Psalms 95 · ESV Study Bible

Let Us Sing Songs of Praise

PSALM 95 [†] Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;

let us f make a joyful noise to g the rock of our salvation!

2 Let us h come into his presence with thanksgiving;

let us f make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

3 For the LORD is i a great God,

and a great King j above all gods.

4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;

the heights of the mountains are his also.

5 The sea is his, for k he made it,

and his hands formed k the dry land.

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

let us l kneel before the LORD, our m Maker!

7 For he is our n God,

and we are the people of his o pasture,

and the sheep of his hand.

p Today, if you q hear his voice,

8[^] r do not harden your hearts, as at s Meribah,

as on the day at t Massah in the wilderness,

9 when your fathers put me to the u test

and put me to the proof, though they had seen my v work.

10 w For forty years I loathed that generation

and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,

and they have not known x my ways.”

11[†] Therefore I y swore in my wrath,

“They shall not enter z my rest.”

PSALM—NOTE ON Psalm 95. This psalm summons those singing it to learn the lesson from the rebellion of a previous generation and to commit themselves to faithfully heeding God’s “voice.” This psalm can be called a prophetic hymn (cf. Psalm 81 [which also remembers Meribah] and Psalm 82), as it echoes themes found in the OT Prophets; or it can be called a historical psalm (cf. Psalm 78, esp. vv. 7–8), as it draws a lesson from the history of Israel. (There is a fine line between the two categories.) The combination of Meribah and Massah shows that the psalm draws its lesson from the Israelites’ grumbling against Moses because they had no water (Ex. 17:1–7). At the same time, this event did not lead to God’s decisive oath found in the psalm. That oath comes in Num. 14:21–35, after the people had listened to the report of the 10 faithless spies and refused to enter the land to take it. The Lord swore (“as I live,” Num. 14:21, 28) that not one of those who grumbled in disbelief “shall come into the land” (Num. 14:29–30); the 40 days of spying would yield 40 years of wandering (Num. 14:34). That is, those who refuse in unbelief to obey God’s voice (Num. 14:11) would be removed from the people, and there would be a delay in the people carrying out their calling to occupy the land. The psalm takes the incident at Meribah and Massah as an early installment of this persistent unbelief, which culminated in refusal to enter the land. The psalm has two parts: the first a celebration of God’s kingship and the privilege that his people enjoy as they worship him (Ps. 95:1–7a), and the second a warning not to repeat the rebellion of their ancestors (vv. 7b–11). The first section explains why the psalm appears with Psalms 93–99, and also serves to highlight the folly of any kind of rebellion in the face of such an astounding privilege. Hebrews 3:7–11 uses Ps. 95:7b–11, placing its audience in an analogous situation to the Israelites in the wilderness: for these Jews to abandon their explicit faith in Jesus in order to return to the safety of “ordinary” Judaism would be like the rebellion of Israel in the wilderness, a mark of unbelief. As in the psalm, Hebrews makes every day a “today” that calls for renewed faithfulness.

PSALM—NOTE ON 95:1–7a The Lord Is King. The members of the congregation singing these verses invite one another to the great privilege of worshiping the LORD, the great God, the great King above all gods. On the kind of kingship attributed to God here, see note on Psalm 93. God is King over creation: it is his, he made it, and he rules over it all (it is in his hand, i.e., under his authority). The marvel of being Israel is that such a majestic King has pledged himself to his people, making them the sheep of his hand (cf. note on 74:1–3). It is no surprise, then, that worship offered to him would be both exuberant (sing, make a joyful noise, thanksgiving, songs of praise) with astonished wonder, and humble (bow down, kneel) before such majesty. The whole person, body and soul, must offer this worship.

PSALM—NOTE ON 95:11 They shall not enter my rest. In the wilderness context, the “rest” is specifically the place of rest, i.e., the land (cf. Deut. 12:9; finally secured with David’s reign, cf. 2 Sam. 7:1, 11); but, since the singing congregation is already in the land, it follows that the psalm is using “rest” as an image of enjoying God’s presence forever (much as Heb. 4:1, 11 does).