Part 1: The Call | Part 2: The Commitment
In the third stanza of our psalm (Ps 16.5-6), David is contrasting the difficult life of those who follow false gods, which he’s just described, with the life that he has chosen along with the saints.
5 The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot.
The word inheritance here is the same Hebrew word used of the allotment of land portions to the Israelite tribes in the conquered Canaan. The word carries implications of both loot–captured treasure–and inheritance from one’s father; and the tribal allotments in Canaan carry both senses, since they were both captured and distributed. Since David was of course born into the tribe of Judah, he had a family claim to a portion of Judah’s allotted inheritance. But here he is looking well beyond that little town of Bethlehem; the Lord, he says, is the portion that matters to him.
My wife and I own our house. Until recently, I hadn’t lived in a paid-for house since I was 10 years old, and it’s nice to know that this bit of land belongs to us. Land is solid and steady–unless you live on a fault line–and it’s a good feeling to say, “This is ours.”
But that’s not how David is thinking. He’s fully invested not in land, but in a person. God not only bestows David’s portion, but he “support[s his] lot”: he grasps it and keeps it safe. “Lot” here is not a piece of real estate; it’s the outcome of a throw of the dice, the portion that has fallen to him from the Lord.
The verse also mentions David’s “cup.” That speaks of his needs that are being supplied. We humans need water even more than we need food–and in the arid Middle East, even moreso. The Lord supplies all that he needs. David will return to this metaphor in his most famous psalm: “My cup runneth over” (Ps 23.5). God not only supplies as much as we need, but he pours out his supply abundantly, lavishly, extravagantly.
Investing in God not only sets you up well, but it guarantees eternal profit.
In his commentary on this verse, John Calvin writes,
This doctrine … ought to draw us away not only from all the perverse inventions of superstition, but also from all the allurements of the flesh and of the world. Whenever, therefore, those things present themselves to us which would lead us away from resting in God alone, let us make use of this sentiment as an antidote against them, that we have sufficient cause for being contented, since he who has in himself an absolute fullness of all good has given himself to be enjoyed by us. In this way we will experience our condition to be always pleasant and comfortable; for he who has God as his portion is destitute of nothing which is requisite to constitute a happy life.
Do you find yourself completely satisfied in God? What else do you think will make you truly happy?
In the next verse he restates this idea differently:
6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.
The word lines here, as you might suspect, is a reference to boundary lines, or perhaps the surveying ropes that were used to lay out those lines. In context, he’s clearly referring not to his tribal allotment, except as an idea on which his much superior inheritance is based. The pleasantness and beauty of his life in God far surpasses anything that the Israelites saw in their tribal inheritance–and Canaan was a land “flowing with milk and honey’ (Ex 3.8), productive, bountiful, more than sufficient.
David’s insight was anticipated way back when the land was apportioned by Moses. Every tribe received a contiguous land assignment, except for Levi. His descendants were apportioned 48 cities throughout Canaan and the East Bank, where they could teach the Law to all the tribes of Israel. As Moses put it later,
Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers; the LORD is his inheritance, just as the LORD your God spoke to him (Dt 10.9).
And this connection in turn anticipates our status in eternity; we are all priests before God (Re 1.6; 5.10; 20.6).
In the next stanza, David will detail more specifically the benefits the Lord has graciously provided him.
Photo by Hari Perisetla on Unsplash
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