The greatness of the God of whom the Bible tells us lies in the fact that He is real...
The greatness of the God of whom the Bible tells us lies in the fact that He is real. It must have been difficult for the inhabitants of the ancient world, which seemed filled with a multitude of gods, to accept that God is one, that the Lord stands not above other, less powerful gods, but above the products of human hands and imagination.
But the One who is the sole Creator and King of the universe relates to the world's diversity differently from the rulers of separate elements worshiped by pagans. Pagan gods can wage war against one another, disrupting the unity of the world they govern and threatening to destroy it; they can help people, but in essence they do not love them and try to manipulate them. Paganism has gods of love, but it has no God who is Love.
Before the one Creator, however, the world appears as one Creation in which everything is interconnected. He alone can judge the world justly, for He alone sees the truth in all its fullness. And so the call to joy and gladness flows so naturally from the psalmist's lips.
95 The author of this psalm was David, as is affirmed, Heb 4:7. It has a special reference to the days of the Messiah; as it is understood by the apostle, Heb 3:7 etc and Heb 4:3-9. Herein we are called upon, to praise God, as a great and gracious God, Psa 95:1-7. To hear God's voice, and not harden our hearts, lest we fall as the Israelites did, Psa 95:8-11.
95:3 God's - Above all that are called God's angels, earthly potentates, and especially the false gods of the Heathen.
95:4 Hand - Under his government. Strength - The strongest or highest mountains.
95:7 Pasture - Whom he feeds and keeps in his own pasture, or in the land which he hath appropriated to himself. The sheep - Which are under his special care. Today - Forthwith or presently.
95:8 Harden not - By obstinate unbelief. Provocation - In that bold and wicked contest with God in the wilderness. Temptation - In the day in which you tempted me.
95:9 Works - Both of mercy, and of justice.
95:10 Do err - Their hearts are insincere and bent to backsliding.Not known - After all my teaching and discoveries of myself to them; they did not know, nor consider, those great things which I had wrought for them.
95:11 My rest - Into the promised land, which is called the rest, Deu 12:9.