Week 14 1 Samuel
A couple of years ago I started tracking the subtitles of the psalms.
Quite a few of the psalms have no subtitle at all. But the ones that do give some extra information about the psalm. For instance:
• who wrote the psalm (“a psalm of David” or “a psalm of Asaph”)
• a specific person addressed (“for Jeduthun, the choir director”)
• recommended instruments (flutes or stringed instruments)
• recommended tune (“Death of the Son” or “Doe of the Dawn”)
• the psalm’s purpose (“a love song” or “a meditation” or “for teaching” or “a prayer” or “a song for the ascent to Jerusalem”).
All that’s okay but my one reason for looking at psalm subtitles is because some psalms were written by David when he was on-the-run from Saul. And last year I wrote myself a note (that I just found): “in 2024 try matching-up the ‘flight-psalm’ subtitles with the actual events in 1 Samuel”.
I found six on-the-run psalms with a pretty definite 1 Samuel connection:
1 Samuel 19:1 11-18 (Psalm 59 David escapes from Saul)
1 Samuel 21:10-15 (Psalm 56 David & Achish of Gath)
1 Samuel 22:9-19 (Psalm 52 Doeg rats on the priest)
1 Samuel 23:19-24 (Psalm 54 the Ziphites betray David)
1 Samuel 23:29-24:7 (Psalm 57 hiding in-the-cave )
1 Samuel 23:29-24:7 (Psalm 142 hiding in-the-cave).
So my plan is to look at each event in 1 Samuel and check to see what David was thinking about during that event.
Note: I didn’t include Psalms 34 or 63. They seem like possible-maybes. But at the same time they might be maybe nots.