Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 116:9

In the land of the living. These words admit of a threefold interpretation, being understood by some, especially for the land of Judea. By others, erroneously for the Jerusalem which is above. By the most, and most probably, for this habitable earth, the present world.

1. That exposition which Cajetan, Lorinus, with others, give of the words, would not be rejected, who conceive that by the land of the living David here meaneth Judea, in which, or rather over which being constituted king, he resolves to walk before God, and do him service. This is not improbably that "land of the living" in which the Psalmist when an exile "believed to see the goodness of the Lord"; this is certainly that "land of the living" wherein God promises to "set his glory"; nor was this title without just reason appropriated to that country. (a) Partly, because it was a "land" which afforded the most plentiful supports and comforts of natural life, in regard of the wholesomeness of the climate, the goodness of the soil, the overflowing of milk and honey, with other conveniences both for food and delight. (b) Chiefly, because it was the "land" in which the living God was worshipped, and where he vouchsafed to place his name; whereas the other parts of the world worshipped lifeless things, of which the Psalmist saith, "They have mouths, and speak not; eyes, and see not; ears, and hear not."

2. The land of the living is construed by the ancients to be that heavenly country, the place of the blessed. Indeed, this appellation does most fitly agree with heaven: this world is desertum mortuorum, a desert of dead, at least, dying men; that only is regio virorum, a region of living saints. "He who is our life" is in heaven, yea, "our life is hid with him in God, "and therefore we cannot be said to live till we come thither. In this sense no doubt that devout bishop and martyr, Babilas, used the words, who being condemned by Numerianus, the emperor, to an unjust death, a little before his execution repeated this and the two preceding verses, with a loud voice. Nor is it unfit for any dying saint to comfort himself with the like application of these words, and say in a confident hope of that blessed sight, I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

3. But doubtless the literal and proper meaning of these words is of David's abode in the world;during which time, wheresoever he should be, he would "walk before God"; for that seems to be the emphasis of the plural number, lands, according to the original. The world consists of many countries, several lands, and it is possible for men either by force, or unwillingly, to remove from one country to another: but a good man when he changeth his country, yet altereth not his religion, yea, wherever he is he resolves to serve his God. Nathaniel Hardy.