If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Psalm 95:6-7c, 8-9, 10-11. January 12, 2023 - Thursday, 1st Week in Ordinary Time
Psalm 95 consists of two quite distinct parts. The first part is a “call to worship” (Vv. 1–7a). The reason for bowing down in worship is the fact that Israel was “made” by the Lord. The Lord chose Israel to be his treasured possession and established a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. The second part admonishes the people not to imitate the sins of the generation of Moses (Vv. 7b–11). The psalm refers to the journey of Israel through the wilderness towards the Promised Land. That journey was marked by the constant failure of trusting the Lord.
Meribah and Massah was a place where according to the Book of Exodus (Ex 17:1-7) and the Book of Numbers (Num 20:1-13) the people had no water to drink, quarrelled with Moses and put the Lord to the test. They were doubting the presence of the Lord by asking: “Is the LORD among us or not?” (Ex 17:7). Moreover, according to the story retold in the Book of Numbers, Moses also failed to trust in the Lord (Num 20:12). The word “Massah” means “trial” or “test” and the word “Meribah” means “quarrel”. Thus, the name of the place can be rendered as “the place of Testing and Quarrelling”.
The tragic thing about that generation of Moses is the fact that out of those who left Egypt, only two entered the promised land: Joshua and Caleb. The rest, including Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, died in the wilderness. Their constant disobedience and failure to trust the Lord reveal the problem of the human heart. Our Catechism traces this problem to the first sin committed by Adam and Eve (see Genesis 3). We read: “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness” (CCC, 397).
This disobedience towards God and lack of trust in his goodness marked the generation of Moses. It is summarized in their constant statement that it would be better for them to be the slaves of the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness and that Moses should not take them out of Egypt (see Ex 14:11-12). With such complaints, they wearied the Lord and brought God’s punishment upon themselves. The Lord swore in his anger: “They shall never enter my rest”.
This theme of the psalm is taken up by the author of the letter to the Hebrews. His generation of Jewish Christians, facing persecution from both the Jews and the Gentiles, began to waver in their commitment to Christ. They were entertaining the thoughts of reverting to Judaism. The author of the letter uses this psalm to warn them not to do that if they wanted to enter God’s rest. Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians also brings the failure of the generation of Moses to trust the Lord as a lesson for Christians. We should avoid imitating their disobedience and lack of trust in the goodness of the Lord or as the psalmist puts it: we should not harden our hearts.