Hebrews 3:7--4:2

Exposition of Psalm 95: Hearing God’s Word in Faith

3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks!

3:8Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.

3:9There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.

3:10Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said,Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.

3:11As I swore in my anger,They will never enter my rest!’”

3:12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes the living God. 10  3:13 But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called “Today,” that none of you may become hardened by sin’s deception. 3:14 For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence 11  firm until the end. 3:15 As it says, 12 Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! 13  Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 14  3:16 For which ones heard and rebelled? Was it not all who came out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership? 15  3:17 And against whom was God 16  provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 17  3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 3:19 So 18  we see that they could not enter because of unbelief.

God’s Promised Rest

4:1 Therefore we must be wary 19  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 20  with those who heard it in faith. 21 


sn The following quotation is from Ps 95:7b-11.

tn Grk “today if you hear his voice.”

tn Grk “tested me by trial.”

tn Grk “they are wandering in the heart.”

tn Grk “if they shall enter my rest,” a Hebrew idiom expressing an oath that something will certainly not happen.

tn Or “take care.”

tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

tn Grk “that there not be in any of you.”

tn Or “deserts,” “rebels against.”

10 tn Grk “in forsaking the living God.”

11 tn Grk “the beginning of the confidence.”

12 tn Grk “while it is said.”

13 tn Grk “today if you hear his voice.”

14 sn A quotation from Ps 95:7b-8.

15 tn Grk “through Moses.”

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

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

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

19 tn Grk “let us fear.”

20 tn Or “they were not united.”

21 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 Ì13vid,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.