_An exhortation to praise God for his greatness, and for his goodness,
and not to tempt him._
O come, let us sing unto the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the
rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful
noise unto him with psalms.
For the LORD _is_ a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand _are_ the deep places of the earth; the strength of the
hills is his also.
The sea _is_ his, and he made it; and his hands formed the dry _land_.
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our
Maker.
For he _is_ our God; and we _are_ the people of his pasture, and the
sheep of his hand. To-day, if ye will hear his voice,
Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, _and_ as _in_ the day of
temptation in the wilderness:
When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
Forty years long was I grieved with _this_ generation, and said, It
_is_ a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my
ways:
Unto whom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my
rest.
This Psalm is a prophecy concerning Christ, and its contents are fully
and learnedly explained in the Apostle’s epistle to the Hebrews. It
prophecies concerning the time of the New Testament, and sets forth
the lovely and sweet voice of the gospel. In a word, the Psalmist
instructs us in, and allures us to, the knowledge of the riches of the
grace of God; which riches were known to our fathers as well as unto
us, in the promised seed—Christ.
‘Come (saith the Psalmist) and let us rejoice in the Lord. Come ye
that are afar off and ye that are near, and let us exult in the Lord;
let us triumph in the God of such salvation:’ that is, Come and let us
rejoice with the whole triumph of our hearts, in that infinite benefit
and mercy—the granted grace of Christ! Since we have such promises,
let us not neglect such great salvation. For to believe in the promise
of grace, contrary to all the objections of conscience, the
temptations of Satan, and the fears of the heart, is the true worship
of God!
In a word, the Psalmist warns against unbelief. “Harden not your
hearts (says he) as ye did at Massah and Meribah in the desert: your
fathers, on account of their unbelief, entered not into the holy land
of promise.”
The whole of this Psalm is to be referred to Christ: for he is that
blessed God in whom we ought to rejoice, and whom the Psalmist would
have to be known. He is our Shepherd, and we are the sheep of his
pasture. He is that God, whom our fathers tempted in the desert, as
Paul saith, (1 Cor. x.) It was he who took out of the way the law, and
abolished all the ceremonial worship of the Old Testament. He will no
longer have the worship established by Moses; but he will have faith
in the gospel, the preaching of the remission of sins, and that one
true offering—praise, instead of the whole Levitical worship.