Psalm 34 in David’s Life

I think it’s easy to read the Bible as though written by the “Bible author” to you the “Bible reader.” We can flatten the text out and disregard the circumstances of life in which certain passages were written.

In many cases, we do not know when or where a passage was written. This is true as well for many of the psalms. But some psalms give us clues in the text or in the superscription. I think that Psalm 34 is not difficult to figure out and when considered in that light, new insights come forth.

The superscription of Psalm 34 is: “Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.” In one sense, this is pretty easy to understand, because you can flip over to 1 Samuel 21 and read the story of how David feigned insanity and thus was able to escape the clutches of the Philistine king.

If you read the superscription more carefully, however, I don’t think it suggests that this psalm was written while David was clawing the walls and drooling on his beard. The superscriptions says that David “left.” Thus it was written after David fled Gath. This makes a lot of sense when you read what occurred next in David’s life.

David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him. (1 Sam 22:1-2)

When you read this psalm as one written by David soon after he arrived in Adullam and was surrounded by a crowd of down-and-out renegades, verses just start ringing with fresh understanding.

The psalm begins with a call to join David in worship. He’s suggesting the men praise God with him. Verse 3 makes a nice inscription on the inside of one’s wedding band (“Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together”), and I wouldn’t have mine any other way, but David probably was addressing a crowd who was a bit more reticent.

I think we can see that in the next verse where David gives his own testimony: “I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.” David is telling the men that he’s been there, and he’s cried out to God, and the Lord has responded. These men can have the same experience. David was looking at a lot of downcast faces, with some probably facing mortgage foreclosure and possible slavery. He directs them to the Lord: “Those who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame.”

There is a better way, David knows. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” David is evangelizing, telling those around him about the pleasure of knowing God. I think the second half of that verse succinctly captures much of the essence of OT (and NT!) salvation: “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

There is a lot here and I’m not going to walk through all of it, but when you read the injunction to “keep your tongue from evil,” you might consider that David wrote this not for you but for some men who were living under a ruler worse than Obama. When he told them to “seek peace and pursue it,” he would show them what he meant when he had the opportunity to kill King Saul and did not.

If you need a psalm to study or memorize, I would recommend this one. It was written to be memorized (each verse begins with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet). Two items I want to think more about are in the final verses:

1. How does verse 20 relate to the Messiah? (“He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken”)

2. Does verse 21 help me to understand Daniel 11:40-45, where the Antichrist is attacked by the king of the north and the king of the south?

The psalm ends with the flip side of the heart of the gospel, a thought that is not new in Romans 8:1: No one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.