For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. To-day if ye hear his voice,
Psalm 95 has just called Israel to kneel before their Maker. This verse names what He is to them — their own God, with them as His flock — and then, in the same breath, turns to a warning about hearing His voice.
The call to praise comes with a time limit.
Psalm 95 summons Israel to come with joyful songs and thanksgiving before Jehovah. But Jehovah is Israel's Maker, and his God also; and now they may look for rest even after so long a time and continued failure. Until power comes in to judgment, while it is still called today, the psalm calls them not to harden their hearts. They hardened them long ago in the wilderness, and God swore that they should not enter into His rest. For in that great tomorrow God will allow no evil and no rebellious person.
The verse gives two pictures of God's care: pasture and a hand.
The godly delight to confess that the One who made the sea and the dry land is "our Maker" and "our God." They also say, We are His: "We are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." The people of God tend to look to other sources for the supply of their needs and for protection from their enemies. They are in danger of forgetting that God has pasture to meet every need, and a hand to protect from every foe.
That hand is also where the flock is safe.
The picture of safety for the believer is no longer an earthly fold, as in former days, but the hand of the Good Shepherd. There, in the shadow of His hand, He hides them safely from every foe. That hand of unconquerable might will surround the frail and feeble sheep and protect them from every attack of the enemy. It is the hand that redeemed the ancient people from harsh slavery in Egypt, preserved and defended them through the desert, and brought them into the promised land flowing with milk and honey.
Belonging to such a Shepherd is the reason for the homage asked next. It comes with a condition.
Then the psalm urges them again to do Him homage. It sets His loving relationship to them as their Shepherd before them, as something that may well move them to it. But it adds the necessary condition for this to continue: "today, if you hear His voice!" Without such obedient hearing, people who are not agreed could not walk together. Grace only fulfils such conditions — it does not set them aside.
One writer ties the change of tone to a change of subject.
Notice the transition when the psalm speaks of the Shepherd, and of them as the sheep of His hand. It is simple, happy work to praise while we keep our eyes on the Shepherd. But when we turn to the sheep, we need exhortation... So long as God in His love and grace fills the soul, there can only be praise. When the eye turns from God to man, we need the warning: do not harden the heart, do not be careless or forgetful, as Israel was on the day it provoked Him in the wilderness. In other words, if we are to enter into our rest, we must go on. It is not enough for someone to say, "I was converted ten years ago." How is it today?
How long does that "today" last? It lasts as long as God's patience does.
This word "today" is the expression of the patient activity of God's grace towards Israel right to the end. The people were unbelieving; they have hardened their hearts. Sadly they will go on doing so to the end, until judgment comes in the Person of the Messiah-Jehovah, whom they have despised. But until then God loves to repeat, "Today, if you hear My voice."
That word still stands, so it comes to each reader as a personal offer.
But you may soon pass beyond the reach of that love. It offers you forgiveness, life, and heaven now, but tomorrow may be too late. You are here today, and God's Word says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."... Today is the day of mercy; tomorrow may be the day of doom.
- Maker, then owner. The One who made sea and dry land is "our God." The Maker becomes ours.
- Pasture and hand. Pasture meets every need. The hand keeps off every foe. Forget that, and the flock looks elsewhere.
- Sheep hear. Walking on with the Shepherd has one condition: obedient hearing. Grace fulfils that condition; it does not set it aside.
- Praise, then watch. Look at the Shepherd and you sing. Look at the sheep and you need warning. The test is not a conversion ten years ago, but today.
- Today, not tomorrow. "Today" measures God's patience. It ends when judgment comes. While it lasts, mercy is still calling.
Harden not your heart, as at Meribah, as [in] the day of Massah, in the wilderness;
Psalm 95 opens with an invitation to sing and kneel before the Lord, then turns into a warning from Israel's desert past. Verse 8 names two places where an earlier generation refused God's voice, and asks whether the same refusal is happening now.
Commentators read the psalm as an appeal to Israel. Even after long failure, God's rest is still open to them today.
Psalm 95 summons Israel to come with joyful songs and thanksgiving before Jehovah. But Jehovah is Israel's Maker, and his God as well. Even after so long a time and continued failure, they may still look for rest. While it is still called today, they are called not to harden their hearts as of old in the wilderness, when God swore that they should not enter into His rest. But now, after all, grace says Today, and invites them to come before Him who is the rock of their salvation.
The two place names are not just map references. They are lasting labels for what happened there.
