Psalm 16: A Message from Hell
“Michtam of David.” The word michtam in the Hebrew is derived from two sources, a verb and a noun. The verb is the niphal stem of katham. The niphal is passive; the verb means to write, and therefore michtam means something being written. There is another form which is slightly different—kethem, which means gold or precious, something of highest value. So between the two words, the word michtam actually means something written about values, something regarding a scale of values. In the book of the Psalms there are six of the psalms which are a michtam. So michtam is a message about values, a message which orients to the important things of life, a message about the perspective of life. Psalm 16, then, is the perspective of life as seen from David. From the psalm itself we understand that David is under some sort of pressure. There are many pressures which David faced in his lifetime but this apparently is something that endangers his life. He is very close to death on this occasion and he is writing the attitude that comes to him in facing death, an attitude which gives us Bible doctrine. David’s perspective in facing death is Bible doctrine resulting in occupation with the person of Christ.
Verse 1 – he begins with something that appears to be a prayer, and as this verse begins we have David’s orientation to the plan of God. While it is a prayer it is a little more than that in the Hebrew because of the imperative mood. The Hebrew word for preserve is a military word which means to stand guard. Eventually it comes to mean to protect something, and then it means more than that, it means to preserve it that it might have some sort of a future impact. David’s life from the standpoint of David’s activity is meaningless, but from the standpoint of Bible doctrine he has a life that is important. David was a believer, a child of God, and God had a purpose for his life in time. That purpose brought him to the throne of his country. He became the king and the greatest ruler that his nation ever knew until Jesus Christ comes to rule that same nation. As a successful ruler he faced many problems and difficulties. As a far more successful believer he was constantly under Satanic pressure because of his orientation to the principle of grace.
At this point he doesn’t ask God to preserve him, he commands it. This is the imperative mood of the verb to preserve. This is an order from David to God. In facing the pressure of death he demands that God fulfil the promises which he has given to all believers, the promise of protection and preservation, the promise of filling out David’s life, whatever God has left for it. Therefore he orders God to preserve him. He also states a reason why God should, and that is because David is operating under the faith-rest technique. He says, “Preserve me.” David is facing danger, tremendous pressure.
“for in thee do I put my trust” – the word for putting trust here takes David back to his salvation. The Hebrew word for trust is chasah which has the idea of a rabbit taking refuge in the crack of a rock from a wolf. The point that David is making is that he should not be preserved because he is a great believer but because of his relationship to God. Because he is a child of God and because of this relationship He is appealing on the basis of the fact that God has now become his parent. And just as a human parent loves a child and seeks to preserve and protect his child so God as the divine parent, the perfect parent, cannot help but preserve and protect David. In other words, David is saying in this first verse that he is aware of what it means to be born again. He is aware of the fact that at the moment of salvation he received everything that was necessary for blessing. David was aware that he was a member that he was a member of the family of God and everything that he would ever receive was based upon who and what God was as his parent. The word for trust here means faith which entered into a relationship, and the relationship taken from the word to trust means that since the day he was saved David has been in the rock, Christ Jesus. Because of his relationship to the Rock he is protected from the problems, the trials, and the difficulties of life. This means in verses 2 & 3 that David is very definitely oriented to grace.
Verse 2 – the first three words in the KJV, ‘O my soul’, are in italics and not found in the original Hebrew. Actually the phrase says, “Thou hast said,” or better yet, “I have said.” It is in the second person, Thou, because David is speaking about himself. This is analogy. In other words, under great pressure David is simply pulling out of himself to take a good look at the situation. This is equivalent to I have said in pressure.
“Thou art my Lord; my goodness extendeth not to thee” – notice that the word extendeth is not found in the original. The Hebrew simply says, “My goodness not upon thee.” Here is the perfect orientation to the grace of God; here is the perfect concept of what grace really is. Thou art my Lord refers to God the Father. In effect David is saying, ‘You are the one who has charge of me, I am in your hands and belong to you, and this is really your battle.’ And then he notes something that is very important in orientation to grace. My goodness is literally, my good and it refers to human good; not upon thee is simply a way of saying, ‘You will not accept my human good.’ It is wonderful to have a Father whose plan is so perfect and whose provision is so perfect that God does not at any point depend upon us for anything. God’s plan does not include any place for our human good, energy of the flesh. David repudiates the principle of human good.
Verse 3 – “to the saints” refers to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. David is actually making a dedication. He has met the pressure. He turned to the Lord and said, ‘It is your job to preserve me.’ He also made it clear that he was a child of God, that God was his Father, and therefore it wasn’t his problem at all, but his Father’s. In other words, he was saying. ‘The battle is the Lord’s.’ Then he says that his human good is not acceptable to God. This is total orientation to grace, and because he is so oriented there is no pressure. The pressure is there but it is now in the Lord’s hands. He followed the pattern of 1 Peter 5:7; Psalm 55:22. Now he makes a dedication. His mind is now clear, having no fear, no anxiety.
