This verse may not be easy to understand without additional information in a footnote. The two things are God’s promise and his oath. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch makes this explicit. The phrase these two things may be obscure if the specific reference is not made clear in translation. It would be possible to translate There are these two things, then, that cannot change as “What God promised and what he vowed cannot change” or “… cannot ever be different.” A positive expression may also be employed: “… will most surely happen.”
God cannot lie, either about his promise or about his oath, still less about both together; “He wanted to give us a double security” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). The argument is strange to many readers today, but Isaiah 45.23, for example, shows that anything spoken, especially by God, was believed to take on a life and power of its own, distinct from that of the speaker. The term translated things may refer to words, but the author more probably means the event of God promising something to his people.
God cannot lie may be expressed as “God is not able to say what is not true.” The double negative, however, may be misleading, and a positive expression may be required: “God must surely say what is true.”
We who have found safety with him: translators vary (a) in their understanding of “we who have fled for refuge” (Revised Standard Version), and (b) in the way in which they link it with the rest of the sentence.
(a) Some translations emphasize the idea of running “away from” something: Moffatt “we refugees,” Knox “to us poor wanderers,” Traduction œcuménique de la Bible “we who have left everything to seize the hope put before us.” This is possible, and in other places salvation includes for this writer the idea of escape. But this idea does not seem so important in this positive passage as if it had come, for example, in 2.3 or 6.4-8. By overtranslating, Phillips “we who are refugees from this dying world” shows that it is a new and somewhat unnatural idea here. Most translations therefore agree with Good News Translation in expressing the positive aspect of running “to” God for protection: Bible en français courant “we who have found a refuge in him,” Bijbel in Gewone Taal “we who seek our refuge with him.” With him is understood.
(b) The Greek may mean either (i) “… so that we who have taken refuge with him may have a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope which is set before us,” or (ii) “… so that we who have fled to hold fast to him may have a strong encouragement in the hope which is set before us.” (i) fits in better with the general purpose of the letter, which is to encourage the readers to hold on to and develop the faith in Christ which they already have.
We who have found safety with him may be expressed as “we who have gone to him in order to be safe.” In rendering found, it is important to avoid an expression which may suggest accidental discovery. It is possible to emphasize certain aspects of this flight to God by translating “we who have run to God in order to be safe.”
Greatly encouraged by God’s vow, which gives proof of the reliability of God’s promise, just as legal proof in ancient Israel required at least two witnesses to agree (see Deut 19.15; compare Matt 18.16). We … are greatly encouraged may be rendered as “we are all the more sure” or “we become very certain.”
Hold firmly may mean either (a) to “hold on to” something you already have, or (b) to “seize” (Revised Standard Version) or reach out and grasp something you do not yet have. Translations are divided rather evenly: meaning (a), hold firmly, is chosen, for example, by Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Translator’s New Testament, and perhaps by Jerusalem Bible (“take a firm grip”). Meaning (b), “seize,” is chosen, for example, by Revised Standard Version, Bible en français courant, Phillips (“grasp”), New English Bible, and Bible de Jérusalem (“seize strongly”). The choice depends largely on whether “hope” is thought of as the act of hoping or the thing for which one hopes. In earlier verses, “to receive the promise(s)” is not simply to be given the promise itself, but to be given what was promised. This may apply to “hope” also, in which case meaning (b) would be better. This letter repeatedly insists on the need not only to resist the attacks of evil but to reach out to what the readers do not yet have. Meaning (a) would also involve some repetition with the first part of the verse. For this reason Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch omits who have found safety with him, combining it with hold firmly. Meaning (b), slightly expanded, would give “In this way, we who have taken refuge with God have a strong encouragement to reach out and seize what he puts before us as an object of our hope.”
Interpretation (a), namely to hold firmly to the hope placed before us, may be rendered idiomatically as “to hold close to our hearts the hope that God has placed before us.” Interpretation (b) may be translated as “to take into our hearts that hope which is offered to us.” In a number of instances the hope may need to be expressed as “that for which we wait with eager expectation.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .