Psalm 16 explained: God Is My Share in Life

A plea for safety (vv. 1-2)

The poet asks God to protect him and says he has nothing truly good apart from God. Verse 2 is hard to translate, so versions differ, but the idea of total dependence is clear.

Loyal people, rejected gods (vv. 3-4)

He delights in the people devoted to God in the land and refuses any part in worshipping other gods, not even speaking their names. Pouring out liquid as a gift to a god was common worship then; exactly what he means by pouring out blood is uncertain, but it clearly marks rites he rejects.

God as his inheritance (vv. 5-6)

When Israel settled the land, family plots were assigned by drawing lots and marked with measuring lines, but the priestly tribe got no land because God was said to be their share. The poet borrows that picture: God himself is his plot and his cup, and he counts it a beautiful one.

Guided day and night (vv. 7-8)

He thanks God for guidance and says even at night his inner self keeps teaching him; the Hebrew literally says his kidneys, then thought of as the seat of deep feeling. Someone at your right hand was a defender close beside you, so he feels he cannot be knocked over.

Not abandoned to death (vv. 9-11)

He rejoices that God will not leave him to the realm of the dead but will show him the path of life and lasting joy; scholars debate whether he meant rescue from an early death or hope beyond death. In the book of Acts, Jesus' followers read these verses as pointing to Jesus rising from the dead, and Christians since have read them that way.

Key verse: Psalm 16:8

Where Christians differ

Christians differ on whether verses 9 to 11 first expressed the poet's own hope of being kept from death and were later applied to Jesus, or were from the start a direct prediction of Jesus' resurrection.

Something to think about

If you had to name the one thing your sense of security rests on, what would it be, and how sure are you that it would hold?