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.