You Will Not Abandon My Soul
1 A Poem by David. Preserve me, God, for I take refuge in you. 2 My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.” 3 As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. 4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on my lips. 5 Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance. 7 I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel. Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons. 8 I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. 10 For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption. 11 You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
A psalm of contentment ends with a claim about a body that does not decay, and the apostles argue that David was not talking about himself.
1 A Poem by David. Preserve me, God, for I take refuge in you. 2 My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.”
The opening is a statement of exclusive dependence, and the second half is unusual in being addressed to his own soul rather than to God. Much of this psalm is a man talking to himself in God's hearing.
5 Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.
The vocabulary is that of land distribution. When Canaan was divided, each tribe received an inheritance measured by lines and assigned by lot — except one. The Levites were given no territory, and were told that Yahweh himself was their portion Numbers 18:20. The psalm takes the language of the tribe that got no land and applies it to a personal relationship, and calls the arrangement pleasant.
I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel. Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.
The nights in this collection are usually where the trouble is. Here they are where the instruction happens.
I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Setting God before him is something he does; being at his right hand is something God does. The two clauses are the psalm's whole practice, and the right hand is the position of the advocate who stands beside a defendant in court.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety. 10 For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.
The last line outruns everything before it. Peter quotes it at Pentecost and makes the argument that the psalm forces: David both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day Acts 2:29, so he cannot have been describing his own experience — his body did see corruption. Paul makes the identical argument in a synagogue at Antioch Acts 13:35–37.
The reasoning is worth following because it is entirely textual. The claim in verse ten is not that the speaker will be rescued from dying, which the collection elsewhere prays for often, but that his body will not decay afterward. Of every person who has ever prayed this psalm, one has had it answered.
You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
A path of life, which is a way through rather than a way around, and the destination named is a presence rather than a place.
settled What this mark means