If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
Parallel translations
- WEB If indeed they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had enough time to return.
- KJV And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
- NKJV And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
- NASB And indeed if they had been thinking of that country which they left, they would have had opportunity to return.
- NLT If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Had the patriarchs longed for the country they left behind, they had ample opportunity to return. Their refusal to go back shows they sought something better.
Overview
This verse anticipates an objection: the homeland they desired was not Mesopotamia, the land of their origin, for they could easily have returned there. Their lack of any wish to go back demonstrates that their hope lay in a different and higher country. Faith does not look back to what was forsaken but forward to God's promised future, fully opened in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Gen 24:6–8Abraham replied, “Make sure that you do not take my son back there.
- Gen 12:10Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.
- Gen 11:31And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.
- Gen 32:9–11Then Jacob declared, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, the LORD who told me, ‘Go back to your country and to your kindred, and I will make you prosper,’
- Gen 31:18and he drove all his livestock before him, along with all the possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land in Canaan.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Hebrews is sustained worship of Christ: better than angels, Moses, and the priests; the great High Priest after Melchizedek who by one sacrifice perfects forever those he saves.
How Hebrews 11:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.