Psalm Devotional
Life and Death
Psalm 16 deals with matters of life and death. The psalmist confronts death, embraces this life, and is assured about the next life.
The psalm opens with a statement of crisis. Clearly, the psalmist is disoriented, but what is the nature of the disorientation? I think it is revealed in the closing verses of the psalm. In those verses the psalmist speaks of his assurance that God will deliver him from death. The psalmist’s crisis is the fact that he has come face to face with death.
Verses 2-4 present a variety of translation challenges. However, it is clear that the psalmist is facing temptation in the midst of his crisis. Reading the Psalms is sometimes like listening to one end of a telephone conversation: You can’t be entirely certain what the other party is saying, but you can piece it together based on the responses of the party you can hear. That’s how we have to read verses 2-4. They are the response of the psalmist to those around him, and, based on his response—particularly verse 4—we can surmise that he was being encouraged to worship other gods.
