put a crack in my ingenuous thinking, but a footnote—“Iesous, Joshua, Jehoshua, Jesus, all meaning, Jehovah saves”—preserved some hope for retaining my adolescent understanding of the text. That crack did not shatter my reading inclination but let in more light. Later, too wise to mention this to any of my seminary professors, I wondered, what if the writer to the Hebrews ingeniously and purposely employed the equivocating nature of the name when he wrote, “For if Ἰησοῦς had given them rest, he would not have spoken later concerning another day,” to obligate readers to linger mindfully. A. T. Hanson confirmed that my thinking was not alone. He believes “Ἰησοῦς . . . may very well be intended to mean quite literally Jesus and not Joshua”1
I have become fully persuaded that the syntax of Hebrews 4:8-10 requires reading Ἰησοῦς of the Greek New Testament not only as the subject of the first verb, “he had given them rest” (κατέπαυσεν), but also the second verb, “he would not have spoken” (ἐλάλει) and as the antecedent subject of the participle “the one who entered” (ὁ εἰσελθὼν) and the verb “he entered” (κατέπαυσεν), and as the clear antecedent of both uses of the third-person personal pronoun “his” (αὐτοῦ). Thus, the syntax compels us to translate Ἰησοῦς as Jesus rather than Joshua, as modern English translations do.
The Greek Text and Translation Options
- [(NA26] Εἰ γὰρ αὐτοὺς Ἰησοῦς κατέπαυσεν, οὐκ ἂν περὶ ἄλλης ἐλάλει μετὰ ταῦτα ἡμέρας· ἄρα ἀπολείπεται σαββατισμὸς τῷ λαῷ τοῦ θεοῦ. ὁ γὰρ εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὴν κατάπαυσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτὸς κατέπαυσεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων ὁ θεός.
- [KJV] For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into hisrest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
- [My translation] For if Jesus had given them rest, then he would not have spoken later of another day. Therefore, there remains a rest for God’s people. For the one who entered into his rest also rested from his own works, as God did from his.2
- [ESV] For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Why is it so difficult for translators and academics to take the text of Hebrews 4:8 at face value? The implicit claim in Hebrews 4:8 concerning Jesus, that he transcends time, is a biblical truism and is reinforced when Hebrews later speaks of Moses, who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt” (Hebrews 11:26). Why not accept that the writer to the Hebrews has no difficulty speaking of Jesus, whose name means Savior, as the one who did not give rest to the generation of Israelites who left Egypt?3 After all, Jude makes the same claim in an even more emphatic manner: “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 5). Neither passage in Hebrews nor others, including Jude 5, entails a chronological misplacement of Jesus Christ, who transcends history.4
The ESV, which is representative of other modern English translations, should be, on the face of it, judged unequivocally and embarrassingly wrong. By taking Ἰησοῦς as Joshua, the ESV rejected Ἰησοῦς (Jesus) as the subject of the next verb, would not have spoken, and, contrary to the syntax, forcibly injected God as the subject of that verb. Once the translators committed to translating Ἰησοῦς as Joshua, they were constrained by reason to impose God as the subject of would not have spoken because Joshua, unlike Jesus, was already dead long before David came on the scene and wrote Psalm 95. Thus, Joshua could not be the subject of the verb would not have spoken. Against the ESV, Ἰησοῦς, as Jesus, is the only viable and correct actor of the verb would not have spoken because he is eternal. He was contemporaneous not only with the rebellious Israelites at Kadesh Barnea, where they rebelled, but also with David when he wrote his psalms. Thus, the entirely natural actor for the verb would not have spoken (ἐλάλει) is Jesus, not God, as the ESV is constrained to say because of the choice already made concerning Ἰησοῦς.
When the ESV translators get to verse 10, they make an astonishing and inexplicable move. They treat the aorist substantival participle, “the one who entered” (ὁ εἰσελθὼν), whose antecedent is clearly Ἰησοῦς (Jesus), as an indefinite and timeless participle, generically referring to people who believe in Christ Jesus. Then, in place of the unambiguous use of the third-person personal pronoun “his” (αὐτοῦ), which clearly has Ἰησοῦς as its antecedent, the ESV translators arbitrarily reach to the end of verse 10 to take God (ὁ θεός) and forcibly move it forward, interjecting God as the possessor of the rest in place of Ἰησοῦς who is the only proper grammatical antecedent of the one who has entered “his” (αὐτοῦ) rest. Then, again, the ESV translators force the indefinite, generically referred-to believer as the subject of the verb has also rested (κατέπαυσεν) and also as the antecedent of the next use of “his” (αὐτοῦ).5
By this point in the Preacher’s argument, the rest offered in David’s eschatological “Today” in Psalm 95 and the rest announced at the close of creation week in Genesis 2:1-2 are inseparably linked through the rest Jesus did not give the rebellious Israelites who left Egypt. Thus, the Preacher presents Jesus, “who rested from his own works,” as “the one who entered into his rest,” as the complement to God who rested from his works on the seventh day.
