Hebrews 6:9

πεπείσμεθα δὲ.… “But of you, beloved, we are persuaded things that are better and associated with salvation, though we thus speak.” “Alarm at the awful suggestion of his own picture (Hebrews 6:4-8) causes a rush of affection into his heart” (Davidson). He hastens to assure them that he does not consider them apostates, although he has described the apostate condition and doom. “This is very like St. Paul's way of closing and softening anything he had said that sounded terrible and dreadful” (Pierce). Cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Ephesians 4:20; Galatians 5:10. “The form [πεπείσμεθα] implies that the writer had felt misgivings and overcome them” (Westcott). περὶ ὑμῶν is emphasised, and the unique (in this Epistle) ἀγαπητοί is introduced to reassure them and as the natural expression of his own reaction in their favour. τὰ κρείττονα “things better” than those he has been describing (neither limiting the reference to the condition, although necessarily it is mainly in view, nor to the doom, although the σωτηρίας indicates that it also is in view); and things indeed that so far from being κατάρας ἐγγύς are ἐχόμενα σωτηρίας closely allied to salvation. [Cf. Hamlet's “no relish of salvation in it.”] ἐχόμενα = next, from ἔχομαι. I hold myself to, adhere. So locally Mark 1:38, εἰς τὰς ἐχομένας κωμοπόλεις : temporally, Acts 21:26, τῇ ἐχομένῃ ἡμερᾷ, here, as in Herodotus, Plato, and Lucian, “pertaining to,” so Herod., i. 120, τὰ τῶν ὀνειράτων ἐχόμενα. εἰ καὶ and καὶ εἰ generally retain in N.T. their distinctive meanings.