Reflections on Psalm 95

Psalm 95

1O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
2Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
3For the LORD is a great God And a great King above all gods,
4In whose hand are the depths of the earth, The peaks of the mountains are His also.
5The sea is His, for it was He who made it, And His hands formed the dry land.
6Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
7For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand Today, if you would hear His voice,
8Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9"When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
10"For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.
11"Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest."

"Massah" is hebrew for "testing"
"Meribah" is hebrew for "quarrelling"
These names were given to the place God, Moses, and the Isrealites squared off, as recounted in the book of Exodus, chapter 17.

Exodus 17:1-7
1Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of Sin, according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink.
2Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water that we may drink " And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?"
3But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, "Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"
4So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, "What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me."
5Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel; and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.
6"Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink." And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7He named the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel, and because they tested the LORD, saying, "Is the LORD among us, or not?"