Psalms 15-17: The Shadow of Your Wings

While the previous series of psalms focused on various Davidic traumas, psalms fifteen through seventeen are bookends to the themes described in psalms one and two. Who are the righteous? Why do the nations rage? Are the promises concerning the coming eternal kingdom certain? The composer of these psalms may have been David, but as I meditate, I hear Jesus speaking to his followers, praying to the Father, and warning those who oppose his coming kingdom.

Who Shall Dwell on Your Holy Hill?
Psalm 15
A Psalm by David.

¹Yahweh, who shall dwell in your sanctuary?

Translators often render the word sanctuary as tent or tabernacle. St. Augustine (354–430) sees this as a temporary resting place during life’s spiritual battles. He writes:

When tabernacle is taken in its proper meaning, it is a thing of war. Hence soldiers are called tent-fellows, as having their tents together. This sense is assisted by the words, Who shall sojourn? For we war with the devil for a time, and then we need a tabernacle wherein we may refresh ourselves.

Who shall live on your holy hill?

The context according to St. Augustine turns to the eternal as he points to 2 Cor 5:1–2:

For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.

²He who walks blamelessly.
He who does what is right.
He who speaks truth in his heart.

³He who doesn’t slander with his tongue.
He doesn’t do evil to his friend.
He doesn’t cast slurs against his fellow man.

⁴In his eyes a vile man is despised.
But he honors those who fear Yahweh.
He keeps an oath even when it hurts.

How many of us make a commitment or sign a contract and then find out that the terms are not in our favor? Do we try to find a loophole?

⁵He doesn’t lend out his money for usury.
He doesn’t take a bribe against the innocent.

There are ten bolded phrases above. It does not completely define what it takes to be blameless, but how many of us can confidently say, “that’s us.” This list calls to remembrance one of Jesus’s commands:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34–35).”

He who does these things shall never be shaken.

This wisdom psalm follows the Hebrew Question and answer pattern. In the Haggadah (recounting) during each Passover celebration for example, four questions are typically asked by the youngest son. They represent four types of sons (The wise, the wicked, the simple, and the confused).The answer traditionally comes from the priest (or the person in charge).

In this psalm, I (the reader) ask the question. The answer and the promise at the end of verse five directly comes from Jesus himself. It is a high bar for anyone to reach, but according to Rev 14:4, it is possible:

These are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed by Jesus from among men, the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

You Will Not Abandon My Soul
Psalm 16
A Poem (Michtam) by David.

There is controversy over the meaning of the word Michtam. There are many speculations, so most translators leave it be. Some scholars take it to mean an eternal monument or inscription. This is because the word is derived from the Hebrew word מִכְתָּב (mikhtab) meaning a thing written. The historical context places this psalm early in David’s kingship, a time of peace, after succeeding Saul as king. Early Christians view it as a prayer from Jesus to the Father. It can also be understood as a prayer from a believer anticipating a new life with Jesus in the resurrection.

¹Preserve me, God
In you do I take refuge.

²My soul, you have said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord.
Apart from you I have no good thing.”

³As for the saints who are in the earth,
They are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.

After expressing his complete trust, he turns to his followers. Jesus expresses his delight for his followers in John 15:14–17:

You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. . . . I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

Now, Jesus’s describes his contemporary culture.

⁴Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god.
Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer.
Nor will I take their names on my lips.

Jesus was surrounded by temptations:

For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15).

⁵Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup.

Could this refer to the cup of the suffering at the cross? Jesus speak in the Garden of Gethsemane the day before:

My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. . . . My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire (Matt 26:38–39).

You made my lot secure.

⁶The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.
Yes, I have a good inheritance.

The book of Hebrews speaks of the good inheritance given to Jesus:

God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds (Heb 1:1–2).

⁷I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel.

Jesus acknowledges the Father’s counsel:

The things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said to me, so I speak (John 12:50).

Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.

In these days, he (Jesus) went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12).

⁸I have set Yahweh always before me.
He is at my right hand,
I shall not be moved.

⁹Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices.
My body shall also dwell in safety.

¹⁰For you will not leave my soul in Sheol.
Neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption.

¹¹You will show me the path of life.
In your presence is fullness of joy.
In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.

The early Church from the beginning considered verses 8–11 messianic. Peter directly quotes these verses in his Acts 2: 22–32.

Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know, him, being delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed; whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. For David says concerning him,

Direct quote of verses 8–11 above.

Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul wasn’t left in Hades, and his flesh didn’t see decay. This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses (Acts 2:22–32).

The Church father Athanasius (296–373) wrote in the letter to Marcellinus:

The fifteenth psalm (sixteenth in modern translations) shows His resurrection from the dead.

