Psalm 34 is another psalm “of David”. This is very common in the first book. Since Psalm 33 was untitled, Psalm 34 returns us to the normal pattern for this book through its claim of Davidic authorship.
Psalm 34 is also unusual in that it gives us the specific historical situation when the psalm was composed. The only other psalms composed for specific situations are Psalm 3 which was composed when David was driven out by Absalom and in desperate need, Psalm 18 when David was saved from Saul’s threats, and Psalm 30 which was for the dedication of the temple.
The story of David and Achish is recorded in 1 Samuel 21, and it is a peculiar story to say the least. Before going into the details, I want to address one minor inconsistency. The title of this psalm says that David feigned madness before “Abimelech”, but 1 Samuel 21 names the king of Gath “Achish”. There are many possible explanations for this inconsistency; it’s possible that Abimelech is an alternative title, or Achish could also be a nickname. Either one of these names could be an abbreviation. Regardless of which explanation is correct, what we can say for sure is that both names refer to the same person and the same story.
It’s a strange story. This moment in 1 Samuel 21 comes right when David is driven away by Saul’s own madness and attempted murder. David fled to the king of Gath, and when he appeared before the king he was frightened by the king’s recognition. The king of Gath recalled David’s battle against Goliath, who was a Philistine hero. Since Gath is also part of the Philistine confederacy, David quite reasonably suspected that the king would see him as an enemy and kill him.
In this context, David decided to “act like a madman” (1 Sam 21:13) so that the king would not perceive him as a threat and let him go. It worked, but it’s hardly consistent with the faith and boldness that we normally associate with David. The hero of Israel, slayer of Goliath, acted like a madman to evade the threat of Achish/Abimelech. It really feels like an act of cowardice, and that makes this psalm even stranger.
The overall theme of this psalm, established in the first verse, is praise. David writes this psalm to praise God for his deliverance from Saul and from Achish. Even though David’s behavior was dubious, he nevertheless turns this moment into an opportunity for praise, showing that he ascribes his success and protection to the LORD.
It’s an interesting contrast. On the one hand, his behavior does not reflect faith or trust in God; on the other hand, praising God is itself an expression of faith. In a sense, this is an application of Psalm 33:16-19. In the same way that kings are not protected by the size of their armies, David is implying that he was not saved by his behavior, but rather his salvation came from the LORD. If David thought that his cunning or deceit was what saved his life, he would not thank God for saving him. The fact that David is crediting God for his deliverance (e.g. verse 4) means that David does not credit his own actions for protecting himself.
In my commentary on Psalm 31, I mentioned that the prayer psalm is an expression of faith. A standard prayer psalm has a problem statement, a petition for deliverance, and thanksgiving in anticipation of God’s response. A typical prayer psalm is written before salvation occurs, because the petition for deliverance only makes sense if the problem is still there. As such, the praise and thanksgiving in a prayer psalm is anticipatory; it looks forward to the moments after deliverance when praise becomes appropriate, and praises in expectation of that moment.
Psalm 34, in contrast, is clearly a praise psalm. This means that it is basically the third part of a prayer psalm, but extended to greater length. It is also no longer anticipatory; David has already been saved, and the problem has already been solved. I claim that Psalm 34 is still an expression of faith. Praising God in anticipation of deliverance is an expression of faith because it shows a belief that God’s deliverance is coming before the deliverance is ever visible or apparent to the ordinary human senses. Faith is virtually defined as a belief in the invisible and the unseen, and that belief is expressed through praise.
After deliverance has occurred, it is no longer possible to have “anticipation” of deliverance. However, as described above it is still possible to have faith through our belief that deliverance came from the LORD. There are some situations where belief in a “natural” deliverance is virtually impossible. Miracles like the division of the Red Sea or manna coming down from heaven leave no room for earthly, natural explanations with which we can steal God’s glory. However, in the same way that they have no natural explanation they also leave us no room for faith. Because deliverance from God is the only possibility when a clearly supernatural event occurs, it does not require the exercise of any faith to believe the supernatural in those cases.
