(Michtam of David.) Preserve me, O God for I trust in thee.
Psalm 16 opens with an appeal, not a claim, and the New Testament writers quote it as the words of Jesus Himself. So why would the One who holds all power ask to be kept?
No one has settled what the word beside David's name at the top of the psalm means. One writer lists the options:
This is the first psalm with the heading "Michtam" — "Michtam of David." Writers give it three different meanings. The common one is "a golden psalm." Some say it means "hidden," a psalm with a hidden meaning. Others say "engraved," so that it will not pass away.
For another writer the heading points to whose thoughts the psalm carries:
All the headings of the psalms are inspired. "Michtam of David" tells us that David was the instrument the Spirit of God used to bring out the innermost feelings and thoughts of Christ as a Man in this world.
We know who is speaking from the way the apostles used the psalm:
In the New Testament both the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter, speaking by the Holy Spirit, use quotations from Psalm 16, as being the language of the Lord Jesus (see Acts 2:25-28; Hebrews 2:13). We thus know, beyond all question, that in this beautiful Psalm we hear the voice of Jesus telling us of the life that He lived when passing through this world.
This trust does not stop at the opening line:
The same psalm gives the clearest proof that the Messiah would trust God completely all through His life. He would lay down His life with a trust as unbroken and perfect in death as in life. And He would stand again in resurrection. So this is the psalm of confidence in God that runs right through life, death and resurrection.
The Hebrew word behind "God" here is not the usual one, and it colours the whole appeal:
The psalmist cries to El (the Mighty One), trusting in Him. This is the place of dependence and subjection: man trusting God and leaning on Him in holy, trusting dependence. This is the keynote of the psalm.
The verse has two halves, and one writer keeps them apart. (He quotes the older wording "In You do I put my trust"; the ESV reads "in you I take refuge.")
The Lord Jesus did not trust Himself. He did not look to others — men or angels — to keep Him safe from all the opposition and dangers He had to meet. He depended on God alone, saying, "Preserve me, O God." And He said it with full confidence: "In You do I put my trust." He depended completely on God's hand of power, because He had complete confidence in God's heart of love.
The prayer is remarkable because He had power and would not use it for Himself. (This writer renders "O God" as "O Mighty.")
"Preserve me, O Mighty: for in You have I taken refuge," is the language of One who needs God and hangs on Him as completely as anyone ever has. He is in man's world, made what it is by sin, not to hide Himself from its sorrows in any way, but to know them all. Power may be in His hand, and He shows it without limit for others. But for Himself He has none, and will use none.
In the Gospels He speaks about His own resurrection differently:
The whole psalm breathes this spirit of dependence. Here He does not say, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days" — that was taking a divine place. His body was a temple, and He raised it up Himself. Here He leans as man on Jehovah — perfect in both.
Being kept and feeling your need of it are two different things. (The ESV reads "Savior" in 1 Timothy 4:10, where this writer follows an older rendering, "preserver.")
It is one thing to be preserved by God. It is another to feel the need of His preservation in a hostile world, for God "is the preserver of all people, especially of those who believe" (1 Tim. 4:10). The more a heart feels the evil of the world, the more it feels the need of God's preservation. Christ's feelings were infinitely sensitive, and He knew that all the forces of evil were set on destroying Him. Is it any wonder that the Spirit of Christ said, "Preserve me, O God"?
- Golden. Commentators read the heading "Michtam" as "golden," "hidden," or "engraved" — none of the readings is certain.
- Voice. Peter and Paul quote this psalm as the speech of Jesus, so the trust in verse 1 is first His before it is ours.
- Trust. The verse holds two things: dependence on God's power and confidence in God's love. He leaned on the hand because He was sure of the heart.
- Refuge. He used His power for others and never once for Himself. Here He takes refuge as Man, rather than acting from the divine place.
- Path. That same trust carries through life, death and resurrection. The more we feel the evil around us, the more this prayer becomes our own.
Thou [my soul] hast said to Jehovah, Thou art the Lord my goodness [extendeth] not to thee; --
In this psalm a man speaks to God, and the second verse says something startling: his goodness does not reach God. Who is speaking, and where does that goodness go instead?
A note on wording. The writers below use an older translation: "my goodness extends not to you." They explain that sense. The ESV reads, "I have no good apart from you."
David wrote the psalm, but the New Testament points past him to another speaker.
Here we hear Him speak; it is not David who speaks of himself. We learn this from Acts 2:25. There Peter quotes this Psalm and says that David spoke about Him (Christ). As the wholly obedient One, in humiliation He lived the life of faith and dependence on God. He took the place of lowliness. In it He said to Jehovah, "You are my Lord." And this humiliation was for the saints and the excellent — His own people, in whom is all His delight.
