Psalms 16: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a prayer of trust. The speaker asks God to keep him safe, says he wants nothing outside of God, and rejects the worship of other gods and their offerings. He describes God as his share and his inheritance, thanks God for guidance, and says he lives without fear because God is beside him. He ends confident that God will not abandon him to the grave, and speaks of the path of life, joy in God's presence, and lasting pleasure at God's right hand.

Claim by Claim

1. 16:1
   • The psalm is a miktam of David.
   • The speaker asks God to preserve him.
   • The speaker takes refuge in God.
   • The speaker's request for preservation is grounded in his taking refuge in God.
2. 16:2
   • The speaker addresses his own soul.
   • The speaker has spoken to the LORD.
   • The speaker told the LORD, 'You are my Lord.'
   • The speaker says his good does not extend beyond the LORD; the wording is ambiguous between his goodness being nothing to the LORD and his having no good apart from the LORD.
3. 16:3
   • There are holy ones set apart to God in the land.
   • Those holy ones are noble and majestic.
   • All the speaker's delight is in them.
4. 16:4
   • The sorrows of those who hurry after another will be multiplied.
   • The speaker will not pour out their drink offerings of blood.
   • The speaker will not take their names upon his lips.
5. 16:5
   • The LORD is the speaker's allotted portion and his cup.
   • The LORD upholds the speaker's lot.
6. 16:6
   • The measuring lines have fallen for the speaker in pleasant places.
   • The speaker's inheritance is beautiful to him.
7. 16:7
   • The speaker will bless the LORD.
   • The LORD has counseled the speaker.
   • The speaker's inward parts instruct him at night.
8. 16:8
   • The speaker has set the LORD before him continually.
   • The LORD is at the speaker's right hand.
   • Because the LORD is at his right hand, the speaker will not be shaken.
9. 16:9
   • The speaker's heart is glad.
   • The speaker's glory rejoices.
   • The speaker's flesh will dwell in safety.
10. 16:10
    • God will not abandon the speaker's soul to Sheol.
    • God will not let his faithful holy one see the pit; the word means both the grave-pit and decay.
11. 16:11
    • God will make known to the speaker the path of life.
    • Fullness of joys is in God's presence.
    • Pleasures are at God's right hand forever.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

16:1

The King James "put my trust" translates a Hebrew verb that pictures something physical: running to a rock, a cave or a fortress and hiding there. It is less about believing a fact and more about taking cover in a place you think will hold.

16:2

Where the King James prints "LORD" in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters (YHWH) that Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. "Lord" or "Master" in ordinary type translates a different Hebrew word, adonai, meaning owner or superior, the ordinary word a servant used for the man he served. The verse uses both in a row: "you, YHWH, are my master."

16:3

"Saints" here does not mean canonized holy people. The Hebrew word means "holy ones", those set apart as belonging to God, and in the Hebrew Bible it can refer either to God's human worshipers or to heavenly beings in his court. This verse is one of the most damaged and disputed sentences in the Hebrew Psalms; ancient copies differ, and translators have to guess at how its pieces connect. Read it as "the holy ones in the land, they are the noble ones I delight in" while knowing the wording is uncertain.

16:4

A drink offering (a libation) was liquid, normally wine, poured out on the ground or on an altar as a gift to a god. "Of blood" makes this one abnormal: either blood poured in place of wine, or wine the speaker regards as bloody and tainted. Speaking a god's name was itself an act of worship: names were used in oaths, blessings and summonses, so refusing to say the name is refusing to have anything to do with the god.

16:5

"Portion," "cup" and "lot" all belong to one picture: the dividing up of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, where each family's share of land was assigned by casting lots. The tribe of Levi received no land at all; instead they were told that the LORD himself was their portion. "Cup" extends the same idea to the table, the share of food and drink handed to you at a meal, and so, by extension, the lot in life you have been dealt.

16:6

"Lines" are measuring cords, the rope a surveyor stretched to mark out a plot of ground; the lines "falling" refers to the lots being thrown to decide who got which piece. "Heritage" is the family land that passed from father to son and was not supposed to be sold out of the family permanently.

16:7

"Reins" is old English for the kidneys. Hebrew located a person's deepest, least conscious thoughts and feelings in the internal organs, kidneys and heart, much as modern English locates them in the heart or the gut. "Night seasons" are the watches into which the night was divided.

16:8

To be at someone's right hand is to stand where a defender, advocate or supporter stood: a shield-bearer in battle, or the person who spoke up for you in a legal dispute. It is a picture of backing, not of location.

16:9

"My glory" translates a Hebrew word (kavod) that here seems to mean the speaker's own honored self or inmost being. The ancient Greek translation, and the New Testament quotation of this verse, read it instead as "my tongue", a nearly identical Hebrew word (kaved, liver) which was also regarded as a seat of emotion. Both readings are defensible.

16:10

"Hell" is the King James rendering of Sheol, which in the Hebrew Bible is not a place of punishment but simply the realm of the dead, where everyone goes (a shadowy underworld beneath the earth. "Holy One" here translates hasid, meaning loyal or faithful one, someone bound to God by committed love. The word behind "corruption" (shachat) can mean either decay or the pit) the grave itself, and ancient readers took it both ways.

16:11

At a king's right hand stood the place of highest honor, and it was the hand from which gifts and favors were given. The phrase carries that court image rather than describing where anyone is standing.