1. Problems with Current Interpretations

The Christological section of the Pentecost speech begins in Acts 2.22. Following a brief summary of Jesus’ ministry and an account of his death, v. 24 then announces that God raised Jesus from the dead. It is at this point that Ps 16.8–11 (15.8–11 LXX) is quoted, introduced as an explanation for the preceding assertion through the conjunction γάρ in v. 25:

As mentioned earlier, by and large, exegetes consider the quotation from Psalm 16 to be indicating that the resurrection of Jesus fulfils the prophecy made by Psalm 16.Footnote ⁶

Thus, for most interpreters, Psalm 16 functions as a scriptural ‘proof’ or Schriftbeweis in the argument of the speech. What is usually meant by this is that in vv. 25–31 the speech introduces a passage from Scripture and its interpretation in order to show that Jesus’ resurrection fulfils the Scriptures, thereby demonstrating that he is the Messiah foretold in it. Going back to the relationship between v. 24 and Psalm 16, then, the reason for Jesus’ resurrection is simply that God had foretold so: he had planned and announced through the mouth of David that the Messiah would rise from the dead. As E. Haenchen puts it:

By reinterpreting Psalm 16 as referring to the resurrection of the Messiah, then, the speech seeks to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah because God had foretold that the Messiah would rise from the dead.

To be more specific, exegetes have understood the proof to support either the resurrection of Jesus or his messiahship, or more commonly both. For many interpreters, the Psalm seeks to prove or at least provide some support for Jesus’ resurrection.Footnote ⁸ The specific line showing this is in v. 27: ‘For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption’ (ὅτι οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς ᾅδην οὐδὲ δώσεις τὸν ὅσιόν σου ἰδεῖν διαφθοράν), which, according to v. 31, refers to the resurrection. Of course, the Psalm does not actually prove the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, but it shows that the Scriptures had foretold that the Messiah would rise from the dead, and thereby provides support for the apostolic claim of the resurrection of Jesus.

But some exegetes insist that the Psalm is used as a proof not of the resurrection of Jesus but of his messiahship. They emphasise that the Psalm could not be used to prove or support Jesus’ resurrection in the speech, since the meaning of the Psalm is reinterpreted in vv. 29–31 as referring to a resurrection, obviously in light of the event of the resurrection of Jesus itself. For example, J. Dupont writes:

According to Dupont, then, the Psalm cannot serve to support the resurrection – which is proclaimed and assumed to have happened in vv. 29–31 – but it is used to argue that the one who rose from the dead must be the Messiah announced by Scripture.

As this disagreement between exegetes shows, there is indeed a tension in regarding Psalm 16 as a ‘proof’, either of Jesus’ resurrection or of his messiahship, because Psalm 16 must be radically reinterpreted to be able to function in this way: first, it has to be reinterpreted as referring literally to somebody who would not see corruption – to an immediate resurrection from the dead; and then, it also has to be interpreted anew as referring not to David but to his seed. As suggested by vv. 29–31, however, this is a new interpretation for the narrative audience of the speech. Indeed, those verses intimate that the Psalm was usually interpreted as referring to David. As several exegetes point out, the interpretation of Psalm 16 advocated in the narrative by Peter in vv. 29–31 was probably largely reached in light of Jesus’ resurrection itself.Footnote ¹⁰ The event of the resurrection thus played a crucial role in ‘uncovering’ the ‘Christian’ exegesis of Psalm 16. Without a prior belief in Jesus’ resurrection, however, this new interpretation of Psalm 16 would have had little convincing power.

In fact, a close reading of the scholarly literature shows that when exegetes use the terminology of ‘proof’, they usually do not mean a proof provided by the clear and ‘expected’ fulfilment of an Old Testament prophecy which would have been self-evident and immediately palatable for a Jewish audience. Rather, they mean that Peter (Luke) is providing scriptural support – post eventum – for the resurrection of Jesus, by showing that the death and resurrection of the Messiah was actually foretold in Scripture (even if this had not been clear before the resurrection happened) and that the apostolic claim that Jesus rose from the dead and is the Messiah therefore has a scriptural basis. The proof thus functions more like a validation of the Christian claims through Scripture, by showing that the Christian message is not only coherent with, but actually announced in, the Jewish Scriptures, and that what happened was God's will. Thus A. Weiser writes:

The ‘proof’ provided by the Old Testament text thus takes the form of demonstrating – admittedly through a totally new interpretation of this text in light of the resurrection – a fit between Scripture and event. In Luke's narrative, the point Peter has in common with the Jews he is talking to, then, is Scripture, but not its exegesis.