Calling God "my Lord" is the language of a servant. The remarkable thing is that this servant was free to speak otherwise.
He takes the place of dependence, of trust, not of divine equality. And He who says He does not must have had the title to do so, or He need not have said it. He was taking another place. He takes the place of servant, and calls Jehovah His Lord. Nor was this all. He takes a place … with the saints on earth. And this He does, not merely as a fact, but with the fullest affection.
The sentence is not a denial that He was good. It marks which kind of goodness He is speaking about.
Doing only the Father's will, all that He did was perfectly good. He "went about doing good." There was also divine goodness toward man, perfectly expressed in the Son of God. But this Psalm speaks of the goodness of Christ as man towards men. That goodness is perfect in its place, yet it does not rise to the height of divine goodness. So the Lord can say of this goodness, "My goodness extends not to You."
Verse 2 does not finish the thought. Verse 3 completes it: what does not go up to God goes out to His people.
So He now says to Jehovah, "My goodness extends not to You." The words that follow explain it: "it is for the saints that are upon the earth and the excellent." That is, it is not to profit Me with You. It is, in fact, the expression of that divine goodness — the "love" that "does not seek its own," but seeks the blessing of others. And He says this while taking His place plainly as the Servant of Jehovah, to do His will. Here is the keynote of all that follows.
Refusing to claim what was His own does not make Christ less. Commentators call it the very thing that shows His glory, and they point to His baptism, where He stood with the godly people of Israel.
In my view the main idea of the Psalm is the perfect dependence of the Messiah on Jehovah, shown in His humiliation here below (Hebrews 2) and proved by His resurrection (Acts 2). He is a divine person, yet He takes the place of servant. So His soul said to Jehovah, "You are my Lord; my goodness is not to You." This is His self-renunciation as man, and it was in truth His moral glory. On the other hand, He said, "To the saints who are in the earth, and the excellent — all my delight is in them." This was acted out in His baptism. There He fulfilled all righteousness and identified Himself in grace with the godly in Israel. As man, He did not exalt Himself, but gave the entire glory to God. And He did not stand at a cold distance from the despised few who bowed to John the Baptist's testimony. He graciously entered into their true place before God and felt with them in it.
The psalm does not only describe Christ. It maps a road open to anyone who trusts God the way He did.
His delights were with the excellent of the earth, the godly in Israel, who by confession of sin had opened their hearts to God's grace. Then He goes on through that psalm to separate Himself from every form of ungodliness… It is faith all through. The faith that Christ had, we too have the privilege of sharing as we pass through this world.
- Speaker — Peter's quotation in Acts 2:25 shows David is speaking of Christ, who lived a life of dependence on God.
- Place — "You are my Lord" is servant language. He takes dependence, not divine equality — and only One with a right to equality would need to say so.
- Goodness — He does not deny being good. He speaks of goodness as man toward men, which does not rise to the height of divine goodness.
- Direction — The goodness that does not go up to God runs out to the saints on earth; it is love that does not seek its own.
- Result — Giving up His own place is itself His moral glory. He showed it at His baptism among the godly, and the same faith is open to us.
To the saints that are on the earth, and to the excellent [thou hast said], In them is all my delight.
The New Testament applies Psalm 16 to Christ, who speaks in it as a servant. In verse 3 He turns from God to a group of people on earth — so who are they, and why does He call them "excellent"?
Commentators read the psalm as the words of Christ taking a chosen position. It is not His place as God, but a place beside others.
In Psalm 16, Christ takes formally His place among the remnant. Peter quotes it to prove His resurrection, and the letter to the Hebrews refers to its principle to show that He shared in human nature… He takes the place of dependence, of trust, not of divine equality. And He who says He is not taking that place must have had a right to it, or He would not have needed to say so. He was taking another place. He takes the place of servant, and calls Jehovah His Lord. Nor was this all. He takes a place with the saints on earth — however alone He might be in His perfection, and perfect in taking it.
In older English translations the link between verse 2 and verse 3 is unclear. One writer suggested a reading that ties the two verses together as a matched pair.
Instead of reading, "But to the saints," and so on, one servant of the Lord pointed out that the sense might be brought out this way: "I have said to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, In them is all my delight." This makes the two lines match: "O my soul, you have said to the Lord … but I have said to the saints." First, there is the lowliness of our blessed Lord as man. Second, there is His identification with the saints on the earth, and His delight in them.
One writer says who these people were, and points to the moment Christ joined them. Older translations read "the saints that are in the earth."
