Psalm 16/Notes/Grammar.v. 3.421084

• This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. See The Text and Grammar of Psalm16:3 for a detailed discussion of the issues. In short, we prefer to follow the reading of the Masoretic Text (cf. Barthélemy et al. 2005, 62–71), and we interpret it as follows: "They are on the side of (lit.: for) the holy ones who are in the earth, and [they are on the side of] the 'all-my-delight-is-in-them' mighty ones." Our interpretation involves the following claims:

1. The lamed prepositional phrase ("on the side of the holy ones," לִקְדוֹשִׁים) introduces the predicate complement of a verbless clause, with the pronoun "they" (הֵמָּה) as the subject (cf. Exod 32:26; Josh 5:13; Ps 120:7).
2. The words "holy ones" (קְדוֹשִׁים) and "mighty ones" (אַדִּירֵי) refer to divine beings, i.e., gods other than YHWH (see lexical note).
3. The relative clause "which are in the earth" (אֲשֶׁר־בָּאָרֶץ) identifies the "holy ones" as underworld deities (see lexical note). It also implies that these divine beings are lower than, or inferior to YHWH, who is in heaven (cf. v. 2: "there is no one above you").
4. The pronoun "they" (הֵמָּה) either refers to the psalmist's enemies, implied by his request for protection in v. 1, or it refers generically to "others" (cf. the plural demonstrative pronoun אֵלֶּה in Ps 20:8).
5. The phrase "all my delight is in them" (כָּל־חֶפְצִי־בָם) does not represent the psalmist's personal feelings towards the "mighty ones," but the general sentiment that other people have towards them. They are "the mighty ones, of whom people say: all my delight is in them" (Peels 2000, 247–248; cf. Ḥakham 1979, 68). The phrase חֶפְצִי־בָם might even be a fixed expression (cf. 2 Kgs 21:1; Isa 62:4; so Ridderbos 1972, 157).