10 For forty years I was angry with this generation, and said, They are a people whose hearts are turned away from me, for they have no knowledge of my ways;
And with whom was he angry for forty years? was it not with those who did evil, who came to their deaths in the waste land?
How long, you simple ones, will foolish things be dear to you? and pride a delight to the haters of authority? how long will the foolish go on hating knowledge? Be turned again by my sharp words: see, I will send the flow of my spirit on you, and make my words clear to you. Because your ears were shut to my voice; no one gave attention to my out-stretched hand; You were not controlled by my guiding, and would have nothing to do with my sharp words: So in the day of your trouble I will be laughing; I will make sport of your fear; When your fear comes on you like a storm, and your trouble like a rushing wind; when pain and sorrow come on you. Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me: For they were haters of knowledge, and did not give their hearts to the fear of the Lord:
And the Lord had sorrow because he had made man on the earth, and grief was in his heart.
And your children will be wanderers in the waste land for forty years, undergoing punishment for your false ways, till your bodies become dust in the waste land. And as you went through the land viewing it for forty days, so for forty years, a year for every day, you will undergo punishment for your wrongdoing, and you will see that I am against you.
Now in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses gave to the children of Israel all the orders which the Lord had given him for them;
Thirty-eight years had gone by from the time when we came away from Kadesh-barnea till we went over the stream Zered; by that time all the generation of the men of war among us were dead, as the Lord had said. For the hand of the Lord was against them, working their destruction, till all were dead. So when death had overtaken all the men of war among the people,
O Lord, why do you send us wandering from your ways, making our hearts hard, so that we have no fear of you? Come back, because of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.
There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.
And this is the test by which men are judged: the light has come into the world and men have more love for the dark than for the light, because their acts are evil. The light is hated by everyone whose acts are evil and he does not come to the light for fear that his acts will be seen. But he whose life is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his acts have been done by the help of God.
And for about forty years he put up with their ways in the waste land.
And because they had not the mind to keep God in their knowledge, God gave them up to an evil mind, to do those things which are not right;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 95
Commentary on Psalms 95 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 95
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 (v. 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,
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.
Psa 95:1-7
The psalmist here, as often elsewhere, stirs up himself and others to praise God; for it is a duty which ought to be performed with the most lively affections, and which we have great need to be excited to, being very often backward to it and cold in it. Observe,
The latter part of this psalm, which begins in the middle of a verse, is an exhortation to those who sing gospel psalms to live gospel lives, and to hear the voice of God's word; otherwise, how can they expect that he should hear the voice of their prayers and praises? Observe,
Now this case of Israel may be applied to those of their posterity that lived in David's time, when this psalm was penned; let them hear God's voice, and not harden their hearts as their fathers did, lest, if they were stiffnecked like them, God should be provoked to forbid them the privileges of his temple at Jerusalem, of which he had said, This is my rest. But it must be applied to us Christians, because so the apostle applies it. There is a spiritual and eternal rest set before us, and promised to us, of which Canaan was a type; we are all (in profession, at least) bound for this rest; yet many that seem to be so come short and shall never enter into it. And what is it that puts a bar in their door? It is sin; it is unbelief, that sin against the remedy, against our appeal. Those that, like Israel, distrust God, and his power and goodness, and prefer the garlick and onions of Egypt before the milk and honey of Canaan, will justly be shut out from his rest: so shall their doom be; they themselves have decided it. Let us therefore fear, Heb. 4:1.