Psalm 16:11
“The Hope of Resurrection”Psalm 16:8–11
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain
Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain
Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain
- תּוֹדִיעֵנִיto·di·'e·Niyou will make known to meH3045V-Hiphil-Imperf-2ms ¦ 1csVerb Hiphil Imperfect 2nd Singular Masculineתּוֹדִיעֵyou will make known toנִיme
- אֹרַח'O·rach[the] path ofH734N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
- חַיִּיםchai·YimlifeH2416N-mpNoun Plural Masculine Absolute
- שֹׂבַעSoa'abundance ofH7648N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
- שְׂמָחוֹתSe·ma·chotgladness[es]H8057N-fpNoun Plural Feminine Absolute
- אֶת'et[are] withH854PrepPreposition
- פָּנֶיךָpa·Nei·khayour presenceH6440N-mpc ¦ 2msNoun Plural Masculine Construct with suffixפָּנֶיpresenceךָyour
- נְעִמוֹתne·'i·Motpleasant [things]H5273Adj-fpAdjective Plural Feminine Absolute
- בִּימִינְךָbi·mi·ne·Kha[are] at your right [hand]H3225Prep-b ¦ N-fsc ¦ 2msNoun Singular Feminine Construct with suffixבִּ[are] atימִינְright [hand]ךָyour
- נֶצַחNe·tzachperpetuityH5331N-msNoun Singular Masculine Absolute
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?
This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.
Words in [ ] are added by the English.
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Public-domain commentary
Matthew Henry
From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Psalm 16:8–11. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.
All these verses are quoted by St. Peter in his first sermon, after the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of pentecost (Acts 2:25-28); and he tells us expressly that David in them speaks concerning Christ and particularly of his resurrection. Something we may allow here of the workings of David's own pious and devout affections towards God, depending upon his grace to perfect every thing that concerned him, and looking for the blessed hope, and happy state on the other side death, in the enjoyment of God; but in these holy elevations towards God and heaven he was carried by the spirit of prophecy quite beyond the consideration of himself and his own case, to foretel the glory of the Messiah, in such expressions as were peculiar to that, and could not be understood of himself. The New Testament furnishes us with a key to let us into the mystery of these lines.
I.These verses must certainly be applied to Christ; of him speaks the prophet this, as did many of the Old Testament prophets, who testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow (1 Peter 1:11), and that is the subject of this prophecy here. It is foretold (as he himself showed concerning this, no doubt, among other prophecies in this psalm, Luke 24:44, Luke 24:46) that Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 1 Corinthians 15:4.
1.That he should suffer and die. This is implied here when he says (Psalm 16:8), I shall not be moved; he supposed that he should be struck at, and have a dreadful shock given him, as he had in his agony, when his soul was exceedingly sorrowful, and he prayed that the cup might pass from him. When he says, "My flesh shall rest," it is implied that he must put off the body, and therefore must go through the pains of death. It is likewise plainly intimated that his soul must go into a state of separation from the body, and that his body, so deserted, would be in imminent danger of seeing corruption - that he should not only die, but be buried, and abide for some time under the power of death.
2.That he should be wonderfully borne up by the divine power in suffering and dying.
(1.)That he should not be moved, should not be driven off from his undertaking nor sink under the weight of it, that he should not fail nor be discouraged (Isaiah 42:4), but should proceed and persevere in it, till he could say, It is finished. Though the service was hard and the encounter hot, and he trod the winepress alone, yet he was not moved, did not give up the cause, but set his face as a flint, Isaiah 50:7-9. Here am I, let these go their way. Nay,
(2.)That his heart should rejoice and his glory be glad, that he should go on with his undertaking, not only resolutely, but cheerfully, and with unspeakable pleasure and satisfaction, witness that saying (John 17:11), Now I am no more in the world, but I come to thee, and that (John 18:11), The cup that my Father has given me, shall I not drink it? and many the like. By his glory is meant his tongue, as appears, Acts 2:26. For our tongue is our glory, and never more so than when it is employed in glorifying God. Now there were three things which bore him up and carried him on thus cheerfully: - [1.] The respect he had to his Father's will and glory in what he did: I have set the Lord always before me. He still had an eye to his Father's commandment (John 10:18, John 14:31), the will of him that sent him. He aimed at his Father's honour and the restoring of the interests of his kingdom among men, and this kept him from being moved by the difficulties he met with; for he always did those things that pleased his Father. [2.] The assurance he had of his Father's presence with him in his sufferings: He is at my right hand, a present help to me, nigh at hand in the time of need. He is near that justifieth me (Isaiah 50:8); he is at my right hand, to direct and strengthen it, and hold it up, Psalm 89:21. When he was in his agony an angel was sent from heaven to strengthen him, Luke 22:43. To this the victories and triumphs of the cross were all owing; it was the Lord at his right hand that struck through kings, Psalm 110:5; Isaiah 42:1, Isaiah 42:2. [3.] The prospect he had of a glorious issue of his sufferings. It was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross, Hebrews 12:2. He rested in hope, and that made his rest glorious, Isaiah 11:10. He knew he should be justified in the Spirit by his resurrection, and straightway glorified. See John 13:31, John 13:32.
