Psalms 16

Psalms 16:1

Psalm 16: Christ Arose!The key to understanding Psalms 16 is found in Act_2:25-28 where Peter quotes verses 8-11a as referring to the Resurrection of Christ. Let us put the key in the door, then, and listen as our wonderful Savior prays to His Father immediately prior to His death. 16:1, 2 As the perfect Man, completely dependent on God, Christ cries out for preservation to the One who is His only refuge. Throughout His thirty years of life on earth, the Savior not only acknowledged God as His Lord but joyfully confessed God as the absorbing passion of His life. The words “My goodness is nothing apart from You” are not a denial of the Savior’s sinlessness, but are simply a moving testimony that Christ found all His sufficiency in God. This testimony is comparable to the worship of Psa_73:25 : “Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.” 16:3 The centrality of God in Messiah’s life does not, however, exclude a deep regard for the saints in the land. In fact, the two are vitally connected: to love God is to love His people (1Jo_5:1-2). The Lord Jesus considers His saints the nobility of the earth, the people in whom He finds all His delight. Consider a similar testimony by an old saint of God: From the first day I set off until the present hour, I have been as highly favored as a mortal and sinful being can well be. My fellowship has been with the excellent of the earth, and every one of them striving to the utmost of his power to show me kindness for the Lord’s sake. 16:4 Standing in stark contrast to the true worshipers of God are people who worship another god. Idolatry inevitably brings a train of sorrows into the lives of its devotees. Perhaps one of the greatest judgments on idolaters is that they become like the thing they worship. The holy Son of God disavows any fellowship with their drink offerings of blood. He will, in fact, not even mention their names in any way that might suggest tolerance toward them or toward their heathen rites. 16:5, 6 As for His personal life, Christ’s chosen portion and cup is the LORD. All His wealth and enjoyment rest in God. It is the Lord who guards the boundaries of His inheritance. As He thinks of how wisely and wonderfully the Father has planned every detail of His life, He compares it to a pleasant estate in a magnificent setting, and to an inheritance that is comprised entirely of good things. If we are living in fellowship with God, we too can praise Him for the ordering of our lives. When we complain, we betray a lack of confidence in God’s wisdom, love and power. 16:7 Here Christ praises the LORD for the faithful way He has provided guidance and counsel throughout all His life. Even during hours of sleeplessness, as He prayed and meditated on God’s Word, His heart had instructed Him. Far from being wasted, the time was sanctified to His comfort and blessing. How often has Christ’s experience been duplicated in the lives of God’s people! For many a rapturous minstrel Among those sons of light Will say of his sweetest music, “I learned it in the night.” And many a rolling anthem That fills the Father’s home Sobbed out its first rehearsal In the shade of a darkened room. Author unknownThe remaining verses of Psalm 16 were quoted by Peter on the Day of Pentecost as referring to the Resurrection of Christ: For David says concerning Him: “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.” Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear (Act_2:25-33). Now notice the points that Peter made (most of which we ourselves would never have gathered from the passage): First, David was speaking of Christ (v. 25). David could not have been speaking about himself, since his body is still in a tomb in Jerusalem. As a prophet, the psalmist knew that God would raise up Christ prior to the time He would reign upon His throne. David therefore predicted that God would not allow Christ’s soul to remain in Hades, nor would He allow Christ’s body to decompose. God did indeed raise up Christ, and what happened on the Day of Pentecost was the result of His glorification at God’s right hand. With this introduction in mind, let us now look at the closing verses of this Psalm. 16:8 First of all, Messiah asserts without any equivocation that He has kept the LORD always before Him. Jehovah has been the One for whom He lived. He has never done anything in self-will; everything has been done in obedience to His Father’s will. Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. In Scripture the right hand speaks of: Power (Psa_89:13) Safety (Psa_20:6) Honor (Psa_45:9; Psa_110:1) Pleasure (Psa_16:11) Favor (Psa_80:17) Support (Psa_18:35). Here it speaks of safety and security. 16:9, 10 Assured of God’s constant care and protection, the Savior faces the future with confidence. His heart is glad. His soul rejoices and His body is safe. He knows that God will not leave His soul in Sheol or allow His body to see corruption. In other words, Christ will be raised from the dead. The reference to Sheol needs a word of explanation. It is the word used in the OT for the grave, for the “netherworld,” and to describe the disembodied state. It is equivalent to the NT Greek word “Hades.” Sheol did not so much indicate a geographical location as the condition of the deadthe separation of the personality from the body. It was used to describe the condition of everyone who died, whether believer or unbeliever. On the other hand the NT equivalent, Hades, is used only of unbelievers. Sheol was a very indefinite, imprecise word. It did not convey a clear picture of life after death. In fact, it expressed more of uncertainty than of knowledge. In the NT, all that is changed. Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Ti_1:10). Today we know that when an unbeliever dies, his spirit and soul are in a state of suffering called Hades (Luk_16:23), while his body goes to the grave. The spirit and soul of the believer go to be with Christ in heaven (2Co_5:8; Phi_1:23), while his earthly body goes to the grave. When the Savior said “. . . You will not leave my soul in Sheol,” He revealed His foreknowledge that God would not allow Him to remain in the disembodied state. Though He entered Sheol, He did not remain there. God did not allow the usual process of decomposition to take place. By a miracle of preservation, Christ’s lifeless body was kept from corruption for three days and nights. 16:11 In the final verse, our blessed Lord has complete confidence that God will show Him the path of lifethe path from death back to life again. This path would ultimately lead Him back to heaven, to God’s presence. There He would experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.