It seems rather obvious from David’s choice of words that he wrote this rather late in his reign. On the other hand, he hardly offers any clues to the experience that provoked this soulful song.
Ever the proper feudal servant of God, David observes protocol in first declaring that he has always taken refuge in God. This is the God who is entirely able to see to it David has no reason to regret that trust. Let the Lord continue acting according to His own character in redeeming those who call on His name. God is like a mighty fortress and His revealed Word has the power to save. David can’t remember a time when he did not trust God. This is the same God who breathed David’s first breath of life into his body.
David’s life was legendary before he even got old, and he was aware of the adulation that often came with just being a man who walked in the power of the Lord. So David makes a point of passing the glory to the One who made his life possible. Let them praise the God of David more than David, as David himself intends to do.
And as his flesh begins to fail him due to aging, God is all the strength he needs. Even now David cannot simply grow old and die in peace, because the same plotting and scheming that followed him his whole life has not given up on taking him down. Let them know that God has not deserted David. May He shame them for His own name’s sake.
For David has never been disappointed with God’s plans for him. So David commits his last few remaining days and the breath yet in him to praising and glorifying God. From his youth to his current gray-headed age, David always felt the task of praise and thanks was as yet unfinished. He goes off on a lilting time of worship, declaring how God has always covered him from harm and carried him through every sorrow. David urges his stiffening hands to play the harp in praise yet one more time. He urges his voice to bear the load of divine glory again. The days are not long enough to complete his sense of duty to God’s praise.
Hi Ed,
Stopped in and saw your latest post a-la psalm 71…found this interesting:
“So David commits his last few remaining days and the breath yet in him to praising and glorifying God. From his youth to his current gray-headed age, David always felt the task of praise and thanks was as yet unfinished.”
Ahh..I get the text as follows–71:18 “Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.”
So, I don’t think David wrote that psalm when he was old. BUT, when he WAS old, he said this:
1Kings 2 “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;… Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. Do therefore according to thy wisdom, AND LET NOT HIS HOAR (GREY) HEAD GO DOWN TO THE GRAVE IN PEACE…. but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave WITH BLOOD”
Wow. So much for praise.
David was called a “bloody man” in the scriptures. And all those who enter in to the kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus, will be GREATER than David (Matt 11:11). This is because they will all be followers of the Prince of PEACE, Whom David was not (as He knew not of Jesus). Christ’s followers, thus–those who will ‘enter in to the kingdom’–will be “peace makers”. King David will have to repent first. 🙂
Since death is “peace”, even for the wicked–according to David–and he still HATED his enemies even up to the time of his death (what was it Jesus would eventually teach his followers?… Matt 5:43-48), David obviously wanted quite the opposite…His dying wish to his son was, ‘This is my last chance to make that SOB suffer…MAKE SURE YOU KILL my enemies, and MAKE IT BLOODY’. So much for spiritual maturity. Of course, how can he be blamed? He knew nothing of the Christ or His teachings. Which is why he will be “least in the kingdom of heaven”. And LAST (Matt 20:16).
Thanks for dropping by, Pinko. You are always welcome here notwithstanding that I usually take issue with your analytical style. On the point of whether David wrote as an old man, I suppose it depends on how you translate the Hebrew text. I side with those who see David saying he is old. As for the rest, you are in good company and I’ve seen all of that before.
David knew he was wrong for not executing Joab much earlier in the game. Like most people, David was a human with divided loyalties on some levels. He kept Joab on staff because the man was so effective in some ways. It was a mistake that cost him much sorrow, so he passed the buck to his son, something I find entirely consistent with Ancient Near Eastern custom.
That David was a man of blood was not in itself a moral issue; it was his job. That was what God called him to do and the context of human politics meant David had to invest himself in things some parts of his nature didn’t like. Being in a fallen world and living with a fallen nature is pretty tough at the best of times, and David earned God’s praise as “a man after His own heart”. In the context of Hebrew culture and language, that meant that David bore a distinct imprint of God’s divine character and clearly desired to please God. I believe you are reading something back into the text that doesn’t belong.
God didn’t call David to build a the Temple; he called Solomon to that task — a man far wiser yet with even greater moral weakness.
That passage in Matthew 5 still requires understanding first the social and historical context; in Hebrew culture, context is everything. Jesus was applying the ineffable moral character of God to the context in which those people lived. The idea that passage is somehow “propositional truth” that applies in all contexts is flatly contrary to the Biblical intellectual background.
That’s my story, Bro.