Harden not your hearts
Against Christ, against his Gospel, against all the light and evidence of it. There is a natural hardness of the heart, owing to the corruption of nature; and an habitual hardness, acquired by a constant continuance and long custom in sinning; and there is a judicial hardness, which God gives men up unto. There is a hardness of heart, which sometimes attends God's own people, through the deceitfulness of sin gaining upon them; of which, when sensible, they complain, and do well to guard against. Respect seems to be had here to the hardness of heart in the Jews in the times of Christ and his apostles, which the Holy Ghost foresaw, and here dehorts from; who, notwithstanding the clear evidence of Jesus being the Messiah, from prophecy, from miracles, from doctrines, from the gifts of the Spirit yet hardened their hearts against him, rebelled against light, and would not receive, but reject him:
as in the provocation;
or "as at Meribah" F8; a place so called from the contention and striving of the people of Israel with the Lord and his servants; and when they provoked not only the meek man Moses to speak unadvisedly with his lips; but also the Lord himself by their murmurings, ( Exodus 17:7 ) ( Numbers 20:13 ) though this may respect their provocations in general in the wilderness; for they often provoked him by their unbelief, ingratitude, and idolatry; see ( Deuteronomy 9:8 Deuteronomy 9:22 Deuteronomy 9:23 ) ,
and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness;
or "as in the day of Massah" F9; the time when they tempted him at Massah, so called from their tempting him by distrusting his power and presence among them, by disobeying his commands, and limiting the Holy One of Israel to time and means of deliverance; see ( Exodus 17:7 ) and this being in the wilderness was an aggravation of their sin; they being just brought out of Egypt, and having had such a wonderful appearance of God for them, there and at the Red sea; and besides being in a place where their whole dependence must be upon God, where they could have nothing but what they had from him immediately, it was egregious folly as well as wickedness to provoke and tempt him.