“I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.”
— Psalm 34:1–3
The context of this Psalm is 1 Samuel 21, and it is so noteworthy.
David was running from Saul and went to Gath. That alone was an unusual place for him to seek refuge. Gath was Philistine territory, and it was the hometown of Goliath, whom David had killed. David arrived carrying Goliath’s sword.
It did not take long for people to recognize him.
The servants of Achish remembered the song that had been sung about David:
“Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”
Suddenly David realized how dangerous his situation had become.
First Samuel tells us that he “was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath.” David responded by changing his behaviour before them. He pretended to be insane, scratched on the doors of the gate and let saliva run down his beard. Achish eventually dismissed him as a madman, and David escaped.
That is the setting behind:
“I will bless the LORD at all times.”
It is worth remembering, because without the background we can easily turn Psalm 34:1 into a pleasant slogan about praising God. David was writing after fear, danger and humiliation. His circumstances had exposed his vulnerability.
Yet when he looked back, the person he wanted to talk about was the Lord.
“I Will Bless the Lord”
David begins with a decision:
“I will bless the LORD at all times.”
To bless the Lord is to speak well of Him, to praise Him and acknowledge who He is. David had plenty to say about what had happened in Gath, but the centre of his testimony was not his escape plan. It was God.
That becomes even clearer as the Psalm continues. In verse 4 he says:
“I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”
David had been afraid. Scripture does not hide that.
This is one of the things I love about the Psalms. They do not give us polished portraits of people who never struggled. David could speak boldly about trusting God and still experience moments of intense fear. He knew victory over Goliath, but he also knew what it was like to run for his life.
His praise in Psalm 34 therefore does not come from a man who had mastered every circumstance. It comes from someone who had discovered the faithfulness of God in the middle of his weakness.
There is something deeply comforting about that.
Sometimes we imagine that strong faith means reaching a point where trouble no longer affects us very much. Then fear comes, or discouragement, uncertainty, disappointment or exhaustion, and we begin questioning ourselves.
David gives us a more truthful picture.
He was afraid and cried to God.
God heard him.
And afterward David praised Him.
“At All Times”
The words that stand out are “at all times.”
It is easy to bless God when the story is moving in the direction we hoped. David knew those moments. He had experienced extraordinary victories. As a young man he had stood before Goliath when an entire army was afraid to move. He had seen God give him a remarkable victory.
But Gath was different.
There was no triumphant David standing over a fallen giant. This time David was the frightened man trying to survive.
The God of David’s victory over Goliath was still the God of David’s fear in Gath.
That is an important lesson.
We are often tempted to judge God’s goodness by the particular season we are passing through. When prayers are answered quickly and circumstances fall into place, speaking about His faithfulness comes easily. During seasons of uncertainty, His goodness can suddenly seem less obvious.
David refuses to let his circumstances define God.
His praise would “continually” be in his mouth because the character of God had not changed.
For us, there is an even greater reason for that confidence. We have seen something David had not yet seen: the cross of Jesus Christ.
If we ever wonder what God’s heart toward us is like, we do not have to decipher it from the events of the week. We can look at Christ.
Paul writes:
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all…”
— Romans 8:32
There will be days when we understand what God is doing and days when we do not. His love for us does not have to be reconstructed every morning from our circumstances. It has already been demonstrated in Christ.
That gives praise a much deeper foundation.
“My Soul Shall Make Her Boast in the Lord”
David continues:
“My soul shall make her boast in the LORD.”
David had accomplishments worth boasting about.
He had killed a lion and a bear. He had defeated Goliath. He had become a successful warrior. Israel knew his name well enough to sing about his victories.
But Psalm 34 is not David celebrating David.
His boast is in the Lord.
The idea appears repeatedly in the New Testament. Paul quotes Jeremiah when he writes:
“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
— 1 Corinthians 1:31
This is particularly significant in the light of the gospel.
Christianity leaves us very little room for boasting in ourselves. Everything at the heart of our salvation is something Christ has done for us.
We did not redeem ourselves.
And we did not reconcile ourselves to God.
Also we did not earn forgiveness.
And certainly did not manufacture righteousness through sufficiently good behaviour.
Christ became our righteousness.
He bore our sin, and accomplished our redemption.
