11:32 The Old Testament is full of good examples of persevering, living faith. The writer selected these few for brief mention along with what such faith accomplished.372Each individual that the writer mentioned was less than perfect, as is every believer. Yet God approved the faith of each one.
"The order of names here may be understood if they are read as three pairs, Gideon-Barak, Samson-Jephthah, David-Samuel, the more important member of each pair being named first."373
11:33-35a Joshua conquered kingdoms. Daniel shut the lions' mouths (Dan. 6:17-22), as did Samson (Judg. 14:5-6), David (1 Sam. 17:34-37), and Benaiah (1 Chron. 11:22). Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego escaped fiery deaths (Dan. 3:23-27). David, Elijah, Elisha, and Jeremiah avoided execution. Women even received their dead back because they believed God could and would do what He had promised (cf. 1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:17-37).
11:35b-38 Faith does not result in deliverance in every case, however. Traditionally Isaiah suffered death at King Manasseh's hand by being sawn in two.374
"According to . . . mutually complementary rabbinic sources, Manasseh, enraged because Isaiah had prophesied the destruction of the Temple, ordered his arrest. Isaiah fled to the hill country and hid in the trunk of a cedar tree. He was discovered when the king ordered the tree cut down. Isaiah was tortured with a saw because he had taken refuge in the trunk of a tree . . ."375
Sometimes the faithful person's reward comes on the other side of the grave. Some of the readers and we might have to endure death. Those who accept death without apostatizing are those the world is not worthy of because they do not turn from following God even under the most severe pressure.
11:39-40 Those faithful believers who died in Old Testament times have not yet entered into their inheritances. This awaits the future, probably the Second Coming when Christ will judge Old Testament saints (Dan. 12:1-2). We will have some part in their reward. We will do so at least as Christ's companions who will witness their award ceremony. Their perfection refers to their entering into their final rest (inheritance) and rests, as ours does, on the sacrificial death of Christ (cf. 9:15).
"God's plan provided for something better for us.' The indefinite pronoun leaves the precise nature of the blessing undefined. The important thing is not exactly what it is but that God has not imparted it prematurely. Us' means us Christians' . . ."376
Verses 39-40 summarize the chapter by relating the list of exemplary witnesses to the audience's experience, and they provide a transition to the argument of 12:1-13.
God intended this wonderful chapter to encourage us to continue to trust and obey Him in the midst of temptations to turn away from following Him faithfully. The implication is that our reward, as theirs, is eschatological.
". . . it is the future, and not the past, that molds the present. . . .
"The men and women celebrated in the catalogue of attested exemplars all directed the capacity of faith to realities which for them lay in the future (cf. 11:7, 10, 13, 27, 31, 35-38). They found in faith a reliable guide to the future, even though they died without experiencing the fulfillment of God's promise (11:23, 39). . . .
"The most distinctive aspect of the exposition is the development of the relation of faith to suffering and martyrdom."377
