John Calvin Commentary Psalms 95:6

"Oh come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker:" — Psalms 95:6 (ASV)

Come you, let us worship. Now that the Psalmist exhorts God’s chosen people to gratitude for that pre-eminence among the nations which he had conferred on them by his free favor, his language grows more vehement. God supplies us with ample grounds for praise when he invests us with spiritual distinction and advances us to a pre-eminence above the rest of mankind which rests on no merits of our own.

In three successive terms he expresses the one duty incumbent on the children of Abraham: that of an entire devotion of themselves to God. The worship of God, which the Psalmist here speaks of, is assuredly a matter of such importance as to demand our whole strength; but we should note that he particularly highlights one point: the paternal favor of God, evidenced in his exclusive adoption of the posterity of Abraham to the hope of eternal life.

We should also observe that mention is made not only of inward gratitude but also of the necessity of an outward profession of godliness. The three words which are used imply that, to discharge their duty properly, the Lord’s people must present themselves as a sacrifice to him publicly, with kneeling and other marks of devotion. The face of the Lord is an expression to be understood in the sense I referred to above: that the people should prostrate themselves before the Ark of the Covenant, for the reference is to the mode of worship under the Law. This remark, however, must be taken with one reservation: that the worshippers were to lift their eyes to heaven and serve God in a spiritual manner.