4:8a–b
if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day: Here the author asked his audience to imagine something that did not happen. The clause if Joshua had given them rest implies that Joshua did not give the people the type of rest that God promised. If the people already had the rest that God promised, God would not need to promise it again.
Some other ways to translate this sentence are:
We know that Joshua did not lead the people into that rest, because God spoke later about another day. (New Century Version)
-or-
Joshua was not able to cause people to rest as God promised, that is why God spoke again about another day.
-or-
Suppose that Joshua gave the people rest. Then God would not need to speak about a future day ⌊when he will give them rest⌋.
In some languages a rhetorical question may be a natural way to translate this sentence. For example:
If Joshua had given them rest, would God speak later about a different day ⌊when he will give it to them⌋ ?
4:8a
For: The word For introduces an explanation or reason for the previous statement. Many English versions leave it implied.
if Joshua had given them rest: Here the author referred to background information about 4:8a. Most people who heard or read Hebrews already knew that Joshua led the people of Israel into the land of Canaan. God wanted to give them rest there, but they disobeyed him. So they did not receive the true rest, which is a life of depending on God.
Some ways to translate if Joshua had given them rest are:
If Joshua had given the people the rest that God had promised… (Good News Translation)
-or-
Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest (New Living Translation (2004))
For more information about Joshua, see the OT book of Joshua, especially Joshua 11:23 and 23:1. God did use Joshua to give the people of Israel the promised land. But the book of Judges shows that they did not gain true rest because they did not obey the Lord.
Joshua: After Moses died, Joshua became the leader of the Israelites. It was Joshua who led the Israelites into Canaan, the land God promised them. See Joshua 1:1–11:23 to read about those events.
The name Joshua and the name “Jesus” are different forms of the same name. The King James Version has the form “Jesus” in this verse to refer to the Joshua who led the Israelites into Canaan. It is recommended that you spell the names Joshua and “Jesus” differently so that readers will not become confused.
4:8b
God would not have spoken later about another day: Here the author implies that sometime after Joshua died, God spoke again about another day when he will give his people rest. The author refers here to the quotation from Psalm 95:7b–11, where God used King David to repeat that promise about rest. King David lived hundreds of years after Joshua died.
Some other ways to translate this clause are:
there would no longer have been any of God’s words speaking of another day
-or-
it would not be necessary for God to tell us again about a different ⌊future⌋ time
about another day: In this context, the phrase about another day refers to another time for people to have the opportunity to obtain God’s rest.
General Comment on 4:6b–8b
In some languages it is more natural to combine verses 4:6b–8b to tell the events in the order that they happened. One way these three verses can be combined is:
6b Those who first heard the Good News did not receive that rest, 6c because they did not believe/obey God. 8a If Joshua had given the people the rest that God had promised, 8b God would not have spoken later about another day. 7a But many years later God set another day, which he called “Today.” 7b He spoke of it through David 7c in the Scripture already quoted: 7d If you hear God’s voice today, 7e do not be stubborn.
© 2016, 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.