Hebrews 11:13

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

These all, in this place, is not a reference to Abel, Enoch, and Noah, mentioned above, but to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and their children, this being a necessary inference from Hebrews 11:15, and from the fact that the first three mentioned did not receive the promise of entering Canaan, as did Abraham and his posterity.

These all died in faith should never be separated from the essential lesson that it is DYING in the faith that counts. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" (Revelation 14:13) is another statement of the same principle. In the Master's wonderful parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the payoff came in the twilight, "when even was come"; and every laborer in the vineyard of Jesus should stay with the task until the evening of life has approached, the twilight has descended, and the night has come, that is, until death (Matthew 20:8).

Not having received the promises means "not receiving things promised." In other words, they did not receive physical possession of the land of Canaan, nor the eternal city of which Canaan was the type, the valid reason for this being clearly stated in Hebrews 11:39-40 at the end of this chapter.

Having seen them and greeted them from afar is said of the trust of those faithful ones in God's ultimate fulfillment of his promise to them; and it was their glory, and the basis of their being such good examples for us, that they accepted the abeyance in which their inheritance was held, freely confessing that it was in another world that they expected its rich fulfillment.

Having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. These words refer to Abraham's dwelling in tents, considering himself as one passing through the world, and not as making a permanent dwelling in it. In view of the great wealth of the patriarchs, it still, after so many centuries, astonishes one to think they never built a house. They accepted and made themselves content in their status as sojourners, strangers in an alien country; and, in this verse, the word "pilgrims" is added for additional description. "Pilgrim" literally means "one who crosses the field," and it came into wide usage during the time of the crusades, when all across Europe, it was nothing unusual for settled citizens to see a lonely traveler crossing a clearing or a field on the way to the Holy Land. The word came to have a very rich connotation of one who, leaving all other considerations behind, pressed onward toward some sacred goal. The word is particularly fitting as applied to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.