3.That he should be brought through his sufferings, and brought from under the power of death by a glorious resurrection.
(1.)That his soul should not be left in hell, that is, his human spirit should not be long left, as other men's spirits are, in a state of separation from the body, but should, in a little time, return and be re-united to it, never to part again.
(2.)That being God's holy One in a peculiar manner, sanctified to the work of redemption and perfectly free from sin, he should not see corruption nor feel it. This implies that he should not only be raised from the grave, but raised so soon that his dead body should not so much as being to corrupt, which, in the course of nature, it would have done if it had not been raised the third day. We, who have so much corruption in our souls, must expect that our bodies also will corrupt (Job 24:19); but that holy One of God who knew no sin saw no corruption. Under the law it was strictly ordered that those parts of the sacrifices which were not burnt upon the altar should by no means be kept till the third day, lest they should putrefy (Leviticus 7:15, Leviticus 7:18), which perhaps pointed at Christ's rising the third day, that he might not see corruption - neither was a bone of him broken.
4.That he should be abundantly recompensed for his sufferings, with the joy set before him, Psalm 16:11. he was well assured,
(1.)That he should not miss of his glory: "Thou wilt show me the path of life, and lead me to that life through this darksome valley." In confidence of this, when he gave up the ghost, he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit; and, a little before, Father, glorify me with thy own self.
(2.)That he should be received into the presence of God, to sit at his right hand. His being admitted into God's presence would be the acceptance of his service and his being set at his right hand the recompence of it.
(3.)Thus, as a reward for the sorrows he underwent for our redemption, he should have a fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore; not only the glory he had with God, as God, before all worlds, but the joy and pleasure of a Mediator, in seeing his seed, and the success and prosperity of his undertaking, Isaiah 53:10, Isaiah 53:11.
II.Christ being the Head of the body, the church, these verses may, for the most part, be applied to all good Christians, who are guided and animated by the Spirit of Christ; and, in singing them, when we have first given glory to Christ, in whom, to our everlasting comfort, they have had their accomplishment, we may then encourage and edify ourselves and one another with them, and may hence learn,
1.That it is our wisdom and duty to set the Lord always before us, and to see him continually at our right hand, wherever we are, to eye him as our chief good and highest end, our owner, ruler, and judge, our gracious benefactor, our sure guide and strict observer; and, while we do thus, we shall not be moved either from our duty or from our comfort. Blessed Paul set the Lord before him, when, though bonds and afflictions did await him, he could bravely say, None of these things move me, Acts 20:24.
2.That, if our eyes be ever towards God, our hearts and tongues may ever rejoice in him; it is our own fault if they do not. If the heart rejoice in God, out of the abundance of that let the mouth speak, to his glory, and the edification of others.
3.That dying Christians, as well as a dying Christ, may cheerfully put off the body, in a believing expectation of a joyful resurrection: My flesh also shall rest in hope. Our bodies have little rest in this world, but in the grave they shall rest as in their beds, Isaiah 57:2. We have little to hope for from this life, but we shall rest in hope of a better life; we may put off the body in that hope. Death destroys the hope of man (Job 14:19), but not the hope of a good Christian, Proverbs 14:32. He has hope in his death, living hopes in dying moments, hopes that the body shall not be left for ever in the grave, but, though it see corruption for a time, it shall, at the end of the time, be raised to immortality; Christ's resurrection is an earnest of ours if we be his.
