Hebrews 3:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

They did not receive benefit precisely because they did not apply their faith. Then, wishing to frighten them, he expresses this in the following words: "For some, when they heard, rebelled; yet not all who came out of Egypt with Moses. With whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bones fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, if not to the disobedient? So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief." After repeating the testimony, he adds a question, in order to make his words clear. "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says," he says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." Of which hardened men does he remind them, and of which unbelievers? Is it not the Jews?

"For some, when they had heard, rebelled." He says that after hearing God's promise, "I will give you the land of Canaan," they did not believe. By their unbelief they provoked God to wrath. See, then, that you also not be unbelieving toward the promises. Mere hearing will bring you no profit if you do not also believe.

For hearing did not profit them. On the contrary, they rightly perished because they did not believe God's words. "Yet not all who came out of Egypt with Moses." Caleb and Joshua were not among the unbelieving. Therefore they obtained the promise and entered Palestine.

For who are they? Not all who came out of the land of the Egyptians, for some of them entered. Joshua and Caleb are meant.

The first part must be read as a question, and the second not as an affirmation, but as an answer. The words that follow compel this understanding. For besides Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, six hundred thousand perished. These are the ones whom the Apostle called "those who came out of Egypt."

The discourse just completed above concerning Moses' apostleship gives the Apostle occasion to draw several strong moral exhortations for his readers from the history of that same ministry of Moses. Having become partakers of the heavenly calling and having yielded themselves to Christ's guidance, Christians must firmly preserve their boldness and hope to the end. They must do this despite every temptation from Christ's enemies. In this matter the New Testament Israel should take as an example those Israelites of Moses' time who were steadfast and strong in spirit. Throughout the forty years of wandering, they did not lose their faith and kept themselves from murmuring. Such were Joshua and Caleb, despite all the temptations and calamities in the wilderness.

The Apostle explains the necessity of observing this condition by the example of the Israelites. While God's warning voice is still heard by all, one must take it to heart and not harden one's heart like the Hebrews. Consider, such is the Apostle's thought, who were those who heard the voice and yet murmured against God? The reading τίνες is more natural and corresponds to the following interrogative pronoun. But can one even ask this? Were they not all those who came out of Egypt under the guidance of Moses, διά Μωυαεως? Was it not the sinful and disobedient whom God punished, depriving them of the possibility of seeing the land of Canaan and resting in it? Yes, the Hebrews serve us Christians as a striking example of the harmful consequences to which unbelief in God's words leads.