Psalm 16 begins with the plea of a refugee and ends with an affirmation of an inheritance that brings us a joy that lasts forever. Here is this little psalm with some big meanings:

“Psa. 16:0       A Miktam of David.

Psa. 16:1         Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

²           I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;

                        I have no good apart from you.”

Psa. 16:3         As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,

                        in whom is all my delight.

Psa. 16:4         The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;

                        their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

                        or take their names on my lips.

Psa. 16:5         The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;

                        you hold my lot.

⁶           The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

                        indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Psa. 16:7         I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;

                        in the night also my heart instructs me.

⁸           I have set the LORD always before me;

                        because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Psa. 16:9         Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

                        my flesh also dwells secure.

¹⁰         For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

                        or let your holy one see corruption.

Psa. 16:11       You make known to me the path of life;

                        in your presence there is fullness of joy;

                        at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Did you notice how David starts off asking God for help and protection. The plea for God to be a “refuge” means that David is a refugee. And David really was a refugee on more than one occasion. Whether he was running from Saul or his own son Absalom, David knew what it was to be uprooted.

Probably we all feel uprooted at times. We can feel as if we have a house, but no home. We are alienated from loved ones—or they are alienated from us. Sometimes, we even feel alienated from ourselves, or at least, from our better selves.

One of the reasons many people love the psalms is because many of the psalms give voice to our own feelings of loneliness, of isolation, of unbelonging. We need someone else to voice our feelings because we can’t.

But this psalm, and many others, do not stop with our refugee status. In verse 6, this refugee speaks of an inheritance. Refugees, in most countries, cannot inherit property. Yet, this is precisely what David is saying. God has given him an inheritance, and a good one at that!

But the news keeps coming and gets better. David affirms that God’s way is a path of life that is full of joy and pleasures that last forever.

Commenting on Psalm 16:11, Derek Kidner writes,

“This verse is unsurpassed for the beauty of the prospect it opens up, in words of the utmost simplicity. The path of life is so called, not only because of its goal but because to walk that way is to live, in the true sense of the word, already (cf. 25:10; Prov. 4:18). It leads without a break into God’s presence and into eternity (evermore). The joy (lit. joys) and pleasures are presented as wholly satisfying (this is the force of fullness, from the same root as ‘satisfied’ in 17:15) and endlessly varied, for they are found in both what he is and what he gives – joys of his face (the meaning of presence) and of his right hand.⁵⁰ The refugee of verse 1 finds himself an heir, and his inheritance beyond all imagining and all exploring.”

That last sentence really grabs me by the throat: “The refugee of verse 1 finds himself an heir, and his inheritance beyond all imagining and all exploring.”

Yes! Amen!