Hebrews 3:16--4:2

3:16 For which ones heard and rebelled? Was it not all who came out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership? ¹  3:17 And against whom was God ²  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? ³  3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 3:19 So ⁴  we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.

God’s Promised Rest

4:1 Therefore we must be wary ⁵  that, while the promise of entering his rest remains open, none of you may seem to have come short of it. 4:2 For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in ⁶  with those who heard it in faith. ⁷ 

¹ tn Grk “through Moses.”

² tn Grk “he”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

³ sn An allusion to God’s judgment pronounced in Num 14:29, 32.

³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate a summary or conclusion to the argument of the preceding paragraph.

⁴ tn Grk “let us fear.”

⁵ tn Or “they were not united.”

⁶ tc A few mss (א and a few versional witnesses) have the nominative singular participle συγκεκερασμένος (sunkekerasmeno", “since it [the message] was not combined with faith by those who heard it”), a reading that refers back to the ὁ λόγος (Jo logo", “the message”). There are a few other variants here (e.g., συγκεκεραμμένοι [sunkekerammenoi] in 104, συγκεκεραμένους [sunkekeramenou"] in 1881 Ï), but the accusative plural participle συγκεκερασμένους (sunkekerasmenou"), found in Ì^13vid,46 A B C D* Ψ 0243 0278 33 81 1739 2464 pc, has by far the best external credentials. This participle agrees with the previous ἐκείνους (ekeinou", “those”), a more difficult construction grammatically than the nominative singular. Thus, both on external and internal grounds, συγκεκερασμένους is preferred.