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.