Because Luke's exegesis of Psalm 16 is largely based on the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection and presupposes it, D. Bock rejects the terminology of ‘proof’ to describe this usage of Scripture and prefers to speak of a ‘proclamation’ or ‘declaration’ of fulfilment of prophecy. For him, Peter is using the prophecies of the Scriptures to proclaim the messiahship of Jesus.Footnote ¹² By calling it a ‘proclamation’ from prophecy rather than a ‘proof’ from prophecy, Bock emphasises that the nuance of Peter's rhetoric corresponds more to ‘proclamation’ than to ‘apologetic’ because Peter assumes the resurrection and makes claims based upon it, rather than arguing for it from an exegesis which he shares with his audience.Footnote ¹³

Like other exegetes, however, Bock understands Luke to be using Psalm 16 to show that Jesus’ resurrection fulfils a messianic prophecy.Footnote ¹⁴ Whether they call it ‘proof’ or ‘proclamation’ from prophecy, then, the current consensus of scholarship is that Peter uses Psalm 16 to show that Jesus’ resurrection represents the fulfilment of a prophecy about the Messiah, and thereby to demonstrate, validate, legitimate or corroborate the Christian claim that Jesus is the Messiah with the help of Jewish Scripture.Footnote ¹⁵

There is, however, a fundamental and too often overlooked problem with this understanding of the argument of the speech: it implies that the discourse is appealing to convictions which were not a priori shared by the audience depicted in Luke's narrative, namely by non-Christian Jews. Indeed, on this reading, Peter is arguing that Jesus is the Messiah on the basis of a totally new Christian exegesis of a Psalm usually otherwise interpreted. As has been mentioned, however, this new exegesis of Psalm 16 only has convincing power if the resurrection of Jesus is presupposed to have happened. Yet the resurrection of Jesus is part of the extraordinary proclamation of the speech and – as other parts of the narrative of Acts show – represents a challenging affirmation to accept for a Jewish audience (Acts 26.8). One could add that, historically, as far as we know, there was no specific expectation that the Messiah would rise from the dead in Second Temple Judaism.Footnote ¹⁶ Some exegetes, therefore, point out that Peter's argument would have lacked convincing power for a Jewish audience. Thus, Pervo comments:

There is indeed little reason to believe that a Jewish audience such as the one depicted by Luke in Acts 2 would have found this Christian exegesis of Psalm 16 convincing. Yet according to the Lukan narrative, the listeners were ‘cut to the heart’ by Peter's words (ἀκούσαντες δὲ κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν, 2.37) and 3,000 people became Christians after listening to the speech that day (2.41). Furthermore, as some exegetes have noted, the tone of the speech does not suggest that Peter engages in ‘sectarian’ exegesis here. Rather, it shows a strong confidence that its interpretation of the Psalm is convincing.Footnote ¹⁸

The usual understanding of the function of Psalm 16 thus creates a tension for the narrative realism of the pericope Luke has depicted. It could of course be argued that Luke is writing for a Christian audience – namely for his readers – who have already accepted the fact of the resurrection.Footnote ¹⁹ But, as several scholars have noted, there are signs in Luke's narrative that he took care to compose speeches fitting their context, and that he strove for narrative realism.Footnote ²⁰ The second part of this article therefore suggests another understanding of the way in which Psalm 16 functions in the argument of the speech, a way which makes better sense in the context suggested by Luke's narrative.

2. A New Proposal

Two often neglected factors are of primary importance to understand the function of the quotation from Psalm 16 in the argument of the speech. The first concerns the relation between the quotation and the verse preceding it – namely the exact place of Ps 15.10–11 LXX in the argumentation. And the second pertains to the meaning of those verses in their original context, both in the Hebrew and in the Septuagint.

