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 in... [ Continue Reading ]
PRESERVE ME, O GOD,.... Prayer is proper to Christ as man; he offered up many prayers and supplications to Cost, even his Father, and his God, and as the strong and mighty God, as the word i here used is commonly rendered by interpreters; with whom, all things are possible, and who is able to save;... [ Continue Reading ]
[O MY SOUL], THOU HAST SAID UNTO THE LORD,.... Some take these to be the words of David speaking to the church, who had owned the Lord to be her Lord, and had declared what follows; others think they are the words of God the Father to his Son, suggesting to him what he had said; but they are rather... [ Continue Reading ]
[BUT] TO THE SAINTS THAT [ARE] IN THE EARTH,.... Who are sanctified or set apart by God the Father in election; whose sins are expiated by the blood of Christ in redemption, and who are sanctified or made holy by the Spirit of God in the effectual calling; and who live a holy life and conversation:... [ Continue Reading ]
THEIR SORROWS SHALL BE MULTIPLIED,.... Not the sorrows of the saints and excellent ones, by seeing the idolatry of men, as Aben Ezra interprets it; but the sorrows of such [THAT] HASTEN [AFTER] ANOTHER [GOD]; a false god, an idol, to serve and worship it; for, generally speaking, idolaters are more... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LORD [IS] THE PORTION OF MINE INHERITANCE AND OF MY CUP,.... This is said by Christ as a priest, and in allusion to the Levitical priests, who had no inheritance in the land of Canaan with their brethren, but the Lord was their part and portion, and their inheritance, Numbers 18:20; and it expre... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LINES ARE FALLEN UNTO ME IN PLEASANT [PLACES],.... The allusion is to the measuring of land by lines, and appropriating each part to the proper owners; and lines design the land that is measured out by them, and here the church and people of God, the chosen ones who are given to Christ, as his p... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL BLESS THE LORD,.... As prayer, so thanksgiving belongs to Christ, as man and Mediator; see Matthew 11:25; and here he determines to praise the Lord, and give thanks to him for counsel and instruction: WHO HATH GIVEN ME COUNSEL; for though he himself is the Counsellor, with respect to his peo... [ Continue Reading ]
I HAVE SET THE LORD ALWAYS BEFORE ME, Not his fear only, or the book of the law, as Jarchi interprets it, but the Lord himself; or, "I foresaw the Lord always before my face", Acts 2:26; as Christ is set before men in the Gospel, to look unto as the object of faith and hope, to trust in and depend u... [ Continue Reading ]
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, Luke 10:21; it denotes an inward joy, and fulness of it, because of... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THOU WILT NOT LEAVE MY SOUL IN HELL,.... Meaning, not in the place of the damned, where Christ never went, nor was; for at his death his soul was committed to his Father, and was the same day in paradise: but rather, "sheol" here, as "hades" in the Near Testament, signifies the state of the dead... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU WILT SHOW ME THE PATH OF LIFE,.... Not the way of life and salvation for lost sinners, which is Christ himself; but the resurrection of the dead, which is a passing from death to life; and was shown to Christ, not doctrinally, or by illuminating his mind, and leading him into the doctrine of it... [ Continue Reading ]