He identified Himself with the true remnant of Israel. They proved they were such by taking their first step toward God as sinners: confessing their sins, judging themselves before Him, and giving up all claim to blessing, in baptism, which was the symbol of death under God's judgment. They had become "the saints that are in the earth, the excellent," of whom the Lord speaks in Psalm 16:3, at the very opening of His path of life, saying, "in whom is all my delight." His taking His place with them, in wonderful grace, was the signal for the heavens to open to Him, because they had now found an object on earth to gaze upon. The Spirit of God came down like a dove and rested on Him. A voice from heaven declared Him to be the beloved Son of the Father, the perfect object of His pleasure.
This association is earthly, not heavenly:
Note also, it is not with the heavenly saints that He associates Himself. Those He speaks of here are not united to Him in heaven. But He did associate with them. Some may go to heaven along that path of life whose track He Himself has left. Yet His link with them, and theirs with Him, is under the title of the excellent of the earth.
The title is not a description of natural quality. It is something He gives.
Not only does He call believers "saints," but "the excellent," so that He can fully identify Himself with them. Of course they are not saints and excellent by natural birth. But this is what He has made them by His work of new birth in their souls. The Father has expressed His great delight in His beloved Son (Matt. 3:17), but to have the Son express His delight in believers is wonderful indeed.
His delight rests on the people themselves. He does not withdraw it when they fail:
No matter how feeble or failing they are, He says they are the excellent, and His delight is in them. Perhaps not in their state, but in them. And He must have them with Him. "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am." He would have them with Him!
Where Christ's delight rests sets a test for us:
I must find more pleasure in the company of the saints than in any other company in the world. If I do not, I cannot be in the mind of Christ. For He said of the saints, and the excellent of the earth, "In them is all my delight."
- Descent — Christ speaks here as a servant, not as God's equal. Only someone with a right to that higher place could say He was not taking it.
- Delight — the same voice that says "You are my Lord" upward says "all my delight" downward, toward people on earth.
- Dignity — "saints" and "excellent" are titles He gives through new birth, not qualities they brought.
- Durability — His delight is in them, not in their condition; failure and feebleness do not cancel it.
- Demand — where His delight rests, ours should rest too. If we prefer other company, we are not yet in His mind.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, and I will not take up their names into my lips.
Psalm 16 is spoken by Christ as a dependent Man on earth, and after He names the saints as those in whom all His delight is, verse 4 turns to the opposite company. The verse is His flat refusal of idolatry — its worship, its names, and the multiplied sorrows it brings.
The psalm's opening sets a Man trusting God, and the fourth verse belongs to that same voice. One writer traces how the speaker takes a place of subjection and then, from within it, rejects every rival object.
It is in fact Messiah upon earth who speaks, pleading His trust and confidence... How beautifully does David's Michtam mark with precision the position of Christ as a man, taking a place of subjection here upon the earth, and in that place making Jehovah alone His portion, and the saints only His delight! Every false god He refuses utterly: "Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips." With His whole heart He rejected idolatry, that ancient sin of Israel soon to be more blasphemously revived.
The reference to idolatry is not accidental. Commentators tie it to a long-running dispute between God and His people, and to a return of that sin still ahead.
The reader will notice the reference to idolatry (one of God's great controversies with Israel) in the fourth verse. From Matthew 12:43-45 and Isaiah 65 we learn that the Jews will fall into idolatry in the latter days. Jehovah alone is acknowledged by the prophetic Spirit of Christ. It is after this is all done away that He will rejoice, in the days that are to come, in the portion which Jehovah has given Him with the excellent of the earth.
The word "hasten" describes direction more than distance. However far a person has travelled, the turn itself is what marks them out.
It is the contrast of those who are of the world with those who are of God. The Lord would have no fellowship with these. He says, I will have no communion with the things with which they have communion... They "hasten after another god" — no matter what the measure of their departure, their faces are set another way.
The verse states an outcome, not merely a threat. One writer reads Israel's whole history — past, present and future — as the proof of it, and draws the rule out for anyone.
"Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god." So says the Spirit of Christ, in Psalm 16. Israel has proved, is proving, and shall yet more fully prove the solemn truth of these words... all go to confirm and illustrate the truth that the sure and certain way to multiply our sorrows is to turn away from the Lord, and look to any creature resource... May we learn to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart, and turn away, with holy decision, from every other object.
A drink offering was meant to be poured out with wine. Substituting blood tells you what kind of worship this is.
The drink offerings of wine in Leviticus 23:18 speak of the joy the offerer has in the burnt offering, but drink offerings of blood indicate the cruelty of idolatrous worship in carelessly shedding blood and attaching a religious significance to this in order to justify their evil. The Lord Jesus would not even take on His lips the names of such idolaters. Thus verse 4 is negative, showing the Lord's refusal of idolatry.
