The Jewish people were excellent students of history. Their feasts, celebrations, and worship was centered around a remembrance of things past so that they were all familiar with the prophets and stories of God. They all understood, at least intellectually, how God freed the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and they all revered Moses as one of the greatest leaders ever. Now, the author here is again trying to help them put Jesus in context around this history.
He describes Moses as being in the house and Jesus as being over the house. Moses was just a man blessed by God, Jesus was God appearing as a man. A very distinct difference, and one that the both the Jewish believers and we need to understand. Those that heard the word of God from Moses and turned away from it angered God and were punished with forty years in the desert and no chance to enter the Promised Land. What happens with those that hear the word of Jesus and turn from them? They get an eternity apart from God.
It's a steeper price to pay, but it's also a more serious act of freedom from bondage. It's not just freedom from slavery to a Pharoah, it's freedom from slavery to death and sin, and when you turn away from that gift, the price you pay is more than dying in a desert, it's eternity without God. What a great analogy, though, when the author shows the Jewish believers how they are like the children of Israel escaping Pharoah, and when he also warns them not to follow too closely to their ancestors and rebel against God. Will you be turn away? Or will you hold on to your "courage and the hope of which we boast"?
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