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3.
|
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all
gods. That is, above all the “gods” of Egypt. Here is an
allusion back to the first Passover (Exod. 12:12). It has often been pointed out
that the ten plagues seem to have been designed by God as direct attacks upon
specific “gods” of the Egyptians, to show that their
“power” was no match for His.
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4.
|
The deep places of the earth is an allusion to the
conduit of Hezekiah leading to Siloam. And the strength of the hills
points to the special Rock of sacrifice on the temple mount.
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5.
|
The sea and the dry land refer to the crossing
of the Red Sea.
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7.
|
The people of his pasture (Psa. 100:3) is another
wilderness allusion, to Israel as God’s “flock” in Sinai
(80:1, notes).
|
|
Today, if ye will hear his voice. This is a reference
to Hezekiah’s appeal to the ten tribes by messengers and letters —
the kind of response which is summed up in 2 Chron. 30:10,11.
|
|
His voice is God’s voice. So the directive
concerning this reformation came from Him (through one of His prophets), and not
merely from the king.
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8-11.
|
The message by which the appeal was made.
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8.
|
Harden not your hearts. As did Pharaoh (Exod. 7:14;
8:15,32; 9:7,34; 10:1). Learn from him!
|
|
The provocation... the day of temptation. The Hebrew
text has Massah, and Meribah (Exod. 17:7; Num. 20:13,24) —
the beginning and end of wilderness provocation and disloyalty. Both incidents
concerned the miraculous provision of water from a Rock (cp. v. 1 here; 1 Cor.
10:4).
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11.
|
I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my
rest:
|
|
”As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken
in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness;
and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty
years old and upward, which have murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not
come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save
Caleb...and Joshua” (Num. 14:28-30).
|
|
That they should not enter into my rest. As to
Hezekiah’s day: The northern kingdom had already been devastated by the
Assyrians. Their only hope was salvation through God’s king in
Jerusalem.
|
|
Psalm 95
|
John 10
|
7.
|
Sheep
|
|
Through most of the chapter
|
7.
|
The sheep of his hand
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29.
|
No man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s
hand
|
7.
|
Hear his voice
|
4,16,27.
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Hear his (my) voice
|
1,2,6.
|
Worship
|
22.
|
The Feast of the Dedication
|
3.
|
Above all “gods”
|
34.
|
I said, Ye are “gods”
|
8.
|
(Exod. 17:7,9) Provocation
|
24.
|
“If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly”
|
|
(Exod. 17:4) Ready to stone me
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31.
|
The Jews took up stones to stone him
|
9.
|
Your fathers... saw my work
|
25.
|
The works that I do in my Father’s name
|
10.
|
Forty years long (i.e., until A.D. 70) was I grieved with this
generation
|
12.
|
The wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep
|
1,2,7.
|
The sheep of his pasture...
“Come”
|
9.
|
Go in and out, and find pasture
|
7.
|
Pasture (Heb. implies a gathered flock)
|
16.
|
One flock, one shepherd
|
|
3:7-11.
|
An exceptionally long quote, designed to make its full
impression.
|
3:12.
|
Exhortation against unbelief. The first of a series of
allusions to Numbers 14.
|
|
In departing from the living God. Whilst the rebel
majority turned back into the wilderness, the faithful remnant stayed with the
Tabernacle at Kadesh (this is the probable interpretation of Num. 14; see also
Psa. 90:1, notes).
|
3:13.
|
Exhort one another. As did Joshua and Caleb:
“Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the
land” (Num. 14:9).
|
|
Today. Compare the emphasis in Num. 14:11,19:
“How long?... until now”.
|
|
Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfullness of
sin. Pharaoh, who first hardened his own heart, at last had his heart
hardened by God. Sin — if persisted in — will finally become an
inescapable pit.
|
3:14.
|
For we are made partakers of Christ. Thus the
“rest” (v. 11) is defined as sharing Christ. Perhaps
“partakers” implies also a shar-ing of the Bread and Wine.
|
|
Stedfast is s.w. Num. 14:11; Psa. 78:8,37.
|
3:16.
|
Some, meaning ‘most’... Not all, but
nearly all!
|
|
He (was) grieved forty years (Num. 14:34). This
is a specially significant phrase because at the time of writing the forty years
from Jesus to A.D. 70 was almost finished. The sands of time were running out
for Judaism.
|
3:16-19.
|
This is simple “ABC” language, spelling out the
message almost too plainly, for those who were babes at a time when they should
have become teachers (5:12).
|
|
a.
|
In Creation God worked and then “rested” (v. 4),
that rest being designed as a pattern for His creatures, not just from week to
week, but in His ultimate purpose with them.
|
b.
|
The works of Egyptian bondage were left behind when God led
Israel to freedom (v. 10).
|
c.
|
It was not works of the Law but faith in
“Joshua/Jesus” who gave the inheritance (vv. 2,11).
|
d.
|
But that was only a foreshadowing of a greater inheritance;
hence the need for Psalm 95, written centuries later.
|
e.
|
The remnant who responded to Hezekiah’s call to renewed
faith found salvation in Jerusalem when the rest of the nation was enduring the
Assyrian horror. And they had “rest” in the glory and prosperity
which ensued.
|
f.
|
All these considerations teach the same lesson. They all point
to God’s purpose to provide, through another “Joshua” and
another “Hezekiah”, a “rest” which surpasses all else;
this “rest” will be realized by faith, not by relying on any
self-achieved works.
|
|
|
g.
|
“Therefore let us be diligent (but not
labor) to enter, and continue in, that rest” (v. 11).
|
|
1.
|
The Rock (tsur). Psa. 89:26; 94:22; Exod.
