Psalm 16

Psalms 16:1-2

Preserve me, O God: The Hebrew title, not carried by this floor's text, reads Michtam of David, a word the older writers connect to a golden or a hidden thing, marking the psalm as a jewel of confidence rather than a lament seeking rescue. Preserve me, O God opens on refuge alone, and the next line turns the whole psalm on a confession rather than a request: O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee. The speaker owns that nothing he brings adds to God, so the trust of verse 1 rests on who God is rather than on any return he offers.

Psalms 16:3-4

The delight that belongs to God's people, called here the saints and the excellent, stands opposite those who hasten after another god, and the psalmist refuses even to name their idols. Their sorrows shall be multiplied describes the fate of divided worship, and the psalmist will not offer their drink offerings of blood nor take up their names into my lips, refusing the idols the mere naming of a mouth. Henry reads the phrase as ordinary courtesy withheld: he will not so much as speak their gods' names in prayer or oath.

Psalms 16:5-6

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup borrows the Levitical formula of Numbers 18:20, where the priestly tribe received no land because the Lord himself was their portion, and the psalmist claims the same standing by choice rather than tribe. Thou maintainest my lot extends the image to a measured share, kept safe by God's own hand rather than by boundary stones. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places turns the surveyor's cord into gratitude, a goodly heritage received rather than earned.

Psalms 16:7-8

I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel sets the night seasons as a place of instruction rather than only fear, my reins, the seat the Hebrew gives to the conscience, doing the teaching while the body rests. I have set the Lord always before me answers with a steady discipline of attention the psalmist keeps rather than merely receives. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved closes on the stability that flows from that placement, the Lord standing where a defender stands at the accused's side.

Psalms 16:9

my heart is glad: Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth follows the settled trust of the previous verse into open joy, glory here read by the older writers as the tongue or the higher faculties rather than mere feeling. My flesh also shall rest in hope extends the confidence to the body itself, hope reaching past the grave before the next verse says so outright. Spurgeon marks the word rest as the psalm's quiet turn toward the resurrection claim that follows.

Psalms 16:10

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption is quoted by both Peter at Acts 2:25-31 and Paul at Acts 13:35-37, and both apostles build the identical argument from it: David died, was buried, and his sepulchre remained with the hearers to that day, so David saw corruption and the verse cannot rest in him. The Holy One who does not see corruption is therefore Christ, raised bodily before decay could touch him, which both sermons name as David speaking as a prophet of what God had sworn to set one of his descendants on his throne. Hell here renders the Hebrew sheol, the abode of the dead rather than a place of torment, and the older commentators note the word's range before drawing the resurrection claim from it. The verse stands as the Old Testament's own witness to a bodily resurrection, argued twice in Acts from these exact words.

Psalms 16:11

Thou wilt shew me the path of life follows directly from the resurrection claim of the previous verse, life read by the same commentators as life beyond the grave rather than only present guidance. In thy presence is fulness of joy sets the destination as nearness to God himself, joy full rather than partial. At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore closes the psalm where it began, at God's right hand, the place of safety in verse 8 now the place of endless pleasure.