Come, let us sing to the Lord,

And shout with joy to the Rock who saves us.

Christ is the true Rock, foreshadowed at Horeb when the people complained of thirst and Moses struck the rock (Exodus 17).  “Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink” (v 6).  In like manner, Christ was struck, out of his side flowed living water, from which we drink (John 19.34).  In Psalm 81 we read “with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (v 16).  What is this honey, if not Christ himself, the Word, who we must listen to daily.  “O that my people would listen to me…Open your mouth wide and I will fill it, with honey from the rock I will satisfy you.”  Nothing else but the Word can satisfy us fully.  God promises to fully satisfy us, but we must open our mouth in faith.

The Lord is God, the mighty God,

The great king over all the gods.

He holds in his hands the depths of the earth,

And the highest mountains as well.

The depths of the earth and the highest mountains are in God’s hands.  Therefore there is nothing which can distress us.  But the depths of the earth really represents the depths of our misery, and the highest mountains represents the heights of our prayer in mystical union.  So we are told to remain confident and joyous, at peace throughout the vicissitudes which invariably accompany our life.

He made the sea; it belongs to him,

The dry land too, for it was formed by his hands.

The dry land is our aridity in prayer.  The sea is when the Lord pours overwhelming graces into our hearts.  So again we see that all stages of our spiritual journey are authored by God for his greater glory in us.

Come then, let us bow down and worship,

Bending the knee before the Lord, our maker.

For he is our God and we are his people,

The flock he shepherds.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  The sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10.3-4).  Again, we should have the utmost confidence in our loving God, who shepherds us and knows each of us by name.

Today, listen to the voice of the Lord.

“Today,” that is, this day and every day.  Every day we need to listen to the voice of the Lord, principally through the Word.  We are weak, that is why our Lord taught us to pray: “give us this day our daily bread.”  Daily we must ask for our bread from God with utmost confidence, and receive the bread of the Word, he who is the eternal wellspring.  “Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it” (Hebrews 2.1).

Listen to the voice of the Lord,” that is, do not listen to other voices.  Today there is a great clamor, a massive din, which seeks to drown out the Word, so it does not find a place in hearts and minds.  But our inmost heart rejects these other voices, for we are the Shepherd’s sheep, not the worlds.  “They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10.5).

Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did

In the wilderness,

When at Meriba and Massah

They challenged me and provoked me,

Although they had seen all of my works.

Another translation (NRSV) is “do not harden your hearts.”  Listen to the voice of the shepherd.  Do not be deceived into thinking you do not need to listen to his voice every day.  Do not harden your heart out of indifference or lack of interest.  Have a natural heart: we were made to receive the Word!  Prepare a dwelling for Him in your mind, it comes very naturally once we begin and ask his help.  “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3.16).

The challenge of the Israelites at Meriba and Massah was to grumble “does God exist or not” (Exodus 17.7), despite all the wondrous ways in which they witnessed their deliverance from Egypt.  When difficulties arose they despaired that God would still care for them.  Did not the Lord test them, to see if they would remain faithful to Him even during the dry season?  Is this not an everlasting memorial and warning to us, to recall the wondrous ways in which Our Lord has saved us, despite our weak faith and failing memories?  “Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.”

Forty years I endured that generation.

I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray

and they do not know my ways.”

So I swore in my anger,

“They shall not enter into my rest.”

For the Israelites that meant a generation had to pass before they could enter the promised land, for indeed they wandered forty years in the desert.  For us, it means we must have faith and pay great attention to the Word in our lives, and meditate on him in our hearts so that we may enter into that glorious rest of contemplation, which is a foretaste of heaven on earth.