The song “Hebrews 11:40” contrasts with the source of its title by arguing for a more immediate reward after suffering.

Track: “Hebrews 11:40”
Album: The Life of the World to Come (2009)

You have to read all of Hebrews 11 to figure out what’s going on in the final verse. I’m certainly no Biblical scholar, but some of it is very straightforward. It opens with “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” and closes with 11:40. We’re talking about faith as a shield, but a shield for a life that’s coming after this one. The faithful will eventually be rewarded, the chapter says, but they will suffer in this life.

“I’m gonna get my perfect body back someday,” John Darnielle promises in “Hebrews 11:40.” The song really challenges the whole message of The Life of the World to Come fairly directly. The chapter Hebrews 11 is obviously designed to bolster the faithful with assurances that their suffering will not go unnoticed, and it serves to strengthen people who may be experiencing weakness. The song “Hebrews 11:40,” like the rest of the album, is interested in the idea, but not so much the intention of the chapter or the verse. In the Bible, the dead faithful must wait for the rest of the faithful. In the world of the Mountain Goats, sometimes you have to take things into your own hands.

The righteous dead are told to wait for their reward, but John Darnielle says that you should “make your own friends when the world’s gone cold.” The difference is that the chapter tells people that their suffering is sign of better things to come, but the song argues a more active approach. “I feel certain I am going to rise again” is a message they both share, but “Don’t wanna hurt anyone // probably gonna have to, before it’s all done” is Darnielle’s alone.