Faith means that you start to (1) see (Ephesians 1:17–18). God’s promise opens a new world. Those who believed also were (2) convinced and (3) glad about God’s promises (= they greeted them from afar; John 8:56) and (4) confessed the hope of faith to other people. That is the repeated exhortation in this letter (Hebrews 4:14 and Hebrews 10:23): to confess your hope.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.