A Study of Psalm 16 (verse 10, Not Abandoned)

¹ Preserve me, God, because I take refuge in you.

² I say to Yahweh, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have nothing good.” ³ I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.” ⁴ The sorrows of those who hurry after other gods will multiply. I will not pour out their bloody libations, nor take their names on my lips. ⁵ Yahweh is my assigned portion and my cup. You safeguard my allotment. ⁶ The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

⁷ I will continually praise Yahweh, who gives me counsel. Even at night my heart instructs me.

⁸ I have set Yahweh before me continually. Because He is at my right hand I will not be shaken. ⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices, my body will live securely. ¹⁰ For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol or allow Your holy one to see the pit.

Again, request (v.1), confession of faith (vv.2-6), testimony of hearing from God (v.7), and confident assurance of Yahweh’s preservation (vv.8-11) forms the structure of this psalm of David. David’s assurance of preservation is formed in two couplets of negative and positive assurances. The first couplet is verses 8 and 9, with the negative assurance being that he won’t be shaken, mirrored by the positive assurance that he will be secure. The second couplet is verses 10 and 11, with the negative assurance being that he won’t be abandoned, mirrored by the positive assurance that he will be in God’s presence.

David was concerned, fearful, actually, that he would die, that his soul, his nephesh, would be left in Sheol. His body would be in the grave and his nephesh would be in the underworld[1], the prison place where the spirits of the dead reside[2], a place of darkness[3], where “there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). To say that he would not be abandoned to Sheol likely means that God would spare his life in this instance and keep him, therefore, from going to Sheol.[4]

But how are we to take David’s next phrase, “or allow Your holy one to see corruption”? Is David the “holy one” or is he referring to someone else? The term (חָסִיד, hasid) is used almost exclusively of people who are faithful to Yahweh, humble and not wicked (1 Samuel 2:9), merciful and blameless (2 Samuel 22:26; Psalm 18:26), believers and godly (2 Chronicles 6:41; Psalm 4:3; 12:1; 32:6, et al). But it can be used of Yahweh Himself (Jeremiah 3:12; Psalm 145:17). Unless David is now speaking directly about Messiah, a rather sudden shift from this being a psalm, a miktam about his request for personal preservation, it makes most sense to see this as a reference to himself. As his confession has made clear (verses 2-5), he is indeed one of the hasidim.

And does he mean that Yahweh will not abandon him, His hasid, to corruption or to the more plain “the pit.” The term שַׁחַת, shachat, can mean both.[5] The pit is the most direct correspondent to Sheol in this Hebrew parallelism, and though the Septuagint translates this Hebrew word with the Greek διαφθορά́, diaphthora, meaning physical corruption, that is a questionable meaning for shachat, though not an impossible one. If the pit is seen as the place where the body decays, as a synonym for the grave (as it is in Psalm 28:1; 30:3; 143:7; Proverbs 1:12; 28:17; Isaiah 14:15,19; 38:18; Ezekiel 26:20; 31:14,16; 32:18,23,24,25,29,30), then it could permit of the translation “corruption” because it is the condition that occurs in the pit or the grave, and the word shachat does have this meaning of “ruin, waste, impairment” in several places (Exodus 8:24; Leviticus 19:27; Judges 6:4,5; 1 Samuel 6:5; 2 Samuel 11:1; 1 Chronicles 20:1; 21:12; 2 Chronicles 34:11; Ruth 4:6; Proverbs 23:8; Jeremiah 13:7,9; 18:4; Lamentations 2:5,6,8; Nahum 2:2).

If we go with the parallelism of the Hebrew, it makes more sense to equate Sheol, where David’s nephesh (soul) would go if he died with the pit, another word for Sheol and still a depository for David’s nephesh. But it is possible that David could mean his soul would not go to Sheol and his body would not rot in shachat, the pit of corruption. In either case, as God has revealed to David, He will preserve his life, will bring him from the brink of death to life and health. He will not be abandoned by God.

[1] You always “go down” to Sheol: Genesis 37:35; 42:38; 44:29,31; Numbers 16:30,33; 1 Samuel 2:6; 1 Kings 2:6; Job 7:9; 17:16; 21:13; Psalm 55:15; 86:13; Proverbs 5:5; 7:27; 9:18 (where the rephaim dwell); Isaiah 14:11,15. It is in טָּמֽוּן, tetamun, the hidden world underneath, Job 3:13; 18:10; 20:26; 40:13, תַּחְתִּ֗ית, tachtit, the lower depths, the world below, Psalm 88:6; Isaiah 44:23; Lamentations 3:55; Ezekiel 31:14,24; 32:16,18.

[2] With bars, ropes, and snares, Job 17:16; Psalm 18:5; 116:3.

[3] מַחְשָׁךְ, machshak, Psalm 74:20; 88:6,18; 143:3; Isaiah 29:15; Lamentations 3:6.

[4] There are places where the idea of being raised up from Sheol, i.e., resurrection is contemplated: perhaps in 1 Samuel 2:6 and Job 14:13. It seems most likely, however, that the usual idea is being brought back from the brink of death: Psalm 30:3; 49:15; 86:13. The question of what David is contemplating here in Psalm 16 is critical to Peter’s and Paul’s interpretation of this passage in Acts 2:24-28 and 13:35-37.

[5] Corruption is the idea in Exodus 32:7; Deuteronomy 4:16,25; 9:12; 31:29; 32:5; Judges 2:19; 2 Chronicles 27:2; Psalm 14:1; 53:1; Isaiah 1:4; Jeremiah 6:28; Ezekiel 16:47; 20:44; 23:11; 28:17; Daniel 2:9; 6:5; Hosea 9:9; Zephaniah 3:7; Malachi 2:8, though the corruption often referred to is not the corruption of the body, but rather of the spirit in idolatry or in wrongful worship.