Hebrews 11:14
New International Version
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

New Living Translation
Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own.

English Standard Version
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Berean Standard Bible
Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own.

Berean Literal Bible
For those saying such things make manifest that they are seeking their own country.

King James Bible
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.

New King James Version
For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

New American Standard Bible
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

NASB 1995
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

NASB 1977
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

Legacy Standard Bible
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

Amplified Bible
Now those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for a country of their own.

Christian Standard Bible
Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

American Standard Version
For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
But those who say these things show that they seek their City.

Contemporary English Version
When people talk this way, it is clear they are looking for a place to call their own.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For they that say these things, do signify that they seek a country.

English Revised Version
For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for their own country.

Good News Translation
Those who say such things make it clear that they are looking for a country of their own.

International Standard Version
For people who say such things make it clear that they are looking for a country of their own.

Literal Standard Version
for those saying such things make apparent that they seek a country;

Majority Standard Bible
Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own.

New American Bible
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.

NET Bible
For those who speak in such a way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

New Revised Standard Version
for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

New Heart English Bible
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

Webster's Bible Translation
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.

Weymouth New Testament
for men who acknowledge this make it manifest that they are seeking elsewhere a country of their own.

World English Bible
For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.

Young's Literal Translation
for those saying such things make manifest that they seek a country;

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Faith of Abraham and Sarah
13All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14Now those who say such things show that they are seeking a country of their own. 15If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.…

Cross References
Exodus 2:22
And she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land."

Hebrews 11:13
All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Hebrews 11:15
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.


Treasury of Scripture

For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.

they seek.

Hebrews 11:16
But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

Hebrews 13:14
For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Romans 8:23-25
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body…

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Acknowledge Clear Clearly Country Declare Elsewhere Homeland Manifest Plainly Searching Seek Seeking Shew Show Speak Themselves
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Acknowledge Clear Clearly Country Declare Elsewhere Homeland Manifest Plainly Searching Seek Seeking Shew Show Speak Themselves
Hebrews 11
1. What faith is.
6. Without faith we cannot please God.
7. The examples of faithfulness in the fathers of old time.














(14) Such things.--"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you" (Genesis 23:4). "The days of the years of my pilgrimage. . . . the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage" (Genesis 47:9).

Declare plainly that they seek a country.--Rather, make it plain that they are seeking a home, or fatherland.