4.That those who live piously with God in their eye may die comfortably with heaven in their eye. In this world sorrow is our lot, but in heaven there is joy. All our joys here are empty and defective, but in heaven there is a fulness of joy. Our pleasures here are transient and momentary, and such is the nature of them that it is not fit they should last long; but those at God's right hand are pleasures for evermore; for they are the pleasures of immortal souls in the immediate vision and fruition of an eternal God.
Historical interpretation
Five Centuries of Reception
6 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.
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Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead: And he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. [Psalm 16:8-11] For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
He who is the Way and the Life said that he had learned the ways to life; he had learned in what way people would follow him who said he is the Way and the Life.… The body he had received—and in his body, the entire human race—rejoiced that the divinity of the Son was made known to it. That is why he rejoices, he says, and has the fullness of joy with the Father … and his delight is full and perfect and his happiness ineffable because he sits at the right hand of the Father.… This is his delight, this his happiness to the end of the divine decree … because the Lord suffered and rose from the dead and entered heaven as victor in order to establish humanity at the right hand of the Lord.
"You have made known to Me the paths of life." You have made known through Me the paths of humiliation, that men might return to life, from whence they fell through pride; in whom because I am, "You have made known to Me." "You will fill Me with joy with Your countenance." You will fill them with joy, that they should seek nothing further, when they shall see You "face to face;" in whom because I am, "You will fill Me." "Pleasure is at Your right hand even to the end." Pleasure is in Your favour and mercy in this life's journey, leading on even to the end of the glory of Your countenance.
He will be in unceasing joy, having become immune to suffering, to change, to death, even in his human nature. As God, you see, this was always the case, and of course even in his human nature once formed in the womb it was easy to provide him with this. But he allowed the nature he had assumed to travel through the sufferings so as by these means to loose the sway of sin, put a stop to the tyranny of the devil, undo the power of death and provide all people with the basis of a new life. So as man he assumes both incorruption and immortality.
This is certainly said in the person of the Savior at the time of the resurrection. When after his death he returned to the heavenly heights from the lower regions, he began to make known the path of life, which was previously unknown. The path of life was unknown before Christ, since it was still untouched by the foot of anyone who rose from the dead. But when the Lord rose, once the path become known, it become well worn by the soles of many, about whom the Evangelist says: “The bodies of many holy people arose along with him and entered into the holy city.” So too, since the Lord said at his own resurrection: “You have made known to me the paths of life,” we are also now able to say to the Lord, “You have made known to us the paths of life.” For he who showed us the way to life has himself made known to us the paths of life. He made known to me the paths of life when he taught me faith, mercy, righteousness and chastity. By journeying along these, one arrives at salvation. Even though the shadow of death encompasses us at the destruction of our body, still life does not forsake its steps; we walk quickly through the very midst of the decrees of hell by the power of Christ. For this reason, the holy prophet says: “Even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will not fear evils, for you are with me.” The Lord says this same thing about the believer even more clearly: “He who believes in me will not die, and although he dies, he will live.”
To “fill up from full” means to make something more than full, and he who brings more pours into a container that is already full. That joy fills up in such a way that the vessel always remains full. This text also indicates that all the righteous are going to be filled with the joy of the Lord’s face in that blessedness, and because it is the Lord who speaks, he testifies that he is able to be filled up among them. But we should consider more carefully what it means when he says here that he will be filled with delights at the right hand of the Father, although he said earlier “for he is at my right hand so that I may not be moved.” Without a doubt, in this age after he assumed human flesh, he was whipped, bruised by slaps, and splattered with spittle. Since he was not overcome at all by any of these adversities, the Scripture rightly says that the Lord was always there at his right hand. For he overcame the opposition of the world because he did not depart at all from the contemplation of his Father. But after the glory of the resurrection, he can rightly say that he found delight at the right hand of the Father since by that time the opposition of the world had come to an end, his humanity had become filled by the glorification of his full majesty, and he now reigns united with the Word together with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and forever. “Even to the end” refers to perfection and eternity. His glory remains in his perfection and will not come to an end at any time.
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This verse
God makes known the path of life, and in his presence and at his right hand his people find full joy and pleasures that last for ever.
