Psalm 34

The subtitle wasn’t part of the original psalm. And the possible byline “of David,” isn’t necessarily a byline. The vague phrase could mean the song was written by David, about David, or was inspired by David. Almost half of the psalms are attributed to David in this way, 73 of 150. Ancient Jewish history tells of David playing a lyre and writing songs. For one, he wrote a song of mourning at the battlefield death of King Saul and his sons: “How have the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19-27 New American Standard Bible). An ancient Jewish scroll from about the time of Jesus, discovered among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, reports that David wrote 3,600 songs.

Many Bible experts say this refers to a story in 1 Samuel 21, where the man seems to go by a different name: Achish, king of the Philistine city of Gath. David had fled from his fellow Israelite, King Saul, who wanted to kill him. Actually, Saul seemed the insane one. He became insanely jealous of David’s popularity. It’s hard to compete with a teenage giant killer.  David ended up on the run in Philistine territory, in the hometown of the giant he killed: Goliath. David feared the Philistine king would execute him. So David pretended to be crazy. The king essentially responded by telling the officials who arrested him, “Don’t I have enough crazy people around me already? Do I really need one more?” David was released to kill more Philistines. In time, as Israel’s king, he put them in their place by controlling their borders.