Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

For--proof that "faith" (Heb 11:13) was their actuating principle. declare plainly--make it plainly evident. seek--Greek, "seek after"; implying the direction towards which their desires ever tend. a country--rather as Greek, "a fatherland." In confessing themselves strangers here, they evidently imply that they regard not this as their home or fatherland, but seek after another and a better.