Hebrews 3:9 Commentary and Bible Study

These words from Psalm 95:9 refer to Numbers 14:22-32 where Moses is pleading with the Lord not to destroy the whole nation after their bad reaction to the gloomy report of the unbelieving spies sent into Canaan. The Lord grants his request but says that the generation that came out of Egypt will nevertheless be judged. That generation had received unusual sign miracles from the Lord in the form of the plagues that came upon Egypt and resulted in Pharoah letting Israel go. They had seen the waters of the Red Sea parting to let God’s people pass over, and the Egyptian army being destroyed when the waters returned over their heads. They had experienced God’s supernatural provision in the wilderness, and yet after all this they continued to refuse to believe God, to complain about his care of them, and to see their situation as hopeless. They judged their prospects only by what they could see with their eyes and by entirely natural considerations. They are charged with not listening to God’s voice, with grumbling, and with taking the most gloomy view of the future, a view based on unbelief. God had supplied them with an abundance of evidence of his care and protection, but they demonstrated the unreasonableness of unbelief by clinging on to the view that their situation was hopeless, that they were better off before they left Egypt, that God could not provide for them in the wilderness, and that their enemies were too strong for them even though the Lord was on their side. They are described as tempting God or putting him to the test, because they wanted him to change his providence towards them, because they provoked him to punish them for their ingratitude and doubting of his power, and because they taxed his patience to the limit. They proved God in that after provoking him in this severe way with their unbelief, they found his word to be unchanging, his promises to be reliable and his threats against disobedience to be upheld. They saw his works forty years long, both in continuing to guide and provide water and manna for an ungrateful and undeserving people, and in judging on that generation, none of whom lived to see the promised land. The statement that they proved God and saw his works is therefore ironic, for they did this to their own destruction.