A High Priest for Humanity[a]
Chapter 3
Christ’s Fidelity Is Superior to That of Moses.[b] 1 Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly calling, concentrate your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in God’s household.
3 However, he is deserving of a greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house is more honored than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all is God.
5 Now Moses was faithful as a servant in God’s household, testifying to the things that would later be revealed, 6 whereas Christ was faithful as a son watching over his house. And we are that house if we hold firm to our confidence and take pride in our hope.
The “Today” of God.[c] 7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 harden not your hearts as at the rebellion,
in the day of testing in the desert,
9 where your ancestors tried me and tested me
though they had seen what I could do 10 for forty years.
As a result I became angered with that generation,
and I said, ‘Their hearts have always gone astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, I swore in my anger,
‘They will never enter into my rest.’ ”
12 Take care, brethren, that none of you will ever have an evil and unbelieving heart that will cause you to forsake the living God. 13 Rather, encourage each other every day, as long as it is today, so that none of you will become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we will become partners with Christ only if we maintain firmly until the end the confidence we originally had, 15 as it is said,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
harden not your hearts as at the rebellion.”
16 Who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Were they not all those whom Moses had led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angered for forty years? Was it not with those who had sinned and whose corpses lay in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would never enter into his rest, if not to those who disobeyed? 19 So we see clearly that they were unable to enter because of their refusal to believe.
Footnotes
- Hebrews 3:1 The Covenant with Israel was entered into in the wilderness. Two great figures stood out: Moses and Aaron—the two mediators of the Law and sacrifice, of authority and worship. But when the work of Christ becomes known, all of that proves to have been provisional. And to speak of Christ the author develops two ideas: fidelity to God and solidarity or sympathy with humans. In between these two developments he inserts a long exhortation to serious Christians.
- Hebrews 3:1 The fidelity of Jesus is greater than that of Moses. Both were “apostles,” sent by God to the people, and “priests,” i.e., representatives of the people before God. But Moses acted in the world as a servant who carries out a limited mandate. Christ accomplishes his work personally, in his own name, like a Son. This work belongs to him; and it is the community of believers that he establishes in the world of God.
- Hebrews 3:7 Like Israel of the Exodus, the Church is on the march, on earth, certain of the promise of God but exposed to temptation. Since the Jewish people love to cling to the great epoch in the wilderness, the author invites them to profit from the lesson of that time—which is one of fidelity—offering them a commentary on Ps 95. His argument, which follows the exegetical methods of the time, may seem somewhat complicated. The generation of Hebrews delivered from Egypt did not enter the promised land because it rebelled against God (see Ex 17:1-7; Num 14:28-35). The memory of that rebellion remained alive in the Jewish tradition (see 1 Cor 10:1-11). Ps 95, which at that period was attributed to David, was written long after the Exile, when the perspective was no longer the conquest of Canaan, which had been accomplished by Joshua. The promise to enter into the rest of God has not become something distant: it is deeply involved with the fulfillment of creation, with sharing today in the divine life by following Christ along the way he has opened up (Heb 4:14).