Bible Strands
Hebrews 3:16
For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The author of Hebrews addresses Jewish believers tempted to abandon their confession, using the Exodus generation as a historical benchmark. The rhetorical question follows an immediate warning against hardening one’s heart to God’s spoken word.
The words — ἀκούσαντες (akousantes) means “having heard,” and παρεπικράναν (parepikranan) translates as “rebelled.” The syntax links auditory reception directly to active defiance, showing that hearing preceded and enabled the rebellion.
The thread — The event originates in Numbers 14:2, 14:30, and 26:65, where the same group grumbles, receives a death sentence in the wilderness, and is excluded from the land. Hebrews 3:15 and 3:17 frame the citation with identical themes of hardened hearts and divine anger spanning forty years.
Why it lands — The text states that the entire Exodus generation heard God’s voice and still chose rebellion, resulting in wilderness death. The reader must decide whether to respond to divine instruction with immediate obedience or to repeat a pattern that forfeits the promised rest.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
Cross-references
- Numbers 14:2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!
- Numbers 14:30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
- Numbers 26:65 For the LORD had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
- Deuteronomy 1:38 Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, will enter it. Encourage him, for he will enable Israel to inherit the land.
- Psalms 78:17 But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.
- Numbers 14:4 So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”
- Numbers 14:24 But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.
- Numbers 14:38 Of those men who had gone to spy out the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh remained alive.
- Deuteronomy 1:35 “Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers,
- Romans 11:4 And what was the divine reply to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”