Refusing to name the idols is obedience to a command Israel had been given and had broken. Christ keeps in spirit what the nation abandoned.
Well did every act of the lowly Man show this. God's thought in that command was exhibited in Him; God was in all His thoughts... It was in this connection that He said: "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god; their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into My lips" (Ps. 16:4-6). How opposite was all this to Israel, who had been commanded: "Make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth" (Ex. 23:13).
The refusal in this verse is not confined to carved images. What competes for the heart today is smaller and easier to accept — and it works the same way.
The life of the perfect Man is a life of separation from evil. The Lord refused every object that would come in between the soul and God... A very little bit of this world is too often enough to trap our souls, and so we turn aside to seek some passing satisfaction in the things of this world, only to find that we multiply sorrows to ourselves. The Lord refused the idols of this world. He would not take up their names into His lips. The word to us is, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).
- Speaker — Christ speaks here as the dependent Man on earth, with Jehovah alone as His portion and the saints alone as His delight.
- Turn — "Hasten after another god" describes a direction of the face, not a distance travelled; any measure of departure is still departure.
- Cost — The sure and certain way to multiply sorrow is to turn from the Lord to any created resource; Israel's history proves it.
- Refusal — Drink offerings meant for wine and joy became blood and cruelty, and He would neither pour them out nor name the idols.
- Ours — A very small piece of this world can trap the heart, so the same refusal is asked of us: keep yourselves from idols.
Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup thou maintainest my lot.
The psalm's speaker has just turned away from those who run after other gods, and now He names what He does have. Everything He owns is one Person. The verse then asks whether God alone can be both a man's inheritance and the cup he drinks today.
Commentators hear these words first as the words of Christ, who owned nothing in this world.
He not only had no portion here, but He refused to accept one either from the destroyer (Luke 4:5-8) or from man (John 6:15). He could say in the language of Psalm 16:5, "The LORD is my chosen portion." His portion is in the place of resurrection — in the presence of God.
The verse names two different things. One lies ahead; the other we taste now, on the road.
The inheritance is the lasting portion of the believer, and we are going on toward it. The cup speaks of the experience we taste as we pass through the circumstances of life on the way to that inheritance. As the Lord passed through this world, He looked on to the joy set before Him. So He experienced the sustaining grace of Jehovah in all the circumstances of life, however trying and sorrowful.
One writer presses the difference between what a man owns and what he enjoys.
My portion is what belongs to me — what is mine, whether or not I enjoy it. My cup is what I take and make my own... Many a person in this world has a portion he cannot enjoy... With the Lord, indeed, His portion and His joy were one: Jehovah was the measure of both. He had nothing beside; He wanted nothing beside. These two things should be found, through grace, in the Christian also. For all of us it is true that God is the measure of our portion — we have no other. If only it were just as true that He was the measure of our cup!
Halfway through the verse the wording shifts from talking about God to talking to Him.
Here the soul of the saint is plainly in the presence of the One it loves, and the heart opens to its own blessedness. First I speak of Him and of what He is to me, and then I speak to Him and of what He does for me. He is my portion, my all... The "inheritance" of this verse and the "heritage" of the next are the future thing. The "cup" and the "lines" are the present thing.
God Himself holds the lot, so nothing can wear it away — while the world itself is passing.
"The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17, ESV). So here the voice of our blessed Forerunner: "You hold my lot." It is a sure and lasting possession that does not leave the heart in unrest... Yet it is the Son of God down here in a fallen world who says this: at the same time a man of sorrows because of what the world was.
Israel's tribe of Levi received no land of its own. God Himself was their inheritance.
The Lord was the true Levite. Jehovah was His portion, His inheritance, His cup, and He maintained His lot (Ps. 16:5). He found His all in God. He said, "All my springs are in you" (Ps. 87:7). How often we find our hearts elsewhere, and are cheated out of our true portion and what is "really life"... How often, through indulgence in even lawful things, we miss the enjoyment of "our own things."
Claiming the first half is easy. The second half shows what a believer really lives on.
But now comes what tests the heart a good bit deeper. How far can we each say, He is the portion of my cup? The cup is what we are tasting on the way to the inheritance; not exactly the circumstances of the way, but our experience in them. In the Psalm it is the path of Christ, of unparalleled trial.
One writer puts the same words straight into the believer's mouth, whatever the circumstances.
Why should anyone who has God's fullness complain that the world is empty? "The LORD is my chosen portion," says David. So let the lines fall where they will — in a sick bed, or a prison — and I will still say, "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."
- Portion — God Himself, not what He gives, is the whole estate. Christ refused every other offer of one.
