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.