☰ Psalms 95
95
1  Come! Let’s sing for joy to the Lord!
Let’s shout out praises to our protector who delivers us!1
2  Let’s enter his presence2 with thanksgiving!
Let’s shout out to him in celebration!3
3  For the Lord is a great God,
a great king who is superior to4 all gods.
4  The depths of the earth are in his hand,5
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5  The sea is his, for he made it.
His hands formed the dry land.
6  Come! Let’s bow down and worship!6
Let’s kneel before the Lord, our creator!
7  For he is our God;
we are the people of his pasture,
the sheep he owns.7
Today, if only you would obey him!8
8  He says,9 “Do not be stubborn like they were at Meribah,10
like they were that day at Massah11 in the wilderness,12
9  where your ancestors challenged my authority,13
and tried my patience, even though they had seen my work.
10  For forty years I was continually disgusted14 with that generation,
and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray;15
they do not obey my commands.’16
11  So I made a vow in my anger,
‘They will never enter into the resting place I had set aside for them.’”17 18
1 95:1 sn: Psalm 95. The psalmist summons Israel to praise God as the creator of the world and the nation’s protector, but he also reminds the people not to rebel against God. 2 95:2 tn: Heb “to the rocky summit of our deliverance.” 3 95:2 tn: Heb “meet his face.” 4 95:3 tn: Heb “with songs of joy.” 5 95:4 tn: Heb “above.” 6 95:6 tn: The phrase “in his hand” means within the sphere of his authority. 7 95:7 tn: Heb “kneel down.” 8 95:7 tn: Heb “of his hand.” 9 95:8 tn: Heb “if only you would listen to his voice.” The Hebrew particle אִם (’im, “if”) and following prefixed verbal form here express a wish (cf. Ps 81:8). Note that the apodosis (the “then” clause of the conditional sentence) is suppressed. 10 95:8 tn: The words “he says” are supplied in the translation to clarify that the following words are spoken by the Lord (see vv. 9-11). 11 95:8 sn: The name Meribah means “strife.” Two separate but similar incidents at Meribah are recorded in the Pentateuch ( Exod 17:1-7; Num 20:1-13, see also Pss 81:7; 106:32). In both cases the Israelites complained about lack of water and the Lord miraculously provided for them. 12 95:8 sn: The name Massah means “testing.” This was another name (along with Meribah) given to the place where Israel complained following the Red Sea Crossing (see Exod 17:1-7, as well as Deut 6:16; 9:22; 33:8). 13 95:9 tn: Heb “do not harden your heart[s] as [at] Meribah, as [in] the day of Massah in the wilderness.” 14 95:10 tn: Heb “where your fathers tested me.” 15 95:10 tn: The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite or an imperfect. If the latter, it emphasizes the ongoing nature of the condition in the past. The translation reflects this interpretation of the verbal form. 16 95:10 tn: Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.” 17 95:11 tn: Heb “and they do not know my ways.” In this context the Lord’s “ways” are his commands, viewed as a pathway from which his people, likened to wayward sheep (see v. 7), wander. 18 95:11 tn: Heb “my resting place.” The promised land of Canaan is here viewed metaphorically as a place of rest for God’s people, who are compared to sheep (see v. 7).
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