What Does Hebrews 11:39 Mean in the King James?
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
A promise can remain unreceived while the trust holding it is already borne witness to.
THE MEANING
Your trust can be borne witness to even while what is promised remains outside your hands. Recognition and possession are separate: the promise’s delay does not erase the truth of the trust holding it. The verse speaks into the present gap between being affirmed and seeing what was promised.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an unreceived promise proves your trust is false, unseen, or wasted.
THE ROOT
μαρτυρηθέντες
martyrēthentes
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
To bear witness, testify.
The phrase “obtained a good report” carries the sense of having been testified to or commended. The same seed appears in words for witness and testimony, so recognition is already present even while the promise is not yet possessed.
ALSO GROWS
martys: Witness; one who bears testimony.
μάρτυς
The trust in this verse has a witness-bearing quality: it is recognized even before the promised thing arrives.
martyria: Testimony; a witness’s account.
μαρτυρία
It echoes the verse’s image of being commended, making testimony itself distinct from receiving the promise.
πίστις
pistis
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
To persuade, bring to trust.
Here, faith is trust, leaning your full weight on what is promised. That trust can bear witness to something real while the promise remains unreceived.
ALSO GROWS
pisteuō: To trust, believe.
πιστεύω
It shows trust as an active relation to what is not yet in hand.
pistos: Firm, steady; trustworthy.
πιστός
Its sense of steadiness illuminates how trust can remain real across the gap between promise and possession.
ἐπαγγελία
epangelia
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
angel-
To announce, tell.
The word for promise belongs to the family of announcing and making known. The verse holds that announcement alongside non-possession: what is promised can be known and trusted before it is received.
ALSO GROWS
epangellomai: To announce, promise, pledge.
ἐπαγγέλλομαι
It shows the promise as a declared commitment, not yet the same thing as its arrival.
angelos: Messenger.
ἄγγελος
The shared announcing family ties the promise to a message made known before its fulfillment is in hand.
THE PATTERN
Trust can bear witness to what is promised before the promised thing is received or seen.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.THE THREAD
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.Hebrews 11:13 uses the same Greek word, πίστις (pistis), meaning trust, and says they died without receiving the promises, yet saw them from afar and embraced them. It shows what the witness in this verse looks like: trust remains present across the space between promise and possession.
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