- Cup — the portion you drink today. What you own but never taste is not yet your enjoyment.
- Lot — God holds it, so it cannot slip away; the heart rests while the world passes.
- Levi — the tribe with no land is the pattern: nothing on earth, everything in God, and "all my springs are in you."
- Test — most can call God their future inheritance. The harder question: is He the taste of today's cup, in a sick bed or a prison?
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.
Psalm 16 is the song of a man whose whole portion is the Lord Himself. Verse 6 is his verdict on that life, and it raises a hard question: how can such contented words belong to a life of sorrow?
The word points to a surveyor's cord. It marked the boundary of a plot of land.
The measuring line served to stake out an assigned plot of land (Micah 2:5; Psalm 16:5-6).
One group in Israel received no field at all. Their case explains the psalm. This writer also offers his own rendering of the words.
In the land itself the priests were to have no inheritance. Their inheritance was God only. So we may hear Christ's voice in the Psalms. The words should be read like this: "Jehovah is the measure of my portion and of my cup. You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, my inheritance is fair to me." (Psalm 16:5-6.)
David wrote the psalm, but he is not big enough to carry it.
This is the first "Michtam" psalm — a golden psalm, shining because it points straight to the Lord Jesus. David wrote it, but God clearly inspired the words. David could not have understood everything in the psalm as applying to himself. The first verse might well apply to him, but not the second and third, nor the tenth. Acts 2:27 shows that the tenth verse applies directly to the Lord Jesus.
But His outward lot was anything but pleasant. The verse is not measuring circumstances.
As to circumstances, He was indeed the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. But the Psalm does not speak of the circumstances. It speaks of the inner life lived inside them. He lived that life in the sweet enjoyment of the Father's love and support, and such experiences turned the roughest paths into "pleasant places."
This contentment is not a private feeling. It is where praise begins.
And having Jehovah as His portion He was completely satisfied. He lived in an unhappy, complaining, dissatisfied world, yet He was full of satisfaction. Men opposed and persecuted Him, and still He could speak of "a beautiful inheritance," and even of "pleasant places," and He turned in blessing and thanksgiving to Jehovah. Satisfaction must come before worship. The cup must be full to the brim before it can overflow.
If we ask what a pleasant place actually looked like in His life, the Gospels supply the scenes.
On the outside, we know that our Lord Jesus was "the Man of sorrows," the One well acquainted with grief. But inside, He had joy in carrying out what pleased His Father. Those were the pleasant places in that lonely pathway. Was not the well at Sychar a pleasant place to Him? There He could pour heaven's fullness into a poor, empty heart. There He could open up to that Samaritan woman the story of the Father seeking worshippers.
Commentators differ on the second half of the verse. Some read the inheritance as the Lord Himself. Others hear Him naming His own people as part of it.
Here the Lord speaks of how pleasant it is to be joined with the excellent of the earth. His people are a vital part of His inheritance (John 17:6). How marvellous that we are of such value to Him!
The test of the verse is whether an ordinary believer can repeat it about his own life.
Many a man is not satisfied with the portion that has fallen to him in this world. He envies his neighbour, who in his view has done better. Christ had His portion in the love of God, and so have we through grace, and nothing can separate us from it. It is indeed a beautiful inheritance.
- Lines — a measuring cord marks off a plot of land. The speaker is describing the portion handed to him in life.
- Portion — the priests were given no field, because the Lord Himself was their inheritance. Christ says the same of Himself here.
- Pleasant — the word is not about His outward lot, which was sorrow. It is about the inner life lived inside it, which turned rough paths into pleasant ones.
- Satisfied — the cup must be full before it can overflow. Satisfaction comes first, and worship follows.
- Beautiful — His inheritance includes His people, and by grace He shares His own portion, the love of God, with us.
I will bless Jehovah, who giveth me counsel; even in the nights my reins instruct me.
Psalm 16 is the song of a man with nothing of his own to fall back on. Commentators hear verse 7 both as the words of Christ, who lived in perfect dependence, and as a pattern for how God guides any believer.
Who is speaking here? One writer sets the two sides of Christ's person side by side.
We see more deeply how completely Christ has entered into Manhood when we hear Him say, "I will bless the LORD, who has given me counsel." The One who gives divine counsel as God — whose name is Wonderful and Counsellor — is the One who received counsel as Man. No man, in himself, has the wisdom to take the path of life in a world of sin. At every step, in the middle of the confusion of sin and self-will, we need divine counsel.
The verse has two halves, and they do not say the same thing twice. The LORD gives counsel; then something inside the man instructs him.
