Hebrews 3:12

b. Application of Israel’s sad example in warning to you, Hebrews 3:12-15 .

12. Take heed To be connected immediately with the as of Hebrews 3:7, where see note. As the Holy Ghost gave the warnings of Hebrews 3:7-12, so, in accordance therewith, do you take heed of apostatizing as your fathers apostatized and perished.

In any of you You, emphatic; in… you, as in the lost apostates of old. And our author assumes that to apostatize from Christ is not merely to relapse into a harmless Judaism; it is to fall into sin and death.

Heart of unbelief For unbelief of divine truth springs from all evil temper. If men’s hearts were right, their belief would be right. The drunkard will not believe the truths of temperance doctrines because he loves ardent spirits. The knave will not believe the precepts of conscience because he loves the gains of fraud. The atheist rejects God because he dislikes God. Note on John 3:18-21. And so the Hebrew was liable to relapse from Christ from disgust at the sufferings and lowliness of Christ.

In departing The unbelief would result in, be exerted in, nay, consist in, departing. The evil heart, the unbelief, and the departing, all fuse into each other and become one.

Living God The Old Testament phrase to distinguish Jehovah from the unliving idols. But our author boldly assumes that the living God has deserted old Judaism, and is in and with the Christian Church. To desert Christ is to desert the living God.