08_Biblica_2_AM_C_Swetnam_Layout 1 30/01/13 13:18 Pagina 607 08_B 607 THE MEANING OF toi/j avkou,sasin HEBREWS 4,2 AT “for we also have received the good news just as they”. The ga,r indicates a relationship between the previous verse and what follows. This good news must involve the “promise” (evpaggeli,a) of 4,1 which, in turn, involves en- trance into God’s rest 23. The change from evpaggeli,a to euvaggeli,zomai suggests that the author of Hebrews is reminding the addressees that the promise was received by them differently from the way it was received by the desert gen- eration. The promise of entering into God’s rest was originally made to Abra- ham, as is explicitly recognized by the author of Hebrews in Heb 11,9 24. The addressees were well aware of the role of Abraham in their lives and that they were associated with him through faith (cf. Heb 2,16; 6,13; 7,1-9; 11,8-19): it is through faith and the lack of faith that the author of Hebrews approaches the whole question of God’s promise to Abraham of entrance into the land in Heb 3,7–4,12, as the interpretation given by the author of Hebrews to the thematic citation of Psalm 95 in Heb 3,13 makes clear. The present writer has interpreted Heb 2,5–3,6 in terms of faith in- volving Abraham and involving Jesus. In this interpretation the author of Hebrews understands the “seed” (spe,rma) of Abraham in 2,16 just as Paul does in Galatians 4 and Romans 5, i.e. to be that of all those who believed as Abraham believed. The context suggests that faith is directed to over- coming the fear of another’s death, as Abraham did in Genesis 22 (cf. Heb 2,15; 11,19). But the addressees also have faith in the face of their own deaths, thus sharing in the faith of Jesus before his death 25. As ap- plied to Heb 4,1-2, the desert generation received the promise of entrance into the land from the reading of the Mosaic Law by Moses (cf. Heb 9,19), whereas the Christian addressees received the good news which involves the promise of entering into eternal life from the risen Christ in the context of the Eucharist (Heb 2,5-13a) and thus ultimately from the words of insti- tution of the Eucharist itself which were corroborated by the resurrection 26. The addressees received the promise of entering into God’s rest just as the Israelites of the desert generation did, but it was received in a different way, not as spoken by Moses but, ultimately, as spoken by Christ, to whom they were linked by faith through the first Christians who heard him. Thus the “ … the context suggests that the implied ‘good news’ is closely linked 23 with the ‘promise’ of v. 1, and so with the ‘resting place’ of v. 3 and the wider context” (ELLINGWORTH, Hebrews, 241). In his comments on Heb 11,9, Ellingworth observes: “Canaan is indeed 24 the land which God has promised to Abraham and his descendants, yet it does not exhaust the significance of his promise, as vv. 10, 13-17 [sc, in chap. 11] will make clear” (ELLINGWORTH, Hebrews, 583). The text of Genesis was cer- tainly familiar to the addressees, as the frequent citations and allusions in He- brews to the Abraham cycle show. Cf. SWETNAM, “ vEx e`no,j in Hebrews 2,11”, 519-524. 25 Cf. J. SWETNAM, “The Crux at Hebrews 2,9 in Its Context”, Bib 91 26 (2010) 103-111, especially 105. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati