Psalm 95

1Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh. Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation! 2Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let’s extol him with songs! 3For Yahweh is a great God, a great King above all gods. 4In his hand are the deep places of the earth. The heights of the mountains are also his. 5The sea is his, and he made it. His hands formed the dry land. 6Oh come, let’s worship and bow down. Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker, 7for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice! 8Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, 9when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work. 10Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “They are a people who err in their heart. They have not known my ways.” 11Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.”

For the expounding of this psalm we may borrow a great deal of light from the apostle's discourse, Heb. 3 and 4, where it appears both to have been penned by David and to have been calculated for the days of the Messiah; for it is there said expressly (Heb 4:7) that the day here spoken of (Psa 95:7) is to be understood of the gospel day, in which God speaks to us by his Son in a voice which we are concerned to hear, and proposes to us a rest besides that of Canaan. In singing psalms it is intended, I. That we should "make melody unto the Lord;" this we are here excited to do, and assisted in doing, being called upon to praise God (Psa 95:1, Psa 95:2) as a great God (Psa 95:3-5) and as our gracious benefactor (Psa 95:6, Psa 95:7). II. That we should teach and admonish ourselves and one another; and we are here taught and warned to hear God's voice (Psa 95:7), and not to harden our hearts, as the Israelites in the wilderness did (Psa 95:8, Psa 95:9), lest we fall under God's wrath and fall short of his rest, as they did (Psa 95:10, Psa 95:11). This psalm must be sung with a holy reverence of God's majesty and a dread of his justice, with a desire to please him and a fear to offend him.

Cross-references: Heb 4:7 · Ps 95:7 · Ps 95:1 · Ps 95:2 · Ps 95:3 · Ps 95:6 · Ps 95:8 · Ps 95:9 · Ps 95:10 · Ps 95:11

Introduction