Bible Study - Psalm 16

Today we look at Psalm 16, one of the psalms suggested to be read on Easter Sunday, because it has prophecies of the victory of Jesus, even over death. It speaks of the hope and confidence we can all have in our Lord.

David is the author of this psalm, as of so many others. The introduction uses the word, a “miktam.” Scholars are not sure what this word means, but it is likely a musical notation, since the psalms were often sung or chanted. You can see this word used in other places, particularly in the introduction to Psalms 56-60.

We don’t know when this psalm was written, but as so often, David faced danger and trouble. He begins by praying, “Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge” (Psalm 16, v.1). He knows that His Lord has been his Help and his Protection for many years already, though, and so the rest of the Psalm is a song of praise and confidence that God will continue to bless and care for him.

In fact, in v.2, David writes, “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord, I have no good apart from You.’” David is expressing what is said in other Scriptures. James says, in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” John the Baptist said, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). John was especially talking about the forgiveness of sins and new life and faith that came only from the Lord. James knew that, too, as he said in James 1:18, “Of His own will, He (God) brought us forth by the Word of Truth” to faith in Christ, “as a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” Every believer is a good gift from God, as we are, too, as we are brought forth to trust in our Savior and are then a blessing to others.

David knew that about his Old Testament fellow believers, also. He says, In Psalm 16, v.3: “As for the saints (literally “the holy ones”) in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” These were fellow believers in the one True God, forgiven by the Lord as David was, who then helped and supported David in his own faith and life, as gifts from God, too.

In contrast, David warns in v.4 about the many unbelievers around him “who run after another god” and whose “sorrows shall multiply” with the evils of this life and an eternal life without God’s goodness, if they keep rejecting Him. David speaks in v.11 of “the path of life” which the Lord makes known to him. It is a life in the Lord’s “presence” with His guidance and blessing and trust in Him alone (the Triune God, revealed more and more in the Scriptures.) It is what Jesus, the promised Savior, God the Son, also meant when he said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6. Proverbs 15:24 says, “The path of life leads upward for the prudent, that he may turn away from Sheol” (which sometimes means, as in this case, the place called “hell").

As Psalm 16:4 goes on, David wants to have nothing to do with false gods and the activities and ways of “worship” of their followers, which even included human sacrifice at times - “drink offerings of blood.” (See Isaiah 57:4-6 and Jeremiah 7:31, as examples.) Following false gods can also be, of course, worship of ourselves and our wishes, or of money or of anything that becomes more important than God Himself and His will. (See Romans 1:21-23 and 1 Timothy 6:9-10.) David did not even want to mention the names of these false gods and evil things. He was following what Exodus 23:13 and Joshua 23:7 said. Remember also what Paul says in Ephesians 5:3-4. Fascination with evil things can be dangerous. “Instead,” Paul says, “let there be thanksgiving.”

That is what David focuses on as he continues in Psalm 16:5-6. “The Lord Himself is my chosen portion,” he says. This terminology of a “chosen portion” goes back to when the land of Israel was divided up among the tribes of Israel. You could read about that in detail in Joshua, Chapters 14-22. God had said earlier to Aaron that he and the priests following him  would not receive specific portions of land. Instead, God said, “I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel” (Numbers 18:20). David realized that God Himself was the greatest gift and “portion” that he could receive. This idea is said again and again in the Old Testament. Psalm 73:26 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  See also Psalm 119:57, 142:5, and Lamentations 3:22-24.

“You hold my lot,” David says in Psalm 16:5; and in v. 6, “the lines” of his lot in life “have fallen in pleasant places,” according to God’s ways and plans for him. He trusts the Lord and know that he will have “a beautiful inheritance,” with the Lord’s blessing.
David had used the same imagery in Psalm 4:1 where he said, literally, “You helped me when I was in a very tight spot;” and in Psalm 18:18-19, he says, “The Lord was my support. He brought me out (of that tight spot) into a broad place” - where David was safe and secure. See  Psalm 66:12, too.

When David also said in Psalm 16:5, “the Lord is my cup,” he is referring again to the cup of blessing that God brings to David, instead of a “cup of wrath” that evil nations and peoples would have to drink. (Jesus would, of course, have to drink that “cup of wrath” for us, in our place, in His suffering and death for us.) Remember instead Psalm 23:5-6, where David says, “My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” David realizes that there are eternal blessings for him, too, which are the most important, as we shall see.

In Psalm 16:6-9, David also “blesses” (praises) the Lord for the counsel and instruction that He gives him through His Word and revelations - on which he could meditate at night and “not be shaken,” even when times were tough and it was hard to sleep. The Lord was “at his right hand” - the best and closest and most powerful place for the Lord to be with him. (Remember how some of the disciples of Jesus wanted to sit at His “right hand.” The left hand was close, but not quite as good (Mark 10:35-41).)

David rejoices that the Lord is always with him, very close. David’s “whole self,” his heart and soul, His body and flesh, was “secure;” and he would not be “abandoned to Sheol” - to death and the grave and certainly not to hell (Psalm 16:10). And we have already talked about how David knew that he would also have “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore” in the Lord’s presence (v.11).

There is one phrase, though, that God inspired David to write, that did not seem to fit. God would “not let His holy one see corruption.” David died and his physical body was put in a grave and did see physical corruption, though his soul was with the Lord in joy.
The Lord inspired the New Testament apostles to realize that David was prophesying about another “Holy One,” the only perfectly Holy One, our Lord Jesus. He would die on the cross to pay for the sins of the world, and was put in a grave, but His body would not decay, and He would be raised to life again, body and soul, in His Easter victory over sin and Satan and death.

See how Peter on Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection, and 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, used David’s very words in Psalm 16:8-11 to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, body and soul uncorrupted (unlike David’s body), and the certainty that Jesus was and is our living Lord and the Christ, the promised Savior (Acts 2:23-36). Paul proclaimed the same message more simply, but using the same inspired words of David, in Acts 13:35-37. Paul also assures the people that by the death and resurrection of Jesus there is “forgiveness of sins” and “freedom” from condemnation by the Law and the promise of eternal life by faith in Jesus.

That is the good news for us, too, in this Easter season. David was saved, and His soul is with Jesus because he believed by grace the promises of God and what God revealed to him in His Word. We have the same promises of God for us, but now fulfilled, because our Savior Jesus has come and did all that was necessary to rescue us. Our souls will be with the Lord in heaven when we die, as we keep trusting in Jesus as Lord and Christ, and our bodies will be raised and changed and glorified when Christ returns on the last day. In the meantime, we have the promise that the Lord is our “portion” even now, and He will stay close to us, keeping us in faith through His Word and Spirit throughout our life, as he did with David. See His promises in Matthew 28:18, “I will be with you always, to the end of the age,” and in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

The Lord also gives us His special “cup” of blessings in the Lord’s Supper. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:16, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the Body of Christ?” We have the same gifts as David had, that brought him great confidence and joy in the Lord. And we have even more, in seeing and hearing of the risen Lord Jesus and all His gifts to us, in His Word and Sacraments. May we all be strong in faith and joyful and confident in Christ, even as David was, with His portion, His Lord, so long ago.