Psalms 16:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

PSALM 16 Divers render this word Michtam, a golden Psalm, because of the preciousness and excellency of the matter of it; for it treats of Christ's death and resurrection. But because this title is prefixed to Psalms 56:1, Psalms 57:1 58:1 59:1 60:1, wherein there is no such peculiar excellency, it may seem rather to be a title belonging to the music or the song, which, with the rest, is now lost and unknown. It is a great question among expositors, in whose name and person he speaketh this Psalm, whether his own or Christ s. It seems hard to exclude David's person, to whom almost the whole Psalm properly and literally belongs, and to whom some parts of it do more conveniently belong than to Christ. And some parts of it do peculiarly belong to Christ, of whom it is expounded by the two great apostles, Peter and Paul, Acts 2:25, Acts 13:35. And yet it seems probable by the contexture of the Psalm, and the coherence of the several verses together, that the whole Psalm speaks of one and the same person. But because David was a mixed person, being both a member and an eminent type of Christ, he may without any inconvenience be thought to speak of himself sometimes in the one and sometimes in the other capacity, to pass from the one to the other. And therefore having spoken of himself as a believer or member of Christ in the former part of the Psalm, he proceeds to consider himself as a type of Christ; and having Christ in his eye, and being inspired by the Holy Ghost with the knowledge and contemplation of Christ's passion and resurrection, towards the close of the Psalm he speaks such things, as though they might be accommodated to himself in a very imperfect, obscure, and improper sense, yet could not truly, literally, and properly, fully and completely, belong to any but to Christ, to whom therefore they are justly appropriated in the New Testament. David, disttusting his own merit, and hating idolatry, fleeth to God for preservation, Psalms 16:1-4. He showeth the hope in life and death, Psalms 16:5-9, of the resurrection and everlasting life Psalms 16:10,11. Preserve me from all mine enemies. In thee do I put my trust; therefore thou art in honour and by promise obliged not to deceive my trust.