Psalms of David
Psalms in Book 1 (Psalms 1 to 41) are primarily personal songs, so I will look at how they apply to us personally. Social and communal aspects of life and work do not come in until the later books of Psalms.
David was in a pickle. This has got nothing to do with paranoia, Saul, the king, really was out to get him. So David went to where God’s tent was (there was no temple yet). The situation was anything but good. If you look at the story in 1 Samuel chapters 21 and 22 you would expect a psalm commemorating this event to be a lament or even an angry rant. Instead, we have a song of deliverance.
The books of Psalms are roughly themed like this:
Book 1: Psalms 1 – 41: God is beside us.
Book 2: Psalms 42 – 72: God goes before us
Book 3: Psalms 73 – 89: God is all around us.
Book 4: Psalms 90 – 106: God is above us.
Book 5: Psalms 107 – 150: God is among us.
Of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.
34 I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.7 The angel of the Lord encamps
round those who fear him, and delivers them.8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!10 The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.11 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.12 What man is there who desires life
Psalm 34 ESVUK
and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Turn away from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the Lord are towards the righteous
and his ears towards their cry.
16 The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The Lord is near to the broken-hearted
and saves the crushed in spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
21 Affliction will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
The story so far:
David is fleeing for his life from King Saul, who is jealous of David’s greater military victories than his own and also wants to protect the crown, as David has been anointed as the next king. David visits a frequent helper, Abimelech, a priest at the Tabernacle of God, but Doeg the Edomite. a foreign mercenary in Saul’s army is there and takes the news of David’s whereabouts back to Saul. David and his men escape, but when Saul visits Abimelech he orders his men to kill Abimelech, and when his Jewish army refuses to carry out the order to kill the priest he gives the task to Doeg. Doeg and his foreign mercenaries murder all 85 priests at the Tabernacle and carried the massacre into Nob, the city of the priests, killing man and woman, child and baby, ox, donkey and sheep-anyone and anything he can find. David expresses his grief
There is another psalm on this subject, Psalm 52 which has a title, “To the choirmaster. A Maskil[a] of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”
That’s the background to the Psalm and the reason I think anger would be a relevant response, and it is in Psalm 52, but here is a song of praise and deliverance of David. The two Psalms are divided because of their subject matter, the Psalms in Book 1 here are personal in tone, in contrast to the majority of songs in the rest of the Psalter.
Psalm 34 is an acrostic poem, with each verse starting with subsequent letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Within that framework, the first half forms a chiasmus. The phrase in the introduction, “And he went away,” looks Grammatically odd. That is because the Hebrew word halak is used here and in verse 11, where it says “come” in English. Halak is a word that means both come and go, depending on context. That is the first part of the chiasmus and also its end.
The second section is about seeking God, “I sought the Lord,” says verse 4, “those who seek the Lord lack no good thing,” says verse 10. But there is another repeated theme here, the Lord’s deliverance, which is also in verse 4 and repeated in verse 19, giving the whole song a circular structure.
But the keys to understanding Biblical chiasmus is in the middle section, or in the repetition of the first section and in Psalm 34 both of them are important. “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” says verse 8, and “ Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” says verse 11. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Don’t just listen to sermons and read blogs, try God for yourself. That is what it is all about here, you can have a personal relationship with God who is beside us and protects us, that is the overall message of the first book of Psalms, numbers 3 to 41.
Saint Paul’s conclusion of his long outline of how to be a Christian comes in chapter 8 verse 1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and it is here in the conclusion of this psalm, “those who hate the righteous will be condemned, those who take refuge in the Lord will not be condemned.”
I am not shoehorning Jesus into this Psalm. A lot of the psalms in this section are Messianic and point forward to Jesus. John’s gospel uses verse 20 of this Psalm, “ He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” to point to Jesus who’s legs were not broken on the cross. (See John 19:36).
David is singing a song about how what looked like a defeat was his own saving. The song points forward to Jesus through whose death we can all be saved.
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Making an ass of myself 