Two contentious issues concerning the interpretation of
Ps 16:10 (15:10 LXX) and its appropriations in Acts are particularly relevant
when identifying elements of the category hsyd. First, there is the
question of whether the psalmist expected to be kept from untimely death,18 hoped
to be preserved after death, or spoke of the messiah being resurrected from
death19 when he said, “You will not give your ḥsyd [LXX: hosios]
to see šḥt [LXX: diaphthora].” If yhwh does not give his ḥsyd to see šḥt (the
“pit”), then ḥsyd does not go to the place of the dead, but continues on
the path of life (vv. 10–11 MT). If the Lord does not give his hosios to
see diaphthora (“corruption”), then the hosios may expect to be
raised to life, after death but before decay sets in (vv. 10–11 LXX; Acts 2;
13). However, if šḥt can be legitimately translated by “corruption,” as
some argue,20 there is no difference between the original Hebrew meaning and
the LXX / New Testament interpretation. John Goldingay challenges that
translation: “LXX and Jerome translate šaḥat with words such as
‘corruption,’ as if it came from šāḥat, which would be plausible if
there were not the ordinary noun šaḥat, meaning ‘pit,’ from šûaḥ.”
Šḥt is used in parallel or
grouped with šʾwl (“Sheol”), a name for the underworld (Ps 16:10; Job
17:13–14). Other Hebrew Bible occurrences of šḥt also indicate that it
refers to a dark, confining object or location, below ground level, not a
state. This information suggests that, in Ps 16, the psalmist expected yhwh to stop him from going to the
place of the dead (šḥt; v. 10) and to spare his life (v. 11). On the
other hand, the New Testament nuances of diaphthora include both the
location and the state of the dead. Aside from the quotations from Ps 15:10 LXX
in Acts 2:27 and 13:35, the noun diaphthora occurs within the New
Testament only in Acts 2:31 and 13:34, 36–37. In 2:31, it probably denotes a state
of decay (“nor did his flesh see [eidon] diaphthora”; cf.
13:36–37). But the combination of hypostrephō and diaphthora in
13:34 suggests a specific location is in mind. Thus, the LXX translator
may have had the place of the dead in mind, but Luke’s use of diaphthora highlights
the ambiguity.
The other debated issue is the referent of hosios.
Peter and Paul indicate that the psalmist (David) was speaking about Jesus when
he said, “You will not give your hosios to see corruption” (Acts 2:22,
25, 27; 13:33–35). But it is debatable whether the psalmist referred to his
descendant or not when he said, “You will not give your ḥsyd to see the
pit” (Ps 16:10 MT). In the psalm, “your ḥsyd” is set in parallel with
“my npš.” If this is synonymous parallelism, then verse 10b is the only
place in this psalm that the author refers to himself in any way other than the
first- person singular pronoun. Other occurrences of ḥsyd (esp. Ps 86:2
[85:2 LXX], which is attributed to David) suggest that it is proper when addressing
yhwh to refer to oneself or one’s
group using relational descriptions (e.g., “your servant,” “your ḥsydym”).
In addition, David is associated with ḥsd more than any other individual
in the Hebrew Bible apart from yhwh.
While this evidence does not preclude the possibility of
the psalmist referring to someone else as ḥsyd, it seems more likely
that he is referring to himself, perhaps as a representative of all yhwh’s ḥsydym. Furthermore,
since both Peter and Paul explain why David could not have spoken of himself in
that verse (Acts 2:29–36; 13:36–37), it seems reasonable to infer that the
traditional interpretation gave at least some grounds to think otherwise.
Therefore, resurrection from death was probably not the expectation of the
psalmist. That was a distinctive experience of the Messiah (cf. Acts 2:30–31).
How then does one account for the discrepancy between the
psalmist’s expression of confidence that yhwh
would spare his life and the New Testament interpretation that the psalmist
(King David) was speaking about his descendant Jesus, whom God resurrected? As
David’s descendants failed to live up to ideals for the royal dynasty, “a
latent messianic sense” surfaced in psalms like this. Thus, the difference
between the original sense and the latter interpretation of Ps 16 could have
been the result of rabbinic hermeneutical processes (i.e., midrash or pesher),
or reading “through the lens of the New Testament” to gain the fuller sense of
the words (cf. Isa 7:14). (Karen Nelson, ḥesed
and the New Testament: An Intertextual Categorization Study [University Park,
Pa.: Eisenbrauns, 2023], 139-41)
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