Sermon Tone Analysis

Psalm 34:1-22 (NIV) \\ \\

*Psalm 34*a* *

Of David.

When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.

1 I will extol the Lord at all times;

his praise will always be on my lips.

2 My soul will boast in the Lord;

let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3 Glorify the Lord with me;

let us exalt his name together.

*4 **I sought the Lord, and he answered me; *

*he delivered me from all my fears.

*

5 Those who look to him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame.

6 This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;

he saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,

and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

9 Fear the Lord, you his saints,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

11 Come, my children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

12 Whoever of you loves life

and desires to see many good days,

13 keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from speaking lies.

14 Turn from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous

and his ears are attentive to 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 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;

he delivers them from all their troubles.

18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 A righteous man may have many troubles,

but the Lord delivers him from them all;

20 he protects all his bones,

not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked;

the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

22 The Lord redeems his servants;

no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

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Psalm 34.

The Goodness of the Lord.

This song of praise is an acrostic, similar in structure to Psalm 25.

It is indeed striking that both psalms omit the letter /Waw/ and add an extra /Pe/ at the end.

In regard to content, both are songs of thanksgiving, similar in thought to the book of Proverbs.

1-3.

His Invitation to Praise.

*O magnify the Lord with me.*

The resolution to praise God continually is the basis for seeking others to magnify and exalt the Lord.

This invitation is directed toward those who are humble and teachable.

4-6.

His Testimony of Deliverance.

*I sought ... he heard ... and delivered.*

Out of his firsthand experience, the psalmist illustrates the basis for this sincere praise.

Following the LXX and various manuscripts and versions, verse 5 would be better translated, *Look upon me and be lightened, and your faces will not be ashamed.*

7-10.

His Assurance of Blessing.

*O taste and see.*

The only way that others can know the blessings is by putting God to the test.

The psalmist says, “Try him and see.”

The true blessings come only to those who *trust, fear,* and *seek* the Lord.

11-22.

His Lesson for Disciples.

*Come, ye children ... I will teach you.*

His experiential knowledge has given him the right to teach others.

Those addressed as children are again the humble and teachable disciples of any age.

The style is the didactic question and answer method of the wise men.

The theme is retribution as interpreted by orthodox Judaism.

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PSALM 34

This psalm was penned upon a particular occasion, as appears by the title, and yet there is little in it peculiar to that occasion, but that which is general, both by way of thanksgiving to God an instruction to us.

I.

He praises God for the experience which he and others had had of his goodness (v.

1-6).

II.

He encourages all good people to trust in God and to seek to him (v.

7–10).

III.

He gives good counsel to us all, as unto children, to take heed of sin, and to make conscience of our duty both to God and man (v.

11–14).

IV.

To enforce this good counsel he shows God’s favour to the righteous and his displeasure against the wicked, in which he sets before us good and evil, the blessing and the curse (v.

15–22).

So that, in singing this psalm, we are both to give glory to God and to teach and admonish ourselves and one another.

A psalm of David when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.

*Verses 1-10*

The title of this psalm tells us both who penned it and upon what occasion it was penned.

David, being forced to flee from his country, which was made too hot for him by the rage of Saul, sought shelter as near it as he could, in the land of the Philistines.

There it was soon discovered who he was, and he was brought before the king, who, in the narrative, is called /Achish/ (his proper name), here /Abimelech/ (his title); and lest he should be treated as a spy, or one that came thither upon design, he feigned himself to be a madman (such there have been in every age, that even by idiots men might be taught to give God thanks for the use of their reason), that Achish might dismiss him as a contemptible man, rather than take cognizance of him as a dangerous man.

And it had the effect he desired; by this stratagem he escaped the hand that otherwise would have handled him roughly.

Now, 1.

We cannot justify David in this dissimulation.

It ill became an honest man to feign himself to be what he was not, and a man of honour to feign himself to be a fool and a mad-man.

If, in sport, we mimic those who have not so good an understanding as we think we have, we forget that God might have made their case ours.

2. Yet we cannot but wonder at the composure of his spirit, and how far he was from any change of that, when he changed his behaviour.

Even when he was in that fright, or rather in that danger only, his heart was so fixed, trusting in God, that even then he penned this excellent psalm, which has as much in it of the marks of a calm sedate spirit as any psalm in all the book; and there is something curious too in the composition, for it is what is called an alphabetical psalm, that is, a psalm in which every verse begins with each letter in its order as it stands in the Hebrew alphabet.

Happy are those who can thus keep their temper, and keep their graces in exercise, even when they are tempted to change their behaviour.

In this former part of the psalm,

I. David engages and excites himself to praise God.

Though it was his fault that he changed his behaviour, yet it was God’s mercy that he escaped, and the mercy was so much the greater in that God did not deal with him according to the desert of his dissimulation, and we must in every thing give thanks.

He resolves, 1.