Hebrews 11:32 - Meaning and Application

After giving a list of many great believers, the apostle now ends with a shorter summary of others. He does not attach each deed to a named person, because readers who know Scripture can apply them for themselves. He introduces this part with a heartfelt question: What more can I say? Time would fail me. In other words, he is saying that the subject is too large to finish in one letter.

This reminds us of several things. Even after careful study of Scripture, there is always more to learn. In spiritual matters, we should think carefully about what to say and fit it to the time. We should also be glad to see how many believers there were under the Old Testament, and how strong their faith was, even though they did not yet see God’s full revelation. At the same time, we should grieve that in gospel times, when the rule of faith is clearer and fuller, so few believe and so many have weak faith.

The apostle first names Gideon, whose story is in Judges 6. Gideon was a man from an unimportant tribe and family, and he was called from the humble work of threshing wheat. Yet God sent an angel to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” At first Gideon could hardly believe such honor, and he humbly questioned the angel about Israel’s low and troubled condition. Then the angel gave him his commission and assured him of victory, confirming the promise with fire from the rock.

Gideon was told to offer sacrifice, and then he led Israel against the Midianites. His army was cut down from thirty-two thousand to three hundred, yet with those men, their lamps, and their pitchers, God threw the whole Midianite army into confusion and ruin. The same faith that gave Gideon courage and honor later kept him meek and modest toward his brothers. Faith is excellent because it helps people do great things, while also keeping them from becoming proud.

Next comes Barak, another man God raised up to deliver Israel from Jabin, king of Canaan, as recorded in Judges 4. Though Barak was a soldier, he received his commission and instructions from Deborah, a prophetess of the Lord, and he would not go without that divine word. By faith he won a great victory over Sisera’s whole army. His faith also led him to give all praise and glory to God. That is what faith does, it turns to God in danger and trouble, and then returns thanks to God for mercy and rescue.

Samson follows, another deliverer whom God raised up against the Philistines, in Judges 13 through 16. From his story we learn that the grace of faith gives strength to the soul for great service. If Samson had not had strong faith as well as strong arms, he could never have done such remarkable deeds. By faith God’s servants can overcome even a roaring lion. True faith is accepted even when it is mixed with many failings. And the believer’s faith lasts to the end, so that in death he gains victory over death and over all deadly enemies. His greatest victory comes through dying.

Then the apostle mentions Jephthah, whose story comes before Samson’s in Judges 11. God raised him up to deliver Israel from the Ammonites. As new enemies rose up against God’s people, God also raised up new deliverers for them. Jephthah’s story shows that God’s grace often finds the least deserving and most unworthy people and uses them for great things. Jephthah was the son of a prostitute, yet God still worked through him.

Jephthah also shows what faith does in a person’s life. Faith makes people acknowledge God in all their ways, as when Jephthah laid all his words before the Lord at Mizpeh (Judges 11:11). Faith also makes a man bold in a good cause. It leads people not only to make vows to God, but to keep them after mercy has been given, even when the vow brings deep sorrow or loss. That was true in Jephthah’s case and in the case of his daughter.

David is next, that great man after God’s own heart. Few people faced more trials, and few showed a more living faith. His first public appearance already showed that faith. As a young man, he had killed the lion and the bear, and that faith helped him face Goliath and defeat him. The same faith helped him endure Saul’s bitter hatred and the hatred of Saul’s followers, while waiting for God to give him the promised honor and rule. It also made him a successful and victorious king.

After a long life of virtue and honor, though not without serious sins, David died in faith. He trusted the everlasting covenant God had made with him and his house, a covenant arranged in all things and sure. He also left behind excellent records of the trials and acts of faith in the book of Psalms, which will always be valuable and useful to God’s people.

Samuel is named next, the prophet whom God raised up as one of the most important prophets in Israel, and also as a ruler over them. God revealed himself to Samuel while he was still a child, and continued to do so until Samuel’s death. This teaches us that those who begin early in the practice of faith are likely to grow strong in it. It also teaches that those whose work is to tell others God’s mind and will must first be firmly settled in believing it themselves.