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life:”
God makes the way known. After verse 10, it is the way up out of death.
“in thy presence is fulness of joy;”
Before God’s face joy is full and satisfying.
“at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
The place of honour where the risen Christ now sits, and its delights last for ever.
Passage studyPsalm 16:8–11
The Hope of Resurrection
Summary
David closes Psalm 16 by telling us why he stands firm. He keeps the LORD always before him, and the LORD stands at his right hand. So his heart is glad, his soul rejoices, and even his body can lie down in safety, because God will keep him from being left among the dead and will keep his Holy One from corruption. God will show him the path of life, and it leads into fulness of joy in God’s presence and pleasures at his right hand for evermore. Peter and Paul both preached these verses as David’s prophecy of the resurrection of Jesus, whose body was raised before it saw decay. His rising is what makes this hope ours as well.
Where these four verses stand in the psalm
Psalm 16 is headed “Michtam of David”. The word is often understood to mean a “golden psalm”, a composition of lasting worth, and others take it as an “inscription”, a “psalm of choice” or an epigram, a short saying worth keeping. David opens with a plea, “Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust” (Psalm 16:1). He delights in God’s people (Psalm 16:3–4) and turns away from every other god, for “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god” (16:4).
The LORD is “the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup” (Psalm 16:5), and David’s lines have fallen to him in pleasant places (Psalm 16:5–6). Those words recall the shares of land given to Israel’s tribes in the Promised Land, and David applies them to God himself as his inheritance, a possession that is secure for ever. He blesses the LORD who has given him counsel (Psalm 16:7), and God’s counsel and God’s constant presence belong together (Psalm 16:7–8).
Verse 8 begins the part of the psalm that Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:25–28). Everything in these four verses grows out of the trust David has already declared, and it carries that trust right through death.
Setting the LORD always before me
“I have set the LORD always before me” describes a settled choice. The verb, shâvâh, means to set or place, and David uses it of deliberately putting the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, in front of him, where he fills David’s view, his plans and his thoughts. The word “always”, tâmîyd, means continually, so this is the steady habit of a lifetime, a life lived in God’s sight with humility and reverence. Proverbs describes the same habit: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
The reason comes next: “because he is at my right hand”. The word yâmîyn means the right hand or right side, and by extension the south, which lies on the right of someone facing east. In Israel the right hand was the side of strength and honour, and a person standing at your right hand was an ally ready to help and defend you. “The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand” (Psalm 121:5). David’s steadiness comes from that nearness. God is close at hand, and he upholds David where and when he needs it.
“I shall not be moved” uses môwṭ, to totter, shake or slip. The same confidence rings out in another psalm: “He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved” (Psalm 62:6). The letter to the Hebrews gives it to every believer: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5–6). Paul adds that as we bring everything to God in prayer, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6–7).
Does “I shall not be moved” promise a life free of trouble?
It promises that the one who trusts the LORD will stay on his feet when trouble comes. David wrote as a king who faced the Philistines and the Ammonites from outside and Absalom’s rebellion from within, along with opposition and betrayal. Through all of it his faith and hope held, because God held him. Paul speaks the same way when he tells believers to take up the whole armour of God, “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).
The Son who kept his Father before him
Peter applies these words to Jesus, the Son of David. Jesus kept his Father’s will before him to the end, and in Gethsemane he prayed, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). His triumph over death is the fullest meaning of “I shall not be moved”. David speaks of the LORD at his own right hand, and after the resurrection Christ took his place at the right hand of God, where he intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). Everyone who belongs to him stands on that same firm ground.
Heart, glory and flesh rejoice together
“Therefore” ties verse 9 to verse 8. Because the LORD is before David and beside him, joy follows. The heart, lêb, is the centre of a person’s feelings, will and understanding, and it is glad.
“My glory rejoiceth” uses kâbôwd, a word for glory, honour and splendour. Here “my glory” means the most honourable part of David, his soul or inner self, so his whole inner being joins the heart in rejoicing. Some ancient readers, the Greek Septuagint and some early Christian writers among them, took “glory” here to mean the tongue, the instrument a person praises with. The more widely held reading takes it as the soul, which fits the way heart, glory and flesh together make up the whole person.
