Text -- Psalms 95:3-11 (NET)

95:3 For the Lord is a great God, a great king who is superior to all gods. 95:4 The depths of the earth are in his hand, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 95:5 The sea is his, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land. 95:6 Come! Let’s bow down and worship! Let’s kneel before the Lord, our creator! 95:7 For he is our God; we are the people of his pasture, the sheep he owns. Today, if only you would obey him! 95:8 He says, “Do not be stubborn like they were at Meribah, like they were that day at Massah in the wilderness, 95:9 where your ancestors challenged my authority, and tried my patience, even though they had seen my work. 95:10 For forty years I was continually disgusted with that generation, and I said, ‘These people desire to go astray; they do not obey my commands.’ 95:11 So I made a vow in my anger, ‘They will never enter into the resting place I had set aside for them.’”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 95:3

¹ tn Heb “above.”

NET Notes: Psa 95:4

¹ tn The phrase “in his hand” means within the sphere of his authority.

NET Notes: Psa 95:6

¹ tn Heb “kneel down.”

NET Notes: Psa 95:7

¹ tn Heb “of his hand.”

² 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.

NET Notes: Psa 95:8

¹ 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).

² 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.

³ 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).

⁴ tn Heb “do not harden your heart[s] as [at] Meribah, as [in] the day of Massah in the wilderness.”

NET Notes: Psa 95:9

¹ tn Heb “where your fathers tested me.”

NET Notes: Psa 95:10

¹ 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.

² tn Heb “a people, wanderers of heart [are] they.”

³ 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.

NET Notes: Psa 95:11

¹ 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).