What Does Psalms 16:10 Mean?

(10) **Leave.**—Rather, *commit, *or *give up.* **In hell.**—Better, *to the unseen world *(Sheôl), as in Psalm 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 Psalm 4:3; Psalm 145:17, and especially Psalm 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 Psalm 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.*)