Hebrews 11:37

they were stoned Zechariah (2 Chronicles 24:20-21). Jewish tradition said that Jeremiah was stoned. See Matthew 23:35-37; Luke 11:51.

were sawn asunder This was the traditional mode of Isaiah's martyrdom. Hamburger Talm. Wörterb. s. v. Jesaia. Comp. Matthew 24:51. The punishment was well-known in ancient days (2 Samuel 12:31).

were tempted This would not seem an anticlimax to a pious reader, for the intense violence of temptation, and the horrible dread lest the weakness of human nature should succumb to it, was one of the most awful forms of trial which persecutors could inflict (see Acts 26:11), especially if the tempted person yielded to the temptation, as in 1 Kings 13:7; 1 Kings 13:19-26. There is no variation in the mss. but some have conjectured eprçsthçsan"they were burned" for epeirasthçsan. In a recent outbreak at Alexandria some Jews had been burnt alive (Philo inFlacc. 20) and burnings are mentioned in 2Ma 6:11. The reason for the position of the word, as a sort of climax, perhaps lies in the strong effort to tempt the last and youngest of the seven brother-martyrs to apostatise in 2 Maccabees 7.

were slain with the sword "They have slain thy prophets with the sword" (1 Kings 19:10). Jehoiakim "slew Urijah with the sword" (Jeremiah 26:23). The Jews suffered themselves to be massacred on the Sabbath in the war against Antiochus (1Ma 2:38; 2Ma 5:26).