Supernatural deliverance is remarkable when it occurs, but it robs us of the opportunity to exercise faith by our praise and worship. However, in the case of “natural deliverance”, faith becomes a choice. By natural deliverance, I mean instances when a supernatural origin for our deliverance is not obvious. To demonstrate my point, consider David’s victory over Goliath. Goliath’s defeat is not obviously supernatural; David cast a slingstone and struck Goliath in the head, killing him in one blow. A fortuitous shot, to be sure, but not necessarily supernatural in any way. Slings are incredibly deadly and a well-trained slinger could easily kill a man with a single stone and a lucky shot. They were a standard issue weapon for hundreds of years in ancient times, and it’s quite possible that their ubiquity and simplicity are the reasons that David used a sling at all.
In these cases, faith becomes a choice. We can either choose to believe that David was saved by the strength of his arm and the skill of his throw, or we can believe that he was saved by the strength of the LORD and the might of the LORD’s hand. One choice is a belief in ourselves, the other is a belief in God. To believe in God is to live by faith. To praise God is to believe in him, and thus it is also faith.
We can imagine any moment of praise to be an expression of faith for some particular deliverance. This psalm takes it even further: in verse 1, it tells us that the psalmist will continuously bless God, and will be praising him in every moment. This is a stunning claim. Rather than treating praise (and by extension, faith) as a momentary habit, David treats it as a lifelong expression of continuous adoration.
Many people view praise as a response to particular circumstances. Even people of great faith will praise God as a reaction to individual moments, as if they are living their lives traveling from one island of faith to another, through barren seas of normalcy. This is not the faith that David imagines.
Instead, David proclaims a faith that praises God continuously, because David believes that God is continuously saving and continuously delivering us. God’s intervention in our lives is not fragmentary; it is perpetual and ongoing, and our continual praise should be a reflection of God’s continual activity.
This is an amazing thing. Even though Psalm 34 was composed in response to a particular moment, David’s reflection is that praise (and by extension, God’s activity) should last forever.
The rest of the psalm is great, so I encourage reading and reflecting on all of it, but I’m only going to write about two other verses.
Verse 8 says that we should “taste and see that the LORD is good”. This is a fascinating verse because of the remarkable intimacy and immediacy that it assumes. I’ve been heavily emphasizing the faith in this psalm, how it is a belief in God, the spiritual realm, and things unseen. In spite of that, David tells us that not only should we see that the LORD is good, we can even taste it. Taste is one of the most intimate senses, and while it doesn’t directly say that we should taste the LORD, it does say that through what we taste we can arrive at the knowledge of God’s goodness. Many people draw a contrast between the immediacy and directness of sensual experience and the abstraction of spiritual experience; David defies this contrast by bringing sensual experience and spiritual experience together. We can taste and see the LORD’s goodness.
Through experience, we can come to know God’s nature and character. Through our experiences in daily life, we can come to know God more and more. Our knowledge of God does not have to be abstract or purely “spiritual”.
Finally, I want to briefly discuss verse 19. Verse 19, like the book of Job, challenges “conventional” wisdom that the righteous will never faces affliction. Job’s three friends had a belief that bad things would never happen to good people, and that Job’s suffering was positive proof that he had sinned in some way. In verse 19, we see that righteous people really do suffer afflictions, but that the power of God “delivers” them from what they have been suffering.
For example, think about the Israelites living in slavery in Egypt. They were living in terrible suffering for a long time, but when they cried out to the LORD, he sent Moses who brought ten plagues on Egypt and split the Red Sea so that they might escape to freedom in the promised land (eventually). Without going into all the details of that story, it is sufficient to show this as a model for how any righteous person might suffer for a time, but in the right moment the LORD breaks in and brings them to freedom.
Our challenge is to simply live by faith. We bring our struggles before the LORD, we petition him for deliverance, and we praise him both before and after we are freed from slavery and brought into the place that he has promised us. We praise him because we believe. We believe that God will set us free, and when we are freed we do not recant our belief and we continue to hold that God freed us rather than praise and glorify our own strength or wisdom. We always praise God because we hold by faith that God is always working in our lives in every moment.
Whether we are still in the midst of trials or whether we are living in freedom, God is working in our lives in every moment.
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