After Samuel, the apostle adds “and the prophets.” These were special ministers of the Old Testament church. God used them sometimes to announce judgment, sometimes to promise mercy, and always to reprove sin. At times they foretold remarkable events known only to God. Above all, they gave notice of the Messiah, his coming, his person, and his work, because both the prophets and the law point to him. For such an office, strong and true faith was necessary.

Having named these people, the apostle then speaks of the things done by their faith. Some of the works he mentions fit one or another of the people he has named. Others are harder to connect to any one person, so they must be understood more generally. By faith they subdued kingdoms (Hebrews 11:33). This was true of David, Joshua, and many of the judges.

Learn from this that the power and interests of kings and kingdoms often stand against God and his people. Yet God can easily bring down every king and kingdom that rises against him. Faith is also a fitting and noble quality for those who fight in the Lord’s ways. It makes them honest, brave, and wise.

These believers “worked righteousness” in both public life and private life. They turned many people from idolatry to the ways of right living. They believed God, and that faith was counted to them as righteousness, meaning God accepted them as right with him. They lived and acted rightly toward God and toward other people. It is a greater honor and joy to do what is right than to do miracles, because faith is an active power that leads to all kinds of right living.

They also “obtained promises,” both general promises and special ones. Faith gives us a share in God’s promises. Faith also gives us comfort from those promises and helps us wait for them until the right time comes to receive them.

They stopped the mouths of lions, as Samson did (Judges 14:5, 14:6), as David did (1 Samuel 17:34, 17:35), and as Daniel did (Daniel 6:22). From this we learn that God’s power is greater than any creature’s power. Faith lays hold of God’s power for his people whenever that will bring him glory, even to overcome wild beasts and brutal people.

They quenched the violence of fire (Hebrews 11:34). Moses, by the prayer of faith, turned aside the fire of God’s wrath that was burning against Israel (Numbers 11:1, 11:2). So did the three young men, or rather brave champions, in Daniel 3:17-27. Their faith in God, shown in refusing to worship the golden image, brought them into the fiery furnace that Nebuchadnezzar had prepared. Yet their faith brought God’s power and presence into the furnace, and that power quenched the fire so that even the smell of it did not touch them. Never was faith tested more severely, used more nobly, or rewarded more gloriously than it was in them.

They escaped the edge of the sword. So David escaped both Goliath’s sword and Saul’s sword, and Mordecai and the Jews escaped Haman’s sword. The swords of men are in God’s hand. He can dull their edge and turn them away from his people against their enemies whenever he chooses. Faith reaches out to that hand of God that holds the swords of men, and God has often been moved by the faith of his people.

Out of weakness they were made strong. Sometimes this happened to the nation of the Jews, when unbelief had brought them low. When faith was revived, their affairs and their strength revived too. It also happened in bodily weakness. Hezekiah, believing God’s word, recovered from a deadly illness, and he credited his recovery to God’s promise and power (Isaiah 38:15, 38:16). He said, in effect, “The Lord has spoken it, and he has done it. By these things people live, and in all of them is the life of my spirit.” The same grace of faith also helps people recover from spiritual weakness and renew their strength.

They grew brave in battle. Joshua, the judges, and David all did this. True faith gives the truest courage and patience, because it sees God’s strength and, by contrast, the weakness of all his enemies. And they were not only brave, they were successful. As a reward and encouragement for their faith, God put foreign armies to flight, that is, armies of those who were outsiders to their nation and enemies to their religion. God made them flee and fall before his faithful servants. Believing and praying commanders, leading believing and praying armies, have often been honored by God in this way, so that nothing could stand before them.

Women received their dead raised to life again (Hebrews 11:35). So did the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:23), and the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4:36). In Christ, there is neither male nor female, and many women have been strong in faith. Yet even though the covenant of grace includes believers’ children, it still leaves them subject to natural death. Poor mothers are slow to give up their claim on their children, even when death has taken them. God has sometimes gone so far as to answer the tender grief of sorrowful women by restoring their dead children to life. Christ showed this compassion to the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12 and following). This should also strengthen our faith in the general resurrection.

