[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during September 2023]
Today, if only you would hear his voice, Psalm 95 v7b [NIVUK]
This one of those occurrences when we might wonder whether those responsible for the chapter and verse divisions in our Bibles might not have been concentrating fully. The phrase has no obvious linguistic continuity with the first part of the verse; it would seem to have been more logical to incorporate it into the following verse. Indeed, the way in which the verse is set out in many versions adds to this point of view.
Who is to blame for this apparent anomaly? To find the culprit we have to go back quite a long way, but maybe not as far as one might expect. According to online research,[1] the origin of recognisable chapter numbering stems from the work of several clerics in the 13th century; the scheme promoted by Archbishop Stephen Langton (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1207-1228) eventually became the basis for our current chapter divisions.
The ancient Hebrew scripts did have some system of text referencing but not in the form that we recognise today. The familiar verse numbering dates from an initiative by Robert Estienne, a French printer who first introduced the modern verse number system in around 1555, firstly in a Greek New Testament and then in a French-language Bible.
There are some versions of the Bible where the verse numbers have been relegated to the margins, leaving the reader to determine for themselves where each verse ends. Going further, some have discarded the formal verse sequence in favour of a more contemporary literary style. Here is one twentieth century paraphrase:
Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks: “Don’t turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising, as on the day of the Wilderness Test, when your ancestors turned and put me to the test. For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience.”
Psalm 95 v 7-10 [The Message]
We believe that the Bible is the word of God, recorded in its original form under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But very few of us are able to understand it in its original form so we have to rely on the interpretations provided by those who have the necessary expertise. We have to believe that those interpretations were also undertaken under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, otherwise our modern Bibles would lose their credibility.
We have access to many Bibles that differ in language, emphasis and style but the overall similarity of their content demonstrates that the Holy Spirit was indeed influential in their preparation. Given that level of authority, we should not lightly dismiss the instructions that we find in the Bible.
Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work. Psalm 95 v7-9 [BSB][2]
Can you hear his voice? You have to be listening.
Are you putting God to the test? Beware the consequences.[3]
Resources:
[1] Wikipedia, Sep’23
[2] BSB: Berean Standard Bible via BibleHub.com
[3] Psalm 95 v11
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys