You made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
Parallel Translations
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You made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
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Thou hast shewed me the wayes of lyfe and shalt make me full of ioye with thy countenaunce.
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Thou hast shewed me the waies of life, and shalt make me full of ioy with thy countenance.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to Acts 2:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 16:11 You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forever more.
- Psalms 21:6 For you make him most blessed forever. You make him glad with joy in your presence.
- Psalms 25:4 Show me your ways, Yahweh. Teach me your paths.
- Psalms 42:5 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.
- Psalms 17:15 As for me, I shall see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with seeing your form.
- Proverbs 2:19 None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life.
- John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
- Proverbs 8:20 I walk in the way of righteousness, in the middle of the paths of justice,
- Psalms 21:4 He asked life of you and you gave it to him, even length of days forever and ever.
- Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
- Psalms 4:6-7 Many say, “Who will show us any good?” Yahweh, let the light of your face shine on us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than when their grain and their new wine are increased.
- John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 28. Thou hast made known. He meaneth, that he…
28. Thou hast made known. He meaneth, that he was restored from death to life by the grace of God. For in that he was, as it were, a man raised from death to life, he acknowledgeth that it was a great good gift of God. This was in such sort fulfilled in Christ, that there wanted nothing unto perfection. As for the members they have their measure. Therefore Christ was far from corruption, that he may be the first-fruits of those which rise from death, (1 Corinthians 15:23.) We shall follow him in our order at length, but being first turned into dust, (1 Corinthians 15:42.) That which followeth, that he was filled with gladness, with the countenance of God, agreeth with that: Show us thy face, and we shall be safe. And, again, The light of thy countenance is showed upon us: thou hast put gladness in my heart. For it is only the pleasantness of God’s countenance, which doth not only make us glad, but also quickens us; again, when the same is turned away, or troubled, we must needs faint.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Thou hast opened me the way to the true…
Thou hast opened me the way to the true life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 28 Thou hast made known to me the ways…
28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Ver. 28. Thou hast made known] i.e. Thou givest me experience, or thou hast made me partaker of.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Thou hast made known to me; God is frequently…
Thou hast made known to me; God is frequently said to make those mercies known to us which he bestows upon us.
The ways of life; of a true life, which is life indeed. David in these words celebrates God’s delivering of him from his grievous afflictions and exile; in which he was looked upon by others, and by himself, as a dead man, yet was brought again to see the temple, and enjoy the ordinances of God, without which his life was as no life unto him. So our Saviour, after his death and passion, arose, and ascended into heaven, and lives for ever to make intercession for us.
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With thy countenance; that is, with thy presence, or manifestation of thy love and favour.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Thou hast made known to me the ways of…
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life,.... That is, thou hast raised me from the dead. When God raised Christ from the dead, he showed him, or made him to know experimentally the way of life, or the way of the resurrection from death to life; and this path of life, or of the resurrection to an immortal and eternal life, was first shown to Christ, who is the first fruits of them that slept, and the first begotten from the dead,
Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance; or glorious presence, in which is fulness of joy; which Christ, as man, is in, and fully possessed of, being exalted at the right hand of God, and crowned with glory and honour, and has all the joy that was set before him in his sufferings and death.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Thou hast made known to me the ways of…
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life - That is, Thou hast raised me from the dead. Thou wilt fill me with joy by thy countenance - When I ascend to thy right hand.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 28. Thou hast made known to me the…
Verse 28. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life] That is, the way from the region of death, or state of the dead and separate spirits; so that I shall resume the same body, and live the same kind of life, as I had before I gave up my life for the sin of the world.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Thou hast made known ... - The Hebrew is,…
Thou hast made known ... - The Hebrew is, “Thou wilt make known to me,” etc. In relation to the Messiah, it means, Thou wilt restore me to life.
The ways of life - This properly means the path to life; as we say, the road to preferment or honor; the path to happiness; the highway to ruin, etc. See Pro 7:26-27. It means, thou wilt make known to me life itself, that is, thou wilt restore me to life. The expressions in the Psalm are capable of this interpretation without doing any violence to the text; and if the preceding verses refer to the death and burial of the Messiah, then the natural and proper meaning of this is, that he would be restored to life again.
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Thou shalt make me full of joy - This expresses the feelings of the Messiah in view of the favor that would thus be showed him; the resurrection from the dead, and the elevation to the right hand of God. It was this which is represented as sustaining him the prospect of the joy that was before him, in heaven, Heb 12:2; Eph 1:20-22.
With thy countenance - Literally, “with thy face,” that is, in thy presence. The words “countenance” and “presence” mean the same thing, and denote “favor,” or the “honor and happiness” provided by being admitted to the presence of God. The prospect of the honor that would be bestowed on the Messiah was what sustained him. And this proves that the person contemplated in the Psalm expected to be raised from the dead, and exalted to the presence of God. That expectation is now fulfilled, and the Messiah is now filled with joy in his exaltation to the throne of the universe. He has “ascended to his Father and our Father”; he is “seated at the right hand of God”; he has entered on that “joy which was set before him”; he is “crowned with glory and honor”; and “all things are put under his feet.” In view of this, we may remark:
That the Messiah had full and confident expectation that he would rise from the dead. This the Lord Jesus always evinced, and often declared it to his disciples.
(2)If the Saviour rejoiced in view of the glories before him, we should also. We should anticipate with joy an everlasting dwelling in the presence of God, and the high honor of sitting “with him on his throne, as he overcame, and is set down with the Father on his throne.”
(3)The prospect of this should sustain us, as it did him, in the midst of persecution, calamity, and trials. Thy will soon be ended; and if we are his friends, we shall “overcome,” as he did, and be admitted to “the fulness of joy” above, and to the “right hand” of God, “where are pleasures forevermore.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Thou hast made known to me the ways of…
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life--that is, resurrection-life.
thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance--that is, in glory; as is plain from the whole connection and the actual words of the sixteenth Psalm.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 28. Ways of life—In the Hebrew, the way of…
28. Ways of life—In the Hebrew, the way of life; signifying, as applied to the Messiah, his path through resurrection to life.
Thy countenance— After his ascension to God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 28. thou shalt make me full of joy with…
28. thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance] Thus the LXX. paraphrases the Hebrew, which gives “in thy presence is fulness of joy.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (28) Thou hast made known to me the ways…
(28) Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.—The Apostle does not interpret these words, but we can hardly err in thinking that he would have looked on them also as fulfilled in Christ’s humanity, To Him also the ways of life had been made known, and so even in Hades He was filled with joy (better, perhaps, gladness, as in Act_14:17), as being in the Paradise of God (Luk_23:43).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Madest for hast made, A.V.; unto for to, A.V.;…
Madest for hast made, A.V.; unto for to, A.V.; gladness for joy, A.V.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain See notes on verse 25
See notes on verse 25
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.