What does Acts 2:26 mean?
Peter is quoting David (Psalm 16:8–11) to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah that God promised the Jews. Peter identifies the passage as David talking to God about Jesus (Acts 2:25). David identified his "Lord"—the person he, himself, submitted to—as the one who would be raised from the dead (Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27).Acts 2:25–28 is in the form of a chiasm. In this poetic form, ideas are mirrored around a central theme. This verse continues the idea found in Acts 2:25 which speaks of the security and joy found when we keep God before us. That thought is mirrored in Acts 2:28. Here, Peter speaks about having hope for eternity, as does Acts 2:28. Acts 2:27 shows that the reason we can have hope for eternity and why we can be sure our Lord will always be present is because of Jesus' resurrection.
David was an emotional, expressive man. Praises flowed out of him easily. When he thought of the strength and authority of his Lord and how his Lord was always with him and for him, his heart became happy, or merry. He couldn't help but to verbally express his delight. In Psalm 16:9, his "whole being rejoices." This brings to mind the day David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem: "And David danced before the LORD with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod" (2 Samuel 6:14). David was so happy he danced in the streets.
In Psalm 16, quoted here in Acts 2:26, David went on to say that his physical body would live in an expectation that good would happen. David's psalms are often about literal circumstances, real physical pain, and the fear of death. Psalm 16 has a more eternal feel. He compared himself, who was content with what God gave him (Psalm 16:5–6), with those who ran after idols (Psalm 16:4). It would be natural to think that David felt his "flesh" was secure because God had rescued and protected him so many times. But here, his assurance of life wasn't based on past rescues but on the belief that God would give life and victory his Lord. That suggests David spoke of an eternal meaning of "life" in Psalm 16:11 (Acts 2:30–31).
