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According to this view v. 14 is parenthetical, and brings out the real nature of the Christian privilege—a participation in the Messiah—and the condition on which it is kept.

If this connexion be adopted the sense is: ‘exhort one another so long as it is called today...while the voice of God is still addressed to you, and still claims loyal obedience.’

( c ) Detailed interpretation of the lesson of the Psalm (3:16-19). The general application of the warning of the Psalm to Christians is confirmed by a closer interpretation of the circumstances. Those who incurred the displeasure of God and who were excluded from the promised rest, were the people who had been delivered from Egypt. Unbelief and disobedience finally cut off from their goal men who had entered on the way. So it may be with those who have been joined to Christ.

16 For who when they heard did provoke? Nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt by Moses? 17 And with whom was He displeased forty years? Was it not with them that sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that were disobedient? 19 And we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

3:16-19. The succession of thought is significant. The very people whom God had rescued provoked Him (v. 16). They sinned and met with the fatal consequences of sin (v. 17). They disobeyed and received the sentence of rejection (v. 18). Unbelief (comp. v. 12) made them incapable of that rest towards which they had started by faith (v. 19).

3:16. tivne" gavr ...] The warning is necessary. Christians have need of anxious care. For who were they who so provoked God in old times? Even those whom He had already brought from bondage.
tivne" ... ajllj ouj pavnte" ...] For who...? Nay, did not...? Vulg. Quidam cum ( tine;" ga;r )... sed non universi...For some when they had heard did provoke
(A. V.). This rendering is quite alien from the context. The vast mass who came out of Egypt could not be described as ‘some.’ On the other hand the interrogative completely corresponds with the two interrogatives which follow ( tivne" ... tivsin ... tivsin ...); and the three questions point to the three stages of the divine displeasure. Nor does the faith of Joshua and Caleb invalidate the general statement.
parepivkranan ] The verb occurs here only in N.T., but it is not unfrequent in LXX. and Philo. It is used generally with acc. of object: Ps. 77:17 (78:17) parepivkranan to;n u{yiston , but also absolutely: Ps. 77:8, genea; skolia; kai; parapikraivnousa ; Ezek. 2:5, 7, 8 & c.
ajllj ouj ...] Nay , such a question cannot be asked as if the answer were doubtful: was it not...?

For the use of ajllav compare Lk. 17:8 ( ajllj oujciv ...); Mark 14:36; John 12:27.

oiJ ejxelqovnte" ] The word marks the act of the people, the manifestation of faith on their part, as well as the act of Moses. They ‘came out’ and not only ‘were led out’ (Acts 7:36 ejxhvgagen ; Heb. 8:9).
dia; Mwusevw" ] The fact that Moses had been the instrument of their deliverance should have kept them from ‘chiding with him’ (Ex. 17:2).

Heb. 3:17. The unbelief of the people shewed itself in open sin from first to last (v. 8).


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