When God made the promise to Abraham,
since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself,
and said, I will indeed bless you and multiply you.
We are meant to be among those who, by faith, inherit the promises that God made to Abraham, since a part of those promises was that all nations would be blessed through him.
So when God wanted to give the heirs of his promise
an even clearer demonstration of the immutability of his purpose,
he intervened with an oath,
so that by two immutable things,
in which it was impossible for God to lie,
We are meant to be the heirs of his promise. Therefore, these clear demonstrations of the immutability of his purpose are meant to help us just as the have strengthened those throughout history who, "through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises".
so that by two immutable things,
in which it was impossible for God to lie,
God who is truth itself cannot lie. But human words come with no such guarantee. Since we hear so many more human words than those of God we tend to assume that everything we hear similarly insubstantial and flimsy, ready to bend to every circumstance. In the instance of his oath of blessing God was not content to leave things merely at the level of his word, not content that the assurance of his word might be conflated with the lake thereof in human words. He wanted to draw our attention to the immutability, the unchangeable nature of what he was saying.
we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged
to hold fast to the hope that lies before us.
We can be strongly encouraged, legitimately strengthened in the Christian life, by the hope that the promise and the oath of God to bless us can give. Because it is God himself who made the promise it can be a genuine "anchor of the soul" that keeps us secure amidst the changing vicissitudes of the world.
which reaches into the interior behind the veil,
where Jesus has entered on our behalf as forerunner,
The certainty of this promise has already been demonstrated by Jesus who has gone before us. He himself is the unchanging Word of God, the guarantee of the hope of all who hope in him. He took upon himself everything that might stand against our inheriting the promise, everything that might have been an obstacle. He himself is the anchor which does not merely keep us fixed in place but which draws us inexorably into the fullness of the presence of God where he now abides.
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
The sabbath is another demonstration of that which the author of the Letter to Hebrews was demonstrating through the promise and the oath: God has made us for himself, and that his chief desire is to bring us into the fullness of relation with him. He designed the sabbath to be a place where we might learn to take "refuge" in him. So too were his oath and promise and ordered toward coming to know the fullness of the sabbath rest together with him forever.
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