Turning first to the place of the quotation in the speech, as mentioned above, the conjunction γάρ in v. 25 shows that the Psalm is introduced as an explanation for the resurrection of Jesus described in v. 24. The exact function of the Psalm thus depends upon the assertion made in v. 24 which it seeks to clarify:

What is of particular interest in this affirmation is that while God is described as the agent raising Jesus up, the speech also explains the event by saying that death was not able to hold him. In other words, although the resurrection of Jesus is presented as an act of God, v. 24 also suggests that the event happened and God acted because of some kind of necessity or rationale: it was impossible that death detained him. The expression οὐκ ἦν δυνατόν suggests that the ‘rules’ or ‘logic’ which govern the power of death did not work on Jesus. The proposal of this article is that it is this rationale which is then explained (cf. γάρ) by the quotation from Psalm 16 in vv. 25–8. In other words, the quotation from the Psalm is meant to explain both why God raised Jesus from the dead, and the reason why death had no power over him.

The next factor to examine is the meaning of the verses quoted from Psalm 16 in the context of the whole Psalm. The speech quotes Ps 16.8–11b (15.8–11b LXX) in Acts 2.25–8. The key lines which are used as a reference to the resurrection in Acts are in vv. 10–11. Acts reproduces the Septuagint word for word. The Greek of the Septuagint, however, departs from the Hebrew at significant points:

In the Hebrew, the Psalm does not refer to the resurrection but rather expresses the psalmist's confidence that God will protect him from untimely death.Footnote ²¹ The crucial – and often overlooked – point to consider is the reason for the psalmist's confidence that he will be preserved from death. Indeed, his assurance comes from the fact that God does not abandon his ‘pious one’ or ‘faithful one’ (חסידך). חסיד is an ethical description used to refer to those who are faithful to God and practise the law of the covenant. Several times in the Old Testament, ‘the pious one’ is contrasted with ‘the wicked’ (e.g. 1 Sam 2.9; Ps 37.28;), or is promised deliverance from the wicked (e.g. Ps 97.10).Footnote ²² The חסידים are those who walk in the path of justice (cf. parallelism in Prov 2.8). The confidence of the psalmist therefore comes from the covenantal principle that God promises life to those faithful to his law. This covenantal framework is omnipresent in the rest of the Psalm. Thus, in vv. 3–4 (15.3–4 LXX), the psalmist distinguishes the situation of the ‘holy ones in the land’ (קדושים אשר־בארץ; τοῖς ἁγίοις τοῖς ἐν τῇ γῇ) from the fate of those who run after other gods and multiply their sorrows (16.4).Footnote ²³ The terminology of ‘land’ (v. 4), ‘portion’ (v. 5: מנת־חלק; ἡ μερὶς τῆς κληρονομίας), ‘lot’ (v. 5: גורל; κληρονομίαν) and ‘inheritance’ (v. 6: נחלה; κληρονομία) all evoke God's covenant with Israel, and his promise of inheritance and life in the land for the faithful.

Another indicator of this covenantal legal framework is the Hebrew expression ארח חיים in v. 11. In the Hebrew text, the expression does not refer to the resurrection but rather to the life well-pleasing to God which leads to life. Indeed, the expression ארח חיים is almost certainly a reference to the life lived according to God's law, which lays out the way to life in Judaism.Footnote ²⁴ This understanding fits well with the covenantal context of inheritance evoked by the Psalm: life in the land, or inheritance of the land, is conditional upon obedience to the law (see e.g. Deut 30.15–20). In the book of Proverbs, the ‘paths of life’ describes the ways in which the wise live and is contrasted with the ‘way to Sheol’ (Prov 15.24).Footnote ²⁵ ארח is a common word to refer to the quality of one's ethical living and is frequently used this way in the Psalms (e.g. Ps 17.4; 25.4, 10; 44.19; 119.9, 15, 101, 104, 128). The Hebrew תודיעני in v. 11 is thus best translated as a present (cf. the aorist in the LXX), and refers to God's continued guidance in the path of life through his law (cf. reference to God's ‘counsel’ and ‘instruction’ in v. 7).

