Psalm 16:9 Komentář

This psalm has something of David in it, but much more of Christ. It begins with such expressions of devotion as may be applied to Christ; but concludes with such confidence of a resurrection (and so timely a one as to prevent corruption) as must be applied to Christ, to him only, and cannot be understood of David, as both St. Peter and St. Paul have observed, Act 2:24; Act 13:36. For David died, and was buried, and saw corruption. I. David speaks of himself as a member of Christ, and so he speaks the language of all good Christians, professing his confidence in God (Psa 16:1), his consent to him (Psa 16:2), his affection to the people of God (Psa 16:3), his adherence to the true worship of God (Psa 16:4), and his entire complacency and satisfaction in God and the interest he had in him (Psa 16:5-7). II. He speaks of himself as a type of Christ, and so he speaks the language of Christ himself, to whom all the rest of the psalm is expressly and at large applied (Act 2:25, etc.). David speaks concerning him (not concerning himself), "I foresaw the Lord always before my face," etc. And this he spoke, being a prophet (v. 30, 31). He spoke, 1. Of the special presence of God with the Redeemer in his services and sufferings (Psa 16:8). 2. Of the prospect which the Redeemer had of his own resurrection and the glory that should follow, which carried him cheerfully through his undertaking (Psa 16:9-11). Michtam of David.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 16 Michtam of David. This is a new title, not met with before, though it afterwards is prefixed to "five" psalms running, the fifty sixth, the fifty seventh, the fifty eighth, the fifty ninth, and the sixtieth psalms. Some take the word "michtam" to be the name of a musical instrument, as Kimchi on Psa 4:1; others the name of one of the tunes, as Jarchi; and others the tune of a song which began with this word, as Aben Ezra observes, to which this psalm was sung; the Septuagint translate it "stelography", or an inscription upon a pillar; such an one as is erected by conquerors, as Theodoret observes, having writing on it declaring the victory obtained; suggesting that the psalm, or the subject of it, the death and resurrection of Christ, was worthy to be inscribed on a pillar of marble; and the Targum renders it, "a right engraving", that deserves to be engraven in a monument of brass: but what seems to be the best sense of the word is, that it signifies a work of gold, and may be rendered, "a golden [psalm] of David"; so called, either because it was a dear and favourite song of his; or from the subject matter, which is more valuable and precious than the most fine gold: the title of it in the Syriac and Arabic versions is, "concerning the election of the church, and the resurrection of Christ;'' and certain it is from Psa 16:10, the resurrection of Christ is spoken of in it, as is clear from the testimonies of two apostles, Peter and Paul, who cite it in proof of it, Act 2:25; and since there is but one person speaking throughout the psalm, and Christ is he that speaks in Psa 16:10, and which cannot be understood of David, nor of any other person but Christ, the whole of the psalm must be interpreted of him.

Therefore my heart is glad,.... Because he had the Lord always in view; he was at his right hand, for his support and assistance, as well as because of what is expressed in the next verses: this is the same with rejoicing in spirit, Luk 10:21; it denotes an inward joy, and fulness of it, because of the Lord's presence with him; see Act 2:28; and my glory rejoiceth; meaning either his soul, which is the most glorious and noble part of man, as Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech interpret it; or rather his tongue, as in Act 2:26; the faculty of speaking in man being what gives him a superior glory and excellency to other creatures, and is that whereby he glorifies God; and so the word is often used in this book; see Psa 30:12; and here the phrase designs Christ's glorifying God, and singing his praise with joyful lips, among his disciples, a little before his sufferings and death; my flesh also shall rest in hope; in the grave, which, as it is a resting place to the members of Christ, from all their sorrow, toil, and labour here; so it was to Christ their head, who rested in it on the Jewish sabbath, that day of rest, and that berth "in safety" (t), as the word used may signify, and in of his resurrection from the dead, as follows. (t) "in tuto", Tigurine version; "secure", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "in confidence", Ainsworth.

“My flesh will rest in hope.” The Lord Jesus Christ says these words, whose flesh is the first to rest in hope. Crucified, made the first fruit of the dead and having been taken into heaven after the resurrection, he carried the earthly body with him so that even the heavenly powers were awestruck and terrified seeing the flesh ascending into heaven. Concerning Elijah it was written that he was taken up into heaven; and about Enoch, that he was translated. Now, however, it is said that Jesus ascended into heaven. Let him be offended who so wishes at our word. I, however, guard it will all faith because just as Christ is the first fruit from the dead, so also he is the first to carry his flesh to heaven.

We die not by our own choice but by necessity of nature and against our will. However, the Lord, being himself immortal yet having mortal flesh, had power, as God, to separate from his body and to take it back again, when he would.… For it was fitting that the flesh, corruptible as it was, should no longer after its own nature remain mortal, but because of the Word who had put it on, should abide incorruptible. For as he, having come in our body, was conformed to our condition, so we, receiving him, partake of the immortality that is from him.

