Hebrews Chapter 10 verse 37 Holy Bible

ASV Hebrews 10:37

For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry.
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BBE Hebrews 10:37

In a very little time he who is coming will come; he will not be slow.
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DARBY Hebrews 10:37

For yet a very little while he that comes will come, and will not delay.
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KJV Hebrews 10:37

For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
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WBT Hebrews 10:37


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WEB Hebrews 10:37

"In a very little while, He who comes will come, and will not wait.
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YLT Hebrews 10:37

for yet a very very little, He who is coming will come, and will not tarry;
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 37, 38. - For yet a little (rather, very little) while, and he that cometh will come, and will not tarry. But the just shall live by faith: and if he draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. In these verses, after the manner of the Epistle, what is being urged is supported by an Old Testament quotation (Habakkuk 2:3, 4), its drift being (1) the certainty, notwithstanding delay, of the fulfillment of the Divine promise; (2) the necessity meanwhile of continuance in faith and perseverance. The quotation serves also as a step of transition (this, too, after the Epistle's manner) to the disquisition on faith, which forms the subject of the following chapter. For the prophet speaks of faith as what the righteous one is to live by until the Lord come. It was faith - a fuller faith - that the Hebrew Christians wanted to preserve them from the faltering of which they showed some signs; and the requirement of faith was no new thing - it had been the essential principle of all true religious life from the beginning, and thus is led up to the review which follows of the Old Testament history, showing that this had always been so. The quotation, as usual, is from the LXX., which, in this case as in some others, differs from the Hebrew. But here, as in ver. 29, supra, the LXX. is not exactly followed. The writer cites freely, so as to apply the essential meaning of the passage to his purpose. The Prophet Habakkuk (writing probably during the long evil days of Manasseh) had in his immediate view the trials of faith peculiar to his own time - violence and iniquity in Israel, and imminence of judgment at the hands of Chaldean conquerors, under which he had cried, "O Lord, how long?" But he stands upon his watch and sits upon his tower, to look out what the LORD will say to him in answer to his difficulties. And the LORD answered him, and said, "Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie [rather, 'but it hasteth to the end, and doth not lie']: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, and not tarry [or, 'be behindhand']. Behold, his soul that is lifted up is not upright in him [or, 'behold, his soul is lifted up, it is not upright in him']; but the just shall live by his faith." The drift of this Divine answer, which inspired the song of joyful confidence with which the Book of Habakkuk so beautifully concludes, is, as aforesaid, that, in spite of all appearances, the prophetic vision will ere long be realized; God's promises to the righteous will certainly be fulfilled; and that faith meanwhile must be their sustaining principle. The variations of the LXX. from the Hebrew are: (1) Ἐρχόμενος ἥξει, instead of "It (i.e. the vision) shall come;" . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(37) The connection is this: "Ye have need of endurance" for "the end is not yet" (Matthew 24:6); ye shall "receive the promise," for the Lord shall surely come, and that soon.A little while.--Rather, a very little while. The expression is remarkable and unusual; it is evidently taken from Isaiah 26:20--"Come my people . . . hide thyself for a little moment until the indignation be overpast." The subject of this passage, from which the one expressive phrase is taken, is the coming of Jehovah "to punish the inhabitants of the And he that shall come will come.--Rather, He that cometh will come and will not tarry. In this and the next verse the writer of the Epistle takes up a passage, Habakkuk 2:3-4, which occupies a very important place in the writings of St. Paul (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11), and, as we have already seen (Note on Hebrews 6:1), in the later Jewish teaching. St. Paul's citations are limited to a few words of Hebrews 10:4, "But the just shall live by faith;" here are quoted the whole of the fourth verse and part of the third. Perhaps it is too much to say that they are quoted, they are rather applied, for, as will be seen, the order of the clauses (see next verse) is changed, and some alterations are made in the language. It is important in this Epistle to discriminate between the instances of direct quotation from the Scripture, where the word of God is appealed to as furnishing proof, and those in which passages of the Old Testament are explained and applied (see the Note on Hebrews 10:5). The words before us nearly agree with the LXX., "If he delay, wait for him, because coming he will come, and will not tarry." The subject of the sentence there is not clear; probably the translator believed that the Lord spoke thus of His own coming, or the coming of the future Deliverer. In the Hebrew all relates to the vision, "it will surely come, it will not tarry." The only difference between the LXX. and the words as they stand here consists in the substitution of "He that cometh" for "coming." Now the reference to the Deliverer and Judge is made plain. No designation of the Messiah, perhaps, was more familiar than "He that cometh" (Matthew 11:3, et al.); but in is here employed with a new reference--to the second advent in place of the first. The departure from the sense of the Hebrew is not as great as may at first appear. When the prophet says "The vision . . . shall surely come," it is of that which the vision revealed that he speaks, i.e., of the fall of the Chaldeans; but the salvation of Israel from present danger is throughout the prophets the symbol of the great deliverance (comp. Hebrews 12:26 and Haggai 2:6). With this verse comp. Hebrews 10:25; also Philippians 4:5; James 5:8; 1Peter 4:7; Revelation 1:3; Revelation 22:20, et al.; and, in regard to the application of the prophecy, Hebrews 10:27-28; Hebrews 10:30. . . .