Worship God and obey him
95:1This psalm says that it is not enough just to sing to God. We must also listen to him and obey him. Then we will not make the same mistake as God's people at Massah and Meribah. This is the second ‘Royal Psalm.’ See Psalm 93:1. 1 Come now! Let us sing together to worship the Lord!
We will shout aloud
to praise God, the strong Rock who makes us safe!
2 Let us come near to God
and thank him!
95:2The writer asks people to come with him to the Temple in Jerusalem to praise the Lord.
Let us sing songs to praise him,
because we are so happy!
3 Yes, the Lord is the great God.
He is the great king who rules over all gods.
4 The deepest places of the earth are in his hand.
The highest mountains belong to him.
5 The seas are his,
because he made them.
He also made the dry land,
with his own hands.
6 Come now! Let us bend down to worship him!
Let us bend our knees in front of the Lord.
He is the one who made us.
7 He is our God.
He takes care of us,
like a shepherd takes care of his sheep.
95:7As God's people, we are like his sheep and he is our shepherd who takes care of us. See Psalm 23:1 and John 10:14. As his sheep, he gives us what we need.
Today, you must listen to him
and obey him.
8 He says, ‘Do not refuse to obey me,
like my people did at Meribah.
They also did that one day at Massah,
in the desert.
9 Your ancestors tested me there,
to see if I would punish them.
But they had already seen the great things
that I had done for them!
10 So I was angry with those people
all the time for 40 years.
I said, “These people love to go the wrong way.
They refuse to follow my ways.”
11 I was very angry and I promised,
“They will never come into my place of rest.” ’
95:11See Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:1-13 and Psalm 81:7; 106:32. The Israelites travelled for 40 years in the desert before they went into Canaan, the special land that God had promised to give to them. God gave them food and water in the desert, but they continued to complain. As a result, God let them die in the desert, and only their children went into Canaan.