David's Psalms

This summer I've settled into studying the life of King David.   I'd like to be able to clearly remember the psalms he composed under duress and link them to their historical context.  Here's a beginning:



Psalm 18

Inscription--To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD rescued him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.

Comments on Psalm 18 from Lawson

"But when the Lord had given him rest from his enemies round about, evil rose up against him out of his own kingdom and out of his own house. Sheba rose up after Absalom to seek his life, but he soon lost his own, as his predecessor in wickedness had done."

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"But we never find David employing his fine genius in celebrating the exploits of these heroes to whom he was so greatly indebted. God is pleased for the most part to employ means and instruments in His works of mercy or of vengeance. But they do neither less nor more than God has intended to accomplish by them."

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"Had we hearts like David we would often be rejoicing in God, and singing His praises, when our corrupt dispositions prompt us to utter complaints as if God had forgotten to be gracious, because He will not resign the management of all our affairs into our own hands."-G. Lawson

Psalm 34
Psalm 57--David at the Cave of Adullam 1 Samuel 22:1-2
Psalm 142-David at the cave of Adullam 1 Samuel 22:1-2

"A practical realization of our dependence on our Maker is true prayer, and this is the essence of religion. Prayer is not language, but life: it is the soul turned ever to the Almighty, as the flower to the sun, as the river to the sea." B.I.

" Is it not a curious thing that, whenever God means to make a man great, He always breaks him in pieces first? David was to be king over all Israel. What was the way to Jerusalem for David? What was the way to the throne? Well, it was round by the cave of Adullam, He must go there and be an outlaw and an outcast, for that was the way by which he would be made king. Have none of you ever noticed, in your own lives, that whenever God is going to give you an enlargement, and bring you out to a larger sphere of service, or a higher platform of spiritual life, you always get thrown down? Why is that?" BI

Psalm 56

"For the choir director: A psalm of David, regarding the time the Philistines seized him in Gath. To be sung to the tune "Dove on Distant Oaks." Psalm 56:1

1 Samuel 29 & 30