[Christ’s] Godhead, alike before taking flesh and in the flesh and after his passion, is immutably the same, being at all times what it was by nature and so continuing forever. But in the suffering of his human nature the Godhead fulfilled the dispensation for our benefit by severing the soul for a season from the body, yet without being itself separated from either of those elements to which it was once for all united, and by joining again the elements that had been thus parted, so as to give to all human nature a beginning and an example that it should follow of the resurrection from the dead, that all the corruptible may put on incorruption, and all the mortal may put on immortality, our firstfruits having been transformed to the divine nature by its union with God … the Lord, reconciling the world to himself by the humanity of Christ, apportioned his work of benevolence to people between his soul and his body, willing through his soul and touching them through his body.

There are some who, from the fact that the Lord entered through closed doors, adduce proof that a different body arose from that which died. Let these heretics hear what the Lord recounts in this verse.… Most certainly, after the Savior suffered and died, that body was laid in the tomb that had been alive; that same body, therefore, that had been lying lifeless and dead in the tomb rose from the dead. If, moreover, that same body arose from the dead in the Lord, how do some come to the conclusion that, though it was wonderful and spiritual, it was not a human body? We are not saying that we deny the body of Christ assumed that glory that we believe we also are going to receive as saints, for then indeed, this corruptible body will put on incorruption, and this mortal body will put on immortality. Just as before the Lord suffered his passion, when he was transformed and glorified on the mountain, he certainly had the same body that he had had down below, although of a different glory, so also after the resurrection, his body was of the same nature as it had been before the passion but of a highter state of glory and in more majestic appearance.

"Wherefore My heart was glad, and My tongue exulted" [Psalm 16:9]. Wherefore both in My thoughts is gladness, and in my words exultation. "Moreover too My flesh shall rest in hope." Moreover too My flesh shall not fail unto destruction, but shall sleep in hope of the resurrection.

Let us see [Jesus] … in his suffering as man but not suffering as God, and in his dying in the flesh but being greater than death, and in not remaining … in the tomb as we do and not being held fast by the gates of the underworld together with the other dead.… For he rose again, despoiling death and “saying to the prisoners: Come out, to those in darkness: Show yourselves,” and he ascended to his Father above in the heavens to a position inaccessible to people, having taken on himself our sins and being the propitiation for them.

The word destruction (phthora) has two meanings. [First], it means human sufferings such as hunger, thirst, weariness, piercing with nails, death—that is separation of the soul from the body—and the like. In this sense, we say that the Lord’s body was destructible, because he endured all these things freely. Destruction, however, also means the complete dissolution of the body and its reduction to the elements of which it was composed. By many this is more generally called corruption (diaphthora). This the Lord’s body did not experience, as the prophet David says [in this psalm].… Therefore, it is impious to say with the insane Julian and Gaianus that before the resurrection the Lord’s body was indestructible in the first sense. For, if it was thus incorruptible, then it was not consubstantial with us, and the things such as the hunger, the thirst, the nails, the piercing of the side and death that the gospel says happened did not really happen but only seemed to. But if they only seemed to happen, then the mystery of the incarnation is a hoax and a stage trick; it was in appearance and not in truth that he was made man and in appearance and not in truth that we have been saved. But far be it, and let those who say this have no part in salvation. We, however, have gained and shall obtain the true salvation. Moreover, in the second sense of the word destruction, we confess that the Lord’s body was indestructible, that is to say, incorruptible, even as has been handed down to us by the inspired fathers.

"Therefore my heart has been glad." 1 Sam. 2: "My heart has rejoiced in the Lord." Ps. 63: "The just man shall rejoice in the Lord," etc. "And my tongue has rejoiced," etc., outwardly, when exterior joy breaks forth into vocal praise. Is. 12: "Sing to the Lord, for he has done great things." Ps. 80: "Rejoice in God," etc.

"Moreover." Here he enumerates the benefits to be hoped for. First as to the resurrection of the flesh; second as to the soul, at "You have made known." The first is divided into two. First he sets forth the hope of resurrection; second, the manner, at "Because you will not abandon." He says, therefore: you have given me understanding, and you have stood by me as a man, but "moreover, also my flesh shall rest in hope" of resurrection. Ps. 3: "I have slept and taken my rest, and I have risen again." And also my flesh shall have hope in the resurrection. Wis. 3: "Their hope is full of immortality."

