Restores My Soul

Historical Context

The heading on this psalm ties it to one of the strangest episodes in David’s life. Israel’s future king, still a young man, was running from King Saul, who wanted him dead. No town in his own country was safe for long, so David crossed the border into Gath, a Philistine city and the home ground of the very people he had fought. He was recognized almost at once. Servants of the city’s king, called Achish in the story and Abimelech in the psalm’s heading, reminded their master who this was, and David, the account says, was very much afraid. So he acted insane, and the display was degrading enough that the king, disgusted, wanted the madman out of his court and sent him away. The stunt worked, and he escaped.

This psalm reads as the song of a man on the other side of that escape. He had been hunted at home and cornered abroad, with nothing left but fear and one desperate act. He came out alive, and the psalm he left behind gives credit to God, not to the act. Most of the psalm is thanksgiving, and it claims that he cried out in that fear and God answered him.

Reflection

Taste is an invitation to try something for yourself. Nobody can taste on your behalf. A friend can describe a meal to you all evening, and you will still know nothing about it until it is on your own tongue.

That is the offer this psalm makes: try him for yourself. Bring God one real fear, one actual week, and see what he does with it. Trust that comes from a real test tends to hold better than trust you were simply handed. David tasted it first, in real danger, and the invitation he sings is for anyone who comes after him.