Massah means temptation and Meribah means contention. The Spirit uses these very names, and they describe the moral state of the people. They prove beyond dispute their hardened hearts of unbelief toward God. In arguing with Moses, God's representative, they were contending with God Himself. They were putting Him to the proof by doubting, or in effect denying, His presence among them.
What sounds like a small complaint about water was an insult to everything God had already done for them.
Older versions read "in the provocation, in the day of the temptation in the wilderness." That points back to Meribah and Massah, which the Greek Old Testament translates that way. Tempting Jehovah in the desert meant saying, Is Jehovah among us or not? This may seem to unbelievers a small offence; in the eyes of God and of faith it is a terrible wrong. Had He not broken the pride and power of Egypt on behalf of His poor unworthy people? Had He not brought them out of the house of slavery in triumph? Was He not their Guide and their Rearguard, living among them as their God?
The warning comes right after the psalm calls God's people the sheep of His hand. The change of tone follows a change of subject.
Notice the transition when the psalm speaks of the Shepherd, and of them as the sheep of His hand. Praise is simple and happy work while our eyes are on the Shepherd. But when we turn to the sheep, warning becomes necessary... It is not enough for a man to say, "I was converted ten years ago." How is it today? Are the things of God still of interest, or is the heart absorbed in the things of the world?... There is no sadder sight than a heart hardened by grace neglected or despised.
The warning turns on one word: today. It is a word of patience, and it marks how long the offer stays open.
This word "today" is the expression of the patient activity of God's grace toward Israel right to the end. The people were unbelieving. They have hardened their hearts. They have done so, and sadly will go on doing so to the end, until judgment comes in the Person of the Messiah-Jehovah whom they have despised. But until then God loves to repeat the word, "Today, if you hear His voice."
Hardening is not usually a decision. It is a drift, and it works by small steps.
For which of us does not know, by humbling and bitter experience, how sin lures us and how slippery its paths are? A little evil allowed is the beginning of very great evil. The heart hardens as we look away from Jesus, and self-pleasing takes the place of doing God's will.
There is also a sterner side. When people ignore the warning long enough, commentators say God seals the choice they have already made.
Long before, God had warned them, "do not harden your hearts... in the wilderness" (Ps. 95:8). They gave no answer, and the time came in God's holy government when He sealed this hardness of heart upon them.
The warning is urgent because of what lies on the other side of it.
They are urged not to harden their hearts as their fathers did. Their fathers tempted and tested God, and saw His work. They found Him faithful in His promises and in His threats alike. And now the rest of God is so near. The greater the blessing it holds, the more terrible and beyond repair is the ruin of being cut off from it.
- Voice — Worship comes first in the psalm, warning second. The Shepherd we praise is the One whose voice we must hear.
- Meribah — The two names mean contention and testing. To argue with God's representative was to argue with God. To doubt His presence after Egypt was no small thing.
- Today — The word marks God's patience. It sounds until judgment comes. The question is never what happened years ago, but what is happening now.
- Deceit — Hearts harden by drift, not by decision. A little evil allowed, the eye turned from Jesus, grace neglected — that is the road.
- Rest — What is at stake is God's own rest. The nearer it stands, the more terrible it is to be shut out.
When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
Psalm 95 opens as a joyful call to worship. Then the voice changes. God points back to a generation that stood in His presence and doubted Him anyway. The verse names the charge: they put Him to the test. It also names the detail that makes it inexcusable — they had already seen what He could do.
The psalm anchors this warning to two named places in Israel's desert journey. One writer explains what those names preserve:
"He called the name of the place Massah (that is, temptation) and Meribah (that is, chiding)... because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?"
The Lord had given them repeated assurances and evidences of His presence. After all that, to raise such a question proves the deep-seated unbelief of the human heart.
To "test" God sounds like a small thing. One writer insists it is not. He points to what God had already done for them:
Testing Jehovah in the desert meant saying, Is Jehovah among us or not? This may seem to unbelievers a small offence; in the eyes of God and of faith it is heinous. Had He not broken the pride and power of Egypt on behalf of His poor unworthy people? Had He not brought them out of the house of slavery in triumph? He was their Guide and their Rearguard, come to live among them and be their God.
The verse does not say they lacked evidence. It says they had it. That is the sting, and one commentator traces how each act of testing met with an answer:
They tempted God: He bore long with them. They proved Him: again and again He proved faithful and gracious despite their self-will. They saw His works of grace and power forty years. But they treated all this with contempt, including His patient forbearance. Time proved their hearts false and ignorant of God's ways.
