8 Don't harden your heart, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
He called the name of the place Massah,{Massah means testing.} and Meribah,{Meribah means quarreling.} because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, "Is Yahweh among us, or not?"
You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah.
Why then do you harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn't they let the people go, and they departed?
Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?"
Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn't believe.
See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned on the Earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,
while it is said, "Today if you will hear his voice, Don't harden your hearts, as in the rebellion." For who, when they heard, rebelled? No, didn't all those who came out of Egypt by Moses? With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn't it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? To whom did he swear that they wouldn't enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? We see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.
Don't harden your hearts, as in the provocation, Like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested me by proving me, And saw my works for forty years.
But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
Yahweh heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and swore, saying, Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see the good land, which I swore to give to your fathers,
How long [shall I bear] with this evil congregation, that murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.
Yahweh said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?
But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and didn't listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken.
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.