Psalm 95:
1 Oh come, let us sing to Jehovah! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. 3 For Jehovah is the great God, and the great King above all gods. 4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. 5 The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. 6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker.
“’Oh Come, let us sing to’ Jesus— our True Jehovah—the Rock of our salvation who “attends the church in the wilderness, pouring forth the Water of Life, for her use and comfort.” (George Horne)
“‘Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.’ — “‘For Jehovah is a great God’—Understand it of Christ, as the apostle also does, Hebrews 3:4, 1 Corinthians 10:4.” (John Trapp) “The mighty God is one of His titles, and God over all, blessed for evermore.” (Matthew Henry) — “‘and the great King [of kings]’ is He.— ‘above all gods’ perhaps other deities, but "the title ‘gods’ is also sometimes given to princes, judges, and rulers, to whom it better applies here.” (Daniel Whedon) “‘In His hand are the deep places of the earth.’ etc. This affords consolation to those; who for the glory of the divine name are cast into prisons and subterraneous caves; because they know, that even there it is not possible to be the least separated from the presence of Christ. Wherefore He preserved Joseph when hurled by his brethren into the old pit, and when thrust by his shameless mistress into prison; Jeremiah also when sent down into the dungeon; Daniel among the lions, and his companions in the furnace...” (Solomon Gesner)— If faithful, it does not matter where you are. “The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.”
“The wise men when they found Christ, ‘rejoiced with exceeding great joy’, and presently, ‘they fell down, and worshipped Him.’ Neither is this posture peculiar to worship in times or upon occasions of extraordinary joy and sorrow; for the ordinary invitation was, ‘Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker.” (Joseph Caryl)
7 For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: 8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work. 10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ 11 So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
For Jesus is our God. “And”— The Chaldee and the Vulgate read, “we are the people of [lit. ‘formed by’] His hand, and the sheep of His pasture.” The first mention of ‘“shepherd” in the OT was when Joshua was appointed shepherd by God Himself in Numbers 27:15-20—Then Moses spoke to the Lord, saying: “Let Jehovah, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, who may go out before them and go in before them, who may lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be like sheep which have no shepherd.”
Jesus is the Great Shepherd or Overseer of our faith, who came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem in winter. He was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. "The Jews who were there gathered around Him, saying, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.' Jesus answered, 'I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about Me, but you do not believe because you are not My sheep. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:22-28)
“The children of Israel were on the border of entering in to the land that God had promised to give to them. Now God had made some marvelous promises. He said, ‘I’ll drive out the enemy from before you. I will go before thee and drive out your enemies. And every place you put your foot, I’ve given it to you for your inheritance.’ All these glorious promises. So, Moses said, ‘Well, let’s send spies in that they might spy out the land, that we might know what kind of a land we’re coming into.’ And so they picked from each tribe a man to go in and to spy out the territory. And when they returned, ten of the spies brought a discouraging report. ‘The cities are big, the walls are high, the people who dwell in them are like giants. We were like grasshoppers before them. They’ll eat us up.’ Joshua and Caleb brought back an encouraging report. They said, ‘Ah, sure they’re giants, but they’re bread for us. Let’s go in and eat them up. Their defenses have departed from them. Let’s go in right now and take it.’ But the people were discouraged by the ten fellows who brought the evil report, and they began to murmur against the Lord and against Moses, and they said, ‘Let’s choose a leader that will take us back to Egypt. We were fools to follow Moses out here.’ And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them because of their unbelief. Failing to believe God that He would bring them into this land of rest and promise that He had promised to give them. And because of their unbelief, they did not enter into the rest, but they wandered for forty years there in the wilderness and perished in the wilderness experience.” (Chuck Smith Commentary)
