Reflection on Psalm 95: a call to listen

Psalm 95 comes a third of the way into the Exodus psalms (90-106), and harkens back to a key moment in Israel’s wilderness wanderings – that point when the spies return from searching out the land but draw back in fear of the land. It is clearly a psalm of two halves, beginning with praise before applying the lesson learned in Exodus 17 and Numbers 14 to whatever the new situation requires.

95:1-7c

The psalm begins with four noisy verbs: praise, shout, “greet with acclaim”, and “shout with songs.” The first half ends with verbs not of noise but of action: worship, bow down, kneel down. To tie the beginning and end together further, it begins with “Yhwh, the rock of our salvation” and ends with “Yhwh our maker.” To be the saviour is not explained further, but maker is, as Yhwh is the great God, the great king, who holds the extremes of the earth and possesses the heights of the mountains; he made the sea and formed the dry ground.

Finally, to close off the first half, the phrase “his hand” occurs thrice, in v4, v5, and finally in v7, as “the sheep of his hand.” This causes us to reflect on his creating and guiding both macro and the micro, the impersonal and the personal.

95:7d-11

The second section of the psalm concludes somewhat abruptly, with a hanging oath phrase, “if they come to my rest…” which we might extrapolate to “they will never come to my rest,” or “so help me if they ever try to come to my rest,” – which is indeed what happened, as those who went up were slaughtered. We can see then that this psalm conflates two incidents: the arguments at Massah/Meribah in Exodus 17, and the rebellion in Numbers 14 after the spies returned. But these stories are tied together together in the similar diseased hearts that are apparent, with testing, trying, stray hearts, not knowing God’s ways.

But the key, holding it all together, in terms of application, is the near-homonyms which bookend this section: shema’ and sheva’, to hear his voice, and to heed his vow. To not hear his voice means he will fulfil his vow – and in this case it means to be destroyed, to be condemned to a generation-long wandering. But to heed his voice means to receive the promises, to enter his rest, to know Yhwh as both maker, but also as saviour.

This is a call to worship, to prayer, but also to listening. Listening means, in context, taking careful notice of the past. God has spoken clearly in the past, through word and deed. In his acts of creation in the beginning, and his acts of rescue in the wilderness. But also through his words of promise and his words of rebuke. We listen to God and take his warnings at face-value, not rejecting his ways, not testing him, but listening to him and to the one he has sent, our creator and our redeemer.

Psalm 95 as Christian Scripture

Reading this psalm as Christian Scripture, we aren’t seeking to tune in to hear God speak in a new and special way, but to listen to the words God has already spoken, which he still speaks today: words of creation, words of warning, words of redemption, words of guiding and guarding. We can see this especially in the use of this psalm in the NT, as the warning and encouragement is repeated to the people of the new covenant, so that they do not turn back or grumble or test God – that they do not harden their hearts. And it is this word—this promise/warning—which is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing soul and marrow. It challenges us: do you worship? Do you praise? Do you listen? Do you know him in his mighty works? Do you know him as the great king above all gods? And do you listen to him as he speaks through his Son, the word become flesh, and he promises that all his sheep will hear his voice.