--PSALM xvi. 8, 11.


There are, unquestionably, large tracts of the Old Testament in which
the anticipation of immortality does not appear, and there are others in
which its presence may be doubtful. But here there can be no hesitation,
I think, as to the meaning of these words. If we regard them carefully,
we shall not only see clearly the Psalmist's hope of immortal life, but
shall discern the process by which he came to it, and almost his very
act of grasping at it; for the first verse of our text is manifestly the
foundation of the second; and the facts of the one are the basis of the
hopes of the other. That is made plain by the 'therefore' which, in one
of the intervening verses, links the concluding rapturous anticipations
with the previous expressions.

If, then, we observe that here, in these two verses which I have read,
there is a very remarkable parallelism, we shall get still more
strikingly the connection between the devout life here and the
perfecting of the same hereafter. Note how, even in our translation, the
latter verse is largely an echo of the former, and how much more
distinctly that is the case if we make a little variation in the
rendering, which brings it closer to the original. 'I have set the Lord
always _before me_,' says the one,--that is the present. 'In Thy
_presence_ is fulness of joy,' says the other,--that is the consequent
future. And the two words, which are rendered in the one case 'before
me' and in the other case 'in Thy presence,' are, though not identical,
so precisely synonymous that we may take them as meaning the same thing.
So we might render 'I have set the Lord always before _my_ face':
'Before _Thy_ face is fulness of joy.' The other clause is, to an
English reader, more obviously parallel: 'Because He is at _my right