John Calvin Commentary Psalms 16:5

"Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot." — Psalms 16:5 (ASV)

The Lord is the portion of my inheritance. Here the Psalmist explains his sentiments more clearly. He shows the reason why he separates himself from idolaters and resolves to continue in the church of God, why he shuns, with abhorrence, all participation in their errors and cleaves to the pure worship of God; namely, because he rests in the only true God as his portion.

The unhappy restlessness of those blind idolaters whom we see going astray and running about as if stricken and impelled by madness is doubtless to be traced to their destitution of the true knowledge of God. All who do not have their foundation and trust in God must necessarily often be in a state of irresolution and uncertainty; and those who do not hold the true faith in such a manner as to be guided and governed by it must often be carried away by the overflowing floods of errors which prevail in the world.

This passage teaches us that only those who consider God alone sufficient for their happiness are taught rightly in true godliness. David, by calling God the portion of his lot, and his inheritance, and his cup, declares that he is so fully satisfied with him alone as neither to covet anything besides him, nor to be excited by any depraved desires.

Let us therefore learn, when God offers himself to us, to embrace him with the whole heart and to seek in him only all the ingredients and the fullness of our happiness. All the superstitions which have ever prevailed in the world have undoubtedly proceeded from this source: that superstitious men have not been contented with possessing God alone.

But we do not actually possess him unless he is the portion of our inheritance; in other words, unless we are wholly devoted to him, so as no longer to have any desire unfaithfully to depart from him. For this reason, God, when he upbraids the Jews who had wandered from him as apostates for having run about after idols, addresses them thus: Let them be your inheritance, and your portion. By these words he shows that if we do not consider him alone an all-sufficient portion for us, and if we will have idols along with him, he yields entirely to them and lets them have the full possession of our hearts.

David here employs three metaphors:

1. He compares God to an inheritance.
2. To a cup.
3. He represents God as He who defends and keeps him in possession of his inheritance.

By the first metaphor, he alludes to the inheritances of the land of Canaan, which we know were divided among the Jews by divine appointment, and the law commanded everyone to be content with the portion which had fallen to him.

By the word cup is denoted either the revenue of his own proper inheritance or, by synecdoche, ordinary food by which life is sustained, since drink is a part of our nourishment. It is as if David had said, God is mine both in respect of property and enjoyment.

Nor is the third comparison superfluous. It often happens that rightful owners are put out of their possession because no one defends them. But while God has given himself to us for an inheritance, he has pledged to exercise his power in maintaining us in the safe enjoyment of a good so inconceivably great.

It would be of little advantage to us to have once obtained him as ours if he did not secure our possession of him against the assaults which Satan daily makes upon us. Some explain the third clause as if it had been said, You are my ground in which my portion is situated; but this sense appears to me to be cold and unsatisfactory.