Psalms 16
Big idea: A psalm about contentment that goes somewhere contentment psalms usually don't. It starts with an inventory — Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup; the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places — using the language of a land allotment, as though a life were a field someone measured out for you. And then it pushes past the field: you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. Peter and Paul both quote that verse in Acts, on the grounds that David died and was buried and his tomb is still here — so the psalm must be about someone else.
Psalm 16 ends with fullness of joy in God's presence. Psalm 17 asks to see that face after waking.
16:1–6 — The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places
An inventory of what one man has, and every term in it is borrowed from the land allotment — portion, cup, lot, lines, inheritance. Those were the words for a family's share of Canaan, measured out with a rope. The psalm applies them to God himself, so the claim is not that he owns good land but that the allotment he received WAS Yahweh. The refusal in verse 4 is what makes the inventory a choice rather than a description.
1 A Poem by David. Preserve me, God, for I take refuge in you. 2 My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. 4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on my lips. 5 Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.
16:7–11 — You will not leave my soul in Sheol
The second movement steps past the inheritance to what happens when it ends. Its claim is modest on the page — you will not abandon me to Sheol — and the New Testament reads it twice as more than modest, at Pentecost and in Antioch, on the ground that the man who wrote it did see corruption. What the psalm itself describes is a posture: God kept deliberately in view, at the right hand, which is where a defender stood.
7 I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel. Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons. 8 I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. 10 For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. 11 You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).