Ps. 95.8a (the day of Adam)

Do not / harden your hearts / as you did at Meribah


This reality of Yhwh’s presence—its ability to ‘make perpetual’—is something we have seen before, especially in relation to goods and the Land. Goods and the Land can be obtained by his people but they cannot be held in perpetuity and in safety. At some point they will be divested and they are constantly subject to the anxiety of plunder by others. However, when Yhwh gives these, they are given ‘in perpetuity and safety’. What we see today is that just as Yhwh can give ‘things’ and the Land in a perpetual fashion so too does he give time in a perpetual fashion—the ‘Today of Yhwh’. We might call this the Sabbath toward which all of time ‘moves toward’ and is attempting to enter. I mention this because we see here that the ‘day of disobedience’ is also, in some fashion, a perpetual day. Yhwh’s opening line collapses the distinction between the people he addresses and their ‘fathers’ who disobeyed him: “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah…when your fathers tested me…”. The ‘father’s’ disobedience has become their disobedience. This is crucial—Yhwh places the reality of disobedience as close to the people as possible. It is not ‘far from them’, but just as present ‘today’ and now as it was a generation ago. For Yhwh, this is not something that happened ‘back then’; its reality is current, present, and ‘lurking’. And this ‘presenting-of-the-past’ can also be heard in the phrase ‘harden your hearts’. Yhwh applies to the Meribah day of disobedience, after Israel has been liberated from Egypt. But, it points back further—to the Pharaoh himself who also had ‘heard Yhwh’ and ‘seen his work’ and yet ‘hardened his heart against Yhwh’. In other words the ‘fathers’ brought Pharaoh out of Egypt in their own hearts, and that ‘sphere of disobedience’ is still present and just as potent a reality as when it first occurred. Time has not lessened it. Every ‘hardening of heart’ is tantamount, and an enactment of, Meribah-rebellion and Pharaoh-resistance. This is the ‘perpetual day of disobedience’—the ‘day of Adam’ we might say. And, importantly, this is not merely a rhetorical ploy by Yhwh. For Yhwh, these ‘days of rebellion’ are really present, really enacted, like some ‘anti-sacrament’ ready to be performed by his people. Again, they are ‘perpetual’ in Yhwh’s presence, in much the same way that ‘hell’ is the ‘perpetual’ No to Yhwh.