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They should not enter into my rest. As the reference is clearly to the murmurings of the Israelites at Meribah, the "rest" referred to can only be the anticipated rest of settlement in the promised land of Canaan. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews finds a further meaning, or rather suggestion, in the word; but we may seek for the first and direct teaching of the passage.

1. Notice that God is said to have been grieved with the effort made to test or tempt him; but his grief is not to be thought of as distress, it is rather that he was "moved with indignation," and therefore found an immediate and severe judgment necessary.

2. Notice that the basis of all the wrong in Israel is recognized as unbelief; but that is not here an intellectual sin, it is a heart sin; it is not "inability to believe," it is "untrustfulness," and untrustfulness when God had laid down such abundant grounds for their trust.

3. Notice that the judgment fell upon the generation, and not upon the race. In all God's judgments that recognize personal failings, we may find personal suffering and loss, but no frustration of the Divine purposes. The untrustful generation died in the wilderness; but the race, in good time, entered and possessed the "rest" of Canaan.

4. Notice that our own human feelings enable us to understand the Divine indignation. All good men love to be trusted. You can never so sorely try a good man as by failing to trust him. This applies even more strongly to those who are in close, loving, family relations with us. The supreme indignity, to our humble view, is a son failing to trust a good mother. Work out the various relations in which God, the infinitely Good One, stood to Israel, and stands to us; and so bring to view the shame of our untrustfulness, and the reasonableness of our coming under disciplining Divine judgments. - R.T.

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KJV: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

WEB: Therefore I swore in my wrath, "They won't enter into my rest."