What Does Psalm 95:9 Mean in the King James?
When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse holds testing God and seeing God’s work together: evidence can be witnessed without ending the demand for proof.
THE MEANING
The verse names a pattern alive now: the reader can see God’s work and still put God to proof. What is visible does not automatically quiet the demand for more evidence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that seeing God’s work necessarily ends the demand to test God.
THE ROOT
מְנַסּוּנִי
menassuni
GROWS FROM
נסה
nasah
To test, try, or put to proof.
The word translated “tempted” names a test directed at God, not an enticement to do evil. This same root names Massah, so the testing becomes embedded in the place’s name.
ALSO GROWS
Massah: Testing or proof; the name of a place
מַסָּה
Exodus 17:7 links this name to the people testing the LORD, making the name a reminder of the act.
nissah: He tested; the form used when God tests Abraham in Genesis 22:1
נִסָּה
The same root can describe a test coming from either direction; the surrounding relationship gives the test its meaning.
בְּחָנוּנִי
bechanuni
GROWS FROM
בחן
bachan
To examine, test, or prove, like assessing what is genuine.
“proved” in this verse is bechanuni. This second verb adds examination to the act of testing: the fathers put God to proof and examined what they saw. Elsewhere, the root describes searching or testing what lies within, showing that a test can expose what is already there.
ALSO GROWS
bochen: One who examines or tests; used of the LORD in Jeremiah 17:10
בֹּחֵן
The root can describe examination of the heart, sharpening the verse’s picture of people testing God while God sees through them.
u-vechantim: And I will test them; the phrase used of testing metal in Zechariah 13:9
וּבְחַנְתִּים
The image of assaying gold shows this root as a test that reveals what is genuine.
THE PATTERN
Seeing signs does not automatically end the demand for proof; testing can continue after God’s work is visible.
And the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.THE THREAD
And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not?The Hebrew root נסה (nasah, “to test”) appears in the verb translated “tempted,” and מַסָּה (Massah, “testing”) gives the place its name. Psalm 95 recalls that scene when it holds the testing beside the sight of God’s work.
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