So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me; rather, I will act fear: what shall man do unto me? The quotation is from Psalms 118:6. The memory of their former pastors who had finished their course is next urged upon the readers as an encouragement to perseverance in the life of faith.
Remember your leaders ( τῶν ἡγουμένων ὑμῶν, wrongly rendered in the A.V., "them that have the rule over you;" for the reference is to departed chiefs. The word is similarly used by St. Luke (see Luke 22:26; Acts 15:22; also below, Acts 15:17 and Acts 15:24). St. Paul, with a like meaning, calls the rulers of the Church οἱ προιστάμενοι: see Romans 12:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:12; 1 Timothy 5:17), who spake to you the Word of God; of whose conversation (i.e. course of life, ἀναστροφῆς), considering the end (or issue, ἔκβασιν), imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is yesterday and today the same, and forever. This allusion to departed leaders shows the comparatively late date of the Epistle. Those who had died as martyrs, and hence, having a peculiar halo round them in the issue of their lives, may be supposed to be especially referred to; such as Stephen the proto-martyr at Jerusalem, James the son of Zebedee, and possibly James the Just, the acknowledged leader of the Jewish Christians. It may be that Peter, the apostle of the circumcision, had also suffered before the writing of the Epistle. This supposition, however, which would involve a date for the Epistle after St. Paul's death also, is by no means necessary. Others, too, may be alluded to of whom we have no record, but whose memory would be fresh in the minds of the readers. But it does not follow that martyrs only are intended. Others also who had died in peace, and whose end had been blessed, might be pointed to as models for the imitation of survivors. Verse 8 must be taken as a distinct appended sentence, the watchword on which the preceding exhortation is based. Its drift is that, though successive generations pass away, Jesus Christ remains the same—the Savior of the living as well as of the departed, and the Savior of all to the end of time. It may be here observed that, though his eternal Deity is not distinctly expressed—for "yesterday" does not of necessity reach back to past eternity—yet the sentence can hardly be taken as not implying it. For his unchangeableness is contrasted with the changing generations of men, as is that of Jehovah in the Old Testament (e.g. in Psalms 90:2-4), and surely such language would not have been used of any but a Divine Being.