Today’s Passage: Psalm 16
David wrote this psalm, and the heading tells us so, naming it a Miktam of David. In it he takes refuge in God, he names the LORD as his portion, and then he says something that reaches far past his own life: that God will not abandon his soul to Sheol, nor let His Holy One see decay. Those are the very words Peter preached at Pentecost as the resurrection of Christ, and the same words Paul preached in Pisidian Antioch. We should not soften them into nothing more than David’s private confidence, as though the psalm stopped at his own courage. David spoke, and the Holy One did not see decay. It is one gospel, not two.
As you read, hold this: David spoke. The Holy One did not see decay.
Context A Miktam of David
The superscription is part of the text, not a later note added on. The word Miktam stands over this psalm and five others, and its exact sense is still debated among scholars. What is not in doubt is the psalm’s opening move, for refuge is the very first thing named. Nor is there any doubt about how the apostles read verse 10. They understood it, and settled it, as the resurrection of Christ.
Psalm 16:1-2 (BSB)
¹ A Miktam of David. Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge. ² I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”
Refuge comes first, before any threat has even been named. Then David makes a larger claim still: apart from You I have no good thing. He does not mean that every other gift is worthless, but that every other gift is good only because it came from God. Family, land, counsel, joy, whatever the next verses go on to name, all of it will be named as gift and traced back here to the Giver.
Psalm 16:3-4 (BSB)
³ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellence in whom all my delight resides. ⁴ Sorrows will multiply to those who chase other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood, or speak their names with my lips.
Here is delight inside the circle and refusal outside it. The saints in the land are not admired from a safe distance; they are David’s actual pleasure, the people he most wants to be near. Outside that circle stand those who chase other gods, and the sorrows that only multiply for them. The pouring out of libations of blood and the speaking of a god’s name were real acts of worship among the nations around Israel, and Israel’s own law treated blood as life, reserved for the altar (Leviticus 17:11). David will not pour it out to another name, and he will not so much as speak those names with his lips. It is one loyalty, seen from both of its sides.
Psalm 16:5-6 (BSB)
⁵ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure. ⁶ The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places; surely my inheritance is delightful.
David calls the LORD his chosen cheleq, pronounced KHEH-lek. Strong's H2506, a portion, share, allotted inheritance. This is the language of the land. When Joshua allotted Canaan, each tribe’s ground was its cheleq. The tribe of Levi, however, received no plot of its own, for the LORD Himself was named their portion instead (Numbers 18:20). David, who was not a Levite, reaches out and claims that same inheritance by faith. What he claims is not a field but God Himself. The measuring lines of verse 6 are the surveyor’s cords, marking out an inheritance that cannot be taken by famine or carried off in exile the way a field can. and his cup, the inheritance that grounds and outlasts every other gift the psalm has named.
Psalm 16:7-8 (BSB)
⁷ I will bless the LORD who counsels me; even at night my conscience instructs me. ⁸ I have set the LORD always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
He sets the LORD before him, and this is a choice, not a passing mood. Even the night becomes a place of counsel. I will not be shaken, he says, and Peter will quote those very words in a moment. David meant every syllable of his own steadiness, and the apostles did not throw that meaning away when they took it up. They preached these same words as the resurrection of the Holy One. David spoke, and we read both his mouth and its fulfillment as one gospel.
Psalm 16:9-10 (BSB)
⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell securely. ¹⁰ For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
Sheol is the place of the dead, and David says his soul will not be abandoned there, that his Holy One will not see decay. Yet David himself did die. He was buried, and his tomb was a well-known place in Jerusalem. That plain fact is not a problem for the psalm at all; it is the very door Peter walked through.
Study notes Peter names the resurrection
"David says about Him: ‘I saw the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell in hope, because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence.’ Brothers, I can tell you with confidence that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that He would place one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, to which we are all witnesses." Acts 2:25-32 (BSB)
Peter does not say that David was mistaken. He says that David was a prophet, and that, foreseeing this, David spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. The Holy One did not see decay, and God has raised this Jesus. That reading is settled.
And Paul preached the same psalm in the very same way.
"So also, He says in another Psalm: ‘You will not let Your Holy One see decay.’ For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. His body was buried with his fathers and saw decay. But the One whom God raised from the dead did not see decay." Acts 13:35-37 (BSB)
David saw decay; the One whom God raised did not. It is the same gospel, not a second one.
Psalm 16:11 (BSB)
¹¹ You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.
The psalm closes on a path, a presence, and pleasures that do not end. Verse 10 gave us a body not left to decay, and verse 11 shows where that life is headed: to joy at His right hand. This is the destination of the Holy One who did not see decay, and it is the destination of everyone whose portion is the same LORD David named back in verse 5.
David spoke. The Holy One did not see decay.