To conclude then, the basis of the psalmist's confidence lies in God's continued presence with him (Ps 16.8) because of his – namely the psalmist's – covenantal faithfulness and righteousness. As Ps 16.8–11 suggests, God protects the righteous one (‘holy one’, ‘faithful one’ or ‘pious one’) from (untimely) death, ‘because’ or ‘as’ he walks in the path of life given by God. As Haenchen comments: ‘The pious author of the sixteenth psalm is sure that God will not let him die before his time: early death is a punishment for the godless.’Footnote ²⁶

Moving to the Septuagint translation of the Psalm, a number of changes have been introduced into the Greek text. Most importantly for the argument of this article, several alterations suggest that vv. 9–11 were interpreted eschatologically and that the Psalm might have been understood as referring to the future resurrection of the righteous already in the Septuagint. Three major transformations in the translation illustrate this eschatologising of the Psalm. First, the Hebrew לבטח, ‘in security’, has been replaced with ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι, ‘in hope’.Footnote ²⁷ Second, תתן, ‘he gives’, is translated by the future δώσεις, and finally, לראות שחת, ‘to see the pit’, is rendered by ἰδεῖν διαφθοράν, ‘to see corruption’. For many interpreters those changes testify to a belief in the resurrection. Thus, in his study on Eschatology in the Psalms, Schaper argues that ‘these changes indicate the introduction of the notion of physical resurrection (again only of the righteous) into the sacred text’.Footnote ²⁸ In the Septuagint, therefore, the ‘holy one’ seems to anticipate not protection from untimely death, but eternal life.Footnote ²⁹ Such changes certainly facilitate an interpretation of the Psalm as referring to the resurrection.Footnote ³⁰ In the Greek, then, ὁδοὶ ζωῆς in v. 11 does not refer to the way which brings life in the sense of protection from untimely death, but is probably reinterpreted as the way which leads to eternal life.Footnote ³¹

In light of the changes which occur in the Septuagint version of Psalm 16 and the widespread belief in the resurrection of the righteous in first-century Judaism, it is likely that Psalm 16 was already interpreted as referring to the resurrection in the first century by those who held to such a belief. Alternatively, those who rejected a belief in the resurrection probably interpreted the Psalm as referring to protection from untimely death. In either case, however, the rationale or the principle outlined by the Psalm is the same: God preserves the life of the righteous one, the one who is faithful to his covenant.

The thesis of this article is that it is this rationale which is appealed to, to explain Jesus’ resurrection in the speech in Acts 2. Going back to the argument, Ps 16.10–11 is introduced as an explanation for the affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection through the conjunction γάρ in v. 25. Usually exegetes have concluded that the quotation from Scripture simply serves to validate or support the claim of the resurrection by saying something like ‘God raised him from the dead because he had said so in the Scriptures’. In other words, the reason for the resurrection of the Messiah lies solely in the will or the plan of God. The proposal here, however, is that at this point of the argument, the quotation from Psalm 16 is used to point to the rationale of God's action. In other words, it is because God preserves the life of the righteous that he raised Jesus from the dead, and it is because Jesus was righteous that death could not retain him. Psalm 16, then, is not quoted to prove or proclaim that Jesus rose from the dead, but to explain why he did and why death could not keep him: death has no power over the pious one, for he walks in the path of life and God preserves him by leading him to life.

Unlike other proposals, this interpretation has two important exegetical advantages. First, unlike the proof from prophecy or proclamation from prophecy models of interpretation, it means that the argument of the speech progresses on much more shared common ground with the audience of the speech in Luke's narrative. It is a commonplace in Judaism that righteousness and faithfulness grant life, and that God will vindicate the righteous. Luke himself endorses this belief in his narrative (cf. Luke 20.35). When using Psalm 16, therefore, Luke's Peter is not – at this point – basing his argument upon a new exegesis which presupposes the resurrection. Rather, he is using a well-accepted notion, based upon a passage from Scripture, namely the widespread belief that God protects the life of the faithful and that he will eventually rise the righteous. Although the application of the Psalm to Jesus’ resurrection would undoubtedly have been surprising if not shocking – the resurrection of the righteous was expected to be an eschatological event affecting a group of people and not just one individual – exegetically speaking, this reading proposes much more common ground with non-Christian Jews than other interpretations of this passage.

