PSALM 95 [1]

Entering God’s rest

Exhortation to worship (vv.1-2)

1 O come (halak), let us sing for joy [2] to Yahweh,	Let us shout joyfully [3] to the rock [4] of our salvation.
2 Let us come before (qadam) His presence [meet His face] with thanksgiving,	Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

Description of Yahweh’s greatness in creation (vv.3-5)

3 For [5] Yahweh is a great God	And a great King above all gods,
4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth,	The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5 The sea is His, for it was He who made it,	And His hands formed the dry land. [6]

Exhortation to worship the Redeemer (vv.6-7b)

6 Come (bow’), let us worship [7] and bow down,		Let us kneel before (qadam) Yahweh our Maker.
7 For He is our God, [8]	And we are the people of His pasture		and the sheep of His hand. [9]

Worship is hearing/obeying Yahweh’s voice (vv.7c-8)

Today, [10] if you would hear His voice,

8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,

As in the day of Massah [11] in the wilderness, [12] [13]

Yahweh speaks (vv.9-11)

9 “When your fathers tested Me, (Psalm 106:14) [14]		They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
10 “For forty years I loathed that generation,	And said they are a people who err in their heart,		And they do not know My ways.
11 “Therefore I swore in My anger, [15]		Truly they shall not come (bow’) into My rest.” [16]

[1] Hebrews 3-4 is a commentary on Psalm 95.

For the parallels between the kingship Psalms (93-100) and Revelation 4-5 see Psalm 93.

[2] “Sing for joy” is found 6x in Book IV of the Psalter, four of which occur in the kingship Psalms (90:14; 92:4; 95:1; 96:12; 98:4, 8).

[3] “Shout joyfully” occurs 5x in Book IV of the Psalter, all of which are in the kingship Psalms (95:1,2; 98:4,6; 100:1).

[4] The song of Moses refers to God as a rock 5x (Deuteronomy 32:4,15,18,30,31). Reference to God as rock occurs about 17x in the Psalms (18:2,31,46; 19:14; 28:1; 31:2; 62:2,6,7; 71:3; 73:26; 78:35; 89:26; 92:15; 94:22; 95:1; 144:1).

[5] Psalm 95 gives two reasons for worshipping Yahweh. Verses 1-2 are a call to worship Yahweh because He is our Creator (vv.3-5). Verse 6 is a call to worship Yahweh because He is our redeemer (v.7). The themes of creation and redemption were also the reason as to why God’s people are to celebrate God’s day of rest (Exodus 20:8-11; Deut.5:12-15; Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 4:1-11; cf. Genesis 2:2-3). The sad irony of Psalm 95 is that God’s people had seen God’s “work” (v.9; i.e. His work of redemption) and yet they did not enter into His rest (v.11).

[6] The parallelism of vv.4-5 not only refer to the extremes of God’s sovereign kingship, but the totality of His kingship (see Schokel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics pp.91ff.).

[7] “Worship” of Yahweh occurs 5x in Book IV of the Psalter, all of which are in the kingship Psalms (95:6; 96:9; 97:7; 99:5, 9; cf. 106:19).

[8] This is covenantal language (cf. Exodus 20:2).

[9] In Book IV, the imagery of sheep and Shepherd is also found in Psalm 100.

[10] Today (הַיּוֹם) is a call for action to Yahweh’s covenant word now and occurs dozens of times in Deuteronomy,

Deuteronomy 4:39-40
“Know therefore today (הַיּוֹם), and take it to your heart, that Yahweh, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.
“So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today (הַיּוֹם), that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which Yahweh your God is giving you for all time.”

Deuteronomy 11:26
“See, I am setting before you today (הַיּוֹם) a blessing and a curse:

Pieter Verhoef points out,

In all these and similar occurrences [in the book of Deuteronomy] the significance of today as a point of orientation not only in measuring time, but also in the succession of the events in the history of God’s revelation is stressed. We agree with de Vries: “In these instances the immediately past, the present, and the immediate future merge into one another. Certain memorable events have happened, are happening, and are about to happen to give to ‘this day’ its central and theological significance. Always it is something that has decisive effect for the time to come: after ‘today’ things will never be the same” (S. J. de Vries, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Time and History in the Old Testament, 275).

Summarizing, we may say that the theological importance of today is intimately related to Yahweh as the One who is present in the absolute sense of the word, according to his self-identification: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14). Consequently his central command and appeal is that we should listen to him now, lit., “today” (Ps 95:7-8). (“יוֹם” in NIDOTTE 2:423f.).

[11] Meribah means quarreling/rebellion/provoked (Ex.17:7; Heb.3:8,15). Massah means testing (Num.20:13). Meribah happened about 40 days after the Israelites had left Egypt. Massah happened about 40 years later. Both incidents involved rocks (cf. 95:1).

[12] Perhaps the key passage for Ps 95:8 is Exod 17:7: “And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the faultfinding (ריב) of the children of Israel, and because they put the Lord to the proof (נסה) by saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” (RSV). The testing of the Meribah-generation was the questioning of the reality of the presence of Yahweh [see Psalm 95:2]. “The oracular warning is saying not only ‘Do not be rebellious as your fathers were about the waters of Meribah,’ but it is also saying ‘Do not question the presence of God here today, as your fathers questioned it at Massah’” (Davies, 194; quoted by Tate, Psalms 51-100, p.502).

[13] Psalm 95 is like Psalm 81 because in both Psalms Yahweh speaks (95:9-11 and 81:6-16) and both emphasize that Israel did not hear/obey Yahweh’s voice (95:7d and 81:11). God also speaks directly in Psalm 50:7-23; 60:6b-8.

[14] God also speaks directly in Psalms 2:5-9; 12:5; 50:7-22; 75:2-3; 81:6-16; 95:9-11; 108:7-9; 110:1,4; cf. 27:8

[15] Psalm 94 was a reminder that Yahweh is slow to anger (94:3).

[16] To hear Psalm 95 sung listen to Sons of Korah.