Hebrews 4:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

As God rested, he says, from His works, so also does the one who has entered His rest. Since he was speaking to them about rest, and since it was very desirable to hear when this rest would be, he concludes the discourse in this way.

He explains in what sense he called such rest "Sabbath rest." For, he says, we too rest from our works, just as God rested from His works after ordering the world and called that day the Sabbath.

Here, even for the righteous, there is much labor, struggle, and every effort in virtue. There there is no concern or moral virtue, but immeasurable enjoyment of God. Therefore he said what they desired to hear, namely that they would be delivered from present labors, so as to gladden them.

God gives repose to those who enter into it, as God Himself rested from His works which He had accomplished.

Its title is: A Psalm, a song for the sons of Korah. On the second day after the Sabbath (Ps 47:1). Noble are the sons of Korah, and the preceding psalms have spoken of them with praise. With fitting dispositions and thoughts suited to the pursuit of virtues, they composed within themselves a spiritual Psalter, always watchful in the knowledge of divine things. Having been deemed worthy to penetrate the hidden heavenly mysteries, they stood intently upon the watchtower of the spirit. Therefore, when they received the sacred duty of singing psalms daily before the ark of the Lord, they were chosen to perform a special psalm on the day following the Sabbath. It was fitting that they should be entrusted to sing harmoniously of the ascent from Hades of the risen Lord.

"For he who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His." As the God of all completed all creation on the sixth day and rested on the seventh day from the works of making the world, so those who depart this life and enter that life will be freed from present labors.

The law also commanded the Jews to abstain from bodily works on the Sabbath and to devote care to souls alone. Then the Apostle continues the discourse in the form of counsel.

For the one keeping Sabbath, that is, the one who has entered God's rest, which God grants him, rests from every labor. For this rest is the enjoyment of every good, just as God Himself rested on the Sabbath day from the works of His creation.

"He also rested from his works, as God did from His." The one who has entered God's rest will rest from the works of this life, that is, from labors, misfortunes, sufferings, cares, and fear. For him peace and joy in the Holy Spirit will come.

In what, according to the Apostle's thought, does the rest of Christ's faithful followers consist, and when does it come for them? It comes in eternity, after blessed repose and after final departure from the field of earthly life, with faith and hope in Christ the Savior preserved to the end. It consists in the cessation of the anxious activity of earthly life, in the end of the struggle with the passions, and in the disappearance of every suffering. Then man will enter, as it were, within himself for blessed and undisturbed contemplation. This will be after his constant earthly distractions outside himself. In like manner the Lord God rested after the end of the six days of creation.

Since God would not have spoken through David of some new rest if the Hebrews had already enjoyed it from the time of Joshua (v. 8), the conclusion follows. The people of God, that is, believers from Jews and Gentiles, still have before them the future enjoyment of that Sabbath rest (σαββατισμός). It begins for them from the time of their entrance into the rest of God. Then the goal set by God for man at creation will be attained. Man, like God, will finish his works, which God appointed for him in temporal life. He will rest with true rest and enjoy the fruits of his labors (vv. 9-10). If even now it is not too late to enter God’s rest, Christians must strive toward this. Otherwise the same thing may happen to them that befell the Hebrews who were disobedient to God (v. 11).