“My flesh also shall rest in hope” carries the joy into the body, bâsâr, the part of a person that is frail and certain to die. The verb for rest, shâkan, means to settle down, stay or dwell. The word for hope, beṭach, means safety or security, both the fact of being safe and the feeling of trust, and it is often used to mean “safely”. So David’s body will settle down in safety, and he says this with death in view. His body may lie in the grave, and it lies there in God’s keeping, with a future.
The verse rises from heart to soul to body, and the last step is the boldest. The nations around Israel often saw death as final, with little expectation that the dead would be restored. Israel’s covenant with the living God, who rules over life and death, gave ground for far greater hope. Job could say, “For I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25–27), and Isaiah heard, “Thy dead men shall live” (Isaiah 26:19). David’s confidence belongs with theirs, and the New Testament shows where it leads.
Did David’s flesh rest in hope when it decayed?
David’s body lay down in the grave as God’s own, kept with a future beyond it. Peter says plainly that David died and was buried, “and his sepulchre is with us unto this day” (Acts 2:29). For David the words meant a secure rest in spite of decay. For Christ they came true to the letter, because his body was raised before it saw corruption at all. That makes him “the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20–23), the first of a harvest that includes everyone who belongs to him. Jesus promised, “because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).
Kept from the grave and from corruption
Verse 10 gives the ground for that hope, and it opens with “For”. In “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell”, the soul, nephesh, can mean the whole person, the life or the self. “Hell” translates shᵉʼôwl, Sheol, the world of the dead, which the KJV also renders “grave” and “pit”. To leave a soul there is to abandon it, so the promise concerns how long death keeps its hold. David expects to die, and he trusts God to bring him out of death’s power.
A psalm of sorrow asks, “For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?” (Psalm 6:5). Against that silence this verse says that God brings his own back. Another psalm says it as well: “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me” (Psalm 49:15).
“Thine Holy One” translates châçîyd, a word related to chesed, God’s loyal love and kindness. It means one who is kind, pious and godly, a saint, and a chasid is someone devoted to God and faithful to his covenant. The word can describe any godly person. Here it stands in the singular, joined to a promise that this one will be kept from corruption, and that points to one person in particular.
“Corruption” translates shachath, a pit, and figuratively destruction, a word the KJV also renders “ditch”, “grave” and “pit”. To “see” it is to undergo it. The apostles read the phrase as the decay of the body in the grave. The second line sharpens the first, so that after the promise about the soul and Sheol comes a promise about the body itself.
What does “hell” mean in this verse?
Here “hell” means Sheol, the grave or the realm of the dead, where all the dead went, the righteous and the wicked alike. It was pictured as a shadowy, silent place, and the promise is that the Holy One will be brought out of it. The New Testament uses other words for the place of judgment. Jesus warns of Gehenna, the fire of judgment, a name tied to the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem (Matthew 10:28), and Peter speaks of Tartarus, where rebellious angels are held in chains (2 Peter 2:4). Hades in the New Testament can mean the realm of the dead, much like Sheol, and it is distinct from the final place of punishment. So this verse speaks of rescue from death and the power of the grave.
Is this verse about David or about Jesus?
It is about both. David speaks of his own trust in God, and as a prophet he speaks of the Messiah, who alone fulfilled the words completely. Peter pointed out that David died and that his sepulchre was still with them (Acts 2:29), so the promise that the Holy One would never see corruption belongs to someone greater. Peter (Acts 2:27–31) and Paul (Acts 13:35–37) both argue that David foresaw the resurrection of Christ. The verse still speaks of God’s care for all his faithful, and its full and final fulfilment is in Jesus.
How the apostles preached this psalm about Jesus
On the day of Pentecost Peter quoted all four of these verses (Acts 2:25–28) in the sermon that proclaimed Jesus risen (Acts 2:25–36). He quoted verse 10 itself (Acts 2:27) and then explained it (Acts 2:25–31): David “seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption” (Acts 2:31). Then he added, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:31–32).
Paul made the same argument in his sermon at Antioch. He spoke of Jesus as raised “now no more to return to corruption” (Acts 13:34), and he quoted this verse: “Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 13:35). Then he drew the contrast, that David “fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption” (Acts 13:35–37).