Sights and wonders, by themselves, change nobody. Another writer puts it as a question:
But does man ever really profit by light graciously given by his Creator? They had witnessed mighty works in the land of Egypt and in the wilderness, done in their sight by the mighty hand of God. What effect did those works have on Israel? Divine and sovereign grace worked in the hearts of men like Joshua and Caleb. Apart from that, the works produced no lasting or good effect at all. They might just as well have never been done.
There is an irony running under the verse. Israel set themselves up as the examiners. They never suspected that the whole journey was an examination of them:
Israel's fathers had tested God and tried Him despite seeing His work for forty years. Every test or trial had proven, and will prove, God completely faithful. Yet Israel hardened their hearts against His faithful grace. For forty long years of patience He was with them... They dared to test God. Yet they seemed to have no idea that God was rightly testing them all through their long wilderness journey.
This history sits in the middle of a psalm that begins with singing. The psalm recalls that failure not to shut the door but to keep it open:
Notice how Jehovah is worshipped as the Creator, and yet as the God of Israel. Then comes a warning drawn from the unbelief of their fathers in the wilderness. Their failure from of old will not shut them out of His rest tomorrow — only unbelief today.
That one word, "today," carries a great deal. Another writer explains:
It expresses God's wonderful patience and long-suffering... The "today" is now; the great tomorrow comes, when the "today" ends.
- Named — Massah means testing and Meribah means chiding. These places are memorials of a question no one had any right to ask: "Is the Lord among us or not?"
- Heinous — unbelief thinks testing God is a small thing. But the question came from people He had just carried out of Egypt as their Guide and Rearguard.
- Seen — they were not short of evidence. They watched His works for forty years, and they treated His patience with contempt.
- Reversed — they thought they were testing God. All along, God was testing them in the wilderness.
- Today — past failure does not bar anyone from His rest tomorrow. Only unbelief today does. "Today" measures God's patience, and one day it ends.
Forty years was I grieved with the generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways;
In this psalm God gives His verdict on a whole generation. It comes after forty years of watching them. The fault He names is not in their circumstances, and not in what they knew. It is in their heart. That left them strangers to the ways of the God who carried them.
The generation God names here had every reason to trust Him. Day after day they watched Him feed and protect them. Still they asked whether He was with them at all.
For forty years they saw God's works of power and mercy providing for their needs and preserving them from every danger. Yet despite every sign of His presence, they tested God and put Him to the proof by asking, "Is the LORD among us or not?" So they proved how hard their hearts were, untouched by God's goodness.
They put God to the test. They never noticed that He was testing them.
Every test or trial had proven, and will prove, God completely faithful. Yet Israel hardened their hearts against His faithful grace. He was with them through forty long years of patience. Then He declared, "They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways." They dared to test God. Yet they seemed to have no idea that God was rightly testing them all through their long wilderness journey.
Older translations render God's verdict here as "I was grieved with that generation," and that is the sense the writers draw out. It is not anger alone. It is the language of hurt, and Scripture uses it of God elsewhere.
We read of divine grief in the Old Testament too. In the days before the flood, "the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart" (Gen. 6:5-6). Again He said of the Israelites in the wilderness, "For forty years I loathed that generation and said, 'They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways'" (Ps. 95:10).
Notice where God places the fault. It is not in their thinking, but in their heart.
God is just and true. That is exactly why He felt so deeply Israel's stubborn, deceitful rising up against His will. Their error was not in their understanding but in their heart. So they never learned God's ways; they ignored them. Moses truly feared and loved Him. Only in that way does anyone discover His ways and delight in them. Another psalm says it: "He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel" (Psalm 103:7). Israel saw no further than His obvious doings.
Teaching can correct an error in the head. An error in the heart bends the mind to agree with what it already wants. Hebrews 3:10 repeats the same charge against Israel.
To go astray in the heart is worse than to have an error in the head. So God underlines Israel's sin with this: "They always go astray in their heart" (Heb. 3:10). Their hearts run them into the error. They liked idolatry, so they soon believed what pleased them best.
They knew what God had done. They never grasped why He was doing it, so each rescue stood alone and taught them nothing lasting.
To them these were only isolated acts of divine power on their behalf, sent to meet the hard circumstances that came up against them from time to time. They could always sing the Lord's praises when He worked to rescue them from enemies who tried to crush them. But once the moment passed, their rebellion always broke out again. So the Lord speaks of them as "a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways."
The psalm records this failure while the invitation is still open.