In the Shadow of Your Wings
Psalm 17
Prayer by David

¹Hear, Yahweh, my righteous plea.
Give ear to my prayer, that doesn’t go out of deceitful lips.

When I meditate on this psalm I hear Jesus crying out on the cross. He is the only one who is truly righteous.

²Let my sentence come out of your presence.
Let your eyes look on equity.

³You have proved my heart.
You have visited me in the night.
You have tried me, and found nothing.

It is sobering to open up to God’s evaluation as we approach night. John Calvin writes:

When a man is withdrawn from the presence of his fellow-creatures, he sees more clearly his sins, which otherwise would be hidden from his view.

C. S. Lewis comments further on this:

Our Lord therefore becomes the speaker in these passages when a Christian reads them.

I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.

⁴As for the deeds of men, by the word of your lips,
I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.

⁵My steps have held fast to your paths.
My feet have not slipped.

These are bold statements. Phil 2:8 comes to mind:

And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross.

⁶I have called on you.
You will answer me, God.
Turn your ear to me.
Hear my speech.

The Father certainly did hear:

Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9–11).

⁷Show your marvelous loving kindness.
You who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.

1 Pet 3:12:

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears open to their prayer.

⁸Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of your wings.

This verse alludes to God’s love for his people in Deuteronomy. Jesus, the true Israelite leads us to life eternal:

For Yahweh’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers (Deut 32:9–11).

⁹From the wicked who oppress me,
my deadly enemies, who surround me.

¹⁰They close up their callous hearts.
With their mouth they speak proudly.

¹¹They have now surrounded us in our steps.
They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth.

¹²He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey,
As it were a young lion lurking in secret places.

The cross encapsulates a spiritual battle where the forces of evil were defeated. Peter reminds us of Satan’s nature:

Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8).

¹³Arise, Yahweh, confront him.
Cast him down.
Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword.

¹⁴From men by your hand, Yahweh.

What is this sword? The following verse tell us:

For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12).

Your sons have plenty.
They store up wealth for their children.

There is a contrast here. C. S. Lewis writes:

The wicked man has his portion in life (17:14).

The contrast becomes clear as explained in Phil 3:18-20:

For many walk, of whom I told you often, . . . as the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness.
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.

The answer to this prayer is prophesized in the book of Daniel:

I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom that which will not be destroyed (Dan 7:13–14).

St. Augustine (354–430) describes how this psalm can apply both to Jesus and to us:

This prayer (Ps 17) must be assigned to the Person of the Lord, with the addition of the Church which is His body.

Conclusion

Three phrases link psalms fifteen through seventeen; Never be shaken (15:5), Not be moved (16:8), and Have not slipped (17:5).

Jesus reveals in Psalm fifteen the type of person who will Never be shaken. Psalm sixteen describes Jesus’s confidence as his cup of distress approaches. He shall Not be moved. Lastly we turn to psalm seventeen. Jesus was faithful to the end and his feet Have not slipped. The three psalms together present a coherent message.

Thanks for listening,

Modern Musical Renditions for Psalm 15

Who May Abide with You by Emily Heilman
Who May Dwell by The Holy Grove

Modern Musical Renditions for Psalm 16

Psalm 16 by Corner Room Music
Fullness of Joy by Shane and Shane

Modern Musical Renditions for Psalm 17

Under the Shadow of Your Wings Christus Dominus Bread of Life
As for Me by Jason Silver

For Further Meditation

Agpeya: Prayer Book of the Hours, (Coptic Orthodox Church of Saint Mark, 2017).
Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ Centered Commentary: Psalms 1–50, Vol. 2, (Crossway, 2024).
Athanasius, “letter to Marcellinus: On the Interpretation of the Psalms.”
Augustine, “Exposition on the Psalms.”
Basil, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Vol. 46.
Basil, On Prayer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book.
John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms
C. Hassell Bullock, Encountering the Book of Psalms, (Baker 2001).
Hilary of Poitiers, “Homilies on the Psalms.”
Joseph Galineau, The Psalms: A New Translation Singing version, (Paulist Press, 1991).
Jerome, The Fathers of the Church: The Homilies of Jerome 1–59, Vol 1.
Dereck Kidner, Kidner Classic Commentaries: Psalms 1–72, (IVP Academic, 1973).
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958).
Temper Longman III and David E. Garland, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Psalms, Vol. 5, (Zondervan, 2008).
Origen of Alexandria, Fathers of the Church: Homilies on the Psalms Codex Monacensis Graecus 314, (Catholic University of America Press, 2020).
Origen, Commentary on Psalms.
Pettingill, Christ in the Psalms, (Van Kampen Press, 1937.
Rashi, “On Psalms.”

Dan Harvey, author of Wrestling with Faith and Experiencing the Apocalypse

Psalms 15-17: The Shadow of Your Wings

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