That leads us to the second advantage of this interpretation: it fits particularly well with the preceding verses (22–3). In those verses the speech recounts Jesus’ attestation by God through signs and miracles and his crucifixion at the hands of lawless men. As the speech emphasises, the audience in Luke's narrative is aware – or at least should be aware – of God's endorsement of Jesus:

The argument made by the Psalm thus builds upon what the crowd already knows: a righteous man – as suggested by the fact that he was mightily attested by God – was put to death. But God raised him from the dead, for – as the Psalm reminds us – he preserves the life of the righteous. On this reading, the Psalm provides scriptural support for Jesus’ resurrection even to people who did not witness it. There is indeed a certain plausibility that a person like Jesus would rise from the dead if he was put to death unjustly and was righteous, as was obvious to many, at least according to Luke's Gospel (Luke 23.13–16, 22, 48).

Rather than attempting to prove, proclaim or even explain the resurrection of Jesus by appealing to a new Christian exegesis of a Psalm usually otherwise interpreted, then, the speech is actually giving a forceful argument from a well-known covenantal principle which is appealed to in Psalm 16: Jesus rose from the dead, because the Scriptures promise that God preserves the life of the righteous. Without ‘proving’ the resurrection in any way, this type of explanation for Jesus’ resurrection, made in the presence of a crowd aware that this man was powerfully attested by God and unjustly crucified, is much more likely to have ‘cut the people to the heart’ and make them take the apostolic claim that Jesus rose from the dead seriously.

3. Conclusion: Reinterpreting the Divine Necessity of the Resurrection

Challenging the current consensus that Psalm 16 functions as a ‘proof’ or ‘proclamation’ from prophecy in the argument of the speech in Acts 2, the present article has suggested a new interpretation of the logic between v. 24 and v. 25. It should be emphasised, however, that the proposal advanced here does not deny that the Psalm is also interpreted as a messianic prophecy in the speech as the argument goes on. Indeed, Peter himself describes David as a prophet (v. 30), and the speech makes it clear that a promise pertaining to the Messiah expressed in Psalm 16 has been fulfilled through the resurrection of Jesus (vv. 29–31). But it is a prophecy which promises the fulfilment of a covenantal promise: God will grant life to the righteous. Covenantal promise and prophecy are not mutually exclusive.

According to the reading suggested in this article, then, the speech begins by explaining the resurrection of Jesus in v. 25 (cf. γάρ) through pointing to the rationale expressed in Psalm 16: God gives life to the pious one who keeps his law. Then, the speech goes on to demonstrate that in this specific Psalm, David was actually prophesying the resurrection of the Messiah (vv. 29–32).

This interpretation of the argument of the speech casts important new light on the meaning of the resurrection in Acts – at least as reflected in the first kerygmatic speech of the Lukan narrative. As mentioned earlier in this article, scholars have usually concluded that the speech explains the resurrection by divine necessity: Jesus rose from the dead because God, through his prophet, had foretold that the Messiah would rise from the dead. It thus had to happen because of divine will.Footnote ³² The reading advanced in this article, however, gives a new significance to the event. It suggests that the speech proclaims that Jesus rose from the dead because of his righteousness, and because God was faithful to his covenantal promise to preserve the life of – and grant resurrection life to – the righteous. This, of course, is not to deny that Jesus’ resurrection happened according to the will of God or divine necessity. It does, however, ground this divine necessity in the covenantal promise that righteousness brings life and delivers from death, and, by extension, in God's faithfulness.

Whether this nuance in the first speech to outsiders in Acts is also present in the other kerygmatic discourses in Acts must, of course, await further research. But given the programmatic function of this speech at the very beginning of Acts, Luke has certainly given this proclamation of the rationale of Jesus’ resurrection a strategic place in his narrative.Footnote ³³