Psalms 95:6

The substance of this Psalm, and portions of the ninety-seventh, ninety-eighth, and hundredth, are found in 1Ch. 16:7-36, which was used by David's directions in the dedication of the tabernacle on Mount Zion. The dispensation of the Messiah was typified by that event, involving, as it did, a more permanent seat of worship, and the introduction of additional and more spiritual services. Hence the language of these Psalms may be regarded as having a higher import than that pertinent to the occasion on which it was thus publicly used. (Psa 96:1-13) All nations are invited to unite in this most joyful praise. new song--literally, "fresh," or new mercies (Psa 33:3; Psa 40:3).

O come, let us worship and bow down,.... Before him who is the Rock of our salvation, the great God and great King, the Creator of the ends of the earth, the proper object of all religious worship and adoration: Christ is to be worshipped with every part of external worship under the New Testament dispensation; psalms and songs of praise are to be sung unto him; prayer is to be made unto him; the Gospel is to be preached, and ordinances to be administered, in his name; and likewise with all internal worship, in the exercise of every grace on him, as faith, hope, and love: see Psa 45:11, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; both in a natural and spiritual sense: Christ is the Maker of us as creatures, of our souls and bodies; we have our natural being from him, and are supported in it by him; and he is the Maker of us as new creatures; we are his workmanship, created in him, and by him; and therefore he should be worshipped by us, Eph 2:10. Kimchi distinguishes these several gestures, expressed by the different words here used; the first, we render worship, signifies, according to him, the prostration of the whole body on the ground, with the hands and legs stretched out; the second, a bowing of the head, with part of the body; and the third, a bending of the knees on the ground; but though each of these postures and gestures have been, and may be, used in religious worship, yet they seem not so much to design them themselves, and the particular use of them, as worship itself, which is in general intended by them.

Jahve is called the Rock of our salvation (as in Psa 89:27, cf. Psa 94:22) as being its firm and sure ground. Visiting the house of God, one comes before God's face; קדּם פּני, praeoccupare faciem, is equivalent to visere (visitare). תּודה is not confessio peccati, but laudis. The Beth before תודה is the Beth of accompaniment, as in Mic 6:6; that before זמרות (according to Sa2 23:1 a name for psalms, whilst מזמר can only be used as a technical expression) is the Beth of the medium.

For the expounding of this psalm we may borrow a great deal of light from the apostle's discourse, Heb. 3 and 4, where it appears both to have been penned by David and to have been calculated for the days of the Messiah; for it is there said expressly (Heb 4:7) that the day here spoken of (Psa 95:7) is to be understood of the gospel day, in which God speaks to us by his Son in a voice which we are concerned to hear, and proposes to us a rest besides that of Canaan. In singing psalms it is intended, I. That we should "make melody unto the Lord;" this we are here excited to do, and assisted in doing, being called upon to praise God (Psa 95:1, Psa 95:2) as a great God (Psa 95:3-5) and as our gracious benefactor (Psa 95:6, Psa 95:7). II. That we should teach and admonish ourselves and one another; and we are here taught and warned to hear God's voice (Psa 95:7), and not to harden our hearts, as the Israelites in the wilderness did (Psa 95:8, Psa 95:9), lest we fall under God's wrath and fall short of his rest, as they did (Psa 95:10, Psa 95:11). This psalm must be sung with a holy reverence of God's majesty and a dread of his justice, with a desire to please him and a fear to offend him.

95:6-7 The great King cares for his people as a shepherd cares for his flock (Isa 40:11). • The Lord our maker, the Creator of heaven and earth, also made a people for himself (Isa 45:9-12; 51:12-16).