Michtam, or, by the change of one letter, Michtab--a "writing," such as a poem or song (compare Isa 38:9). Such a change of the letter m for b was not unusual. The position of this word in connection with the author's name, being that usually occupied by some term, such as Psalm or song, denoting the style or matter of the composition, favors this view of its meaning, though we know not why this and Psalms 56-60 should be specially, called "a writing." "A golden (Psalm)," or "a memorial" are explanations proposed by some--neither of which, however applicable here, appears adapted to the other Psalms where the term occurs. According to Peter (Act 2:25) and Paul (Act 13:35), this Psalm relates to Christ and expresses the feelings of His human nature, in view of His sufferings and victory over death and the grave, including His subsequent exaltation at the right hand of God. Such was the exposition of the best earlier Christian interpreters. Some moderns have held that the Psalm relates exclusively to David; but this view is expressly contradicted by the apostles; others hold that the language of the Psalm is applicable to David as a type of Christ, capable of the higher sense assigned it in the New Testament. But then the language of Psa 16:10 cannot be used of David in any sense, for "he saw corruption." Others again propose to refer the first part to David, and the last to Christ; but it is evident that no change in the subject of the Psalm is indicated. Indeed, the person who appeals to God for help is evidently the same who rejoices in having found it. In referring the whole Psalm to Christ, it is, however, by no means denied that much of its language is expressive of the feelings of His people, so far as in their humble measure they have the feelings of trust in God expressed by Him, their head and representative. Such use of His language, as recorded in His last prayer (John 17:1-26), and even that which He used in Gethsemane, under similar modifications, is equally proper. The propriety of this reference of the Psalm to Christ will appear in the scope and interpretation. In view of the sufferings before Him, the Saviour, with that instinctive dread of death manifested in Gethsemane, calls on God to "preserve" Him; He avows His delight in holiness and abhorrence of the wicked and their wickedness; and for "the joy that was set before Him, despising the shame" [Heb 12:2], encourages Himself; contemplating the glories of the heritage appointed Him. Thus even death and the grave lose their terrors in the assurance of the victory to be attained and "the glory that should follow" [Pe1 1:11]. (Psa 16:1-11) Preserve me, &c.--keep or watch over my interests. in thee . . . I . . . trust--as one seeking shelter from pressing danger.

glory--as heart (Psa 7:5), for self. In Act 2:26, after the Septuagint, "my tongue" as "the glory of the frame"--the instrument for praising God. flesh--If taken as opposed to soul (Psa 16:10), it may mean the body; otherwise, the whole person (compare Psa 63:1; Psa 84:2). rest in hope--(compare Margin).