Judgment in power has not yet come. So while it is still called today, they are called not to harden their hearts, as of old in the wilderness, when God swore that they should not enter His rest. In that great tomorrow no evil and no rebel will be allowed. But now, after everything, grace says Today. It invites them to come before the presence of Him who is the rock of their salvation.
- Patience — For forty years God fed and guarded them. Their answer was to keep asking whether He was even among them.
- Grief — Scripture describes His response as it does before the flood: not cold anger, but a heart grieved by the people He carried.
- Heart — God puts the failure in the heart, not the understanding. A wrong heart makes the mind believe what it prefers.
- Ways — Because the heart was wrong, they never learned His ways. They saw isolated acts of power. Moses knew His ways.
- Today — The verse stands as a live warning, spoken while grace still says "Today" and still invites people to come.
So that I swore in mine anger, that they should not enter into my rest.
God answers the wilderness generation with an oath that shuts a door: the people He rescued from Egypt would never enter His rest. Yet the same Psalm still says "Today" — so what is this rest, and can anyone still enter it?
The wording is unusual. Modern versions finish the sentence for us. The older form breaks off half-said: "if they shall enter into My rest." One writer explains why those few words carry such weight.
"As I swore in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest" (that is, they shall not). A solemn sentence of exclusion. In a man's mouth it is left unfinished — "May God do so to me, and more, if — !" On God's lips, to make man's entry a condition is to make it morally certain that it is all over with him. Good is only and wholly of grace. There is no entrance into the rest of God if it depends on what man deserves. "If they shall enter" means, for unbelievers, that they shall not enter.
The provocation was not a wild outbreak of idolatry. It happened at the border of the land, where the people refused to go in.
Here at the border of the land there is nothing wild or openly shameful; no idol, no feasting and playing. On the contrary, respectable people, who condemn the filth of idol worship, approve the wisdom that guided Israel then. Was it not sensible caution to check the chances of victory, and the enemy's power to resist, before entering a hostile country? The sin here is independence of God... This despising of the land was the provocation.
God does not call it their rest but His own. One writer shows what that changes: this rest is still ahead.
God calls this rest "My rest"; it is the rest of God, and it is still future — the rest in coming glory, an eternal rest. It is God's rest, because He made it Himself. He will enjoy it in glory with those who have believed in Christ. God has His rest in the perfect work of Christ, because that work satisfies His holiness and His love... Until that day God works, for sin and the curse still remain.
Another writer says what kind of rest it is.
It is not rest from sin, but rest from work. And it is not rest because the worker is tired, but rest because he has finished his work.
Commentators differ on how much this oath decides. One writer keeps it to the death of the body, and points to Moses and Aaron.
Scripture sets before us two kinds of wrath: governmental and eternal. It is good to be clear in our souls about this solemn subject. The wrath that fell on the Israelites in the wilderness need not reach beyond the death of the body. Many came out of Egypt aged twenty and upward, and their bodies fell in the wilderness. It would be foolish to suppose that they were all lost for ever. What about Moses the man of God, and Aaron the saint of the Lord?... This wrath shut them out of the promised land. It raised no question about their eternal relationship with God.
Another reads the verse as a searchlight on empty profession.
Of course this first of all referred to rest in the land of Canaan... But Hebrews 3 applies it to the future rest. That has a serious voice for everyone who takes the outward place of being a Christian. Because they take that place, they consider themselves Christians, and yet they have never known what it means to be born again.
The oath excluded a generation; it did not cancel the rest itself.
Sin broke into the creation rest. Even so, God does not give up the settled purpose of His heart to have a rest — an eternal rest — which no sin will ever mar.
That is why the warning in this Psalm sits inside an invitation.
Judgment has not yet come in power, so it is still called today. In that great tomorrow God will allow no evil and no rebellious person. So the call comes: do not harden your hearts as Israel did long ago in the wilderness, when God swore that they should not enter into His rest. But now, after everything, grace says Today, and invites them to come before the presence of Him who is the rock of their salvation.
- Cause. Israel lost the rest not by open scandal but by independence from God — a cautious refusal at the very border that looked sensible to onlookers.
- Oath. The unfinished "if they shall enter" is God's strongest way of saying no. Make entry depend on what man deserves, and no one enters at all.
- Rest. God calls it "My rest" — His own rest, still ahead: not rest because the worker is tired, but rest because the work is done.
- Reach. Commentators differ on how far this wrath goes. One limits it to being shut out of the land, with their eternal standing untouched. Another hears a warning to anyone who is a Christian in name only.
- Result. Israel's unbelief cost one generation its entry. It could not cancel God's purpose — so the same Psalm still says "Today."