Hebrews 3:9Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Yet these historical events must be recounted, so that the words may become clearer. The Jews came out of Egypt, completed a long journey, and received thousands of signs of God's power in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness.

Then they wished to send spies to examine the character of the promised land. When those who were sent returned, they marveled at the land and said that it produced excellent fruits in abundance.

Yet they also said that strong and invincible men possessed it. Then the ungrateful and unfeeling Jews should have remembered God's earlier benefits.

They should have remembered how He not only delivered them from danger when the Egyptian armies surrounded them, but also enabled them to take spoil.

As your fathers tempted Him in the wilderness at the time when the spies returned after inspecting the promised land (Num 13; Num 14; Ex 17:2, 7; Ps 94:7-10).

The Apostle brought forward this testimony, certainly to frighten the Hebrews so that they would guard more carefully the hope given to them. Yet he also has something else in view, again directing his speech so as not to arouse suspicion. He continues the exhortation.

"Where your fathers tested Me." "Where" means in the wilderness. Or "where" means when, at the time of testing. This speech belongs to the Holy Spirit.

"They tested Me and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was indignant with that generation." They saw the miracles and benefits spoken of in the seventy-seventh psalm already mentioned.

Some attach "forty years" to the present, that is, the ninth verse. Others attach it to the following verse and read thus: "For forty years I was indignant with that generation."

That is, I regarded it with indignation. I was displeased with them because of their hard-heartedness and unbelief.

"And I said: They always go astray in heart." They are not steadfast, for this is "a generation that did not set its heart aright" (Ps 77:8).

Here stop, and then sing what follows: "I was indignant with that generation and said: They always go astray in heart, and they have not known My ways" (v. 10).

Paul also made such a pause. Having cited the present testimony of the psalm and said, "Your fathers tested Me, proved Me, and saw My works for forty years," he then added, "Therefore I was indignant with that generation."

He made this division rightly and reasonably, because God truly was tested by the Jews in the wilderness for forty years.

He was tested by the performance of signs, when the Jews said, for example: "Though He struck the rock and waters flowed, and streams poured forth, can He also give bread? Or prepare a table for His people?" (Ps 77:20).

The discourse just completed above, concerning the embassy of Moses, gives the Apostle occasion to draw several strong moral exhortations for his readers from the history of that same Mosaic ministry.

Having become partakers of the heavenly calling and having entrusted themselves to the guidance of Christ, who was the prototype of Moses, Christians must firmly preserve their boldness and hope to the end, despite every temptation from Christ's enemies.

In this case, the New Testament Israel should take as an example those Israelites of the time of Moses who were steadfast and strong in spirit.

During the entire forty-year wandering, they did not lose their faith and kept themselves from murmuring, namely Joshua and Caleb, despite all the temptations and calamities in the wilderness.

For a long time, for a full forty years, the Hebrews saw the miracles of God and still tested God by their disobedience and unbelief.

Therefore God was indignant with them and even swore that they would not enjoy His rest. That is, they would not enjoy safety from enemies or live in the promised land under God's protection.

The psalmist reminded his contemporaries of this divine threat, because he saw that they were not yet enjoying God's rest in this sense.

Likewise, the Apostle, in the words of the psalmist, urges his readers, Christians from among the Hebrews, not to resist the Christian law offered to them.

Otherwise, he threatens, they will be deprived of the eternal inheritance, just as the stubborn Israelites were deprived of the opportunity to enter the land of promise. The Apostle develops this thought in Heb 4:1-10.