The Lord draws a distinction between the counsel of God and the instruction. He can say, "the LORD has given me counsel," but "My reins also instruct Me." The counsel speaks of all that God has purposed, made known in His word. To learn the counsel of God we need to have the opened ear to hear as learners… The reins speak of the secret thoughts that govern our practical lives. When God's counsel forms these thoughts, and frees them from every outside influence — as the quiet of the night hours suggests — we shall learn the path of life through this world.
The reins are "the kidneys," a picture of the guiding influences in our inward parts. The kidneys filter the blood to strain out any impurities from the system. The Lord Jesus not only depended completely on His God and Father for counsel and direction; the inward motives of His heart were also always right, and so they could be trusted. This should be true of Christians too, but sadly it is weak even in the most godly!
One writer treats these night hours as a practice most believers have lost.
The night hours brought their lessons too: when everything else had gone quiet, his own heart spoke, and what it worked through in him taught him a great deal. This is where saints fail so badly. They know so little of drawing apart in spirit into God's presence, where no eye sees but His. In silence and solitude, before the day broke with its calls and its claims, its clashes and its distractions, the psalmist had spent a time of meditation. In it God worked on his heart and conscience, and that work spread its sober, healthy effect over the day's activities.
The counsel here was a daily supply, and it reached Christ through Scripture.
How real His dependence was! He walked by the daily counsel of God, His ear awakened early to receive it. We remember how, when He was tempted in the wilderness, He applied to Himself the saying in Deuteronomy that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." So He lived, just as we do; only in a perfection all His own. On the one hand there was the direct guidance of the word of God. On the other there were His own Spirit-led thoughts, the fruit of that Word taken in and digested, and these shaped all His practical life.
Blessing God for counsel assumes you asked for it first. Reverse that order, and the praise of this verse is out of reach.
If we have chosen our own path, we shall find distance from God and sorrow, and we shall not be able to "bless the Lord" in the sense of this verse. The verse describes a harvest that springs up with joy, because we have walked in the counsels of the LORD. We are often so wilful, so hasty, and so careless. We do the thing we needed direction for first, and ask for counsel afterwards. Then we cannot "bless the Lord, who has given us counsel," though we may have to bless Him instead for rescuing us from the folly of our own ways.
- Counsel given. The One whose name is Wonderful Counsellor took the place of a Man who receives counsel. That is the pattern of dependence for everyone on this path.
- Counsel learned. God's counsel reaches us through His word; it needs the opened ear of a learner, not an occasional glance in a crisis.
- Counsel digested. The "reins" are the kidneys — a picture of the inward thoughts that filter and steer a life. In Christ every motive was pure and could be trusted.
- Counsel in the dark. Night removes the noise. The heart's work before God then steadies the whole day that follows.
- Counsel blessed. Ask first and you can bless God for the harvest; act first and at best you bless Him for rescuing you from your own folly.
I have set Jehovah continually before me; because [he is] at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Therefore my heart rejoiceth, and my glory exulteth; my flesh moreover shall dwell in hope.
Psalm 16 traces one unbroken confidence in God, and verse 9 is where that confidence meets death. So whose voice is this — David's, or Someone greater whose body would go into a grave and come out again?
The gladness here did not arrive on its own. It follows the obedience described just before it. A word on the wording: the ESV's "my whole being" is "my glory" in older translations, and its "my flesh also dwells secure" is "my flesh also shall rest in hope." The quotes below use that older wording.
Christ's constant dependence and unswerving obedience had a result. His heart was glad in a world where He was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." And His glory (that is, His tongue) did rejoice. There is something very beautiful here: the Hebrew word for "glory" also means "tongue." So it was with Christ. His tongue was His glory, and it rejoiced, because He used it only for the glory of His Father and God. Our tongues, sadly, are often our shame.
Notice what the verse does not say. It reports the state of a heart, not the state of a situation.
This perfect life has its joy and gladness. But it is not like the joy of this world, which depends on outward circumstances. The Lord says, "My heart is glad" — not necessarily, My circumstances are bright. The joy is in the heart, just as David can say, "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound" (Ps. 4:7). The world's joy is in prosperous circumstances, the grain and the wine.
One writer takes the parts in turn: the heart, the flesh, and then the soul.
The blessed One who walked in perfect confidence in Jehovah has unshaken confidence in view of death. He must pass through death to reach the "right hand," if He would open the path of life for us. His heart — the seat of affection — was "glad," and, what set Him apart from all others, it "rejoiced." His flesh belonged to His condition as man, and it "rested in hope" in view of resurrection. His soul would not be left in, or to, Sheol — the place of departed spirits. Hell (or Sheol) here, in this psalm, is not the place of torment, but simply the unseen.
The confidence in this psalm runs on past death. That is why commentators say David could not be describing himself.