Jesus truly died and went among the dead. On the third day, before his body could begin to decay, God raised him. The angel at the tomb said, “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said” (Matthew 28:6). By that resurrection he was “declared to be the Son of God with power” (Romans 1:4). He is the true chasid, sinless and perfectly faithful, the one David’s words describe. His rising is the first of the harvest (1 Corinthians 15:20), and on the last day the saying will come true for all his people: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).
The path of life and fulness of joy
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life.” The verb yâdaʻ is the common word for knowing, and here God makes the way known, showing and teaching it by his guidance. The path, ‘ôrach, is a well-trodden road, a course or way of life. Life, chay (in the phrase ‘ôrach chayyim), is life in its full sense, vitality and well-being. The path of life leads away from the ways of wickedness that end in destruction, and coming straight after verse 10, it also leads up out of death.
“In thy presence is fulness of joy.” Presence, pânîym, literally means face. The word is plural in form and always used as a singular, and its senses of front, surface and presence all grow out of the face itself. To be in God’s presence is to be before his face, in his favour and fellowship. Israel knew God’s presence at the tabernacle, when “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34–38), and David speaks of that nearness as something personal. “But it is good for me to draw near to God,” says another psalm (Psalm 73:28), and of the king, “thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance” (Psalm 21:6).
The word for fulness, sôbaʻ, means satisfaction and plenty, and the joy, simchâh, is joy and gladness. It is full because its source is God himself, and the psalmist’s hope elsewhere is the same: “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15).
“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” The right hand, yâmîyn once more, is the place of honour and favour, the place to which the LORD calls the king: “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Psalm 110:1). The passage began with the LORD at David’s right hand, and it ends at God’s right hand. The pleasures, nâʻîym (here the plural ne’îmôth), are things pleasant and sweet, the delights of God’s fellowship. “For evermore” is netsach, a word of long duration, usually meaning “continually”, which also carries the sense of eminence and is rendered “strength” and “victory” elsewhere in the KJV. These pleasures last for ever. Revelation shows that day: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4).
Does “the path of life” mean eternal life or life now?
It means both, the way God leads his people now and the place where that way ends. Life in Hebrew covers vitality and well-being in every part of existence, and God shows us how to live this present life in line with his will. Proverbs says, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). The joy we taste in his presence now is a foretaste of the pleasures at his right hand for evermore.
Christ, the way and the life
Jesus walked this path first. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). When he had purged our sins he “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3), and there he intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). Through his cross, his resurrection and his ascension we are brought into God’s presence, and the pleasures at God’s right hand are ours because they are his.
Keeping the LORD before us today
The habit David describes is open to every believer. We set the LORD before us when we begin the day with him in prayer and in his word, bring our plans and decisions to him, thank him in our joys and turn to him in our troubles. He is at our right hand, so we can stand firm in whatever comes.
And because Christ has walked the path of life ahead of us, our bodies too can rest in hope. When a believer is laid in the grave, that rest is in God’s keeping, and the end of the path is fulness of joy in his presence, with pleasures at his right hand for evermore.
Psalm 16:8
“I have set the LORD always before me:”
A deliberate and lasting habit, kept “always”. This is the first line Peter quotes at Pentecost.
“because he is at my right hand,”
The LORD takes the helper’s place beside David, on the side of strength.
“I shall not be moved.”
David will keep his footing in every trial. In Christ, who kept the Father’s will before him, the words reach their height in his victory over death.
Psalm 16:9
“Therefore my heart is glad,”
The joy follows from verse 8, with God before David and beside him.
“and my glory rejoiceth:”
“Glory” here is the soul, the honourable inner self, joining the heart.
“my flesh also shall rest in hope.”
The body will settle down in safety, even in the grave. For David the words looked past decay, and in Christ they came true before decay began.
Psalm 16:10
“For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;”
“For” gives the reason for verse 9. Sheol is the world of the dead, and God brings his own out of it.
“neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”
The Holy One is God’s faithful one. Peter and Paul both quote this line of Jesus, whose body saw no decay.
Psalm 16:11 This verse
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life:”
God makes the way known. After verse 10, it is the way up out of death.
“in thy presence is fulness of joy;”
Before God’s face joy is full and satisfying.
“at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
The place of honour where the risen Christ now sits, and its delights last for ever.
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