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to Heb_4:13
Heb_3:7 to Heb_4:13. The author, in detailed development of the paraenesis already contained in Heb_3:1; Heb_3:6, warns against unbelief and apostasy, making the basis of this warning the admonitory utterance of Scripture in Psa_95:7-11; and by means of a parallelizing of the people of God of the present time, i.e. the Christians, with the people of God of Moses’ day, i.e. the Israelite fathers in the wilderness,—a parallelizing equally suggested by this passage of Scripture as by the preceding comparison of Christ with Moses,—he sets forth before the eyes of his readers the fate of the ancient people of God, who because of their unbelief were consigned to destruction, that the readers may earnestly ponder thereon.
Heb_3:7. Διό ] Wherefore, i.e. either: because Christ stands higher than Moses (so Carpzov, Zachariae, Böhme, Stuart, Kurtz, and Woerner; comp. already Schlichting), or, which is better: because we are the οἶκος of God, only in the case that we hold fast the παῤῥησία and the καύχημα of the Christian hope unto the end (Heb_3:6). The tempus finitum belonging to Διό is βλέπετε , Heb_3:12 (Erasmus, Annott.; Calvin, Estius, Piscator, Pareus, Grotius, Owen, Seb. Schmidt, Limborch, Bengel, Peirce, Carpzov, Wetstein, Abresch, Zachariae, Böhme, Bleek, Bisping, Alford, Kurtz, Woerner, al.), in such wise that καθὼς … κατάπαυσίν μου forms an intervening clause. The length of the intervening clause, at which de Wette takes umbrage, decides nothing against the supposition of such construction, which at all events possesses the advantage of greater regularity and naturalness, since the author, owing to the care which he everywhere bestows upon his diction, in other cases, too, accurately fits in his discourse again to the opening words of the proposition, notwithstanding the occurrence of lengthy intervening clauses. Comp. Heb_7:20-22, Heb_12:18-24. That, moreover, which de Wette further objects, that in the intervening clause the discourse takes a new departure with διό , Heb_3:10, forms no valid counter-argument, since the connectedness of the preceding and following words as part of a Biblical citation follows naturally. In any case, Heb_3:10 connects itself with that which precedes, without a new beginning, in a simply relative fashion, if—as we are perfectly justified in doing—we write διʼ ὅ instead of διό . When de Wette, finally, discovers a difficulty in the fact that the warning, Heb_3:12-13, does not appear in the form of a simple application of the passage of Scripture, but, on the contrary, begins with an analysis of the same, this also is without weight, inasmuch as the correctness of this assumed fact must itself be contested. In addition to this, if the author had conceived of the structure otherwise than has been indicated, he would assuredly have placed βλέπετε οὖν , Heb_3:12, instead of the disconnected βλέπετε . For neither is it permissible to appeal (with Tholuck) to the disconnected βλέπετε , Heb_12:25, in proof of the opposite, since this passage, on account of the rhetorical character of the description which there immediately precedes, is totally different from ours. Others, as Schlichting, Jac. Cappellus, Wittich, Heinrichs, Kuinoel, Klee, Stein, Stengel, Ebrard, Bloomfield, Delitzsch, Reuss, and Hofmann, connect διό immediately with μὴ σκληρύνητε , in connection with which, however, the direct address of God, coming in Heb_3:9 ff., occasions a great harshness; or else, as Tholuck, de Wette, and Maier, who appeal to Rom_15:3; Rom_15:21, 1Co_1:31; 1Co_2:9, leave the application μὴ σκληρύνετε τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν to be supplied in thought from these words; or, finally, supplement διό in a somewhat free manner: therefore conduct yourselves in accordance with that which the Holy Ghost speaks.
τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ] the Spirit of God in prophecy; comp. Heb_9:8, Heb_10:15.
σήμερον ἐὰν τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ ἀκούσητε ] is in the Hebrew ( äÇéÌå̇í àÄíÎáÌÀ÷ÉìÉå úÄùÑÀîÈòåÌ ) an independent clause, and the expression of a wish: “would that you would only to-day listen to His (God’s) voice!” It is possible that the LXX. also understood the words as a wish, since elsewhere, too (e.g. Psa_139:19), they render the particle of wishing, àÄí , by ἐάν . Differently, however, does the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews take the words (against Hofmann). He regards ἐάν as the protasis, and μὴ σκληρύνητε as the apodosis; comp. Heb_3:15; Heb_4:7.
In the application σήμερον denotes the time of salvation which has come in with the appearing of Christ upon earth, and ἡ φωνὴ αὐτοῦ the voice of God which through Christ sounds forth to the readers by means of the gracious message of the gospel.