While the Lord is handling David’s problems David decides to make a dedication of this Psalm to believers. From this point on there will be various points of doctrine.
“that are in the earth” – David is no longer with us, his body is in a grave somewhere, his soul and spirit are in the presence of the Lord. But as a prophet as well as a king, as a writer of scripture and as one who is controlled by the Holy Spirit when he penned these words, he left us this tremendous heritage.
“and to the excellent” – literally, the glorious ones – “in whom delight.” The glorious ones are elect angels. So this is dedicated to believers and the unseen divine team in the plan, the elect angels. In this way David touches very lightly at this point upon the angelic conflict.
“all my delight” – God’s delight in this case.
Verse 4 – a warning to us that if we are ever going to be in the place of total relaxation, happiness, peace, stability, inner beauty, in the midst of the pressures and the trials of life, we must at all costs avoid putting anything before the Lord. David warns, then, of idolatry which is one of many systems of putting something else before the Lord. David has rejected idolatry and apostasy and therefore he is in this marvellous position of being totally relaxed in the midst of his own pressures.
“Their sorrows” – referring to the suffering and discipline which comes to the apostate believer; “shall be multiplied” – in other words. Once you become apostate as a believer you cannot lose your salvation but you are under fantastic discipline; sorrow is multiplied.
“that hasten after another” – i.e. another god: idolatry or even another principle, false doctrine. So to believers who rush to put something else before the Lord their sorrows will be constantly multiplied. Notice they are not added or subtracted, they are multiplied. In other words, all you need is to reject Bible doctrine and it multiplies sorrows. The only way it can be stopped is to a) rebound; b) get with doctrine. The whole thing becomes self-induced misery which you perpetuate.
“their drink offerings” – which are offered to idols. This is the actual activity and ritual of idolatry.
“of blood will I not offer” – God will not accept blood offerings to idols. The blood offering refers to the work of Christ on the cross. Idols are in opposition to this. In other words, idolatry is ancient religion and God never accepts religion. God does not accept the ritual of religion even if the ritual has significant things such as blood, representing the blood of Christ to us but losing that representation as it gets lost in the ritual of religion.
“nor take their names [of these idols] to my lips” – God does not sponsor religion. “Their names” refers to the various idols to which in David’s time believers were departing to worship. David’s refusal is in fulfilment of Exodus 23:13.
Verse 5 – we have a word which is found in several of the psalms and which always describes phase two: “cup.” This is a drinking cup, and David is saying in effect the same thing he is saying in Psalm 23, “my cup runneth over.” The cup represents phase two; the surveying lines and the lot refer to phase three.
“The Lord” is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is in the emphatic position in the Hebrew and could be translated The Lord and only the Lord. The principle emphasises occupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Occupation with Christ is also emphasised by the omission of any verb. “The Lord, the portion of my inheritance.” The inheritance here refers to operation phase three or eternity, and specifically that part of phase three that deals with heirship. Being born into the family of God means that we are the heirs of God.[1]
“and of my cup” – the cup always refers to living in time. David has been drinking of the cup of life, of divine blessing. God has filled up his cup time after time with blessing, and David keeps drinking every day.
“thou maintainest my lot” – the Hebrew word for maintaining here means to hold fast, to hold securely. It is a qal active participle—tamak. It means to hold on in the sense of never letting go. David has a lot in eternity and the Lord hangs on to it for him.
Verse 6 – “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.” The lines here refer to the surveying lines. His lot has been surveyed for him and it is marked down for him. The word places is in the plural because it refers to heaven. Heaven in the Hebrew is never in the singular. Pleasant places and heavens are synonymous terms and David knows he has a wonderful place in phase three, a lot in heaven. The lines have already been surveyed at the moment he accepted Christ as his saviour. The michtam indicates scale of values, and in David’s scale of values eternity was more important than time. When he faces a disaster situation where his life might be taken, immediately he thinks about heaven where God has surveyed a lot for him. Therefore he takes a good look at death and he isn’t frightened at all.
“yea, I have a goodly heritage” – literally, a beautiful possession.
Verse 7 begins the dividends of the divine plan. In this verse we have the first dividend: divine guidance.
“bless” – the Hebrew word berachah means to bless or to worship. Whenever it says that the subject, a human being, is blessing the Lord it actually means worship.
“who hath given me counsel” – the word counsel is the word for guidance. David has doctrine in his soul, therefore he has divine guidance. This is learning the easy way. The second part of this verse is learning the hard way.
“my reins” – this is simply an old English word for the kidneys. Various parts of the human anatomy were used to demonstrate spiritual activities. Reins here is used for volition, free will.
