Psalm 95 · a question people ask
Psalm 95 has no title. Who wrote it, and who is speaking?
The psalm names no writer: its first verse begins with its own words, "Oh come, let’s sing to the LORD" (95:1). Hebrews quotes it several times, and twice says where its words come from. It introduces 95:7-11 with "Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says" (Hebrews 3:7), and later gives 95:7-8 as "saying through David so long a time afterward" (Hebrews 4:7). Hebrews doesn't say more than that, and these notes don't either. Inside the psalm, the first verses speak as a group ("let’s", "our", 95:1-7), and from 95:8 the I is the one the fathers "tempted" (95:9), who swore, "They won’t enter into my rest" (95:11).
The verses
“Oh come, let’s sing to the LORD. Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!”
“for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice! Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work. Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “They are a people who err in their heart. They have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They won’t enter into my rest.””
“Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,”
“he again defines a certain day, “today”, saying through David so long a time afterward (just as has been said), “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.””