Christ opened the way to the Father.
Paul asks the Corinthians, “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” That question dismantles spiritual pride rather quickly.
Even our standing before God is received as a gift.
Once we understand grace, boasting in ourselves begins to look rather strange. If everything rests upon Christ, then He gets the glory.
David could look back at Gath and say, “The Lord delivered me.”
We can look at the cross and say something even greater:
“The Lord redeemed me.”
The Humble Hear and Are Glad
David then says:
“The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.”
There is something about the testimony of grace that particularly encourages the humble.
The self-sufficient person wants to hear about achievement. Tell me what you accomplished. Tell me how disciplined you were. Give me the method so that I can reproduce the result.
The humble person knows his need.
David’s testimony gives hope to that person because David is not presenting himself as the hero of the story.
Later in the Psalm he describes himself simply as:
“This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him.”
That is the testimony of someone who knows where his help came from.
There are times when we need exactly that kind of testimony. We do not need another person telling us how impressive his faith was. We need to hear that somebody was frightened and God met him there. Somebody was overwhelmed and cried out. Somebody did not have everything together, yet discovered that the Lord was faithful.
The humble hear that and are glad because there is hope for people who come to God empty-handed.
The gospel carries the same good news.
Jesus did not come looking for people who had successfully made themselves righteous. He came for people who needed saving.
Grace is wonderful news to anyone who has stopped pretending otherwise.
“Magnify the Lord With Me”
David’s personal praise now becomes an invitation:
“O magnify the LORD with me.”
Of course, we cannot make God greater than He already is.
God does not become bigger because we praise Him.
To magnify the Lord is to recognize His greatness, to bring our attention back to who He actually is.
Our minds have an extraordinary ability to magnify other things.
A problem can occupy our thoughts from morning until night. One uncertain conversation can be replayed repeatedly. Something that might happen next month can rob us of peace today. Fear has a way of filling the horizon until very little else remains visible.
David knew what fear could do.
But after Gath, he wanted to talk about someone greater than Gath.
“Magnify the LORD with me.”
He is turning the attention of the congregation toward God.
There is wisdom in that.
This does not mean denying the seriousness of what we face. David was not pretending that Saul was harmless or that the Philistines posed no danger. Biblical faith does not require us to call painful things pleasant.
Rather, David was learning to see his troubles in relation to the greatness of God.
The problem was real.
God was greater.
“Let Us Exalt His Name Together”
There is also a beautiful movement from “I” to “we” in these three verses.
David begins:
“I will bless the LORD.”
Then:
“My soul shall make her boast in the LORD.”
Finally:
“O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.”
His private experience of God’s faithfulness becomes an invitation to corporate worship.
David does not want to keep the goodness of God to himself.
This is one of the beautiful purposes of Christian fellowship. We do not gather merely because each person has independently had a wonderful week. Sometimes one believer comes rejoicing while another arrives exhausted. One has just received an answer to prayer while another has been waiting for months. Someone may feel strong in faith while the person sitting beside him is struggling to hold on.
Then we exalt His name together.
We remind one another who God is.
There are days when another person’s testimony strengthens us. There are other days when ours may strengthen them.
The centre, however, remains the same.
Not us. Not our spiritual performance. Not our ability to maintain perfect faith through every circumstance.
The Lord.
The Man Who Was Afraid Became the Man Who Praised
There is something wonderfully human about the beginning of Psalm 34.
David had been afraid.
He had found himself in an embarrassing situation.
His life had not followed the path one might expect for God’s anointed future king.
Yet none of this prevented him from discovering the goodness of God.
Perhaps that is why his invitation carries so much weight.
He is not speaking about a God he knows only from comfortable circumstances. He has met God’s faithfulness in danger.
And David’s story points us toward something even greater.
We know God’s faithfulness through Jesus Christ.
When circumstances are confusing, the cross remains.
When emotions fluctuate, the cross remains.
When we are painfully aware of our weakness, Christ remains our righteousness.
When we cannot understand what God is doing, we can still know what He has already done.
So David’s invitation remains fitting:
“O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.”
There will always be plenty of things asking to be magnified in our minds.
Psalm 34 begins by directing our eyes elsewhere.
David had looked at his danger long enough.
Now he wanted to talk about the Lord.
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