Thus, the ESV translation of Hebrews 4:8 seems untenable. It is misleading syntactically and exegetically disruptive to the flow of the argument begun in Hebrews 3 and spanning chapter 4. It begs for correction. The KJV got it right in 1611, but exegetes have missed the pointedness of the use of Ἰησοῦς in Hebrews 4:8. Here is how Hebrews 4:8-10 should be translated today: “For if Jesus had given them rest, then he would not have spoken later of another day. Therefore, there remains a rest for God’s people. For the one who entered into his rest also rested from his own works, as God did from his.”
Ἰησοῦς As Joshua Disrupts the Reasoned Argument
To follow modern English translations by reading Ἰησοῦς as Joshua in Hebrews 4:8 breaks the contrastive comparison with which Hebrews 3 so emphatically begins by presenting Moses as a faithful servant in his house, contrasted with Jesus as the faithful Son over his house. Here, the Preacher builds on his hearers’ knowledge that faithful Moses led the Israelites, who left Egypt, to the Promised Land of rest, even sending spies into the land, but he could not lead the people into rest because of their rebellion at Kadesh Barnea. Certainly, the Preacher realizes that Joshua led the younger generation into the land, and surely, he is aware that the Lord gave them rest in the land, but he never introduces the wilderness generation and the Preacher’s argument never makes any reference at all to their entry into the land.
Furthermore, the Israelites admonished by David in Psalm 95 were already dwelling in Canaan just as their ancestors had for many generations. Thus, David’s words—“Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,” coupled with “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’”—should not at all be read with Joshua 21:43-44—“the Lord gave them rest on every side”—in mind. After all, the Preacher compels his congregation to hear the admonition of Psalm 95 against the backdrop of the exodus generation’s rebellion at Kadesh Barnea, refusing to enter the land with its rest, which was but an earthly shadow of the great heavenly reality of the rest the Greater Moses, the Son over his house, would bring about in the latter days.
Eternal Ἰησοῦς Greater than Moses and David
Surely, the Preacher knew precisely what he was doing by using the earthly name, Ἰησοῦς, instead of the title, Χριστός (Messiah), when he wrote 4:8. Indeed, as most commentaries on Hebrews affirm, Joshua the son of Nun certainly serves as a type of Jesus, but the Preacher arrests his hearers attention, obliging them to hear in his mention of Ἰησοῦς not Joshua the son of Nun but Jesus God’s Son who is greater than both Moses or Joshua. How is this Ἰησοῦς greater than both Joshua and Moses? He was present when that rebellious generation refused to enter the land at Kadesh Barnea and find rest. He was also present when David wrote his psalm. In fact, the words David wrote belong to this Ἰησοῦς as the Preacher affirms by attributing David’s words (“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”) to Ἰησοῦς.
I believe that acknowledging that Ἰησοῦς in 4:8 refers to Jesus, God’s Son, rather than to Joshua the son of Nun, greatly assists us in showing that Craig Carter, Matthew Bates, Madison Pierce, et al. are mistaken to speak of “prosopological exegesis.”6 The Preacher does not put the various psalmists’ words into the mouths of God or of Jesus. Rather, the Preacher’s argument, from the sermon’s proposition (Hebrews 1:1-4) forward, hangs on the weighty Christology he unfolds. Jesus was there at the Israelites’ rebellion. Jesus is the one of whom the many psalms quoted in Hebrews 1 speak. Jesus was there to receive all the accolades of those many psalms, but the Preacher doesn’t tell us this immediately. He holds readers at bay until 2:8-9 to break it to his readers about whom all those glorious accolades have been spoken. Not until a third of the way through chapter 2 does the Preacher expressly state that it is Jesus. After quoting Psalm 8:4-6 to authorize his assertion, “For it was not to angels he has subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking,” the Preacher restrains from at once naming the one of whom he is speaking. Instead, first he underscores the already-but-not-yet nature of the situation by accentuating the lowliness of the one now highly esteemed, but not yet is everything in subjection to him. Then, he doesn’t give readers his prophesied title, Messiah (Christ). Instead, he gives the earthly name by which he was known during his humiliation—Jesus.
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2:8-9).
Ἰησοῦς Foregrounded Throughout Hebrews 1—4
Throughout Hebrews 2-4, the Preacher does not foreground God (Θεός) nor Christ (Χριστός) but Jesus (Ἰησοῦς; Hebrews 2:9; 3:1; 4:8, 14), yet with subtle restraint. Thus, in Hebrews 2:6-8, the Preacher presents Jesus as the one about whom Psalm 8:4-6 speaks. Again, Hebrews 2:12-13 present Jesus as the speaker in each of three Old Testament citations:
I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise (Psalm 22:22).I will put my trust in him (Isaiah 8:17).
Behold, I and the children God has given me Isaiah 8:18).
Hebrews 1-2 contrasts Jesus with the angels. Jesus, to whom God subjected the world to come, though for a time made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of his suffering of death, is superior to the angels. Thus, throughout Hebrews 2:5-18, the Preacher features the incarnate Jesus, who, made like his brother, became a merciful and faithful high priest in God’s service by striking the deathblow to death through his suffering.
