What is the setting of Psalm 95?

Answer 1

Although the psalms are traditionally ascribed to Kings David and Solomon, we know that the psalms were actually written during a period of more than two hundred years, during and after the Babylonian Exile. The first clue as to the date of Psalm 95 could be its joyous tone, suggesting that it could have been written after the Persian defeat of Babylon or after the Jews began to return from Exile.

Although 'forty' was sometimes used simply to mean a large number, verses 10-11 are another possible clue: "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest." Arguably this is the approximately forty years that the Jews spent in Exile before their liberation by the Persians. If so, Psalm 95 could have been written in Jerusalem some time shortly after they were free to return in 539 BCE.