The writer wants his readers to see that hearing God's word is not the same as believing it. The people in the wilderness had heard God's voice, yet they provoked Him. In the KJV this reads as a statement: "some" provoked, though "not all." Barnes notes that "some of the most eminent critics" read it as a question, by a change of punctuation only: "But who were they who when they had heard did provoke? Were they not all, indeed, who came out of Egypt under Moses?" The ESV follows that reading. Barnes judges it probably the true construction, while Gill keeps the KJV sense: "they did not all provoke, but some did." Either way, the point is that the very people God had rescued from Egypt were the ones who rebelled.

The writer answers with two more questions that make the point sharper. God was grieved with "them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness" (Hebrews 3:17), and He swore that those "that believed not" would not enter His rest (Hebrews 3:18). His conclusion: "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19). In the KJV wording, the words "not all" leave room for the faithful exceptions, whom Numbers names: "Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh" (Numbers 14:38).

The "provocation" was Israel's rebellion in the wilderness after the spies' report, when the people refused to go into Canaan (Numbers 14:1-11). God said that all those who had "seen my glory, and my miracles" and still "tempted me now these ten times" would not see the land (Numbers 14:22-23). The difference lies in how the opening Greek word, tines, is read and punctuated: as "some" (KJV) or as "who?" (ESV, following the punctuation Barnes reports). Gill takes "heard" broadly: the law at Sinai and also the gospel, "for that was preached to the Israelites in the wilderness" (Hebrews 4:2).

This question shows that God's rescue calls for a response of trust. The generation that left Egypt had seen God's power more plainly than almost anyone, yet they hardened their hearts. Gill says they "provoked Jehovah himself" by "their idolatry, ingratitude, and unbelief."

The writer does not tell this story to shame Israel but to protect his readers. He has just said, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:12), and "exhort one another daily" (Hebrews 3:13). The God who brought Israel out also intended to bring them in (Exodus 3:8). What stopped them was not God's lack of power but their refusal to believe.