The Humble Shall Hear Of It - Psalm 34:2b

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

The heart of David is one of the great example in the Bible of one who, though making terrible mistakes, sinful mistakes to be sure, still maintained a heart for the Lord that drove him to see the need for repentance and holiness. Often David would fall down and do very foolish, wicked things. But then God would show him how stupid his behavior was and he would repent and turn around and head back in the right direction.

The beauty of this and the example for us is that he was completely transparent in all this. There is no trying to hid anything from the Lord or from us. Once he realizes his sin, it comes out in the open, he repents and his heart breaks and forsakes it.

This Psalm is given over just such an incident, occurring in Gath when he fled from Saul in 1 Samuel 21:

10 Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying:

     ‘Saul has slain his thousands,
     And David his ten thousands’?”

12 Now David took these words to heart, and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva fall down on his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why have you brought him to me? 15 Have I need of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?” (1 Sam. 21:10-15)

David, afraid of Saul, flees to Gath, becomes afraid of Achish (Abimelech) and so feigns madness. This great man of war crawls around, and acts like a crazy person lest Achish kill him (as Saul would have, or so he feared). All of this because he had lost his perspective on who God was and thus had lost faith in God’s Person and willingness to protect him.

He flees to the Cave at Adullam (1 Samuel 22) and there gathers men to himself and his fame grows as well as his faith is restored and he writes this Psalm.

Praise In the Midst of Helplessness

One of the themes of this Psalm is that praise, even in the midst of helplessness. David saw himself as helpless to defend himself against Saul. Saul was God’s anointed King over Israel and thus he was untouchable. He was in a place where David could not strike against him. In fact, David had no desire to strike against him for that very reason. He understood that God had established Saul as Kind and that was fine with David.

But David knew that Saul sought his life and the two things, Saul unreasonableness and his absolute power made his situation untenable. What he forgot what that God was also in the mix and that He was a power stronger that Saul. For some brief period of time, David saw with earthly eyes and saw no way out but to run, and so he fled to Gath.

We do that as well. We do not allow for God to enter a situation and alter the mix from “the hills”. In Psalm 121:1 David says:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

He is, of course, using the physical hills around about as a figure for the heavens and our Lord. The “Lifting of the eyes” likewise is a figure for prayer and together they make a remarkable wonderful picture of prayer and dependence on God for help and intercession in our affairs.

I am certain that the affair in 1 Samuel 21 was not the only lesson that taught David this truth, but it surely was one schoolroom where he learned it! The sooner we learn that we are helpless and need the help of God to accomplish what He has sent us to do, the better off we will be!