Psalm 95, Venite!

Like Psalm 93 and several psalms immediately after this, this song is a call to worship.  The Septuagint attibutes this to David and in the New Testament Hebrews 4:7 has this as coming "through David", a term that might simply mean (suggests Kidner) "in psalms [of David]." Regardless, the joyous call to worship in this psalm, and in those around it, continue the spirit of David's worship.

Psalm 95:1-3, Come!

 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; 

let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

 Let us come before him with thanksgiving

 and extol him with music and song.

 For the LORD is the great God, 

the great King above all gods.

The song begins with an exuberant call to worship YHWH is song, shouting and, surely, dancing! According to Kidner, this psalm, from ancient Christian times, was called "Venite!", Latin for "O, Come!" This is an appropriate name for this worship song.

Says Alter, "Later Jewish tradition made this the first in a sequence of psalms chanted as a prelude to the Friday evening prayer for welcoming the Sabbath, evidently because the Sabbath was seen as a celebration of creation."

Psalm 95:4-5, The sea is His

 In his hand are the depths of the earth, 

and the mountain peaks belong to him.

 The sea is his, for he made it, 

and his hands formed the dry land.

All parts of the earth were created -- and are controlled -- by God. For the ancient Canaanite, control of the chaotic raging sea was especially impressive.

Psalm 95:6-7a, Kneel, bow down

 Come, let us bow down in worship, 

let us kneel before theLORD our Maker;

 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, 

the flock under his care. 

As Kidner points out, this is a call to prostrate oneself before YHWH, to be deliberately humble and subservient in his presence.

Psalm 95:7b-11, Remember Meribah and Massah!

Today, if you hear his voice,

 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,

 as you did that day at Massah in the desert,

 where your fathers tested and tried me,

 though they had seen what I did.

 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."

 So I declared on oath in my anger, "They shall never enter my rest."

The event at Meribah and Massah is recorded in Exodus 17:1-7, and Numbers 20:1-13. The speaker changes at the beginning of verse 8; suddenly the voice of YHWH enters, recalling that ancient testing, and warning against it.

That ancient rebellion helped keep Israel out of the Rest offered by the land of Canaan. In the New Testament, this passage is extensively quoted in the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 3:7-15.) There the author warns his readers that just as the Israelites were denied the Rest of the Promised Land, the Jews of the first century were warned against turning away from the Rest offered by the Messiah, Yeshuah. That argument, learning heavily on Psalm 95, continues in Hebrews 4.

This is a "close companion", says Kidner, to Psalm 81, which also rings with shouts of joy at an ordained feast (the Feast of Tabernacles?) Kidner suggests that this song too was sung at the Feast of Tabernacles.