Psalms 95

Come, let us sing to the LORD. Let us shout for joy to the Rock who saves us.

1O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Note"Rock" is a standing title for God in Hebrew poetry, drawn from the crags and cliffs of the land: a rock is a place you climb onto to be out of reach of enemies or floodwater. Calling God a rock says he is a stronghold, not that he is stony or unfeeling. "Salvation" here has its older, broader sense of rescue from any danger (enemies, disaster, death), not only a spiritual state.

2Let us come into his presence and thank him. Let us shout for joy to him with songs.

2Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

Note"Come before his presence" is temple language: to come into the courts of the sanctuary, where God was understood to be present. The psalm is written for people walking in together to worship, which is why it speaks as "let us."

3For the LORD is a great God, a great King who is over all gods.

3For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

Note"A great King above all gods" is how Israel's neighbors would have heard a ranking claim: every nation had its gods, and this line puts Israel's God above the whole assembly of them. The Hebrew does not settle whether those other gods are real beings, lesser powers, or nothing at all; the point being made is rank, not existence.

4The deep places of the earth are in his hand, and the mountain peaks belong to him too.

4In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

Note"The deep places of the earth" and "the mountain peaks" are a matched pair naming the two extremes, lowest and highest, as a way of saying everything in between as well. Hebrew poetry regularly covers a whole category by naming its two limits.

5The sea is his, because he made it, and his own hands shaped the dry land.

5The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

Note"The dry land" is the ordinary Hebrew term for solid ground as distinct from sea. Naming sea and dry land together is a second pair covering the whole world, matching the depths and heights of the previous verse.

6Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD, the one who made us.

6O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

NoteThree different physical actions are named: to worship (bow low), to bow down, and to kneel. These are the ordinary bodily postures of respect before a king in the ancient world, used here for God.

7For he is our God, and we are the people he feeds and cares for, the sheep he keeps by his own hand. Today, if you hear his voice,

7For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,

Note"The people he feeds and cares for" and "the sheep he keeps" use shepherd imagery, which throughout the ancient Near East was standard language for a king and his subjects, the ruler who leads, feeds and protects. Mid-verse the psalm changes speaker: from "Today, if you hear his voice" onward, the words are spoken as God's own, in the first person, through a voice in the sanctuary.

8do not make your hearts stubborn, as your people did at Meribah, on that day at Massah in the desert,

8Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

NoteMeribah and Massah are place names from the desert journey out of Egypt (Exodus 17), where the people had no water and demanded it angrily. The names are also ordinary Hebrew words, Meribah means "quarrelling" and Massah means "testing", which is why the King James translates them rather than transliterating them, as "the provocation" and "the day of temptation." A hard or stubborn heart, in Hebrew idiom, means a settled refusal to be moved or persuaded, not cruelty.

9where your ancestors put me to the test and pushed me to see what I would do, even though they had already seen my work.

9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

Note"Tempted" and "proved" in the King James both mean "tested, put to the proof", the old sense of the words. Neither means enticing someone to do wrong. "My work" means the acts of rescue they had already witnessed, chiefly the escape from Egypt.

10For forty years I was angry with that generation. I said, "These are a people whose hearts keep turning the wrong way, and they have not learned my ways."

10Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

NoteThe forty years are the span the people spent in the desert between leaving Egypt and entering Canaan (Numbers 14). "Hearts keep turning the wrong way" translates a verb for wandering or straying off a path; the same generation that wandered physically is described as wandering inwardly.

11So I swore an oath in my anger: "They will never enter my rest."

11Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

Note"My rest" means the settled place at the end of the journey, the land of Canaan, where the wandering would stop. The word carries both the idea of a resting place and of coming to rest, and the oath is that this generation would not reach it.