17:6,7; Deut. 32:15.
|
2.
|
With (a sacrifice of) thanksgiving. Mic. 6:6
implies this.
|
|
With psalms. Hezekiah’s psalms in Isa. 38:20, and
possibly in Isa. 30:29 — where the night of a holy feast = the
Passover.
|
3.
|
Above all gods. A double meaning: God is above both all
human rulers (as in Psa. 82:1,6) and above all man-made “gods” (Isa.
40:18-20; 45:21,22; etc.).
|
4,5.
|
The work of Day 3 of Creation: the waters are separated, and
the dry land appears (Gen. 1:9,10).
|
4.
|
In his hands are the deep places of the earth: the strength
of the hills is his also. To God belong both the “depths” and
the “heights” (RSV) — and so we should rejoice in both trials
and blessings. And if the greatest extremes (both of the physical creation and
of the lives of His children) belong to God, then of course everything else
between those extremes likewise belongs to Him.
|
6.
|
Let us kneel before the Lord. So Paul, along with the
“flock” of God (cp. v. 7 here), knelt down before his Maker (Acts
20:28,36).
|
|
The Lord our Maker. The words imply a New Creation of
men and women. This theme recurs in prophecies and psalms of this period: Psa.
145:9,10; 100:3; Isa. 29:23; 43:21; cp. also Col. 1:15,16.
|
7.
|
Hear his voice. When Israel first heard the voice of
God, they rejected it: “Let not God speak with us, lest we die”
(Exod. 20:19). Hear is the normal Old Testament idiom for ‘hear and
obey’.
|
8.
|
Harden not your hearts. Hebrews 3 and 4 is not the only
Scripture linking with this passage: see Rom. 2:5 (and the paradox in 9:18);
Matt. 19:8.
|
|
Provocation... temptation. In Hebrew, Meribah
and Massah. The reference is explicitly to Exod. 17:7, though indeed
this was characteristic of Israel right through all their wilderness wanderings.
Their rebellious spirit never ceased.
|
|
By contrast, Jesus after his baptism went straightway into the
wilderness, and there endured great temptations without once in the least
hardening his heart.
|
9.
|
Where your fathers... proved me, as He had proved them,
earlier (Exod. 15:25,26; cp. Psa. 81:7; 106:32,33).
|
|
And saw my work implies that, when they tempted God, He
rose to the challenge (cp. Num. 14:22,23).
|
10.
|
I was grieved. Various modern versions have: ‘I
loathed them’ (RSV), ‘Iwas indignant ’(NEB), or
‘angry’ (NIV).
|
|
It is a people that do err in their heart. Isa. 53:6
has the s.w. (“gone astray”). Their thinking was
wrong.
|
11.
|
A poor ending to the psalm. The AV mg. has: if they shall
enter... The usual emphatic negative form of an oath (cp. Num. 14:23,30;
Gen. 31:50).
|
|
My rest means the ‘rest’ which God enjoys
and also the ‘rest’ which He is glad to share: Deut. 12:9; Num.
10:33; 1 Chron. 28:2; 1 Kings 8:56; Mic. 2:10; Psa. 132:8-14; Isa. 66:1; Matt.
11:28,29. “Rest” has connection with the “sabbath rest”
— as in Heb. 3 and 4 — and the place where His Ark resides (e.g., 2
Chron. 6:41).
|
|
The chariots of salvation
|
Habakkuk 3:8
|
The cup of salvation
|
Psalm 116:13
|
The garments of salvation
|
Isaiah 61:10
|
The gospel of salvation
|
Ephesians 1:13
|
The helmet (hope) of salvation
|
Isaiah 59:17
|
|
Ephesians 6:17
|
|
1 Thessalonians 5:8
|
The horn of salvation
|
2 Samuel 22:3; Psalm 18:2
|
|
Luke 1:69
|
The joy of salvation
|
Psalm 51:12
|
The knowledge of salvation
|
Luke 1:77
|
The rock of salvation
|
Deuteronomy 32:15
|
|
2 Samuel 22:47
|
|
Psalms 89:26; 95:1
|
The shield of salvation
|
2 Samuel 22:36; Psalm 18:35
|
The strength of salvation
|
Psalm 140:7
|
The tower of salvation
|
2 Samuel 22:51
|
The truth of salvation
|
Psalm 69:13
|
The voice, or word, of salvation
|
Psalm 118:15; Acts 13:26
|
The walls of salvation
|
Isaiah 60:18
|
The way of salvation
|
Acts 16:17
|
The wells of salvation
|
Isaiah 12:3
|