Psalms 16

Wesley’s frame: David professes trust in God from the outset—refuge is lived adherence, not a slogan, before delight in the saints and satisfaction in God as portion.

Preserve and refuge name a cry. Grace enables the soul to take shelter; the hearer must still flee to God and stay under that covering. Safety is sought from God alone, not from mixed trusts.

Calvin: David commits himself to God’s protection not only in one emergency but for the whole course of life—and our safety in life and death depends entirely on being under that protection. The Holy Spirit assures that God is ready to succor those who rely on him with sure and steadfast faith, and takes under his care none but those who commit themselves with the whole heart.

Refuge is wholehearted trust under a guarding God. Preservation is God’s office toward those he keeps; steadfast faith rests there amid adversity’s storms.

Wesley: To thee—Thou dost not need me or my service, nor art capable of any advantage from it.

The confession is double—Yahweh is Lord, and every good is from him, not added to him. Grace frees the servant to offer devotion without pretence that God gains by it; humility still speaks and serves.

Calvin: David can bestow nothing upon God—God needs nothing, and mortal man cannot merit God’s favor by any service. Two points: God has right to require whatever he pleases as rightful Lord; and our goodness does not extend to him, for we are empty of good things with which to show ourselves liberal toward him. It is impossible by merits to bring God under obligation. When we come before God we must lay aside all presumption; humility is as perfume that procures acceptance.

No good apart from you strips merit and self-credit. Lordship claims the whole person; empty hands, not bargains, approach him.

Wesley: But—I bear a singular respect and love to all saints, for thy sake, whose friends and servants they are, and whose image they bear. This more properly agrees to David than to Christ, whose goodness was principally designed for and imparted to sinners.

Delight in the excellent ones who bear God’s image. Love of the saints is love for God’s sake. Grace knits affection to the holy community; the hearer must still prefer that fellowship over the world’s glitter.

Calvin: after confessing he can bring God no advantage, David sets his affection on the saints—joining devout worshippers in fraternal unity under their common Father. There is no sacrifice more acceptable than sincerely connecting with the society of the righteous. The saints on earth are conspicuous marks of God’s glory; he calls them excellent because righteousness and holiness shine with the brightness of God’s Spirit.

Delight in the saints as God’s visible people. Communion of saints separates from the world’s pollutions; valuing true servants over vain splendor is right worship’s companion.

Wesley: Sorrows—having shewed affection to the servants of the true God, he declares abhorrence for those that worship idols. Offerings—in which the Gentiles used sometimes to drink part of the blood of their sacrifices. Names—of those other gods.

Idol pursuit multiplies sorrow; refuse the cup and the names. Grace trains exclusive loyalty; the hearer must still break from rival gods in practice and speech.

Calvin: brotherly concord with the saints requires breaking bonds of impiety and keeping distance from idol pollutions. Idolaters’ sorrows multiply—they busy themselves toward their own destruction, hewing broken cisterns. David will not taste their bloody libations nor take their names on his lips—hatred of idols kept from even the appearance of consent.

Refuse superstition’s rites and names. Full happiness rests in God alone; separating from false worship is how the church stays one body under the true God.

Wesley: The Lord—I rejoice in God as my portion, and desire no better, no other felicity. Cup—the portion put into my cup, as at feasts each had allotted meat and wine. Lot—my inheritance divided by lot.

God himself is the chosen share. Grace enables contentment that desires no rival felicity; the hearer must still choose the LORD as portion and cup, not clutch lesser lots.

Calvin: David shows why he separates from idolaters—he rests in the only true God as his portion. None are taught aright in true godliness but those who reckon God alone sufficient for happiness. Calling God portion, inheritance, and cup, he protests he is so satisfied as neither to covet anything besides nor be excited by depraved desires. Embrace him with the whole heart. God also engages his power to maintain us in safe enjoyment of so great a good against Satan’s daily assaults.

God is portion and cup. Contentment is taught godliness: God alone sufficient, and God himself holding the lot so possession is kept.

Wesley: Lines—my portion, measured with lines. Are fallen—in a land flowing with milk and honey, and above all blessed with the presence and knowledge of God.

Pleasant lines and a beautiful inheritance center on God’s presence, not bare acreage. Grace opens eyes to call that lot goodly; the hearer must still bless the lines that fall in God rather than envy another’s map.

Calvin: David so glories in God as to despise all the world imagines excellent without him. He who has God as portion is destitute of nothing requisite to a happy life. When allurements would lead away from resting in God alone, use this as antidote: he who has absolute fullness of all good has given himself to be enjoyed by us.

Pleasant places are God-given. The beautiful inheritance is God himself possessed; lesser splendors lose their shine beside that lot.

Wesley: The Lord—hath inspired that wisdom into me by which I have chosen the Lord for my portion, and am so fully satisfied with him. Reins—my inward thoughts and affections, being inspired and moved by the Holy Spirit. Instruct—direct me how to please God and put my whole trust in him. Night—even when others sleep, my mind works upon God, improving silence and solitude in holy meditations.

