What Does Hebrews 3:18 Mean in the King James?
And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
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
“Believed not” names more than doubt: it is refusal to be persuaded, the resistance that leaves rest unentered.
THE MEANING
The oath marks the consequence of a settled refusal: those who will not be persuaded do not enter the rest. “Believed not” reaches beyond a private opinion; it names resistance to what invites trust. The warning speaks wherever that resistance keeps a person outside rest.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unbelief is only missing information or a private opinion. Here it is refusal to be persuaded, with the consequence of remaining outside rest.
THE ROOT
ἀπειθήσασιν
apeithēsasin
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
Persuade; be persuaded, and by extension trust.
The Greek word translated “believed not” carries the sense of refusing persuasion, and can also describe disobedience. The verse joins belief to responsiveness: the barrier is not simply a thought, but a resistance that refuses to yield to trust.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade; convince; be persuaded.
πείθω
The positive form shows the trust-side of the same word family: belief involves being persuaded.
apeitheō: Refuse to be persuaded; disobey.
ἀπειθέω
This is the verb family behind “believed not,” revealing resistance where English can sound like mere absence of belief.
καταπαύσεως
katapauseōs
GROWS FROM
παύω
pauō
Cease, stop, bring to an end.
The word for rest belongs to a family built around ceasing. Rest is not merely a place one reaches; it is also the cessation the word itself carries beneath the English.
ALSO GROWS
katapauō: Cause to cease; bring to rest.
καταπαύω
This verb gives the same word family its active sense of bringing something to rest.
anapausis: Rest, repose, refreshment.
ἀνάπαυσις
This related word uses the same παύω root, carrying the sense of rest as a cessation.
THE PATTERN
Rest remains an offered entrance, yet refusal to trust closes it.
Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it:Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.THE THREAD
Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:Hebrews 4:6 names the same barrier with ἀπείθεια (apeitheia, refusal to be persuaded or disobedience), from the same πείθω (peithō, persuade or be persuaded) word family as “believed not” here. It shows that the entrance remains while refusal keeps some outside.
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