Hebrews 3

¹Therefore, holy “brothers,” sharing in a heavenly calling, reflect on Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,

²who was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was “faithful in [all] his house.”[#Nm 12:7.]

³But he is worthy of more “glory” than Moses, as the founder of a house has more “honor” than the house itself.[#2 Cor 3:7–8.]

⁴Every house is founded by someone, but the founder of all is God.

⁵Moses was “faithful in all his house” as a “servant” to testify to what would be spoken,

⁶but Christ was faithful as a son placed over his house. We are his house, if [only] we hold fast to our confidence and pride in our hope.[#The majority of manuscripts add “firm to the end,” but these words are not found in the three earliest and best witnesses and are probably an interpolation derived from Heb 3:14.; #10:21; Eph 2:19; 1 Tm 3:15; 1 Pt 4:17.]

Israel’s Infidelity a Warning.

⁷Therefore, as the holy Spirit says:[#3:7–4:13] The author appeals for steadfastness of faith in Jesus, basing his warning on the experience of Israel during the Exodus. In the Old Testament the Exodus had been invoked as a symbol of the return of Israel from the Babylonian exile (Is 42:9; 43:16–21; 51:9–11). In the New Testament the redemption was similarly understood as a new exodus, both in the experience of Jesus himself (Lk 9:31) and in that of his followers (1 Cor 10:1–4). The author cites Ps 95:7–11, a salutary example of hardness of heart, as a warning against the danger of growing weary and giving up the journey. To call God (Heb 3:12) means that he reveals himself in his works (cf. Jos 3:10; Jer 10:11). The (Heb 3:11) into which Israel was to enter was only a foreshadowing of that rest to which Christians are called. They are to remember the example of Israel’s revolt in the desert that cost a whole generation the loss of the promised land (Heb 3:15–19; cf. Nm 14:20–29). In Heb 4:1–11, the symbol of is seen in deeper dimension: because the promise to the ancient Hebrews foreshadowed that given to Christians, it is ; and because the promised land was the place of rest that God provided for his people, it was a share in his own rest, which he enjoyed after he had finished his creative work (Heb 3:3–4; cf. Gn 2:2). The author attempts to read this meaning of God’s rest into Ps 95:7–11 (Heb 3:6–9). The Greek form of the name of Joshua, who led Israel into the promised land, is Jesus (Heb 3:8). The author plays upon the name but stresses the superiority of Jesus, who leads his followers into heavenly rest. Heb 3:12, 13 are meant as a continuation of the warning, for the word of God brings judgment as well as salvation. Some would capitalize and see it as a personal title of Jesus, comparable to that of Jn 1:1–18.]

“Oh, that today you would hear his voice,

⁸‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion

⁹where your ancestors tested and tried me

Because of this I was provoked with that generation

¹¹As I swore in my wrath,

¹²Take care, brothers, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart, so as to forsake the living God.

¹³Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.

¹⁴We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end,[#Rom 8:17.]

¹⁵for it is said:

“Oh, that today you would hear his voice:

‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.’”

¹⁶Who were those who rebelled when they heard? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt under Moses?[#Nm 14:1–38; Dt 1:19–40.]

¹⁷With whom was he “provoked for forty years”? Was it not those who had sinned, whose corpses fell in the desert?[#Nm 14:29.]

¹⁸And to whom did he “swear that they should not enter into his rest,” if not to those who were disobedient?[#Nm 14:22–23; Dt 1:35.]

¹⁹And we see that they could not enter for lack of faith.