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95. Psalm 95

¹ Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
² Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.

    ³ For the LORD is the great God,
   the great King above all gods.
⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth,
   and the mountain peaks belong to him.
⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,
   and his hands formed the dry land.

    ⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship,
   let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
⁷ for he is our God
   and we are the people of his pasture,
   the flock under his care.

   Today, if only you would hear his voice,
⁸ “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, Meribah means quarreling.
   as you did that day at Massah Massah means testing. in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested me;
   they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with that generation;
   I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
   and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
   ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

6. Come ye, let us worship Now that the Psalmist exhorts God’s chosen people to gratitude, for that pre-eminency among the nations which he had conferred upon them in the exercise of his free favor, his language grows more vehement. God supplies us with ample grounds of praise when he invests us with spiritual distinction, and advances us to a pre-eminency above the rest of mankind which rests upon no merits of our own. In three successive terms he expresses the one duty incumbent upon the children of Abraham, that of an entire devotement of themselves to God. The worship of God, which the Psalmist here speaks of, is assuredly a matter of such importance as to demand our whole strength; but we are to notice, that he particularly condescends upon one point, the paternal favor of God, evidenced in his exclusive adoption of the posterity of Abraham unto the hope of eternal life. We are also to observe, that mention is made not only of inward gratitude, but the necessity of an outward profession of godliness. The three words which are used imply that, to discharge their duty properly, the Lord’s people must present themselves a sacrifice to him publicly, with kneeling, and other marks of devotion. The face of the Lord is an expression to be understood in the sense I referred to above, — that the people should prostrate themselves before the Ark of the Covenant, for the reference is to the mode of worship under the Law. This remark, however, must be taken with one reservation, that the worshippers were to lift their eyes to heaven, and serve God in a spiritual manner. ⁴⁷⁴⁷ “Il faut neantmoins tousjours adjoustor ceste exception, que les fideles eslevans les yeux au ciel, adorent Dieu spirituellement.” — Fr.