<p>3:16 <i>For who, having heard, still rebelled? Was it not all those who followed Moses out of Egypt?</i>- The implication could be that having heard the message of salvation, they should not have rebelled. The argument and rhetoric is typical of one which would be used in a verbal address (see on 13:22); as if to say 'And let's remind ourselves, folks, who are we talking about? Who are these rebels who heard the good news but still rebelled? Was it not all those who followed Moses out of Egypt?'. The implication was that it was Christians who had followed Christ out of the world and through the waters of baptism towards salvation (1 Cor. 10:1,2)- who were now turning back to where they had come from. The total failure of that generation is cited as a sober example of a mass collapse of faith; &quot;your whole number&quot; were to perish as described in :17 (Num. 14:29 &quot;Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number&quot;). Paul in 2 Thess. 2 envisaged a great collapse of faith just before the Lord returned. And here he seems to hint at the same thing by suggesting that the Hebrews were at the point Israel were at in Meribah, at the end of their journey / 40 years, where they turned away and wished to return to Egypt. </p>