Psalms 95:8
do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,
BSB
ASV
Harden not your heart, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness;
KJV
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
Harden not your hearts,.... Against Christ, against his Gospel, against all the light and evidence of it. There is a natural hardness of the heart, owing to the corruption of nature; and an habitual hardness, acquired by a constant continuance and long custom in sinning; and there is a judicial hardness, which God gives men up unto. There is a hardness of heart, which sometimes attends God's own people, through the deceitfulness of sin gaining upon them; of which, when sensible, they complain, and do well to guard against.
1834–1892
THIS Psalm is a burst of praise. It resounds with the joyful noise of hearty thanksgiving unto Jehovah and yet before it closes you hear the solemn tones of exhortation to men to hearken to the voice of their God. Alas that it should be true, but true it is, that the Canaanite still dwells in the midst of Israel! In every gathering of the faithful there is a mixture of those who know not the ways of God.
Harden not your heart. If ye will hear, learn to fear also. The sea and the land obey him, do not prove more obstinate than they! We cannot soften our hearts, but we can harden them, and the consequences will be fatal. Today is too good a day to be profaned by the hardening of our hearts against our own mercies. While mercy reigns let not obduracy rebel. "As in the provocations, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness" (or, "like Meribah, like the day of Massah in the wilderness"). Be not wilfully, wantonly, repeatedly, obstinately rebellious.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Numbers 14:11And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?
leads to
In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.
They despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.
because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.
Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.
Through
Exodus 17:7He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
leads to
You called out in distress, and I rescued you; I answered you from the cloud of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD, and He showed His holiness among them.
You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah.