Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
For some—rather interrogatively, "For WHO was it that, when they had heard (referring to 'if ye will hear,' Hebrews 3:15), did provoke (God)?" The "For" implies, Ye need to take heed against unbelief: for, was it not because of unbelief that all our fathers were excluded (Ezekiel 2:3)? "Some," and "not all," would be a faint way of putting his argument, when his object is to show the universality of the evil. Not merely some, but all the Israelites, for the solitary exceptions, Joshua and Caleb, are hardly to be taken into account in so general a statement. So Hebrews 3:17-18, are interrogative: (1) the beginning of the provocation, soon after the departure from Egypt, is marked in Hebrews 3:16; (2) the forty years of it in the wilderness, Hebrews 3:17; (3) the denial of entrance into the land of rest, Hebrews 3:18. Compare Note, see on I Corinthians 10:5, "with the majority of them God was displeased."
howbeit—"Nay (why need I put the question?), was it not all that came out of Egypt?" (Exodus 17:1-2).
by Moses—by the instrumentality of Moses as their leader.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Hebrews 3:16:
Hebrews 3:16
Hebrews 3:17
Hebrews 4:3
Hebrews 12:25
Jude 1:5
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