So how could the Seventh day be before the Sabbath when God wrote and said that the Seventh day is the Sabbath Ex. 20:10. He lied!
Can we go through this again?
Let's back up a bit and start at Hebrews 3:1
A little background, after establishing the supremacy of Christ over the angelic beings, thus His deity, the writer turns to discuss the next thing in his list of things to discuss and that is Christ's prophetic ministry, this is where we pick up the general argument in this passage is that Christ as the bringer of the faith that we confess is superior to Moses on the basis that the rest that he supplies is greater than that of the rest that Moses supplies, the conquest of Canaan must also be addressed as the text which the writer of the book of Hebrews uses an Exodus psalm to drive home the point that Moses' rest was not the eschatological rest of the Hebrew faith.
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Mosesas much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.
First argument, Christ is superior to Moses because He is a son rather than a servant like Moses, more than that Christ is the builder, of whom we are the building.
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
on the day of testing in the wilderness,
where your fathers put me to the test
and saw my works for forty years.
Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, They always go astray in their heart;
they have not known my ways.
As I swore in my wrath,
They shall not enter my rest.
This is the psalm in question it has both its own context; that of being written by David post-exodus, in fact in one of the more peaceful times of the Kingdom of Israel, and it also looks back to the
start of the 40 years in the wilderness, in this Psalm David is looking at why the Israelites did not enter into the rest of God as envisioned from his place, however he also looks forward and talks to his own generation saying "Today" there is an action for the people of David's day to not harden their hearts.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
First applicatory exposition by the writer, the words of David also have meaning for those in his day, and therefore by extension in our own, for the call to exhort one another as long as it is called "today" applies whenever it is "today"
For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
As I swore in my wrath,
They shall not enter my rest,
So what's most important here to this discussion? Exodus 20 precedes Numbers 20, they have the command of the Mosaic Sabbath, yet the writer here says that God "swore that they would not enter his rest," if the Mosaic Sabbath given in Exodus 20 is the rest that God promised that they would not enter in, it doesn't make sense the stress that the writer is placing on the fact that God has sworn that they will not enter into his rest.
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: And God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again in this passage he said,
They shall not enter my rest.
Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, Today, saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.
And here we go another nail in the coffin that the Rest of God is the cyclical weekly Sabbath, God has rested and is resting since the foundation of the world, and the Israelites in Numbers 20 (after Exodus 20) have been told that "they shall not enter my rest" so there is a large group of people for whom "it remains for some to enter [God's rest]" so what does God do? "He appoints a certain day, "Today,"" Clearly we are not talking about a weekly occurence, this is a "today" occurence, to enter into the Rest of God. But what about that which those in Numbers 20 were looking forward to? What about the land that is clearly in mind coming from Numbers 20?
For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Easily summed up, God spoke through David after Joshua brought them into the land, possibly even after David had come into his own rest (2 Sam 7:1) God speaks of another day that is in the future to David and for the writer is this eponymous "Today."