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Psalm 95:8
Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
6Oh come, let’s worship and bow down. Let’s kneel before the LORD, our Maker,
7for he is our God. We are the people of his pasture, and the sheep in his care. Today, oh that you would hear his voice!
8Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9when your fathers tempted me, tested me, and saw my work.
10Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “They are a people who err in their heart. They have not known my ways.”
Notice
Meribah and Massah interrupt the call to worship with a warning: people who belong to God can still harden their hearts against his voice.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
How does the warning about Meribah and Massah shape your understanding of worship?
Write on thisWhere might you be resisting God’s words despite having seen his care?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Exodus 17:7He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us, …Exodus explains the names Massah and Meribah through Israel’s quarreling and testing of God, the event recalled in the psalm’s warning.
Hebrews 3:8–9don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness,Hebrews repeats the warning against hardened hearts and recalls the wilderness rebellion named in the psalm.
Numbers 20:13These are the waters of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the LORD, and he was sanctified in them.Both passages name Meribah and associate it with Israel’s resistance to the LORD.
Numbers 14:11The LORD said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? How long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?Both passages confront resistance to God among people who had seen his works.
Hebrews 3:15–19while it is said, “Today if you will hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.”Hebrews repeats the psalm’s appeal to hear God’s voice today without hardening the heart as in the rebellion.
Numbers 14:22because all those men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I worked in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not …Both recall people who saw God’s works in the wilderness yet tested him rather than listening to his voice.
1 Samuel 6:6Why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he had worked wonderfully among them, didn’t they let the people …Both warn against hardening the heart by pointing to earlier people who resisted God despite witnessing his work.
Deuteronomy 6:16You shall not tempt the LORD your God, as you tempted him in Massah.Both recall Massah as a warning against repeating Israel’s testing of the LORD.
Romans 2:5But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of …Both address hardness of heart before God; Romans states the judgment that an unrepentant heart stores up.
Hebrews 12:25See that you don’t refuse him who speaks. For if they didn’t escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn …Both warn against refusing God’s voice and use earlier resistance to his words as a warning for present hearers.
Proverbs 28:14Blessed is the man who always fears; but one who hardens his heart falls into trouble.Both warn against hardening the heart; Proverbs adds that such hardness leads to trouble.
Jude 1:5Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t …Both use Israel’s past as a warning about resistance to God; Jude names the destruction of those who did not believe.
Where this verse fits
Temptation. sermon or Bible study notes.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
God addresses this warning to the people of his pasture, the sheep in his care. His care does not make obedience optional; his voice deserves your attention today.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).