Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:

“Therefore, "Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts" [Psalm 95:8]. O my people, the people of God! God addresses His people: not only the people of His which He shall not cast off, but also all His people. For He speaks in the corner stone [Ephesians 2:20] to each wall: that is, prophecy speaks in Christ, both to the people of the Jews, and the people of the Gentiles. For some time ye heard His voice through Moses, and hardened your hearts. He then, when you hardened your hearts, spoke through a herald; He now speaks by Himself, let your hearts soften. He who used to send heralds before Him, has now deigned to come Himself; He here speaks by His own mouth, He who used to speak by the mouths of the Prophets.”

“Harden not your hearts,.... Against Christ, against his Gospel, against all the light and evidence of it. There is a natural hardness of the heart, owing to the corruption of nature; and an habitual hardness, acquired by a constant continuance and long custom in sinning; and there is a judicial hardness, which God gives men up unto. There is a hardness of heart, which sometimes attends God's own people, through the deceitfulness of sin gaining upon them; of which, when sensible, they complain, and do well to guard against. Respect seems to be had here to the hardness of heart in the Jews in the times of Christ and his apostles, which the Holy Ghost foresaw, and here dehorts from; who, notwithstanding the clear evidence of Jesus being the Messiah, from prophecy, from miracles, from doctrines, from the gifts of the Spirit, &c. yet hardened their hearts against him, rebelled against light, and would not receive, but reject him: as in the provocation; or "as at Meribah" (h); a place so called from the contention and striving of the people of Israel with the Lord and his servants; and when they provoked not only the meek man Moses to speak unadvisedly with his lips; but also the Lord himself by their murmurings, Exo 17:7 though this may respect their provocations in general in the wilderness; for they often provoked him by their unbelief, ingratitude, and idolatry; see Deu 9:8, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness; or "as in the day of Massah" (i); the time when they tempted him at Massah, so called from their tempting him by distrusting his power and presence among them, by disobeying his commands, and limiting the Holy One of Israel to time and means of deliverance; see Exo 17:7 and this being in the wilderness was an aggravation of their sin; they being just brought out of Egypt, and having had such a wonderful appearance of God for them, there and at the Red sea; and besides being in a place where their whole dependence must be upon God, where they could have nothing but what they had from him immediately, it was egregious folly as well as wickedness to provoke and tempt him. (h) "sicut Meribah", Montanus; "sicut in Meriba", Musculus, Tigurine version, Gejerus, Michaelis, so Ainsworth. (i) "sicut die Massah", Montanus, Musculus, Tigurine version; "secundum diem Massah", Gejerus, Michaelis, so Ainsworth.”

“To-day. St. Paul beautifully illustrates this passage, Hebrews iv. (Haydock) — He follows not the present Hebrew punctuation, which would join half this verse with the preceding. — His. God speaks of the Messias according to the apostle, who intimates that to-day comprises all the life of man, Hebrew xxxvii. 13. (Berthier) — Harden not. Man is the author of his own obduracy, (Theodoret) which God only permits. (St. Augustine) (Calmet) — We have free will, and may resist God’s grace, as we may also consent to it, and thus co-operate to our first justification. (Council of Trent, Session vi. 5.) (Worthington) — the captives (Calmet) and first Christians were exhorted not to imitate the depravity of the ancient Jews. (Haydock) — Though a man may have frequently resisted the Holy Ghost, he may still repent. (Worthington)”