Verse by Verse

Hi. I'm Jeremy, and this is Verse by Verse. A short podcast all about exploring the insights and lessons of the inspired word of God. King David wrote quite a few songs or Psalms that are recorded for us in the Bible. Through poetic verse, David drew on his own personal experiences to write Psalms that praise God for his enduring faithfulness.

Psalms that wrestled with difficult questions David didn't have the answers to, Psalms that cried out in a mixture of pain and hope during extreme trials, and psalms that stood in awe of God's majesty and splendor. But sometimes, David's psalms were about something else entirely. Sometimes they were divinely inspired prophetic glimpses into future events that wouldn't unfold until centuries later. Today's passage is one of those glimpses. In Psalm 16 verses 9 through 10, David wrote, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices.

My flesh will also rest in hope, for you will not leave my soul in shield, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. Without the right context, this is a confusing passage. David died. His soul from the Hebrew word nefesh referring to his physical being. His soul did say in Sheol, the grave.

His flesh did undergo corruption or decay. David died, and he is still dead. That's how this physical existence has ended for every human being who has ever lived. Well all except one. Around a 1000 years later, on the Feast of Pentecost AD 31, the Apostle Peter stood up and explained David's cryptic words to a crowd that had gathered to worship God.

In Acts chapter 2, he quoted the Psalm and then explained, men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David that he is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us to this day. David wasn't writing about himself. Peter drove home the point in verse 34. David did not ascend into the heavens. The ancient king was dead and decayed in Sheol and corrupted, but Jesus Christ was not.

The son of god had been crucified. His soul had gone to Sheol, but he didn't stay in the grave. So Peter explains in verse 31 that David, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew shield, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. So that's what the psalm was about.

But here's the truly incredible part. God doesn't plan to leave your soul in Sheol either. Toward the end of the book of Revelation, Revelation 20 verse 13, we're told that one day, death and Hades, Sheol, the grave, will deliver up their dead to stand before God. That incredible moment in God's plan is possible entirely because Jesus Christ was willing to come to this earth as a human being and die in the first place. That is the moment that David was inspired to prophecy about in his psalm and it's the moment that offers incredible hope to the entire human race.

Even to those who lived and died without ever knowing Jesus Christ. If you want to know more about that future day, we have some helpful articles linked in the show notes below. But for now, suffice it to say that God didn't leave Jesus in the grave. He's not going to leave King David in the grave, and he's not going to leave you there either.

Verse by Verse is a companion podcast to the daily bible verse blog, which you can find on the Life, Hope and Truth Learning Center. Check out the show notes for more.