Thus then, as this concluding strophe, as it were like seven rays of light, affirms, he has the most blessed prospect before him, without any need to fear death. Because Jahve is thus near at hand to help him, his heart becomes joyful (שׂמח) and his glory, i.e., his soul (vid., on Psa 7:6) rejoices, the joy breaking forth in rejoicing, as the fut. consec. affirms. There is no passage of Scripture that so closely resembles this as Th1 5:23. לב is πνεῦμα (νοῦς), כבוד, ψυχή (vid., Psychol. S. 98; tr. p. 119), בּשׂר (according to its primary meaning, attrectabile, that which is frail), σῶμα. The ἀμέμπτως τηρηθῆναι which the apostle in the above passage desires for his readers in respect of all three parts of their being, David here expresses as a confident expectation; for אף implies that he also hopes for his body that which he hopes for his spirit-life centred in the heart, and for his soul raised to dignity both by the work of creation and of grace. He looks death calmly and triumphantly in the face, even his flesh shall dwell or lie securely, viz., without being seized with trembling at its approaching corruption. David's hope rests on this conclusion: it is impossible for the man, who, in appropriating faith and actual experience, calls God his own, to fall into the hands of death. For Psa 16:10 shows, that what is here thought of in connection with שׁכן לבטח, dwelling in safety under the divine protection (Deu 33:12, Deu 33:28, cf. Pro 3:24), is preservation from death. שׁחת is rendered by the lxx διαφθορά, as though it came from שׁחת διαφθείρειν, as perhaps it may do in Job 17:14. But in Psa 7:16 the lxx has βόθρος, which is the more correct: prop. a sinking in, from שׁוּח to sink, to be sunk, like נחת from נוּח, רחת from רוּח. To leave to the unseen world (עזב prop. to loosen, let go) is equivalent to abandoning one to it, so that he becomes its prey. Psa 16:10 - where to see the grave (Psa 49:10), equivalent to, to succumb to the state of the grave, i.e., death (Psa 89:49; Luk 2:26; Joh 8:51) is the opposite of "seeing life," i.e., experiencing and enjoying it (Ecc 9:9, Joh 3:36), the sense of sight being used as the noblest of the senses to denote the sensus communis, i.e., the common sense lying at the basis of all feeling and perception, and figuratively of all active and passive experience (Psychol. S. 234; tr. p. 276) - shows, that what is said here is not intended of an abandonment by which, having once come under the power of death, there is no coming forth again (Bttcher). It is therefore the hope of not dying, that is expressed by David in Psa 16:10. for by חסידך David means himself. According to Norzi, the Spanish MSS have חסידיך with the Masoretic note יתיר יוד, and the lxx, Targ., and Syriac translate, and the Talmud and Midrash interpret it, in accordance with this Ker. There is no ground for the reading חסידיך, and it is also opposed by the personal form of expression surrounding it. (Note: Most MSS and the best, which have no distinction of Ker and Chethb here, read חסידך, as also the Biblia Ven. 1521, the Spanish Polyglott and other older printed copies. Those MSS which give חסידיך (without any Ker), on the other hand, scarcely come under consideration.) The positive expression of hope in Psa 16:11 comes as a companion to the negative just expressed: Thou wilt grant me to experience (הודיע, is used, as usual, of the presentation of a knowledge, which concerns the whole man and not his understanding merely) ארח חיּים, the path of life, i.e., the path to life (cf. Pro 5:6; Pro 2:19 with ib. Psa 10:17; Mat 7:14); but not so that it is conceived of as at the final goal, but as leading slowly and gradually onwards to life; חיּים in the most manifold sense, as, e.g., in Psa 36:10; Deu 30:15 : life from God, with God, and in God, the living God; the opposite of death, as the manifestation of God's wrath and banishment from Him. That his body shall not die is only the external and visible phase of that which David hopes for himself; on its inward, unseen side it is a living, inwrought of God in the whole man, which in its continuance is a walking in the divine life. The second part of Psa 16:11, which consists of two members, describes this life with which he solaces himself. According to the accentuation, - which marks חיים with Olewejored not with Rebia magnum or Pazer, - שׂבע שׂמחות is not a second object dependent upon תּודיעני, but the subject of a substantival clause: a satisfying fulness of joy is את־פּניך, with Thy countenance, i.e., connected with and naturally produced by beholding Thy face (את preposition of fellowship, as in Psa 21:7; 140:14); for joy is light, and God's countenance, or doxa, is the light of lights. And every kind of pleasurable things, נעמות, He holds in His right hand, extending them to His saints - a gift which lasts for ever; נצח equivalent to לנצח. נצח, from the primary notion of conspicuous brightness, is duration extending beyond all else - an expression for לעולם, which David has probably coined, for it appears for the first time in the Davidic Psalms. Pleasures are in Thy right hand continually - God's right hand is never empty, His fulness is inexhaustible. The apostolic application of this Psalm (Act 2:29-32; Act 13:35-37) is based on the considerations that David's hope of not coming under the power of death was not realised in David himself, as is at once clear, to the unlimited extent in which it is expressed in the Psalm; but that it is fulfilled in Jesus, who has not been left to Hades and whose flesh did not see corruption; and that consequently the words of the Psalm are a prophecy of David concerning Jesus, the Christ, who was promised as the heir to his throne, and whom, by reason of the promise, he had prophetically before his mind. If we look into the Psalm, we see that David, in his mode of expression, bases that hope simply upon his relation to Jahve, the ever-living One. That it has been granted to him in particular, to express this hope which is based upon the mystic relation of the חסיד to Jahve in such language, - a hope which the issue of Jesus' life has sealed by an historical fulfilment, - is to be explained from the relation, according to the promise, in which David stands to his seed, the Christ and Holy One of God, who appeared in the person of Jesus. David, the anointed of God, looking upon himself as in Jahve, the God who has given the promise, becomes the prophet of Christ; but this is only indirectly, for he speaks of himself, and what he says has also been fulfilled in his own person. But this fulfilment is not limited to the condition, that he did not succumb to any peril that threatened his life so long as the kingship would have perished with him, and that, when he died, the kingship nevertheless remained (Hofmann); nor, that he was secured against all danger of death until he had accomplished his life's mission, until he had fulfilled the vocation assigned to him in the history of the plan of redemption (Kurtz) - the hope which he cherishes for himself personally has found a fulfilment which far exceeds this. After his hope has found in Christ its full realisation in accordance with the history of the plan of redemption, it receives through Christ its personal realisation for himself also. For what he says, extends on the one hand far beyond himself, and therefore refers prophetically to Christ: in decachordo Psalterio - as Jerome boldly expresses it - ab inferis suscitat resurgentem. But on the other hand that which is predicted comes back upon himself, to raise him also from death and Hades to the beholding of God. Verus justitiae sol - says Sontag in his Tituli Psalmorum, 1687 - e sepulcro resurrexit, στήλη seu lapis sepulcralis a monumento devolutus, arcus triumphalis erectus, victoria ab hominibus reportata. En vobis Michtam! En Evangelium! -