Verses 14-16. - For they that say such things declare plainly (or, make manifest ) that they seek a country (i.e. a native country, a fatherland, πατρίδα). And truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now (i.e. as it is) they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God (see refs. under ver. 9): for he hath prepared for them a city. In consideration of the drift of the whole of this interesting and suggestive passage (vers. 9, 10, 13-17), the question arises whether the patriarchs are represented as actually themselves looking forward to a heavenly inheritance. In their history as given in Genesis, as, indeed, in the Old Testament generally (at any rate, in the earlier books), there is, as is well known, no distinct recognition of the life to come. The promise to Abraham seems to imply only an innumerable seed, its possession as a great nation of the earthly land of promise, and through it some undefined blessing to all the families of the earth. Nor are the patriarchs represented as looking forward to a fulfillment of the promise beyond the limits of the present world. Even so their history is singularly instructive. They lived in hope of things not seen through faith in the Divine promise. The very fact that they were content to die without themselves attaining, if so God's purpose might be accomplished to their seed, invests them with a peculiar grandeur of unselfishness. Their faith was essentially the same principle as that of Christians, even though the final object of Christian hope were hidden from their eyes; while their dwelling in tents as strangers, and the home and city seen afar off, are apt emblems of the present life and the heavenly citizenship of Christians. It may be that this is all that is intended in the Epistle, the history being allegorized, as that of Isaac and Ishmael is in the Epistle to the Galatians. If so, the apparent attribution of a heavenly hope to the patriarchs themselves must be accounted for by a blending of the actual history with its ideal meaning, such as was observed in the chapter about Melchizedek. But it is difficult to understand the expressions used as implying no more than this. Abraham is said to have himself looked for the "city that hath the foundations," of which God is the Builder - a description which cannot but denote the "heavenly Jerusalem," of which the city whose foundations were on the holy hills below is regarded elsewhere as but a type and emblem (cf. Hebrews 12:22; Hebrews 13:14; Galatians 4:26; Revelation 21:14; also infra, Hebrews 8:2, where η}ν ἔπηξεν ὁ Θεὸς is said of the heavenly tabernacle). This interpretation is further supported by our finding in Philo similar views of a heavenly counterpart to Jerusalem as the final object of Israel's hope. Again, the country desired by the patriarchs is, in ver. 16, distinctly called a heavenly one. Nor is the view at all untenable that, notwithstanding the silence of the ancient record on the subject, they did look forward to a life after death with God, seeing in the promised earthly inheritance an emblem and earnest of a heavenly one. Well known is Bishop Warburton's argument that a belief in a future state, which was so ancient and universal, and so prominent especially in the religion of Egypt must almost of necessity have been shared in by the race of Abraham, and hence that the silence about it in the Mosaic record must be due, not to its absence from the creed of Israel, but to the peculiar purpose of the Mosaic dispensation. Worthy of attention also are Dean Stanley's words (Lect. 7. on 'Jewish Church') "Not from want of religion, but (if one might use the expression) from excess of religion, was this void left. The future life was not denied or contradicted, but it was overlooked, set aside, overshadowed, by the consciousness of the living, actual presence of God himself." But though such void there is, however to be accounted for, there are still, even in the Pentateuch (as certainly in the Psalms and prophets), occasional glimpses of the hope of immortality. The mystic tree of life in the midst of the garden, the predicted bruising, of the serpent's head, the mystery of Enoch's departure from the world, and notably (as our Lord himself points out) God still calling himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob after they had been long ago gathered to their fathers, are intimations, even in the Pentateuch, of a belief in man's immortal hopes. And it may be added, with reference to the history immediately before us, that Jacob's application of the idea of his being a" sojourner " - used by Abraham with reference to the abode in Palestine - to the whole course of his life upon the earth, in itself suggests the meaning attached to such language in the Epistle. Hence no violence is done to the meaning of the history rather it may be that its deeper meaning is brought out, if the patriarchs are regarded as entertaining a hope of a heavenly inheritance to themselves, and seeing beyond the earthly types. But even f we suppose such immortal hopes as having been in them at the most but vague and dim, still their faith in and longing for a fulfillment of the promise in any sense was really a longing and reaching after the eternal realities which the first fulfillment typified. Compare the view taken in Hebrews 4. of the meaning of "God's rest." Delitzsch thus enunciates this view of the passage before us: "The promise given to the patriarchs was a Divine assurance of a future rest. That rest was connected, in the first instance, with the future possession of an earthly home; but their desire for that home was at the same time a longing and a seeking after Him who had given the promise of it, whoso presence and blessing alone made it for them an object of desire, and whose presence and blessing, however vouchsafed, makes the place of its manifestation to be indeed a heaven. The shell of their longing might thus be of earth; its kernel was heavenly and Divine, and as such God himself vouchsafed to honor and reward it." From the general mode of life of the patriarchs the review now passes to particular acts of faith, beginning with Abraham's memorable one, the offering of Isaac.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
Now
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

those who
οἱ (hoi)
Article - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

say
λέγοντες (legontes)
Verb - Present Participle Active - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3004: (a) I say, speak; I mean, mention, tell, (b) I call, name, especially in the pass., (c) I tell, command.

such things
τοιαῦτα (toiauta)
Demonstrative Pronoun - Accusative Neuter Plural
Strong's 5108: (including the other inflections); from toi and houtos; truly this, i.e. Of this sort (to denote character or individuality).

show
ἐμφανίζουσιν (emphanizousin)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 1718: To make visible (manifest); hence: I report (inform) against; pass: I appear before. From emphanes; to exhibit or disclose.

that
ὅτι (hoti)
Conjunction
Strong's 3754: Neuter of hostis as conjunction; demonstrative, that; causative, because.

they are seeking
ἐπιζητοῦσιν (epizētousin)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 1934: To seek after, desire, search for, make inquiries about. From epi and zeteo; to search for; intensively, to demand, to crave.

a country of their own.
πατρίδα (patrida)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3968: Fatherland, one's native place. From parasemos; a father-land, i.e. Native town; heavenly home.


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NT Letters: Hebrews 11:14 For those who say such things make (Heb. He. Hb)
Hebrews 11:13
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