Psalms 16:10

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,.... Meaning, not in the place of the damned, where Christ never went, nor was; for at his death his soul was committed to his Father, and was the same day in

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

My soul, i.e. my person, as this word is every where used by a synecdoche of the part, and then the person by another synecdoche of the whole is put for the body. The soul is oft put for the body; either for the living body, as 105:18, or for the carcass or dead body, as it is taken 21:1 6:6,9,11 9:10 19:11,13; and so it is interpreted in this very place, as it is produced, , &c.; ,37. In hell, i.e. in the grave or state of the dead, as appears, 1. From the Hebrew word scheol, which is very frequently so understood, as is undeniably evident from compared with 30:3 141:7 ,27 Jonah 2:2, and many other places. 2. From the following clause of this verse. 3. From Acts 2$ 13$, where it is so expounded and applied. Thine Holy One, i.e. 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 corruption, or rottenness, i.e. to be corrupted or putrefied in the grave, as the bodies of others are. Seeing is oft put for perceiving by experience; in which sense men are said to see good, , and to see death, or the grave, , and to see sleep, . And the Hebrew word shochath, though sometimes by a metonymy it signifies the pit or place of corruption, yet properly and generally it signifies corruption or perdition, as 33:18,30 Psalms 35:7 55:23 , and is so rendered by the seventy Jewish interpreters, 15:3 21:31. And so it must be understood here, although some of the Jews, to avoid the force of this argument, render it the pit. But in that sense it is not true; for whether it be meant of David, as they say, or of Christ, it is confessed that both of them did see the pit, i.e. were laid in the grave. And therefore it must necessarily be taken in the other sense now mentioned; and so it is properly and literally true in Christ alone, although it may in a lower and metaphorical sense be applied to David, who had a just and well-grounded confidence, that although God might bring him into great dangers and distresses, which are called the sorrows of death, and the pains of hell, ; yet God would not leave him to perish in or by them.

Psalms 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.Ver. 10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell] That is, my body in the grave ( animamque sepulchro condimus - Virg, de Polydori funere. Aeneid. iii.), or in the state of the dead, Genesis 37:35. That soul is sometimes put for a carcase or dead corpse, see Job 14:22; Leviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:1; Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 5:2; Numbers 6:6; Numbers 19:13, which place is expounded, Ezekiel 44:25. David can confidently write upon his grave, Resurgam, I shall rise again. This many heathens had no hope of, 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (Horat. lib. iv. Od. 7). Cum semel occideris, Non Torquate, tuum genus, aut facundia, non te Restituet pietas, &c. Yet some heathens believed both the immortality of the soul, and therefore durst die , and the resurrection of the body, as did Zoroastes, Theopompus, Plato; and as do the Turks today. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one, &c. That is, the Messiah that is to come out of my loins, and who saith to me and all his members in effect, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust," &c. The former part of this verse seems to be spoken of David, the latter of Christ; like as Job 35:15, the former part is of God, the latter of Job. See the margin. Christ’ s resurrection is a cause, pledge, and surety of the saint’ s resurrection to glory; for joy whereof David’ s heart leaped within him. Christ’ s body, though laid in the corrupting pit, could not see, that is, feel, corruption, it was therefore a pious error in those good women who brought their sweet odours to embalm his dead body, Luke 24:1.

(10) Leave.—Rather, commit, or give up.In hell.—Better, to the unseen world (Sheôl), as in Psalms 6:5, where see Note. Holy One.—Better, thy chosen, or favoured, or beloved One. Heb., chasîd, which, starting from the idea of one standing in a state of covenant favour with Jehovah, gathers naturally, to this passive sense, an active one of living conformably to such a state; “gracious” as well as “graced,” “blessing” as well as “blessed;” and so generally as in Authorised Version, “saint,” “holy” (see Psalms 4:3; Psalms 145:17, and especially Psalms 1:5, “My saints, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”) The received Heb. text has the word in the plural, but with the marginal note that the sign of the plural is superfluous. The weight of MS. authority of all the ancient versions, and of the quotations Acts 2:27; Acts 13:35, is for the singular. Corruption.—Heb., shachath, a pit (from root, meaning to sink in), as in Psalms 7:15, where LXX. rightly “abyss,” though here and generally “destruction (not “corruption”), as if from shakhath, “to destroy.” Even in Job 17:14 “the pit” would give as good a parallelism to “worm” as “corruption.” The meaning of the passage is clearly that Jehovah will not abandon His beloved to death. “To be left to Sheôl” and “to see the pit” are synonyms for “to die,” just as “to see life” (Ecclesiastes 9:9, Authorised Version, “live joyfully”) is “to be alive;” or, as in next clause, “to make to see the path of life.” At the same time we discern here the first faint scintillation of that light of immortality which we see struggling to break through the darkness in all the later literature of Israel; the veil over the future of the individual, if not lifted, is stirred by the morning breath of a larger faith, and so the use is justified which is made of this passage in the New Testament (Acts 2:25). (See New Testament Commentary.)

Verse 10. Thine Holy One] This is in the plural number, חסידיך chasideycha, thy Holy Ones; but none of the versions translate it in the plural; and as it is in the singular number, חסידך chasidecha, in several ancient editions, among which is the Complutensian Polyglot, and no less than two hundred and sixty-four of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS., and in the quotation by St. Peter, in Acts 2:27; Acts 13:35, we may take it for granted that the present reading is a corruption; or that חסידיך is an emphatic singular. As to leaving the soul in hell, it can only mean permitting the life of the Messiah to continue under the power of death; for שאול sheol signifies a pit, a ditch, the grave, or state of the dead. See Clarke on Acts 2:25, &c. See corruption.] All human beings see corruption, because born in sin, and liable to the curse. The human body of Jesus Christ, as being without sin, saw no corruption.

10. Once more the translation must be revised; For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy beloved one to see the pit. Jehovah will not surrender him to the unseen world, which is like some monster gaping for its prey. He can plead, as one of Jehovah’s beloved ones (chasîd, see on Psalms 4:3, and Appendix, Note I) for the exercise of His lovingkindness (Psalms 17:7). The text (Kthîbh) has thy loved ones (plur.), but the traditional reading (Qrç) thy loved one (sing.) is supported by all the versions and required by the context. The word shachath, rendered corruption by LXX, Vulg., and Jerome, probably means the pit (R.V. marg.) i. e. the grave. ‘Pit’ must be its meaning in many passages (e.g. Psalms 7:15; Psalms 30:9; Proverbs 26:27), and may be its meaning always. Shachath might be derived from a root meaning to destray (not properly to decay), but it is unnecessary to assume that the same form has two derivations and senses. ‘To see the pit’ (Psalms 49:9) = ‘to see (i. e. experience) death,’ Psalms 89:48.

For thou will not leave - The language used here implies, of course, that what is here called the soul would be in the abode to which the name hell is given, but “how long” it would be there is not intimated.

10. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell— “Hell” is here used in its old English sense, in which it is the fittest English word for the Hebrew ωׁ ?ΰεμ, (sheol,) and its corresponding Greek, αδης,