When we’re waiting to fall asleep at night, where do our thoughts turn? The very best place is the Scripture that we’ve memorized. Through protection. 8 I have set the Lord continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. What does it mean that David has “set the Lord before” him? God is omnipresent, and he looks after his people. David writes about that himself in Psalm 23. So why does he “set the Lord before” him?

The fourth stanza of Psalm 16 (vv 7-8) speaks of the instruction that David receives from God, both directly (v 7) and through the protection he demonstrates (v 8).

Directly

7 I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.

David doesn’t elaborate on what form this counsel takes. He speaks elsewhere of his admiration of and attention to God’s Word, which we know in his day would have consisted only of the Torah, Joshua, and perhaps Judges and Ruth. When he says that his “mind instructs me in the night,” it could well have been through his meditation on the Scripture that he had, as he describes in almost every verse of Psalm 119. Of course, that would be possible only with Scripture he had memorized.

But we also know that David was a prophet, receiving revelation directly from God, and that he realized that himself; he claims as much at the end of his life:

The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, And His word was on my tongue (2Sa 23.2).

Did he understand that at the time he wrote Psalm 16? I think it’s reasonable to assume so. As he lies awake at night, perhaps he receives, believes, and understands God’s direct revelation. Perhaps that consists of the very Psalms he later wrote down as Scripture, or perhaps there were other direct revelations that are not recorded for us; we know that others in biblical times experienced that. Paul, for example, wrote letters, perhaps a good many, that are not in the Bible (1Co 5.9; cf 2Co 11.28), and since he was an apostle, all his teachings would have been authoritative (Jn 16.13).

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