Psalm of Praise
While reading Psalm 34 today, it was hard to understand its context. This Psalm was written by King David after he pretended to be insane before his enemy Abimelech, and by doing so escaped what seemed like certain death.
The difficulty lies in the apparent conflict between the Psalm and the prior actions of the Psalmist. Verse 13:
bq. Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from speaking deceit.
Wait a second. Wasn’t David’s whole pretending to be insane part deceit in itself? I believe in the infaillibility of the Bible, but my own limited understanding, especially of the Old Testament, finds this conflict odd.
Anyone out there with a deeper insight?
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hi,
you might want to read this. quite a long article (and I've only read the intro) but it gives the background to the Psalm and a further reference to Psalm 56.
http://www.bible.org/docs/ot/books/psa/deffin/psa-05.htm#TopOfPage
speaking on a personal note.. this psalm was written after david pretended to be insane. if we refer to the incident itself in 1sam 21, we later see the consequences of david's lying in chapter 22:9-19. 85 priests died because of the lie. i feel that david wrote verse 13 as he saw the consequences of lying and hence warns others about it.
does it make sense? hmmz...