The same psalm gives the clearest proof about the Messiah, and no Jew could doubt that the Messiah was in question there. He would be marked by the most absolute trust in God through all His life. He was to lay down His life with trust in God just as unbroken and perfect in death as in life. And last, He would stand in resurrection. It is therefore the psalm of confidence in God that goes right through life, death, resurrection. It was seen in Jesus, and clearly not applicable to David who wrote it.
The hope in His flesh was not just that He would live again. His rising says something about His work — and about everyone He stands for.
So resurrection is His justification from God, the seal placed on His completed work. It is therefore the justification of all for whom He stands — of all who through grace believe in Him. By identifying Himself with them, He comes for the moment into the place of weakness, depending simply on the arm of Another for deliverance.
The "Holy One" of this psalm is Christ. Yet what He knew is not sealed off from those who belong to Him.
Christ is indeed the "Holy One." But believers are "holy and beloved," and as such they can know the blessedness of the life of Christ as man. They too can look ahead with confidence, knowing that God will not leave the soul in death nor the body in corruption.
At a graveside that confidence takes a very plain shape.
Hope is the believer's covering. He wraps it around himself when he lays his body down to sleep in the grave. "My flesh," says David, "shall rest in hope" (Ps. 16:9). Anyone with no hope of a resurrection to life goes sadly to that bed.
- Cause. The gladness starts with "therefore." It is the fruit of a life of unbroken dependence and obedience.
- Threefold. Heart, glory and flesh — affection, speech and body. The Hebrew word for "glory" also means "tongue."
- Joy. The heart is glad even when circumstances are not bright. This joy does not run on grain and wine.
- Death. The flesh rests in hope: God will not leave the soul in death, nor the body in decay.
- Result. Resurrection is God's seal on His finished work. So it justifies everyone who believes — and the believer can lay his own body down in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol, neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption.
David wrote this line. Yet the first preachers of the gospel said he could not be describing himself. So the verse raises two questions: who is speaking, and what happens to a body in the grave?
Peter used this psalm in his sermon at Pentecost. He tested it against facts everyone in Jerusalem knew.
Was David writing about himself? Impossible. He had died and was buried, and his tomb was among them, still holding his dust. And everyone fully agreed that he, the first of his royal line, had not risen from the dead. Yet he wrote about One who would die and soon afterwards be raised. This is because God would not leave that One's soul in Hades (the place of spirits who have left the body), and would not let His body see corruption.
Trust runs through the whole psalm, and this line is where that trust meets death.
The same psalm gives the clearest proof that the Messiah would show the most complete trust in God all through His life. He was to lay down His life with trust in God just as unbroken and perfect in death as in life. And He would stand in resurrection. So it is the psalm of confidence in God. That confidence runs right through life, death, and resurrection.
Sheol is the Hebrew word for the place of the dead. Some argue the wording says less than older translations suggested. The point is not that He was left in that place. It is that He was never handed over to it.
We never find Sheol or Hades linked with joy or blessing, the way paradise is. In line with that, Psalm 16:10 teaches that Jehovah would not leave Messiah's soul to Hades, any more than His body to see corruption. The idea of "leaving in" does not seem to fit either the Hebrew or the Greek in the correct text. Early superstition made much of that error.
Commentators differ here. One of them left the question open.
Is it quite certain that "You will not abandon my soul to Sheol" refers to the resurrection? … Christ went where we go when we die, like the thief on the cross. The word is Lo-taazov ("You will not forsake"). This may well mean that He went there and left it at once. But it might mean that He would not have His place there, even if others had. The resurrection is quite enough to account for the words. The only question is whether that is the true explanation.
Paul used this line too, and its second half is about the body.
Paul then quotes Psalm 16:10: "You will not let your Holy One see corruption." This is striking. It points to nothing less than resurrection before decay could set in. David wrote this, but after he had served God's will in his own generation, he died and saw corruption. Again, it was David's son of whom he had spoken, the One whom God raised from the dead and who saw no corruption.
Others use this same title of Jesus — before His birth, during His ministry, and after His resurrection.
He Himself was the Holy One. "That holy thing which will be born of you will be called the Son of God," the angel said to Mary (Luke 1:35). The very demons in Capernaum said to Him, "I know who you are: the Holy One of God." And what charge did Peter lay against the Jews after Pentecost? "You denied the Holy One." And when Peter spoke of the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2:27), he quoted Psalm 16:10: "Neither will you let your Holy One see corruption."
He went into death trusting the Father, and His rising carries a verdict with it.
