Hebrews 3:6-16

6 but Christ was faithful as a Son having authority over God's house, and we are that house, if we hold firm to the End the boldness and the hope which we boast of as ours.

7 For this reason--as the Holy Spirit warns us, "To-day, if you hear His voice,

8 do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation on the day of the temptation in the Desert,

9 where your forefathers so sorely tried My patience and saw all that I did during forty years.

10 Therefore I was greatly grieved with that generation, and I said, `They are ever going astray in heart, and have not learnt to know My paths.'

11 As I swore in My anger, they shall not be admitted to My rest" --

12 see to it, brethren, that there is never in any one of you--as perhaps there may be--a sinful and unbelieving heart, manifesting itself in revolt from the ever-living God.

13 On the contrary encourage one another, day after day, so long as To-day lasts, so that not one of you may be hardened through the deceitful character of sin.

14 For we have, all alike, become sharers with Christ, if we really hold our first confidence firm to the End;

15 seeing that the warning still comes to us, "To-day, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time of the provocation."

16 For who were they that heard, and yet provoked God? Was it not the whole of the people who had come out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses?

Hebrews 3:6-16 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.