Hebrews 3:10,11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore To speak after the manner of men; I was grieved Highly displeased; with that generation With the generality of this people; and said, They do always Notwithstanding all that I have done for them before their eyes; err in their heart Are led astray by their stubborn will and vile affections; and they have not known my ways Have not paid any regard to the clear discoveries of my will and design. They saw indeed God's works, or the ways of his providence, the ways in which he walked toward them; and the ways of his laws were made known to them, the ways wherein he would have had them to walk toward him; and yet it is said of them that they knew not his ways, because they knew them not to any good purpose; they did not know them spiritually and practically. They were not, properly speaking, ignorant of them, but they disliked them, and would not walk in them. So I sware in my wrath The matter here referred to is recorded Numbers 14:21, &c., where see the notes. It must be observed, when in Scripture human parts and passions are ascribed to God, it is not because these parts and passions do really exist in God, but that way of speaking is used to give us some idea of his attributes and operations, accommodated to our manner of conceiving things. We are not to suppose that, when God said he sware in his wrath, he felt the passion of wrath as men, when provoked, are wont to do; but that he acted on that occasion as men do who are moved by anger. He declared by an oath his fixed resolution to punish the unbelieving Israelites, by excluding them for ever from his rest in Canaan, because they refused to go into that country when he commanded them; and to show that this punishment was not too severe, God, by the mouth of David, spoke of their tempting him all the forty years they were in the wilderness.