Passage

Hebrews 11.27

Book: Hebrews · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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Setting

• Speaker: the author of Hebrews, in the catalogue of faith
• Audience: Jewish Christians under pressure to return to the synagogue
• Location: unknown; the letter's origin and destination are both disputed
• Time period: before AD 70 on most reconstructions, since the temple cultus is discussed as ongoing

Theological reading

A deliberate paradox: seeing the unseeable. "By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen."

The phrase ton gar aoraton hōs horōn ekarterēsen sets aoratos (invisible, unseeable) directly against the participle of horaō (seeing). The construction is not careless. It names a mode of relation that has the steadiness of sight without its object being available to sight, and it makes that mode the explanation of endurance rather than a consolation for its absence.

The verb of endurance carries weight. Kartereō appears only here in the New Testament and means to hold out, to persist under strain. The claim is causal: Moses endured because of this quasi-visual relation to the invisible. Faith in Hebrews is not a feeling but a stance that produces staying power under pressure, which is the point of the whole chapter and the reason the chapter exists in a letter addressed to people considering giving up.

A historical difficulty worth naming. The verse says Moses left Egypt "not fearing the wrath of the king," while Exodus 2:14 to 15 says Moses was afraid and fled. Standard resolutions: the reference is to the exodus itself rather than the earlier flight to Midian; or the fear in Exodus is of exposure rather than of Pharaoh's wrath as such; or the author is characterizing the settled disposition rather than a momentary reaction. The tension is real, the resolutions are reasonable, and none is certain. The codex does not smooth it over.

The relation to the wider seeing-God theme. Aoratos is the same term Colossians 1:15 uses of the God whose image the Son is. Hebrews is describing, in Moses' case, the pre-incarnational form of a relation the New Testament says was later given a face. The chapter's own conclusion in 11:39 to 40 makes exactly this point: the faithful of the old covenant did not receive what was promised, because something better was in view.

Apologetic use. The verse is the clearest scriptural articulation of what it means to relate steadily to what cannot be perceived, which is precisely the situation the divine-hiddenness objection presses on. It is a description of the condition rather than an argument against the objection, and it should be offered as the former. See Divine Hiddenness Objection Defeater.

Key words

• aoratos (G0517), invisible, unseeable; the same term at Colossians 1:15.
• horaō (G3708), to see; the participle set against aoratos. See G3708 - horao.
• kartereō (G2594), to endure, hold out; a New Testament hapax legomenon.
• pistis (G4102), faith; see G4102 - pistis.

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

• Faith is Belief Without Evidence Objection Defeater, via Hebrews 11.3-39

Concepts:

• Lesson 2.1, Faith and Reason, via Hebrews 11.24-27

Lexicon:

• G3708 - horao
• G4102 - pistis, via Hebrews 11.3-40

Passages:

• 2 Corinthians 5.7

Notes

Your annotations.

Cross-references

• Colossians 1:15, the same aoratos applied to God
• Exodus 33:20, the refusal of sight to Moses
• 2 Corinthians 5:7, walking by faith and not by sight
• 1 Corinthians 13:12, the deferred face-to-face
• G3708 - horao, the seeing verb

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

• ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
• WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
• KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
• YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.