Clarke's Bible Commentary - Psalms 16:15
Verse 15. As for me ] I cannot be satisfied with such a portion. I will behold thy face ] Nothing but an evidence of thy approbation can content my soul.
In righteousness ] I cannot have thy approbation unless I am conformed to thy will. I must be righteous in order that my heart and life may please thee.
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. ] Nothing but God can satisfy the wishes of an immortal spirit. He made it with infinite capacities and desires; and he alone, the infinite Good, can meet and gratify these desires, and fill this all-capacious mind. No soul was ever satisfied but by God; and he satisfies the soul only by restoring it to his image, which, by the fall, it has lost.
I think there is an allusion here to the creation of Adam. When God breathed into him the breath of lives, and he became a living soul, he would appear as one suddenly awaked from sleep. The first object that met his eyes was his glorious Creator, and being made in his image and in his likeness, he could converse with him face to face-was capable of the most intimate union with him, because he was filled with holiness and moral perfection. Thus was he satisfied, the God of infinite perfection and purity filling all the powers and faculties of his soul. David sees this in the light of the Divine Spirit, and knows that his happiness depends on being restored to this image and likeness; and he longs for the time when he shall completely arise out of the sleep and death of sin, and be created anew after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. I do not think that he refers to the resurrection of the body, but to the resurrection of the soul in this life; to the regaining the image which Adam lost.
The paraphrase in my old Psalter understands the whole of this Psalm as referring to the persecution, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; and so did several of the primitive fathers, particularly St. Jerome and St. Augustine. I shall give a specimen from ver. 11: - Projicientes me, nunc circumdederunt me: oculos suos statuerunt declinare in terram.
Trans. "Forth castand me now, thai haf umgyfen me: thair egheu thai sette to heelde in the erde." Par. - Forth kasten me out of the cite, als the stede had bene fyled of me: now thai haf umgyfen me in the cros hyngand, als folk that gedyrs til a somer gamen: for thai sett thair eghen, that es the entent of thaire hert to heeld in the erde; that es, in erdly thynges to covayte tham, and haf tham.
And thai wende qwen thai slew Crist that he had suffird al the ill, and thai nane.
Perhaps some of my readers may think that this needs translating, so far does our present differ fronn our ancient tongue.
Text. - They have now cast me forth; they have surrounded me: their eyes they set down to the earth.
Par. - They have cast me out of the city, as if the state were to be defiled by me: now they have surrounded me hanging on the cross, as people gathered together at summer games. For they set their eyes, that is, the intent of their heart, down to the earth; that is, earthly things, to covet them and to have them: and they thought, when they slew Christ, that he had suffered all the ill, and they none.
BY the slot or track of the hart on the ground, referred to in ver. 11, experienced huntsmen can discern whether there have been a hart there, whether he has been there lately, whether the slot they see be the track of a hart or a hind, and whether the animal be young or old. All these can be discerned by the slot. And if the reader have that scarce book at hand, Tuberville on Hunting, 4to, 1575 or 1611, he mill find all this information in Psa. 22., p. 63, entitled, The Judgment and Knowledge by the Slot of a Hart; and on the same page; a wood-cut, representing a huntsman with his eyes set, bowing down to the earth, examining three slots which he had just found. The cut is a fine illustration of this clause. Saul and his men were hunting David, and curiously searching every place to find out any track, mark, or footstep, by which they might learn whether he had been in such a place, and whether he had been there lately. Nothing can more fully display the accuracy and intensity of this search than the metaphor contained in the above clause. He who has been his late Majesty's huntsmen looking for the slot in Windsor Forest will see the strength and propriety of the figure used by the psalmist.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 8-15 - Being compassed with enemies, David prays to God to keep him in safety This prayer is a prediction that Christ would be preserved, through all the hardships and difficulties of his humiliation, to the glories an joys of his exalted state, and is a pattern to Christians to commit the keeping of their souls to God, trusting him to preserve them to his heavenly kingdom. Those are our worst enemies, that are enemies to ou souls. They are God's sword, which cannot move without him, and whic he will sheathe when he has done his work with it. They are his hand by which he chastises his people. There is no fleeing from God's hand but by fleeing to it. It is very comfortable, when we are in fear of the power of man, to see it dependent upon, and in subjection to the power of God. Most men look on the things of this world as the bes things; and they look no further, nor show any care to provide for another life. The things of this world are called treasures, they ar so accounted; but to the soul, and when compared with eterna blessings, they are trash. The most afflicted Christian need not env the most prosperous men of the world, who have their portion in thi life. Clothed with Christ's righteousness, having through his grace good heart and a good life, may we by faith behold God's face, and se him always before us. When we awake every morning, may we be satisfie with his likeness set before us in his word, and with his likenes stamped upon us by his renewing grace. Happiness in the other world i prepared only for those that are justified and sanctified: they shal be put in possession of it when the soul awakes, at death, out of it slumber in the body, and when the body awakes, at the resurrection, ou of its slumber in the grave. There is no satisfaction for a soul but in God, and in his good will towards us, and his good work in us; yet tha satisfaction will not be perfect till we come to heaven __________________________________________________________________
Original Hebrew
אני 589 בצדק 6664 אחזה 2372 פניך 6440 אשׂבעה 7646 בהקיץ 6974 תמונתך׃ 8544
