¹Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. ²I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.”

While this psalm begins with a lament, the tone quickly turns positive, even to praise. In his need for help, David’s knowledge of and heart for God takes over his song. What a wonderful reminder that God is still with us in the bleakest hours of life, and He is still great.

But this psalm is also Messianic: the apostle Peter quotes Ps. 16:8-11 in reference to Jesus in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:25-28). By doing so, he demonstrates that the OT prophesied about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We might wonder what went through David’s mind as he morphed from writing about his own experience and perspective into writing about something clearly beyond him. When he writes, “For You will not abandon my soul in Sheol; nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay,” David undoubtedly is not referring to himself. Peter himself provides us with his hermeneutical explanation; in other words, he tells us that the writers of OT Scripture did not always understand what they wrote. They did, however, know they were writing about something beyond themselves:

As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:10–12)

We can observe some connections between David’s experience and the coming of the Messiah. The Lord is our place of protection; He will preserve us. For David, that meant protection from his enemies; for us, protection from our spiritual enemy, the devil, through the suffering of the Messiah. Our goodness comes from God and nowhere else. Believers (here called “saints”) are majestic, a term frequently used of God and meaning superior to all else. In Christ, we have been exalted to sit in the “heavenly places” (Eph. 1:3, 2:6). Nothing pleases God more (“delight”) than when we trust in Him for protection. Bystanders at the crucifixion ironically mocked the Messiah:

“He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matt. 27:43)

David, to be sure, was mocked as well, so his heart must have resonated as he wrote this psalm.

Christians have found great solace in the words of trust in the psalm. “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup” (vs. 5), meaning our hope and future are found in our relationship with Christ; He is our reward. Earthly possessions pale in light of the incomparable glory of being with the Lord beyond the grave.

David wrote this psalm out of his need for refuge from some difficulty, yet he could note, “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.” Even during times of sleep, when so often our minds focus on worries and trouble, David rests in the counsel of the knowledge of God, which he understands as the Lord instructing Him through his own thought processes (Ps. 16:7). David was continually saturating his mind with the Word of God so that in his idle times and inner self-talk, his thoughts always reverted to the knowledge of God and His promises.

In such a state of mind, one can begin to understand the rest of the psalm (vs. 8-11). To some degree, David hyperbolized his own situation, but as we noted earlier, these words soar far beyond his cognitive understanding of their prophetic truth. This ultimately applies to the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, for Peter introduces the quote with, “For David says of Him…” referring to Christ. But we can be assured that, as with Christ, death will not be the final word for us. We walk in trust, just as Peter tells us to follow Christ’s example, “who kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:21-23).

We can meditate on this psalm during our trials to plumb the richness of Christ’s experience and how He provides an example of resting securely in our heavenly Father. We join David as he closes with a beautiful promise of deep fellowship with our Lord Jesus:

“You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” (Ps. 16:11)