He took on the burden of sin and laid down His life. He committed Himself in peace into the Father's hand, to take back again the life He had laid down. The language of the sixteenth psalm expresses this confidence… So resurrection is His justification from God, the seal placed on His completed work. It is therefore the justification of all for whom He stands — of all who through grace believe in Him.
The title "Holy One" belongs to Christ alone. But the confidence in this verse is not shut off from those who trust Him.
Christ is indeed the "Holy One." But believers are "holy and beloved," and as such can know the blessedness of the life of Christ as man. They too can look ahead with confidence. They know that God will not leave the soul in death or the body in corruption.
- Not David. His grave was still in Jerusalem, holding his dust. So the psalm speaks of Someone else, who would die and soon rise.
- Not shaken. His trust held firm in death. This is the psalm of confidence running through life, death, and resurrection.
- Not abandoned. God did not hand His soul over to Sheol. Commentators differ on how far the wording presses, but all read resurrection in it.
- Not decayed. God raised Him before corruption could begin. His was the one death that left no trace of decay.
- Not alone. His rising is the seal on His finished work. It is the justification of everyone who believes. They too can face death expecting God to bring them out of it.
Thou wilt make known to me the path of life thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.
A man facing death speaks the closing verse of Psalm 16. Yet he speaks of life, joy and pleasure beyond death. The apostles later used his words as proof that Christ rose. That raises the two questions this verse keeps putting to readers: whose path is this, and where does it end?
Peter and Paul both quoted this psalm in public preaching. Their argument rested on one point: David himself died and stayed dead. So the words had to belong to someone else.
David clearly foretold the resurrection of Christ in Psalm 16. Peter quoted the psalm on the day of Pentecost, and Paul quoted it at Antioch, to prove that Scripture was fulfilled when He rose from the dead. They argued that David did not speak of himself. He was a prophet, yet he was buried and his body decayed. The One God raised saw no corruption. In death His soul was not left in hades, the place of the dead, and His body did not decay. He entered resurrection, the path of life, and went up to the right hand of God.
The route to this joy was not around the grave but straight through it. That is why the verse comes straight after words about the soul not being left in death.
The path of life, walked by the Lord, led through death. This is not death as making atonement for His people. It shows the blessedness of a life that death cannot touch. It is the path of life through death. Here the prospect of death raises no cloud on His spirit. He is not cast down at the thought of death. His heart is glad and His tongue rejoices, for His flesh will rest in hope. For the one walking the path of life, death is only a means to the fuller enjoyment of the life.
Notice who does the showing. The speaker does not announce what He will do; He waits to be shown. Commentators point to that wording as the mark of a man leaning wholly on God.
There is not a step of the path of life that He has not walked. He has marked out the path of divine life right up to blessing… "You will show me the path of life." How dependent for everything! He does not say, "I will rise up," but "You will show me." He passed through death in dependence on His Father. Here was the blessed perfection of a man with God… He could go back to the throne of God without a stain, and take man back with Him into the glory He came from. There is manhood now in the presence of God.
Because He went first, the path is no longer His alone. Writers describe Him as making a road where there was none.
In this place of death He opens a path for us. His Father and God shows Him the "path of life." He was the life, but He had to track the path of life through this place of death, where nothing speaks of God — a wide wasteland with no road through it. Christ has tracked the path Himself… He had to open the path of life through a world of sin and misery, in obedience, all the way up to God. It must be through death for us, because we are sinners. Now He says to us, "If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me."
The joy is not something handed out in God's presence; the presence is the joy. And what satisfied Christ's hope becomes the measure of ours.
We are in God's presence, where fullness of joy is. Where God's presence shows itself, it fills everything and shuts out all that is against it. It is bound to make us completely and perfectly happy. It was enough for Christ's hope, and He knew that presence best of all — so it is enough for ours.
Some of that joy is tasted now, and some waits.
In His presence, even here on earth, our fullest joy is found, and the fullness itself awaits us, and is surely very near at hand!
The last phrase names both a place and a length of time. Commentators press the word "evermore": it answers every fear that good things end.
"Your right hand" — the place of dignity, power and special privilege. "Fullness of joy" — nothing lacking. "Pleasures for evermore." This is not only the place of honour and joy. It is our everlasting place — "for evermore." Nothing lesser is mixed in, and there is no fear that these pleasures will ever end.
- Path — the way to fullness of joy runs through death, not around it; Christ walked it first and made it out for us.
- Proof — Peter and Paul quoted this psalm to show David spoke not of himself but of the One who saw no corruption.
- Posture — "You will show me," not "I will rise up": He walked the whole path in dependence on God.
- Presence — God's presence fills everything and shuts out all that is against it, and there joy is full.
- Permanence — the right hand is a place of honour, and "evermore" means these pleasures have no end.