Hebrews 3:7-9

The Illustration (Hebrews 3:7-11 ).

‘Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, at (or ‘like as on’) the day of the trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried me by proving me, and saw my work forty years.” ’

‘Wherefore,’ because they are the house over which Christ is the Son, and because of what He has been revealed to be, let them remember the words of the Holy Spirit, by responding to Him in faith.

‘Even as the Holy Spirit says.’ Notice how he calls the words of Scripture, ‘what the Holy Spirit says’. (Compare Hebrews 2:4; Hebrews 9:8; Hebrews 10:15; Matthew 22:43; Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16 see also 1 Corinthians 2:13). The words are taken from Psalms 95:7-9. The present tense ‘says’ stresses that the Holy Spirit continually speaks through the Scriptures.

‘Today’ is intended to be emphasised, see Hebrews 3:13. He wants them to apply it to their own day and recognise its immediate urgency, as we can apply it to ours. If the people suffered judgment because they failed to listen to Moses, how much more if they fail to listen to their Messiah and High Priest. And this is true ‘Today’ and on every ‘Today’.

The Holy Spirit through Scripture then warns against them hardening their heart. We need to hear when His voice speaks, or there may come a time when it is silenced because out hearts are hardened against it by sin. Let them remember ‘the provocation’, ‘ the day of trial’, that time when, after the great deliverance from Egypt, and after He had wonderfully provided sweet water from bitter, and manna and quails, Israel were in the wilderness and were tried by being thirsty for water and murmured against Yahweh, provoking God that little bit too far. It was not just that they grumbled, they harshly criticised God.

The verse is quoted virtually from LXX. In the Hebrew ‘in the provocation’ is ‘as at Meribah (strife)’, the time when Israel provoked and tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7 compare Numbers 20:13). While ‘at the day of the trial in the wilderness’ is, in the Hebrew, ‘as in the days of Massah (trial) in the wilderness’ again referring to Exodus 17:7. The LXX translates the meaning of the place names rather than citing them (or it may be that the Greek words were intended as place names).

But the warning in both cases is against provoking God in the face of testing, by murmuring and not trusting Him in such times of trial, and turning at such times against the leaders of God’s people. In spite of all that God had already done, they turned against Him and His servants Moses and Aaron. It was the precursor of, and symbolic of, all the future murmuring that would yet be to come, which would lead on to their final failure to obey God about entering the land, which brought God’s curse on them so that they could not enter the land. And it was a warning that the recipients of Hebrews also beware of behaving in the same way.

‘And saw my work forty years.’ The ‘forty years’ is transposed from the following verse as compared with the original Hebrew, emphasising that for forty years they saw the work of God in the wilderness. And what was that work? It was the resulting hardship under which He put them because of their disobedience. They were displeasing to God for ‘forty years’ (Hebrews 3:17), and suffered hardship accordingly. Instead of a quick transition into the land promised to them, the land of Canaan, which they could have entered after two short years, they suffered in the wilderness for these ‘forty’ long years until the murmurers had died out. (If we take the whole passage together this is necessarily the significance). It should be noted that little is spoken of those final thirty eight years in Numbers apart from rebellion, deaths and catastrophes, and a repetition of the sin of Meribah at a new Meribah (Numbers 15:1 to Numbers 20:13).

But assuming that Hebrews was written in the early seventies AD some see the forty years as intended to parallel the period from when Christianity commenced, either at the crucifixion and resurrection or at Pentecost, to the time of writing, and thus interpret ‘saw my work forty years’ as meaning His general activity on behalf of His people. If this be so then the writer is calling on his readers to look back over the forty years of Christian history and take note of its lessons. Both great persecution and great blessing had been experienced, and they must learn from it. But if this was so it would mean that the application did not quite tie in with the illustration. For the forty years since Pentecost had not been specific times of God’s displeasure, whereas the forty years in the wilderness were (Hebrews 3:17). On the other hand, it must be agreed that illustrations must never be overpressed.

It should be noted that the murmuring at ‘Meribah’ occurred at both ends of the period in Exodus/Numbers (Exodus 17:7; Numbers 20:13), the same name being given to two separate places where similar events took place (compare Deuteronomy 33:8), but the emphasis in the Psalm is on the first one.

Interestingly the Jews also connected the period of forty years in the wilderness with the times of the Messiah based on this verse. Rabbi Eliezer says, “The days of the Messiah are forty years, as it is said, Forty years long was I grieved with that generation”.