Counsel is Spirit-given wisdom that enables a choosing of God as portion. Night instruction is practiced holy meditation—grace moves the heart; the hearer still blesses the LORD and yields the inward life to that direction.

Calvin: David confesses it was entirely owing to pure grace that he came to possess so great a good and was made a partaker of it by faith. God offers himself freely, yet the reprobate by ingratitude defraud themselves of the blessing. The counsel is inward illumination of the Holy Spirit preventing us from rejecting the salvation to which he calls us. Those who attribute to free will the choice of accepting or rejecting God’s grace basely mangle that grace. Night and reins mean secret inspirations; God not only begins faith but continually corrects vanity and kindles faith brighter through life.

Night counsel is the Spirit’s secret tuition from first faith onward—not a decisive human accept/reject perched above grace.

Wesley: I have set—I have always presented him to my mind as my witness and judge, as my patron and protector. Hitherto David seems to speak of himself; now he is transported by the spirit of prophecy to speak as a type of Christ, in whom this and the following verses were truly accomplished. Christ as man always set his Father’s will and glory before him. Right-hand—to strengthen, protect, assist, and comfort; necessary to Christ as man. Moved—though men and devils seek destruction, he is assured of deliverance.

Setting the LORD always before oneself is a grace-enabled, continual practice—Christ’s pattern and the member’s path. The right hand steadies; the hearer must still keep God before the mind and not drift to other stays.

Calvin: to set God before us is to keep all senses bound that they may not go astray after another object. Faith elevates the mind above the world so we do not turn our back on him. Continually shows constant dependence—amid conflicts, no fear makes him look elsewhere for succor. Because God is at his right hand he reckons himself secure; with eyes of faith he beholds God present. This overthrows the fabrication that the faithful are in doubt of final perseverance—David extends reliance on God’s grace to the time to come.

Unshaken standing rests on God’s present right-hand care and promised continuance—not on trembling uncertainty every moment about whether grace will hold.

Wesley: My glory—my tongue, a man’s glory above other creatures. Rejoiceth—declares inward joy; the word marks outward demonstration more than bare eternal joy. My flesh—my body shall quietly rest in the grave in confident assurance of incorruption there and of resurrection to immortal life.

Glad heart, rejoicing being, flesh that dwells secure. Joy runs from trust in the God kept before the eyes; even the body’s rest leans on resurrection hope. Grace produces this security; the tongue still gives it voice.

Calvin: faith’s inestimable fruit is not only mental tranquillity but joyful cheer under God’s protection. Calm rejoicing is the lot of those who place confidence in God alone. True believers have spiritual joy in the heart and manifest it by the tongue as they glory in God. God defends soul and body; David does not speak groundlessly when the blessing of dwelling in safety extends to his flesh.

Heart, tongue, and flesh share security rooted in God. Joy is faith’s fruit under protection, not intoxication that never knew true peace.

Wesley: Hell—in the state of the dead. Holy one—Me thy holy son, whom thou hast sanctified and sent into the world. It is peculiar to Christ to be called the Holy One of God. To see—to be corrupted or putrefied in the grave as others’ bodies are.

Shared with the apostles—Acts 2 and 13 appropriate this to Christ: God did not abandon him to Sheol or let the Holy One see corruption. David as type speaks beyond himself; the resurrection of Jesus is the proper fulfillment. Believers share hope only in union with that Holy One.

Calvin: David entertains assurance of eternal salvation that frees from anxiety—there will always be a way of escape from the grave. He raised his mind above the common lot; dust returns to dust for Adam’s children. Peter justly concludes David gloried thus by the spirit of prophecy with special respect to the Author of life. Peter and Paul contend the prophecy was fulfilled in Christ alone—wholly exempted from the grave’s corruption that he might call his members into fellowship. David’s body was reduced to dust; fullness of incorruptible life resides in the Head and falls on members by degrees.

Acts 2 and 13 fix the Holy One and incorruption on Christ’s resurrection. The church’s hope is participation in the Head who saw no corruption, not a claim that every saint’s flesh escaped the pit as he did.

Wesley: Life—Thou wilt raise me from the grave and conduct me to everlasting felicity. Presence—in that heavenly paradise where thou art gloriously present and fully discover the light of thy countenance. Right-hand—place of greatest honour, where the saints are placed at the last day and where Christ sits (Ps. 110:1). Pleasures—all our joys here are empty and defective; in heaven is fulness of joy. Pleasures here are transient; at God’s right hand are pleasures for evermore—immortal souls in enjoyment of an eternal God.

Grace raises and conducts; the hearer’s hope is fixed on God’s presence, not on fading earthly sweets.

Calvin: God exempts from death’s bondage by bringing safely to eternal life. Showing the path of life must extend to blessed immortality—not mere prolongation of natural years that reprobate and elect share under the sun. When God is reconciled we have what is necessary to perfect happiness. Fullness of joy contrasts evanescent worldly pleasures that leave votaries famished. True solid joy rests only in God; none but the faithful contented with his grace alone can be truly and perfectly happy.

Path, presence, and forever pleasures are eternal life with God. The special grace that shows this way belongs to his children; joy’s fullness is his countenance, not the world’s short cup.