Passage

Hebrews 3.1

Book: Hebrews · ASV

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus;"

"2. who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house. 3. For he hath been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built the house hath more honor than the house." (Hebrews 3:1-3, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"1. Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus;"

"2. who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house. 3. For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, because he who built the house has more honor than the house." (Hebrews 3:1-3, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;"

"2. Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. ^{appointed: Gr. made} 3. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house." (Hebrews 3:1-3, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the apostle and chief priest of our profession, Christ Jesus,"

"2. being stedfast to Him who did appoint him, as also Moses in all his house, 3. for of more glory than Moses hath this one been counted worthy, inasmuch as more honour than the house hath he who doth build it," (Hebrews 3:1-3, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: the author of Hebrews (anonymous; traditionally Paul; modern scholarship most-often suggests Apollos, Barnabas, or Luke)
Audience: Jewish-Christian readers under pressure to retreat from Christian confession back into Second-Temple Judaism (the "Hebrews" of the traditional title), c. AD 60-70
Location: unknown (the letter is addressed to a particular community whose location is not stated)
Time period: composed c. AD 60-70 (likely before the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, which the letter does not mention as past)
Narrative context: the transition from the high-priestly Christology of chapter 2 to the Moses-comparison of chapter 3. The author has established Jesus's solidarity with humanity (2:5-18) and now applies that to call the readers to consider (katanoēsate) Jesus as the Apostle (apostolos, the sent-one) and High Priest of our confession (tēs homologias hēmōn).

Theological reading

Hebrews 3:1 is the first of three Hebrews-deployments of homologia (3:1; 4:14; 10:23) that together establish the confession as a corporate-ecclesial possession the readers are exhorted to hold-fast. The genitive "of our confession" (tēs homologias hēmōn) is doing distinctive work: Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of the confession, not (or not only) the object of the confession, but its guarantor, the One who underwrites it on the divine side. The dual-title is theologically calibrated: Apostle (sent-one) names Christ's Father-ward movement (sent by God to humanity, paralleling Moses's sent-status); High Priest names His humanity-ward-and-back-to-Father movement (sent from humanity into the Holy of Holies). The confession that the readers have made (and the author urges them to hold) is anchored on both sides in Christ Himself. The author's exhortation "consider" (katanoēsate, deliberate attentive contemplation) sets up the entire 3:1-4:13 comparison with Moses: just as Israel under Moses received the law and was tested in the wilderness, so the readers under Christ have received the confession and face their own wilderness-test. The verse anchors the Hebrews-soteriology of perseverance: salvation is bound to holding fast the confession (cf. 4:14; 10:23).

Key words

G3669 - homologia, homologia (Strong's G3669), our confession; the first of three Hebrews-uses (3:1; 4:14; 10:23), establishing the corporate-deposited-confession model.

Quoted in

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.