From this, the Preacher reasons, “Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all his house” (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ; Hebrews 3:1-2). Whereas chapters 1-2 contrast Jesus with angels, chapters 3-4 contrast Jesus with Moses. “For this one [Jesus] is considered worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself” (Hebrews 3:3). “Moses was faithful as a servant in his house for a witness of things later to be spoken” (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ ὡς θεράπων εἰς μαρτύριον τῶν λαληθησομένων, 3:5). Jesus is “the Christ as Son over his house, whose house we are, if we hold fast confidence and rejoicing of hope” (χριστὸς δὲ ὡς υἱὸς ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ, οὗ οἶκος ἐσμὲν ἡμεῖς, 3:6). In Hebrews 3, the KJV translates οἶκος αὐτοῦ respectively in (1) “Moses was faithful in all his house” (3:2), (2) “Moses was faithful in all his house, as a servant” (3:5), and (3) “Christ as a son over his house” (3:6). The KJV preserves Moses and Christ as the antecedents, whereas modern versions interpret the same phrase as “God’s house” (ESV, NIV, CSB).
Thus, the Preacher’s somewhat startling statement, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then he would not have spoken later of another day,” obliges readers to recall his multiple uses of Ἰησοῦς in his argument, both reaching back to Hebrews 2:8-9 and 3:1-2; and forward to 4:14.
- For in subjecting everything to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him, who for a short time was made lower than the angels, Jesus, who, on account of the suffering of death, was crowned with glory and honor so that by God’s grace might taste death for everyone (Hebrews 2:8-9).
- Therefore, holy brothers, who share in a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all his house (Hebrews 3:1-2).
- Therefore, since we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession (Hebrews 4:14).
The Preacher’s foregrounding of Jesus (Ἰησοῦς) throughout chapters 1 through 4, with only two uses of Christ (Χριστός; 3:6, 14), provides confirmation that his use of Ἰησοῦς in Hebrews 4:8 is integral to his Christological argument throughout the first four chapters, featuring Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, climaxing his claims by still using Jesus, the earthly name, rather than Christ (Messiah), his prophesied and proper title. “Therefore, since we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast the confession (Hebrews 4:14).
Conclusion
Hence, it should be no surprise but a welcome proclamation concerning our Lord, when the Preacher announces, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then he would not have spoken later of another day. Therefore, there remains a rest for God’s people. For the one who entered into his rest also rested from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:8-10). Likewise, the Preacher insists that we think of Jesus as the one the Father addresses in the psalms cited in chapter 1, the one who took on flesh and blood for us, the one who is worthy of greater glory than Moses, and the one who did not give the exodus generation of Israelites rest but spoke through David of another day of promised rest to be entered in these last days.
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1 A. T. Hanson believes “Ἰησοῦς . . . may very well be intended to mean quite literally Jesus and not Joshua” (Jesus Christ in the Old Testament [London: SPCK, 1965], 61).
2 The KJV translates the Greek name Ἰησοῦς as “Jesus,” whereas modern versions translate it as “Joshua.” I concur with J. Michael McKay, Jr., who persuasively argues that the KJV is correct (“Is Joshua a Type of Christ in Hebrews 4.8? An Assessment of the Referent of Ἰησοῦς,” NTS 68 (2022): 105-118. For my argument, see Ardel B. Caneday, “We Must Not Test Christ as Israelites Tested Him and Were Killed by Serpents”: The Pastoral Significance,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, San Antonio, TX (2023).
3 John Owen mistakenly claims that “if Jesus had given them rest” (Hebrews 4:8) refers to “the new generation that entered Canaan” (An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, vol. IV, ed. W. H. Goold [London: Johnstone & Hunter, 1855; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980], 317). Many commentators mistakenly conflate the two generations of Israelites into one, thus altering the argument in Hebrews 3–4.
4 Because the KJV translation of the New Testament was based on fewer and younger manuscripts, concerning Jude 5, it reflects the efforts of scribes who thought it necessary to change Jesus (Ἰησοῦς) to Lord (Κύριος). Thus, the KJV reads, “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” See also Paul’s uses in 1 Corinthians 10: “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (verse 4), and “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents” (verse 9).
5 Even though John Owen mistakenly takes “Jesus” in verse 8 as “Joshua,” he rightly resists applying verse 10 to believers but demonstrates with substantial reasoning that the reference is to Jesus Christ entering rest from his works. An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 332-336. It is not insignificant that another contemporary scholar agrees with Owen concerning Hebrews 4:10. See Nicholas J. Moore, “Jesus as ‘The One who Entered his Rest’: The Christological Reading of Hebrews 4.10” JSNT 36.4 (2014): 383-400.
6 Some call this “prosopological exegesis,” an ancient method that “interprets texts by assigning ‘faces,’ or characters, to ambiguous or unspecified personal (or personified) entities represented in the text in question” (Madison N. Pierce, Divine Discourse in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The Recontextualization of Spoken Quotations in Scripture, SBL Monograph Series 178 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020], 4). My essay shows how and why I reject that.