Hebrews 3:9 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

According to our best MSS. this verse will run thus: Where (or, wherewith) your fathers tempted by trial, and saw My works forty years. The meaning of the Hebrew (with which the LXX. very nearly agrees) is: “Where your fathers tempted Me, proved Me; also saw My work.” The change of reading is more interesting than important, as the sense is not materially different. Both here and in the original passage it seems probable that the “work,” or “works,” should be understood of the divine judgments which the disobedient people “saw” and bore during forty years. In the Psalm (and apparently in Hebrews 3:17 of this chapter) the mention of the forty years connects itself with the words which follow; but here with the provocations of the people and their punishment. It is held by many that in this period of forty years is contained a reference to the time that intervened between our Saviour’s earthly ministry and the destruction of Jerusalem; and a Jewish tradition is quoted which assigns to “the days of Messiah” a duration of forty years.