Psalms
Chapter 95
Come, Let Us Acclaim the Lord
Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.
For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.
In his hand, are the depths of the earth and the mountain heights.
The sea is his, for he made it, and his hand shaped the dry land.
Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker.
He is our God, and we, his people; the flock he leads and pastures. Would, that today, you heard his voice!
Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah,
when your ancestors challenged me, and they put me to the test.
For forty years they wearied me, and I said, “They are a people of inconstant heart; they have not known my ways.”
So I declared on oath, in my anger, “Never shall they enter my rest.”
Commentaries
95
God claimed a double kingship over Israel. She had been created and chosen. Here, she is invited to celebrate both creation and choice. But she is also warned. The flock, divinely led from Egypt, had argued with Moses and tested God’s patience with their complaints. We may still hinder the grace of our call—it does not always grow into the glory of the final choice. Our calling is much higher than Israel’s. From the people’s perspective, our election, which we call perseverance, is more profound. Not Moses but Jesus is now our leader, and the ‘rest’ he would lead us to is not Palestine but a land that the meek inherit, a rest which is the eternal Sabbath of God (Heb 4:10). Pray to hear not ‘Never shall they enter!’ but ‘Come, you blessed!’