“also instructs me in the night seasons” – literally, in the nights. Nights refers to disaster, anything that makes up divine discipline. We go on negative volition, God comes up with discipline, and we learn the hard way. The word for instruct here means to instruct by means of punishment—jasar. David learned some things through doctrine and he learned some things through discipline, but between the two he learned. This led him to …
Verse 8 – occupation with Christ. “I have set the Lord always before me.” The Lord here refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. The word set here means to put something in front of you that is more than enough—something that is perfectly satisfying. So it is a word for occupation with Christ; it means to put something first in your scale of values, and whatever you put first this is totally satisfying to you. The Lord is first in David’s scale of values, everything else is a detail and therefore he can enjoy the details of life because he enjoys the Lord first. The details of life come and go but the Lord never comes and goes; He stays-Hebrews 13:5,6.
“because he is at my right hand” – the words he is are not found in the original and it should read, “because at my right hand.” This is actually the exaltation of the person of Christ. David is occupied with Him and has seen Jesus Christ at the right hand. The word “my” refers to God the Father; “right hand” refers to Christ as David sees Him prophetically. This is the glorification of Christ in the hypostatic union.
“I shall not be moved” – this word means to vacillate, to shake, to totter. It is used for hysteria or for any system of falling apart. It is in the niphal stem which is the passive voice. This means to receive the hysteria but the negative means he does not receive it. Doctrine is already there and doctrine keeps out panic, hysteria, anything that would upset the believer. The principle is: occupation with Christ; Christ is at the right hand of the Father; Christ is in the place of stability; the believer occupied with Christ shares something of that stability. This leads to inner happiness.
Verse 9 – “Therefore my heart,” the thinking part of the mind, “is glad” – this is the word for inner happiness, samach, which is unshakeable happiness. This is inner happiness at a time of disaster in David’s life. Then we have David anticipating phase three happiness: “my glory,” his resurrection body, “rejoiceth” does not mean to rejoice at all, it means to dance in a circle or to leap for joy. It is a manifestation of happiness.
“my flesh” – contrast: human body. All David can do in the human body is rest in hope—faith-rest technique. Hope has to do with phase three. So David anticipates the future and he knows that in the future in his resurrection body he is going to leap for joy. Secondly, in his human body he is characterised by the faith-rest technique whereby he anticipates a glorious future.
Up through verse 9 David has demonstrated how it is possible to have greater inner happiness when disasters overtake the individual. But in verse 10 he changes the subject. This is really a prophetical parenthesis in which David for the moment sees himself in death long before he dies, and he sees himself prophetically involved with the resurrection. This leads him to talk about his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 10 – “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.” This is David’s testimony. “For” is literally, because. “Hell” is the Hebrew word Sheol. So David sees himself at the point of his physical death. Since he is saved he says his soul winds up in Abraham’s bosom, the place where all of the Old Testament saints resided until they were transferred to the third heaven with the resurrection of Christ. He sees himself in Sheol, and he says, “Thou wilt not leave my soul is Sheol.” He knows that there is a time coming when he will be transferred to the 3rd heaven; he knows he will be in the 3rd heaven for X-number of years, until the resurrection of the Old Testament saints. He knows that at the end of that time he will receive a resurrection body in which he will enjoy eternity.
Now he adds something to this—a Messianic prophecy: “neither wilt thou suffer [permit] they Holy One [Jesus Christ] to see corruption.” Here he looks forward to Jesus Christ Himself being resurrected.
The first half of this verse refers to David; the last half to Jesus Christ. This is one of those passages quoted in the New Testament. Peter quoted it on the day of Pentecost—Acts 2. Paul at Antioch gave a similar type message.
Verse 11 – you must know the plan of God; you must know Bible doctrine before you can do what David did in the first nine verses. “Thou wilt show me” is not what it says. The Hebrew verb is the common word for perception—jadah, which means to know. But this is in the hiphil stem [causative]: “Thou wilt cause me [David] to know. It is also in the hiphil imperfect, which means the action is not completed. So David is saying in this disaster period, ‘I know a lot; I’ll know some more. My learning doctrine never stops; doctrine is my life, I can never get enough of it. He keeps on causing me to know; there never will be a time when I will stop knowing.’
“the path of life” – what God wants David to do in phase two. He will understand it though Bible doctrine. And the results of knowing the plan of God for his life? There is a result in phase two and a result in phase three.
In phase two: “In thy presence is fullness of joy.” Literally, the Hebrew says “Abundance of joy is in they face.” The face of God is animated from His thinking, His plan. In other words, for the believer in phase two knowing Bible doctrine there is not simply joy, inner happiness, but it overflows, it is abundant. Then the result in phase three: “at thy right hand [where the soul of David is located right now] pleasure for evermore.” So he recognises that eternity is pleasures for evermore; time is abundance of joy, and all of this through Bible doctrine.
