Hebrews 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer urges holy brothers who share in God's heavenly call to fix their attention on Jesus, the one God sent and the high priest they confess, who was faithful to God just as Moses was faithful in God's house. Moses served in that house as a servant, but Christ is the Son over it, and the readers are that house if they hold on to their confidence and hope to the end. The chapter then quotes what the Holy Spirit says, warning them not to make their hearts stubborn as Israel did in the desert, and closes by noting that those people could not enter God's rest because they did not believe.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The addressees are called holy brothers.
   • The addressees share in a heavenly calling.
   • The addressees are told to consider the Apostle and High Priest of the confession they profess.
   • The Apostle and High Priest of their profession is Christ Jesus.
2. 3:2
   • Christ Jesus was faithful to the one who appointed him.
   • Moses also was faithful in all his house.
3. 3:3
   • This one was counted worthy of more glory than Moses.
   • The one who built the house has more honor than the house.
4. 3:4
   • Every house is built by someone.
   • God is the one who built all things.
5. 3:5
   • Moses was faithful in all his house.
   • Moses was faithful as a servant.
   • Moses' faithfulness was for a testimony of the things that were going to be spoken.
6. 3:6
   • Christ is faithful as a son over his own house.
   • We are that house.
   • We are that house on the condition that we hold fast the confidence and the boasting of the hope firm to the end.
7. 3:7
   • The Holy Ghost says the following.
   • The words spoken are: today, if you will hear his voice.
8. 3:8
   • Do not harden your hearts.
   • Their hearts were hardened as in the provocation.
   • The provocation happened in the day of temptation in the wilderness.
9. 3:9
   • Your fathers tempted me there.
   • Your fathers proved me.
   • Your fathers saw my works forty years.
10. 3:10
    • I was grieved with that generation.
    • I said they always err in their heart.
    • I said they have not known my ways.
11. 3:11
    • I swore in my wrath.
    • The oath was that they shall not enter into my rest.
12. 3:12
    • The brothers are told to take heed.
    • They are to take heed lest there be in any of them an evil heart of unbelief.
    • Such a heart departs from the living God.
    • God is living.
13. 3:13
    • Exhort one another daily.
    • The exhorting is to continue while it is called today.
    • The purpose is that none of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
    • Sin is deceitful.
14. 3:14
    • We are made partakers of Christ.
    • That partaking holds on the condition that we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.
15. 3:15
    • It is said: today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation.
16. 3:16
    • Some, when they had heard, provoked.
    • Not all who came out of Egypt by Moses provoked.
    • People came out of Egypt by Moses.
    • It is asked who those were who heard and provoked, and whether they were not all who came out of Egypt by Moses.
17. 3:17
    • It is asked with whom he was grieved forty years.
    • He was grieved with those who had sinned.
    • The carcasses of those who sinned fell in the wilderness.
18. 3:18
    • It is asked to whom he swore that they should not enter into his rest.
    • He swore it to those who did not believe.
19. 3:19
    • We see that they could not enter in.
    • They could not enter in because of unbelief.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

Three King James words carry more than they look. "Apostle" is a Greek term meaning one who is sent as an authorized representative, and here it is used as a title for Jesus rather than for the twelve. "Profession" in 1611 English meant something publicly declared, the faith a person states out loud, not a line of work. "High Priest" was the one Israelite who could enter the innermost room of the sanctuary, once a year, to make offerings on behalf of the whole nation.

3:2

"House" throughout this chapter means a household, the people and servants belonging to a master, not a building. The phrase comes from Numbers 12:7, where God says of Moses that he "is faithful in all mine house." The Greek of this verse does not actually say whose house it is; the rendering supplies "God's" from the Numbers quotation standing behind it.

3:3

"This man" in the King James simply means "this one," pointing back to Jesus. It is not making a point about his humanity as against Moses.

3:5

The word translated "servant" here is not the ordinary Greek word for a slave but a term for an honored attendant, and it is the exact word the Greek Old Testament uses of Moses in Numbers 12:7. "For a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after" means that Moses' service functioned as evidence pointing forward to what God would say at a later time.

3:6

"The rejoicing of the hope" translates a Greek word meaning a boast, the thing a person holds his head up about, not a private feeling of gladness.

3:7

Verses 7 to 11 quote Psalm 95:7 to 11, in the Greek version of the Old Testament that the writer and his readers used. "Holy Ghost" is the King James term for the Holy Spirit; in 1611 "ghost" meant spirit, with no suggestion of an apparition.

3:8

In the Greek Old Testament, "the provocation" and "the day of temptation" translate two Hebrew place names, Meribah and Massah, which mean "quarreling" and "testing." The episode is in Exodus 17:1 to 7, where Israel demanded water and asked whether God was among them or not. "Temptation" in 1611 English meant putting to the test, not enticement to do wrong. The "wilderness" is the dry, unsettled country between Egypt and Canaan.

3:9

"Tempted me, proved me" is one idea said twice: they tested me, they tried me out to see what I would do. The forty years are Israel's years of wandering between the escape from Egypt and the entry into Canaan, recorded in Exodus and Numbers.

3:10

"Grieved" here is stronger than sadness; the Greek word means to be disgusted or angered with someone. "Err in their heart" uses "heart" in its Hebrew sense, the mind and will, the place where a person decides things, rather than the emotions.

3:11

The oath is recorded in Numbers 14:21 to 23, where God swears that the generation which left Egypt will not reach the promised land. "My rest" in the psalm means that settled land itself, the end of the wandering. The Greek reproduces a clipped Hebrew oath formula that literally reads "if they shall enter," a self-curse with the consequence left unsaid; translators fill it out as "shall not" or "never."

3:12

"The living God" is a standing Old Testament phrase for the God of Israel, set against gods made of wood and stone that do not act.

3:13

"Exhort" means to urge and encourage, not to scold. "While it is called To day" presses the word "today" from the psalm just quoted: for as long as that "today" is still being spoken, the warning is still live.

3:14

"Partakers" means sharers or partners, from the same Greek root as "partakers" in verse 1. "The beginning of our confidence" is ambiguous in the Greek and can mean either the confidence we had at the start or the original commitment we began with. "Stedfast" is simply the older spelling of steadfast.

3:16

This verse is genuinely disputed, because the difference in Greek is a single accent that the earliest manuscripts do not write: the same letters read either as "some" or as "who?" The King James takes it as a statement, that some rebelled but not all. Most modern translations take it as a rhetorical question, "who heard and rebelled? Was it not all who came out of Egypt with Moses?" On the King James reading, the exceptions in view are Caleb and Joshua, the only two of that generation who entered the land.

3:17

"Carcases" is the King James word for dead bodies, and it echoes Numbers 14:29, "Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness." The point is that the generation died during the wandering instead of arriving.

3:18

The Greek word behind "believed not" here means refused to be persuaded, that is, disobeyed. Verse 19 then uses a closely related but distinct word meaning unbelief. The writer moves between the two on purpose, treating the refusal to trust and the refusal to obey as one failure seen from two sides.

3:19

Here the writer switches to a related word that does mean unbelief, holding the two ideas together: they would not trust God, and so they would not do what he said.