Hebrews 3:6-8
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
6 [a](A)but Christ was faithful as a son placed over his house. We are his house, if [only] we hold fast to our confidence and pride in our hope.
Israel’s Infidelity a Warning. 7 [b]Therefore, as the holy Spirit says:
“Oh, that today you would hear his voice,(B)
8 ‘Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion
in the day of testing in the desert,
Footnotes
- 3:6 The majority of manuscripts add “firm to the end,” but these words are not found in the three earliest and best witnesses and are probably an interpolation derived from Hb 3:14.
- 3:7–4:13 The author appeals for steadfastness of faith in Jesus, basing his warning on the experience of Israel during the Exodus. In the Old Testament the Exodus had been invoked as a symbol of the return of Israel from the Babylonian exile (Is 42:9; 43:16–21; 51:9–11). In the New Testament the redemption was similarly understood as a new exodus, both in the experience of Jesus himself (Lk 9:31) and in that of his followers (1 Cor 10:1–4). The author cites Ps 95:7–11, a salutary example of hardness of heart, as a warning against the danger of growing weary and giving up the journey. To call God living (Hb 3:12) means that he reveals himself in his works (cf. Jos 3:10; Jer 10:11). The rest (Hb 3:11) into which Israel was to enter was only a foreshadowing of that rest to which Christians are called. They are to remember the example of Israel’s revolt in the desert that cost a whole generation the loss of the promised land (Hb 3:15–19; cf. Nm 14:20–29). In Hb 4:1–11, the symbol of rest is seen in deeper dimension: because the promise to the ancient Hebrews foreshadowed that given to Christians, it is good news; and because the promised land was the place of rest that God provided for his people, it was a share in his own rest, which he enjoyed after he had finished his creative work (Hb 3:3–4; cf. Gn 2:2). The author attempts to read this meaning of God’s rest into Ps 95:7–11 (Hb 3:6–9). The Greek form of the name of Joshua, who led Israel into the promised land, is Jesus (Hb 3:8). The author plays upon the name but stresses the superiority of Jesus, who leads his followers into heavenly rest. Hb 3:12, 13 are meant as a continuation of the warning, for the word of God brings judgment as well as salvation. Some would capitalize the word of God and see it as a personal title of Jesus, comparable to that of Jn 1:1–18.
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