For, if we can accept the titles of some of the Psalms, it would seem that the carnal spell, under which David had been for some time, burst when Achish drove him away, and that he returned to his early faith and trust. It was to the cave of Adullam that he fled, and the hundred and forty-second Psalm claims to have been written there. So also the thirty-fourth Psalm, as we have seen, bears to have been written “when he changed his behaviour” (feigned madness) “before Abimelech” (Achish?), “who drove him away, and he departed.” So much uncertainty has been thrown of late years on these superscriptions, that we dare not trust to them explicitly; yet recognising in them at least the value of old traditions, we may regard them as more or less probable, especially when they seem to agree with the substance of the Psalms themselves. With reference to the thirty-fourth, we miss something in the shape of confession of sin, such as we should have expected of one whose lips had not been kept from speaking guile. In other respects the psalm fits the situation. The image of the young lions roaring for their prey might very naturally be suggested by the wilderness. But the chief feature of the psalm is the delightful evidence it affords of the blessing that comes from trustful fellowship with God. And there is an expression that seems to imply that that blessing had not been always enjoyed by the Psalmist; he had lost it once; but there came a time when (ver. 4) “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” And the experience of that new time was so delightful that the Psalmist had resolved that he would always be on that tack: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” How changed the state of his spirit from the time when he feigned madness at Gath! When he asks, “What man is he that desireth life and loveth many days that he may see good?” (ver. 12)—what man would fain preserve his life from harassing anxiety and bewildering dangers?—the prompt reply is, “Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.” Have nothing to do with shifts and pretences and false devices; be candid and open, and commit all to God. “O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. O fear the Lord, ye His saints” (for you too are liable to forsake the true confidence), “for there is no want to them that fear Him. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.... Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth them out of them all.”
“The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful. The Lord preserveth the simple; I was brought low, and He helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee” (Psalm cxvi. 3–7).
FOOTNOTES:
[4] See 1 Sam. xxii. 15:—“Have I to-day begun to inquire of God for him? be it far from me: let not the king impute anything unto his servant, nor to all the house of my father; for thy servant knoweth nothing of all this, less or more” (R.V.) To deny beginning to do a thing is much the same as to deny doing it.
CHAPTER XXIX.
DAVID AT ADULLAM, MIZPEH, AND HARETH.
1 Samuel xxii.
The cave of Adullam, to which David fled on leaving Gath, has been placed in various localities even in modern times; but as the Palestine Exploration authorities have placed the town in the valley of Elah, we may regard it as settled that the cave lay there, not far indeed from the place where David had had his encounter with Goliath. It was a humble dwelling for a king’s son-in-law, nor could David have thought of needing it on the memorable day when he did such wonders with his sling and stone. These “dens and caves of the earth”—effects of great convulsions in some remote period of its history—what service have they often rendered to the hunted and oppressed! How many a devout saint, of whom the world was not worthy, has blessed God for their shelter! With how much purer devotion and loftier fellowship, with how much more sublime and noble exercises of the human spirit have many of them been associated, than some of the proudest and costliest temples that have been reared in name—often little more—to the service of God!