For here have we no continuing city - Here is an elegant and forcible allusion to the approaching destruction of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem that was below was about to be burnt with fire, and erased to the ground; the Jerusalem that was from above was that alone which could be considered to be μενουσαν, permanent. The words seem to say: "Arise, and depart; for this is not your rest: it is polluted:" About seven or eight years after this, Jerusalem was wholly destroyed.
For here we have no continuing city - We do not regard this as our final home, or our fixed abode, and we should be willing to bear reproaches during the little time that we are to remain here; compare notes, Hebrews 11:10, Hebrews 11:13-14. If, therefore, in consequence of our professed attachment to the Saviour, we should be driven away from our habitations, and compelled to wander, we should be willing to submit to it, for our permanent home is not here, but in heaven. The object of the writer seems to be to comfort the Hebrew Christians on the supposition that they would be driven by persecution from the city of Jerusalem, and doomed to wander as exiles. He tells them that their Lord was led from that city to be put to death, and they should be willing to go forth also; that their permanent home was not Jerusalem, but heaven, and they should be willing in view of that blessed abode to be exiled from the city where they dwelt, and made wanderers in the earth.