All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
13. These all died in faith, etc. He enhances by a comparison the faith of the patriarchs: for when they had only tasted of the promises, as though fully satisfied with their sweetness, they despised all that was in the world; and they never forgot the taste of them, however small it was either in life or in death.
Abel is our first pattern of faith at work: he offered a sacrifice acceptable to God while his brother's was rejected. By faith he was commended as righteous, and though he died long ago, his faith still speaks.
AI summary
Commenting on Hebrews 11:4-31
For they that say such things,.... That they are strangers and pilgrims on earth: declare plainly that they seek a country; heaven, so called, for the largeness of it; it is a good land, a land of uprightness; a pleasant land, a land of rest, though a land afar off; here the Father of Christ, and Christ himself, and all his people dwell: the Syriac...