Hebrews 3:7-17

7 Wherefore, even as says the Holy Spirit, To-day if ye will hear his voice,

8 harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness;

9 where your fathers tempted [me], by proving [me], and saw my works forty years.

10 Wherefore I was wroth with this generation, and said, They always err in heart; and *they* have not known my ways;

11 so I swore in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest.

12 See, brethren, lest there be in any one of you a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from [the] living God.

13 But encourage yourselves each day, as long as it is called To-day, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

14 For we are become companions of the Christ if indeed we hold the beginning of the assurance firm to the end;

15 in that it is said, To-day if ye will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation;

16 (for who was it, who, having heard, provoked? but [was it] not all who came out of Egypt by Moses?

17 And with whom was he wroth forty years? [Was it] not with those who had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?

Hebrews 3:7-17 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]. See Ps. 95.7-11.
• [b]. A Hebraism involving a strong negative. Compare Num. 14.23; Mark 8.12.
• [c]. Metochos, as ch. 1.9 (quoting Ps. 45.7), to which it alludes. It is not 'partakers of Christ.'
• [d]. I have no doubt, in spite of objections, that 16-19 is a parenthesis.
• [e]. Or 'was it not indeed.'
• [f]. Lit. 'limbs:' often used for a carcase. Some suppose the idea of the body falling to pieces.