Psalm 95 (Contemporary English Version)
- Sing joyful songs to the LORD! Praise the mighty rock where we are safe.
- Come to worship him with thankful hearts and songs of praise.
- The LORD is the greatest God, king over all other gods.
- He holds the deepest part of the earth in his hands, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
- The ocean is the Lord's because he made it, and with his own hands he formed the dry land.
- Bow down and worship the LORD our Creator!
- The LORD is our God, and we are his people, the sheep he takes care of in his own pasture. Listen to God's voice today!
- Don't be stubborn and rebel as your ancestors did at Meribah and Massah out in the desert.
- For forty years they tested God and saw the things he did.
- Then God got tired of them and said, "You never show good sense, and you don't understand what I want you to do."
- In his anger, God told them, "You people will never enter my place of rest."
Psalm 95 is a general psalm intended as an invitation to praise God in worship. It is commonly attributed to David, though the psalm itself does not say so. A strong affirmation of this common consent is provided in the book of Hebrews which also attributes it to David (4:7). In this invitation to praise we are told that the Lord is:
- The rock of our salvation
- A great God
- A great King above all gods
- All the earth is in His hand
- The mountain peaks are His
- The sea, which He made, is His
- His hand formed the dry land
The invitation to worship is repeated in verse 6 and is accompanied with a reminder and then a caution. The reminder: He is our God and we are His people. This is stated pictorially describing God's people as the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care. The caution: "Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah." Meribah means strive and was the name given a place in the desert during the Exodus. The people became thirsty and complained that they wish they had never left Egypt. They had hardened their hearts and were testing the Lord. This after they had witnessed great and wonderful works by God to deliver them from slavery in Egypt and lead them toward freedom and a land of their own. Why would they complain over being thirsty when they had suffered much worse in Egypt and had seen God provide much greater things than water for their thirst? It is a mystery of human nature I suppose. Why will a person stay in an abusive relationship? Why do they have a greater fear of taking a step toward freedom from the abuse and the unknown nature of this freedom than they do of the familiar nature of their abusive relationship? As I say, it is a mystery. Particularly in the case of the Israelites when they had already seen God do great things to deliver them from Egypt.
God has limited patience with such "hardening" of our hearts, and I suspect the amount of His patience is based on what He has already done for us prior to the hardening of our hearts. If we choose to enjoy God's blessings but still refuse to worship Him and praise Him for what He has done, He will choose to withdraw His blessings and to allow us to wallow in an existence of our own making. In the case of Israel it was to wander in the desert for 40 years without ever seeing the land of promise.
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