Charles Ellicott Commentary Hebrews 3:9

"Where your fathers tried [me] by proving [me,] And saw my works forty years." — Hebrews 3:9 (ASV)

According to our best manuscripts, this verse reads as follows: Where (or, wherewith) your fathers tempted by trial, and saw My works forty years. The meaning of the Hebrew (with which the Septuagint 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 as 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 this period of forty years contains a reference to the time that intervened between our Savior’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.