The apostle then tells us what these believers endured by faith. They were tortured, and they did not accept release (Hebrews 11:35). They were put on the rack and pressured to deny their God, their Savior, and their religion. They bore the torture and refused freedom on such shameful terms. What kept them strong was their hope of a better resurrection and a more honorable deliverance. This likely refers to the memorable story in 2 Maccabees 7.

They also endured cruel mockings, scourgings, chains, and imprisonment (Hebrews 11:36). Their reputation was attacked by mockery, which is deeply painful to a thoughtful person. Their bodies were punished by scourging, the treatment of slaves. Their liberty was taken by chains and prison. See how deep the hatred of wicked people can go against the righteous, how far it will stretch, and how many kinds of cruelty it will invent and use against those who have done them no wrong, except in matters connected with their God.

Some were put to death in the cruelest ways. Some were stoned, like Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:21). Some were sawn in two, as Isaiah is said to have been by Manasseh. Some were tempted, and some read this as burned (2 Maccabees 7:5). Others were killed with the sword. Every kind of death was prepared for them. Their enemies dressed death up in cruelty and terror, yet they met it boldly and endured it.

Others escaped death, but were treated so badly that death might have seemed better than such a life. Their enemies spared them only to prolong their suffering and drain away their patience. They had to wander in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, oppressed, and tormented. They wandered in deserts, on mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground (Hebrews 11:37, 11:38). They were stripped of life’s comforts and driven out of their homes and shelter. They had no proper clothing, only the skins of dead animals to cover themselves. They were pushed out of human society and forced to live among the beasts, hiding in dens and caves and carrying their complaints to rocks and rivers that were no less hard than their enemies.

Such sufferings they endured then for their faith, and they endured them by the power of faith’s grace. Which should we admire more, the wickedness of human nature, which can commit such cruelty against fellow creatures, or the excellence of God’s grace, which can hold up the faithful under such cruelty and carry them safely through it all?

This is a very honorable description, and it comes from God himself, the true Judge and source of honor. He says that the world was not worthy of such people. The world did not deserve such blessings because it did not know how to value them or use them well. Wicked people are unworthy of the righteous, and God says the world is unworthy of them too. Though the two sides judge things very differently, they agree on this, good people do not belong here forever. So God takes them out of this world and brings them to a world fit for them, a place far above anything their service or suffering could earn.

They also received a good witness (Hebrews 11:39) from all good people, and from the truth itself. Their names are included in this sacred record of the Old Testament faithful, God’s witnesses. More than that, even their enemies’ consciences gave witness for them. While those enemies mistreated them, their own consciences still condemned them for persecuting people who were better than they were.

They also had a share in the promises, even though they did not receive the full blessing promised. They had a right to the promises, though they did not yet enjoy the great things promised. This does not mean the joy of heaven, because they did receive that when they died, in the better part of themselves, their souls, which are the more important part. Rather, it refers to the joy of the gospel age. They had types, but not the one the types pointed to. They had shadows, but not the substance itself. Even so, under that less complete way of revealing God’s plan, they showed remarkable faith.

The apostle stresses this to make their faith look even greater, and to stir Christians to a holy kind of envy and effort. We should not let ourselves be outdone in faith by people who had fewer helps and less light than we do. He tells the Hebrews that God had provided something better for them (Hebrews 11:40), and so they could be sure he expected at least as much faith from them. Since the gospel is the goal and fulfillment of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament had no true greatness except in its connection to Christ and the gospel, their faith should be even stronger than the faith of the Old Testament saints. Their situation and privileges were more complete, and in fact the gospel church was what brought the Jewish church to its intended fullness. Without it, the Jewish church would have remained unfinished and imperfect. This is strong reasoning, and it should strongly move all of us.