See Genesis 23.4; 26.3; 35.12; compare Genesis 35.27.
Lived … in the country … lived in tents: as in other places, the writer uses two different words for “live in,” for the sake of variety. The first means “to stay for a time,” “to make a temporary home.” The second usually means “to take up permanent residence,” but in tents makes this difficult. However, the writer may be being deliberately ironical, as “settle down in tents” could be in English.
As a foreigner is literally “as in a foreign land.” At first sight it seems to make no difference whether one says that Abraham was foreign to the country or the country foreign to Abraham, but there is a change of focus. Good News Translation fourth edition, as a foreigner, replaces Good News Bible third edition, heavier but less ambiguous, as though he were a foreigner. The point is that the country was only in a manner of speaking “foreign,” since God had promised to give it to Abraham’s descendants.
By faith he lived as a foreigner may be rendered as “Because he trusted God, he lived as a foreigner would live,” “… as a person who had no rights in that place,” or “… as a person who was a stranger in that land.” The clause that God had promised to him may be expanded; for example, “that God had promised to give to him” or “that God had promised, ‘I will give it to you.’ ”
A literal rendering of He lived in tents may cause problems. In the first place, the use of the singular pronoun He, without mention of anyone else, might suggest that Abraham lived alone. Secondly, to say that He lived in tents might appear as though he alone lived in several tents. It may therefore be necessary to translate He lived in tents as “He lived in a tent” or “He and those with him lived in tents.”
As did Isaac and Jacob weakens Good News Bible third edition with Isaac and Jacob, which is difficult to reconcile with the chronology of Genesis (see especially Gen 26.1). The Greek, however, cannot mean anything but “with.” Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente have “with”; Bijbel in Gewone Taal, the Portuguese common language version (BÍBLIA para todos Edição Comum), New English Bible, the New International Version (New International Version), and Translator’s New Testament have “as,” under the influence of Genesis. “With Isaac and Jacob” may be translated “in company with Isaac and Jacob” or “in the same place as Isaac and Jacob.”
On promise, see comments on 4.1 and 6.12. The last part of the verse probably means “Isaac and Jacob, who were also to receive what God had promised,” not “Isaac and Jacob, to whom the same promise had been made.” Both are grammatically possible because no tense is expressed in the Greek. The first explanation fits in better, both with the writer’s usual use of the word for promise and also with the next verse.
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .