An Exposition of Hebrews 3:7-11, by John Owen. The following contains an excerpt from his work.

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
~ Hebrews 3:7-11

The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.
~ 2 Samuel 23:2

He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
~ Matthew 22:43-46

But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.
~ Exodus 8:15

And when they cried unto the LORD, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and brought the sea upon them, and covered them; and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt: and ye dwelt in the wilderness a long season.
~ Joshua 24:7

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.
~ Numbers 14:33

Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
~ Psalm 95:10

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
~ Hebrews 4:3

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
~ Hebrews 4:9

First, The sin is contained in these words: “As in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works, forty years.”

1. The first thing occurring in the words according unto our former distribution of them, relating to the sin mentioned, is the persons of the sinners. They were their “fathers,” the progenitors of them to whom the apostle wrote. And they are in the next verse further described by their multitude, they were a whole generation, “I was grieved with that generation.”

Who these were was declared before in the exposition of the words, and it is plain from the story who are intended. It was the people that came up out of Egypt with Moses; all of whom that were above twenty years of age at their coming into the wilderness, because of their manifold sins and provocations, died there, Caleb and Joshua only excepted. So the Lord threatened, Numbers 14:26-30,

“And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the LORD, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you; your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.”

And so it came to pass; for when the people were numbered again in the plains of Moab, it is said, “Among these there was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai;” that is, besides those two who were excepted by name, Numbers 26:64-65. These were the fathers ofthe present Hebrews; that is, as it is expressed, Jeremiah 11:10, אֲבוֹתָם הָרִאשֹׁנִים , their “forefathers,” as we render the words; rather their “first fathers,” those whom God first took into the express covenant with himself, for the place hath respect unto that very sin which is here reported: “They are turned back to the iniquity of their first fathers, which refused to hear my words,” who hearkened not unto the voice of God. And this limits the term unto those in the wilderness, seeing the former patriarchs did not refuse to hear the word of God. But they are generally called אֲבוֹת indefinitely, πατέρες , the “fathers,” as others also that followed in succeeding generations; once by our apostle they are termed πρόγονοι , “ progenitors,” 2 Timothy 1:3. Now the psalmist mentioning (and our apostle from him) the sin of the people in the wilderness, and proposing it with its consequents unto the present Hebrews, calls them their “fathers,”

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