This verse is linked to its context by the words and so (Revised Standard Version “And thus”). They suggest, not merely the manner in which Abraham received the promises, but the means by which he received them. Most translations agree with Good News Translation in taking the sentence to mean “It was because he was patient (or, endured [see verse 12]) that Abraham received what God had promised.” Jerusalem Bible, however, translates “because of that,” implying the opposite: “It was because of God’s promise [see verses 13-14] that Abraham was patient and saw the promise fulfilled.” This is grammatically possible, but verses 12 and 15 have so much in common that it is natural to take verse 12 as a general principle which verse 15 applies to the particular case of Abraham. Abraham’s patience was not just a stage in time (New American Bible “after patient waiting”); it played an essential part in his finally receiving what God had promised.

Abraham was patient may be expressed as “Abraham was willing to wait.” It may in some cases be necessary to say “Abraham kept on trusting God for a long time.”

The Greek term for received is a more common equivalent of the word translated receive in verse 12. As usual, the writer varies his choice of words. A strictly literal rendering of received may be misleading, since it might wrongly suggest that the promise was an object which God handed to Abraham. A better equivalent may be “what God had promised Abraham happened to him.”

What God had promised (literally “the promise”), here as in verse 12, refers not to the act of promising but to the content of what was promised. The reference is either to Isaac’s birth or to his rescue from death (Gen 22). The word translated received therefore refers to a single past event, unlike the same expression in 11.13, 39, which refers to receiving forever what God had promised.

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .