Hebrews 3:7-19

Respond to Jesus’ voice now

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says, Today, if you hear his voice,

8 don't have stubborn hearts as they did in the rebellion, on the day when they tested me in the desert.

9 That is where your ancestors challenged and tested me, though they had seen my work for forty years.

10 So I was angry with them. I said, "Their hearts always go off course, and they don't know my ways."

11 Because of my anger I swore: "They will never enter my rest!"

12 Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that none of you have an evil, unfaithful heart that abandons the living God.

13 Instead, encourage each other every day, as long as it's called "today," so that none of you become insensitive to God because of sin's deception.

14 We are partners with Christ, but only if we hold on to the confidence we had in the beginning until the end.

15 When it says, Today, if you hear his voice, don't have stubborn hearts as they did in the rebellion.

16 Who was it who rebelled when they heard his voice? Wasn't it all of those who were brought out of Egypt by Moses?

17 And with whom was God angry for forty years? Wasn't it with the ones who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert?

18 And against whom did he swear that they would never enter his rest, if not against the ones who were disobedient?

19 We see that they couldn't enter because of their lack of faith.

Hebrews 3:7-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HEBREWS 3

The apostle having discoursed, in the preceding chapters, concerning the dignity of Christ's person, and his wondrous grace in the assumption of human nature, and suffering in the room and stead of his people, exhorts the Hebrews in this to a serious consideration of him, attention to him, and faith in him, and constancy in it; the arguments he uses to engage them to these things are taken from the grace and benefit they themselves were partakers of through him, from the office in which he was, and his faithfulness to his Father in the discharge of it, Heb 3:1,2 which is illustrated in the case of Moses, who was faithful in the house of God, and whom Christ excelled, and therefore was worthy of more honour; partly, because he is the builder of the house; and partly, because he is a Son in it, when Moses was only a servant; which house is Christ's own, and consists of true and steadfast believers in him, Heb 3:2-6, wherefore the exhortation to regard him is renewed, enforced, and expressed in the words of the Holy Ghost, Heb 3:7-11 which are taken out of Ps 95:7-11 and applied to the present case: hence the apostle cautions against unbelief, as being a great evil in itself, and bad in its consequence, causing persons to depart from the living God, Heb 3:12, in order to prevent which he advises to a daily exhortation of each other to their duty, that so they might not be hardened in sin through the deceitfulness of it, Heb 3:13 and the rather it became them to be concerned to hold fast their faith in Christ to the end, since this is the grand evidence of being a partaker of him, Heb 3:14. And then the exhortation in the above passage of Scripture is recited, Heb 3:15 to show, that though not all the persons spoken of, yet some did provoke the Lord by their unbelief, and unbecoming carriage, Heb 3:16 wherefore, by the example of punishment being inflicted on such, of which instances are given in the forefathers of these people, such as their carcasses falling in the wilderness, and their not entering into the land of Canaan, which they could not, because God swore they should not, being grieved and provoked by them, and because of their unbelief, they are dissuaded from the same evils, lest they should be punished in like manner, Heb 3:17-19.

Footnotes

• [a]. Ps 95:7-11
• [b]. Ps 95:7-8