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3. Warning Against Unbelief

¹ Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. ² He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. ³ Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. ⁴ For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. ⁵ “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” Num. 12:7 bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. ⁶ But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

Warning Against Unbelief

⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says:

   “Today, if you hear his voice,
    ⁸ do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
   during the time of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested and tried me,
   though for forty years they saw what I did.
¹⁰ That is why I was angry with that generation;
   I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
   and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
   ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ” Psalm 95:7-11

¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. ¹⁵ As has just been said:

   “Today, if you hear his voice,
   do not harden your hearts
   as you did in the rebellion.” Psalm 95:7,8

¹⁶ Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷ And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

15. While it is said, etc. He intimates that the reason for making progress never ceases as long as we live, because God calls us daily. For since faith responds to the preaching of the Gospel, as preaching continues through the whole course of our life, so we ought to continue growing in faith. The phrase, then, while it is said, is the same as though he had said, “Since God never makes an end of speaking, it is not enough for us readily to receive his doctrine, except we exhibit the same teachableness and obedience tomorrow and every following day.” ⁶⁶⁶⁶     Most connect this verse with the preceding, as in our version, and as Doddridge thus “forasmuch as it is said;” and Macknight thus “as ye may know by the saying.” So does Beza; and Calvin seems to do the same; but some connect it with the 13^th and others with the 14^th verse. Modern authors, such as Stuart and Blooomfield, regard it as the commencement of a paragraph, and connect it with what follows. Stuart’s version is —
   15. With regard to the saying, “today while ye hear his voice, harden
16. Not your hearts as in the provocation;” who now were they that when they heard did provoke? Nay, did not all who came out of Egypt under Moses? Etc.
   Bloomfield approves of this version, only he considers the quotation is confined to the words, “Today, while ye hear his voice,” and regards what follows, “harden not,” etc., as said by the writer: See Appendix N. — Ed.