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The positive expression of hope in Psa 16:11 comes as a companion to the negative just expressed: Thou wilt grant me to experience (הודיע, is used, as usual, of the presentation of a knowledge, which concerns the whole man and not his understanding merely) ארח חיּים, the path of life, i.e., the path to life (cf. Pro 5:6; Pro 2:19 with ib. Psa 10:17; Mat 7:14); but not so that it is conceived of as at the final goal, but as leading slowly and gradually onwards to life; חיּים in the most manifold sense, as, e.g., in Psa 36:10; Deu 30:15 : life from God, with God, and in God, the living God; the opposite of death, as the manifestation of God's wrath and banishment from Him. That his body shall not die is only the external and visible phase of that which David hopes for himself; on its inward, unseen side it is a living, inwrought of God in the whole man, which in its continuance is a walking in the divine life. The second part of Psa 16:11, which consists of two members, describes this life with which he solaces himself. According to the accentuation, - which marks חיים with Olewejored not with Rebia magnum or Pazer, - שׂבע שׂמחות is not a second object dependent upon תּודיעני, but the subject of a substantival clause: a satisfying fulness of joy is את־פּניך, with Thy countenance, i.e., connected with and naturally produced by beholding Thy face (את preposition of fellowship, as in Psa 21:7; 140:14); for joy is light, and God's countenance, or doxa, is the light of lights. And every kind of pleasurable things, נעמות, He holds in His right hand, extending them to His saints - a gift which lasts for ever; נצח equivalent to לנצח. נצח, from the primary notion of conspicuous brightness, is duration extending beyond all else - an expression for לעולם, which David has probably coined, for it appears for the first time in the Davidic Psalms. Pleasures are in Thy right hand continually - God's right hand is never empty, His fulness is inexhaustible.
The apostolic application of this Psalm (Act 2:29-32; Act 13:35-37) is based on the considerations that David's