Yea, I Have a Goodly Heritage - I
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Psa 16:6).
A few weeks ago, I asked my daughter to create the cover design for this little book. She asked me what the title of the book was. I replied that the title was A Goodly Inheritance.
“Goodly? That’s not an English word!” she shot back. “You’re making things up! There is no such word in the English language.” My wife joined the fray, coming to my defense by reciting the verse above from memory, and reminiscing about one of our fellow leaders in the Kwara Brethren ministry in Nigeria in the eighties who loved to quote this passage during our all-night prayer meetings.
My daughter heard all these, but since she’s not of the “King James Version” generation, she was hardly persuaded.
Are you, my reader, familiar with this word, “goodly,” used in the verse of Scripture quoted above? I always thought I was, until I recently took a closer look at the phrase “goodly inheritance” that the Psalmist used in this verse. I had read this verse many times, memorized it, quoted it many times, and always thought I understood the meaning of the verse. But as I discovered while preparing for this year’s Believers’ Prayer Conference, I only had a cursory understanding of the passage. I had quoted this verse of Scripture so often in sermons, in Bible studies, and in praying over the past thirty-three years and had become so familiar with it that the thorough revelation of its meaning was veiled from my eyes.
Familiarity, most of the time, does prevent us from having an in-depth understanding or appreciation of very important subjects. It makes us think we’ve got everything down concerning that someone or something, while indeed we only have a glancing knowledge of the subject matter. Only when the Spirit of God causes us to stop and ponder on the plain truth that has been right before our eyes all along can we see the wondrous things hidden for us in His words.
Yes, our inheritance is good, and the Scriptures would have stopped at saying “good inheritance” if that were all God wanted to say. But God says we have a “goodly inheritance.” There’s no doubt that many of my brethren and those of you reading understand the full meaning of this phrase, but I did not. I used it, and was excited and energized when I heard others quote the verse in spirit-filled atmospheres, but didn’t quite get the full import of it.
It was not until recently, when the brethren planning the Believers’ Prayer Conference in Nigeria informed me that the theme this year would be “Possessing Our Inheritance,” and I started prayerfully meditating on these “well-known” verses, that I got a little understanding of what this verse is saying. I realized, as if the word “goodly” had just been invented an hour before my study, that God is saying I have been born into a “goodly heritage” and not just into a “good” one. 
Yes, a good inheritance given to us, by God’s definition of good, would have been more than good enough, but a “goodly inheritance” is even better.
Okay, let’s not give it away yet. Let’s return to the source passage in the Book of Psalms and quote this in context. In the sixteenth chapter, starting with the fifth verse, the Psalmist writes:
“The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (Psa 16:5,6).
This passage begins with the Psalmist affirming that the Lord is his inheritance. He says the Lord is the portion of his inheritance. But as we have discovered, this is not just true for this Psalmist, but also true for every member of the royal priesthood. The Psalmist was just echoing what was already declared in the Scriptures concerning the priesthood: the Lord is our portion.
When God was instructing Moses in how the land was to be divided among the people of Israel, he told him that the Levites were to have no apportionment in the land: he, the Lord, was their portion. In Deuteronomy we read:
“The priests, the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and his inheritance.
“Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the LORD is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them” (Deu 18: 1,2).
And the prophet Jeremiah declared this same truth in the fifty-first chapter of his prophecy, saying, “The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name” (Jer 51:19). The Lord of hosts is the portion of Jacob, and Israel is the rod of His inheritance.
I Have a Goodly Heritage
But as we discover in another translation of the Bible, this passage is saying much more than we seem to understand from reading only the King James version. It says not only that the Lord is our portion, but that the Lord is the one that assigns a portion to each of us, and also maintains the portions He assigns to us. This means that the Lord Himself is the custodian who makes sure that the portions and inheritances assigned to you and to me are maintained and secured for each of us. No one can steal your portion from you. No one can surreptitiously move the line or the landmark that delineates the boundary of your inheritance, because the Lord Himself maintains your lot.
In the Old Testament, when God was instructing the children of Israel concerning their inheritance in the land of Canaan, He gave them laws to govern them and to maintain the boundaries of the lots each of their families would receive. They were to set landmarks to delineate the plot belonging to each family, and no one was to move these ancient landmarks. He knew the rich might be tempted to cheat the poor and the strong might try to cheat the weak out of their inheritance by moving the lines and altering the landmarks. So he put the law in place in Deuteronomy, saying:
“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it” (Deu 19:14).
In subsequent passages in Deuteronomy, before the death of Moses, there was a reenactment of the Law when Moses gathered all the people and reminded them of all the Lord had said over the past thirty-something years. During this final charge, Moses instructed the people on what they must do and the priests on what they must remind the people of once they crossed over to the land of their inheritance. One of the things he instructed the priests to remind the people of was God’s law pertaining to their apportionment in the land. The priests were to pronounce a curse on any cheat who dared move the landmark of their neighbor’s inheritance, and all the people were to say amen to the curses. A few of these serious pronouncements made in the twenty-seventh chapter of the book of Deuteronomy are:
“And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice,
“Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
“Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
“Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.
“Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. And all the people shall say, Amen.
“ Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen” (Deu 27:14-19).
The instruction was that the priests were to say this aloud for everyone to hear when they got to the land of Canaan, and the people were to respond in unison by saying, “Amen. “ This message was also echoed in the book of Proverbs:
“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless” (Pro 22:28, 23:10).
If the inheritance given to someone in one of the twelve tribes of Israel did not look as good as his neighbor’s, he might have been tempted to shift the lines and adjust the landmark, but God gave them this stern instruction against it. Though they were dividing and receiving portions in the land of Canaan, the land that flowed with milk and honey, the inheritance received by some might not have been completely satisfactory to them. Some might be covetous and thus be tempted to seize or gradually encroach on their neighbors’ portions by moving the lines. The strong might take advantage of the weak in this way.
Now let’s return to the passage in the Book of Psalms. The picture the Holy Ghost is trying to paint in our hearts in this sixteenth chapter of Psalms is this: Let’s consider the man speaking in this passage (Psa 16:6) as arriving at the place of his inheritance. As he looks to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west of the portion assigned him, he sees an extraordinarily fertile land, one that indeed flows with milk and honey. He sees green, plush, fruitful vegetation everywhere, a well-watered garden as if irrigated by the river of God, teeming with life and with the highest grade of fruits, like the grapes of Eshcol that the spies brought back. He sees all this within his apportioned territory, and is amazed with divine satisfaction, because the portion assigned him is beyond his expectation. He has received more than he could have asked for. He looks at the lines marking the beginning of his inheritance and is completely satisfied because the lines have captured all that his heart desires and more. He keeps walking, looking north, south, east, and west like Abraham, and does not seem to be able to see the end of his inheritance.
And so, with excitement and utmost satisfaction, he declares, “The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly inheritance.”