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Psalm Sixteen
{Note: This prayer was
prayed by David before his military campaign against the Philistines at the
city of Keilah. Keilah was a storage city for grain. The Philistines were of
Greek origin and were warriors not farmers. So they stole the reserves of their
neighbors but leaving them enough to plant again next year! See I Samuel
Chapter 23 for the battle at Keilah.}
1~~ A golden psalm
{miktam} of David . . .
Guard {shamar - military term} me, O El/God.
For in You I {David} have found refuge.
2~~I {David} have
said unto Jehovah/God,
You . . . {are} my Adonay/Lord!
I have no good . . . but You
{idiom: literally 'my good not upon You'}!
3~~But to the
saints
who . . . {are} in the land {of Judea},
and to the 'SuperGrace believers'/'great ones' {'addiyr},
in whom is all my delight.
{Note: David's is
delighting in the SuperGrace believers who are in his army. They are untested
in battle, but David is confident they will perform well.}
4~~Their {the
reversionists} sorrows shall be
sorrows upon sorrows . . .
who hasten after another
{referring to those chasing after David unjustly and maybe even
some in idolatry}.
Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer
{this is most likely the human sacrifice in idolatry}.
I will be associated with these reversionists
{idiom: literally: "nor lift up their names to my lips'}.
{Note: Now David's
thoughts turn to the reversionists in Judea - in his army and elsewhere (like
Saul and his army). They will not see blessings unless they change back to the
Lord. They will be disciplined by the Lord until He takes them out under the
sin unto death.}
{Cup Gives Capacity
to Enjoy Life in Time and Eternity}
5~~Jehovah/God . . . {is} the portion of my {David's} inheritance
{David knows he has a future even if only in heaven}
and of my cup
{full cup - capacity for life - blessings in life are poured by God into
the cup}.
You {God} hold together my lot {Go is in charge of the Plan}.
6~~The {surveyor}
lines are fallen unto me {David}
in pleasant places
{idiom meaning there are good boundaries to his property}.
Yes, a beautiful possession for me.
7~~I adore
Jehovah/God {occupation with Christ},
Who has given me {'doctrine categorically'} advice/counsel.
My emotions {kilyah - idiom: literally 'kidneys'}
also correct me in the night seasons
{idiom: meaning doctrine was communicated in the daytime at this
time - so it means he applies doctrine to experience every time he
tries to impose human viewpoint (like normal fear before a battle -
so doctrine (the battle is the Lord's) immediately corrects his
human viewpoint}.
{Note: David is
about to go into combat against a larger force yet he is so happy he is about
to have an ecstatic experience!}
{Verses 8-11
concern David prophesizing about his descendent- Jesus (per Acts 2:25 on)}
8~~I have 'set as more than enough'
{shavah - verb for occupation with Christ}
Jehovah/God always before me.
Because He is at my right hand,
I shall 'not totter'/'never be unstable' {mowt}.
{Note: A custom for
thousands of years was to put the senior officer on the right - the junior
officer walks on the left. David is recognizing the seniority of the Lord -
Jesus Christ (the manifest member of the Godhead) is the Lord of the armies!}
9~~Therefore my
'right lobe'/heart rejoiced
{ samach - verb for +H - perfect happiness},
and my glory
{ kabowd - SuperGrace Status - edification complex of the soul -
as close to the essence of God as any man can get - divine
viewpoint in the norms and standards of the soul}
rejoiced.
My flesh/body shall rest in confidence
{physically David will also be tranquil - Relaxed Mental Attitude}.
{David's Prophetic
Vision of His Great-Great-Great Grandson Jesus Christ}
10~~You {God the Father} you will not leave/abandon
My soul {nephesh}
in Sheol/Hades {sh@'owl - called 'hell' sometimes in KJV}.
Nor let Your 'Faithful One'/'Holy One' {Jesus Christ}
to see corruption/the grave/pit {without resurrection}
{shachath - idiom - to put on corruption means to permanently die
- it means to see the grave and not be resurrected. So David saw
in his vision the resurrection of Jesus Christ.}.
{Note: David is
resting in the confidence of the Lord. And, God brings him a vision of Jesus
Christ and what He says on the cross. That the Father will not abandon Jesus'
soul in Sheol. Jesus' soul went to minister to the fallen angels of Genesis 6
that are imprisoned in Sheol/Hades. His spirit went to be with the Father and
His body went into the grave.}
{Vision Over -
David Going to Sleep on Bivouac before the Battle}
11~~ You {God} will teach me the path of life
{Occupation with Christ Again - learn capacity to enjoy life through
study of His Word - learning to Walk in the 'Way' of the Lord}.
In Your presence is 'fullness of joy'/'perfect joy'
{simchah - sharing the Happiness of God - +H}.
At Your right hand,
pleasures forever more
{blessings in time and eternity future}.