Psalm 34: When David Pretended to Be Crazy

Rev. Tim Droegemueller, pastor of Living Faith Lutheran Church in Cumming, Georgia, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Psalm 34. Psalm 34 paints a beautiful image: “Those who look [to the LORD] are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.” And yet, this psalm is from when David “pretended to be insane in [the Gathites’] hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard” (1 Sam 21). Not exactly proud and radiant, right? David was desperate and “crushed in spirit,” and yet God saved him from an impossible situation. David praises God for it, saying that God is constantly present and ready to rescue His faithful. To highlight this constancy, David begins each of these 22 verses with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, all 22 letters in order. Along the way, we see our Lord Jesus, both prefigured as the “angel of the LORD” who saved David and also prophesied as “the righteous one” who was rescued from death in the resurrection on the third day.