Psalm 16:4

Psalm 16:4, in plain English

He warns that those who chase after other gods will multiply their sorrows, and he makes a personal commitment not to participate in their worship practices or even speak their names.

Why it's here

In Israel, surrounding nations worshiped multiple gods, and there was constant cultural pressure to blend in, to hedge your bets by worshiping a little of everything. The psalmist is drawing a clear line: he will not compromise by participating in false worship, no matter how socially inconvenient that is.

Who's speaking

The psalmist, making a vow of faithfulness and warning about the cost of idolatry.

Where it sits in the story

This reflects the First Commandment—you shall have no other gods before Me. Throughout Scripture, idolatry is shown to lead to spiritual emptiness and real harm. The New Testament echoes this: 'No one can serve two masters.'

The scholarly reading

The psalmist warns against the multiplication of sorrows that befall those who abandon YHWH for other gods, declaring his firm refusal to participate in pagan cultic practices.

Language and setting

The verb yarbû ('will multiply') employs imperfect aspect suggesting ongoing, habitual consequence rather than one-time punishment. The phrase ma'səkôt dāmām ('their libations of blood') appears unique in the psalter and likely alludes to pagan sacrifice, possibly including the human sacrifice practices that Israel's prophets consistently condemned. The refusal to 'speak their names' (lō'-asîm et-šəmôtām b-śəfâtay) reflects the practical consequence of rejecting idolatry—social and liturgical separation. Klaus Seybold interprets this as the psalmist's principled resistance to syncretistic contamination.

Voice

A covenanted individual who has witnessed the spiritual and existential consequences of idolatry among his contemporaries and speaks from hard-won conviction.

Significance

This connects backward to the wilderness murmurings and forward to the prophetic critique of Canaanite syncretism. It establishes a dichotomy—the path of covenant fidelity versus the path of multiplied sorrows—that becomes central to wisdom literature and the New Testament's eschatological framework.

2I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”

3As for the saints in the land, they are the excellence in whom all my delight resides.

4Sorrows will multiply to those who chase other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood, or speak their names with my lips.

5The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You have made my lot secure.

6The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places; surely my inheritance is delightful.

Read all of Psalm 16 — David discovers that fullness of joy is found in God's presence. Death itself can't separate him from that hope.