"Forty years. Almost that very interval had now elapsed since the Son had died, risen again, and ascended to heaven. In Scripture, forty is the number of probation. The season of Israel’s testing was almost over; in A.D. 70 their final dispersion would occur. And God changes not. He who had been provoked of old by Israel’s hardness of heart, would destroy again those who persisted in their unbelief. Then let them beware, and heed the solemn warning, ‘Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.’ May God grant us hearts to heed the same admonitory warning.” (A. W. Pink)
We are now coming to the closed of our testing. The Jews refer this psalm to the latter days of this age. "St. Paul had therefore the fullest authority for addressing it to the Hebrews." (Sutcliffe) "God made known His Law (Mitzvah) unto Israel, but His complete Word (Torah) is now in our hands. What more can He say, than to us He has said! How great is our responsibility; how immeasurably greater than Israel’s is our sin and guilt, if we despise Him who speaks to us!” (A. W. Pink)
"So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ This "was an emphatic declaration, supported by His oath, and it resulted in the death of all those who were above the age of forty at the time of the exodus from Egypt. As far as we Christians are concerned, Heb 3:7 to Heb 4:13 is, in effect, an application of this psalm to the condition in the Church of God at all times, a most searching passage, which we shall do well to heed in these last days of general apostasy.” (Kretzmann)
“Therefore,” Paul said: “as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness,” etc. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.' So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.’” (Heb 3:7-11)“Beware, Paul adds, “brethren, lest there be in any of YOU an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.” (Heb 3:12) They began well, as we have. Do not depart from Jesus— the Living God. “Witness their singing the praises of Jehovah on the farther shores of the Red Sea (Exo. 15). They too had avowed their loyalty to the Lord: ‘all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do’ (Exo. 19:8); yet the fact remains that many [yea, almost all] of them apostatized and perished in the wilderness.” (A. W. Pink)
“But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’”— while this world lasts— “lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’ (Psalm 95:8) For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?” (Hebrews 3:12-17)— “This being put in the form of a question was designed to stir up the conscience of the reader, cf. Matthew 21:28, James 4:5, etc… The unspeakably solemn fact to which He here refers is that out of six hundred thousand men who left Egypt, but two of them were cut off in the wilderness, Caleb and Joshua.” (A. W. Pink)
Notice that in the answer of the Spirit, the apostle “does not say ‘they died,’ but their ‘carcasses fell,’ which intimates contempt and indignation.” (John Owen)— “And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed? So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.” (Heb 3:18-19)
“There were two ‘rests’ frequently mentioned in the Old Testament as special pledges of God’s favor: the Sabbath and the land of Canaan: the former being styled ‘the Sabbath of rest to the Lord’ (Ex. 35:2), and ‘the Sabbath of the Lord’ (Ex. 20:10); the latter, ‘the rest which the Lord gave them’ (Deut. 12:9; Joshua 1:15). In view of these the Hebrews might well say, ‘We have always enjoyed the Lord’s Sabbath, and our fathers have long occupied Canaan, why then do you speak so much about entering into God’s rest?’ The verses which follow meet this objection, showing that neither of those ‘rests’ was meant by…Psalm 95, nor by himself here.” (A. W. Pink) The intended “rest” surpassed the types of Judaism; it was the Substance of which only Caleb and Joshua entered.
"Let us be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb 5:11-16)
They "were confined to the outer court; none at all save the high priest was permitted to draw near to God within the veil. But all Christians, the youngest, weakest, most ignorant, have been ‘made nigh’ (Eph. 2:13); and in consequence, freedom of access to the very throne of Deity is now theirs….And having such a High Priest in heaven—... Can we draw back in cowardice, impatience, and faintheartedness? Can we give up our profession, our allegiance, our obedience to Christ? Or shall we not be like Joshua and Caleb, who followed the Lord fully? Let us hold fast our profession; let us persevere and fight the good fight of faith. Our great High Priest in the highest glory is our righteousness and strength. He loves, He watches, He prays, He holds us fast, and we shall never perish… Jesus our true Joshua, who gained the victory over our enemies.” (A. W. Pink)