What Does Hebrews 10:23 Mean?
Let us hold fast the saying of our hope without swerving, for steady is the one who promised;
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)THE KEY
The steadiness of your confession rests on the steadiness of the One who promised.
THE MEANING
Your spoken trust rests on the promise-giver’s reliability, even when your own certainty feels unsteady. The ground for holding fast is the One who promises and remains faithful.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that your wavering makes the promise unreliable, or that you must produce unbroken certainty to keep it standing.
THE ROOT
πιστός
pistos
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
To persuade, win trust, or be persuaded.
This word family links trust with the one who can be trusted: πίστις names trust, while πιστός describes someone reliable and steady. The verse grounds your holding fast in the promiser’s steadiness.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade or win over.
πείθω
It gives the word family its sense of confidence that has been won.
pistis: Trust or confidence.
πίστις
It names the trust that rests on the reliability described by πιστός.
pistos: Trustworthy, reliable, steady.
πιστός
It describes the promise-giver whose steadiness grounds the confession.
ὁμολογίαν
homologian
GROWS FROM
λόγος
logos
Word, speech, or what is said.
“saying” in this verse is homologian. Ὁμολογία carries the sense of “same-speaking,” joining ὁμός, “same,” with λόγος, “word” or “speech.” The profession is something spoken and held to, not merely a private feeling.
ALSO GROWS
homologeō: Confess or acknowledge.
ὁμολογέω
It is the verb form for making the profession this verse says to hold fast.
logos: Word, speech, or account.
λόγος
It shows that the profession is made of words that can be spoken and retained.
legō: Say or speak.
λέγω
It makes the speaking within the confession visible.
THE PATTERN
A promise becomes steady ground for trust because the one who speaks it is reliable.
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should relent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not make it stand?And being filled and carried through, he was persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to do.The one who calls you is steady, and he will also do it.THE THREAD
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us grip what we say together.Hebrews 4:14 uses the same Greek noun, ὁμολογία, for “profession” and pairs it with “hold fast.” The shared word opens the profession as something spoken and retained; here its steadiness is grounded in the faithful promiser.
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