Psalm 95 · a question people ask
"They won’t enter into my rest" (95:11). What is the rest?
The psalm doesn't say more than "my rest" (95:11) (tap rest). Other verses speak of rest in several ways. In the wilderness the LORD said of those who had tempted him, "surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers" (Numbers 14:23). Moses told Israel, "you haven’t yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the LORD your God gives you" (Deuteronomy 12:9), with the psalm's word for rest. A psalm has the LORD say of Zion, "This is my resting place forever. I will live here, for I have desired it" (Psalm 132:14), where my resting place is the same Hebrew as my rest in Psalm 95:11. And Hebrews, after quoting the psalm, says, "For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day. There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:8-9). These verses stand side by side in Scripture, and these notes don't choose how they fit together.
The verses
“Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.””
“because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not listened to my voice; surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it.”
“for you haven’t yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the LORD your God gives you.”
“For the LORD has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his habitation. “This is my resting place forever. I will live here, for I have desired it.”