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Psalm 95:8-11
New Catholic Bible
Psalm 95:8-11
New Catholic Bible
8 “Harden not your hearts as you did at Meribah,[a]
as on the day of Massah in the wilderness.
9 It was there that your ancestors sought to tempt me;
they put me to the test
even though they had witnessed my works.[b]
10 “For forty years[c] I loathed that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not know my ways.’
11 Therefore, in my anger I swore,
‘They will never enter my rest.’ ”[d]
Footnotes
- Psalm 95:8 Meribah: this word means “quarreling” and is the name of the place during the journey in the wilderness where the Israelites “sought to tempt” (v. 9) the Lord; Massah: this word means “testing” and is the name of the place where they tested the Lord (see Ex 17:7; Num 20:13). Scholars assign the first episode to a place near and to the southwest of Sinai and the second to a place near Kadesh-barnea in southern Palestine.
- Psalm 95:9 Had witnessed my works: God’s wonders in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness (see Ex 16; Num 14:11, 22).
- Psalm 95:10 Forty years: Israel was condemned to wander forty years in the wilderness when the people refused to advance into Canaan and opted to return to Egypt instead (see Num 14:1-4, 34). That generation: the adults who were freed from Egypt and made a covenant with the Lord at Sinai (see Num 32:13). Hearts: see note on Ps 4:8. My ways: see note on Ps 25:4-7.
- Psalm 95:11 My rest: where the Lord had his dwelling (see Ps 132:7, 14) in the land of Canaan (see Deut 12:9; Ezek 20:15). In Heb 3:7ff, this rest is interpreted in the spiritual sense of heavenly beatitude.
