Hebrews 3:7-19

Διὸ, “wherefore,” since it is only by holding fast our confidence to the end, that we continue to be the house of Christ and enjoy His faithful oversight, cf. Hebrews 3:14. Διὸ was probably intended to be immediately followed by βλέπετε (Hebrews 3:12) “wherefore take heed,” but a quotation is introduced from Psalms 95 which powerfully enforces the βλέπετε. Or it may be that διὸ connects with μὴ σκληρύνητε, but the judicious bracketing of the quotation by the A.V. is to be preferred. The quotation is introduced by words which lend weight to it, καθὼς λέγει τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, a form of citation not found elsewhere in exactly the same terms, but in Hebrews 10:15 we find the similar form μαρτυρεῖ δὲ ἡμῖν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγ. Cf. also Hebrews 9:8. Agabus uses it of his own words (Acts 21:11). In 1 Timothy 4:1 we have τὸ δὲ Πνεῦμα ῥητῶς λέγει cf. Revelation 2-3. “It is a characteristic of the Epistle that the words of Holy Scripture are referred to the Divine Author, not to the human instrument” (Westcott). The Psalm (95) is ascribed to David in Hebrews 4:7 as in the LXX it is called αἶνος ᾠδῆς τῷ Δαυίδ, although in the Hebrew it is not so ascribed. The quotation contains Hebrews 3:7-11.

Σήμερον, “to-day” is in the first instance, the “to-day” present to the writer of the psalm, and expresses the thought that God's offers had not been withdrawn although rejected by those to whom they had long ago been made. But Delitzsch adduces passages which show that σήμερον in this psalm was understood by the synagogue to refer to the second great day of redemption. “The history of redemption knows but of two great turning points, that of the first covenant and that of the new” (Davidson). And what the writer to the Hebrews fears is that the second announcement of promise may be disregarded as the first. Force is lent to his fears by the fact that the forty years of the Messiah's waiting from 30 70 A.D., when Jerusalem was to be destroyed, were fast running out. The fate of the exasperating Israelites in the wilderness received an ominous significance in presence of the obduracy of the generation which had heard the voice of Christ Himself.

ἐὰν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούσητε, “if ye shall hear His voice” (R.V., Vaughan); not “if ye will hearken to His voice.” The sense is, “If God should be pleased, after so much inattention on our part, to speak again, see that ye give heed to Him”.