Psalms 34:1 “[A Psalm] of David, when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech; who drove him away, and he departed. I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise [shall] continually [be] in my mouth.”

 

“I will bless the Lord at all times.”  Them are pretty heady words.  To bless the Lord at all times suggests to me 24/7.  Many have tried to bless the Lord at all time,  all have failed.  In May I will be spending a week in silence at a Benedictine Monastery run by Trappist monks who practice silence and live a contemplative life  They have spent their lives trying to bless the Lord at all times 24/7 and they will be the first to admit that they cannot bless the Lord 24/7.  David himself was a king who committed adultery and murder, was he blessing the Lord during those times?

 

The vast majority of our English translations say “I will bless the Lord at all times.”  A few are brave enough to leave the fold and say: “I will bless the Lord continuously” but to me that is still saying 24/7.  As far as I am concerned with this verse, David may be a big liar and it is just one of those verses an atheist will pounce upon to show how foolish we are to accept the Bible as inspired of God.  To be honest, if I were just a Bible major in college I would probably reject the idea of the Bible being inspired because of such unlikely statements as this.  Or even contradictory statements like Hebrew 11:1 which tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for.  Now come on, to me hope and faith are contradictory terms.  If you hope for something you are not confident of getting it. If you have faith or the complete assurance of something, you are confident of getting it.  Fortunately, my area of study was in Biblical languages and I can resolve these issues by looking at them in the original languages.

 

Most Christians really do not understand just how ambiguous the Hebrew is.  Hebrew became a dead language 2,500 years ago and you lose a lot when a language dies.  It was only preserved as a ceremonial language.  To be sure there was much oral tradition, but much has still been lost.  We are making discoveries all the time about the original Hebrew language which calls into question some of our translations.  The translators of the KJV four hundred years ago did not have the resources that we have today to give us a broader understanding of the original languages.  The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown that the Septuagint is really more accurate than the Masoretic text which has been the basis for much of our modern Christian translations.

 

Many Christians believe our Biblical language scholars have some in-depth, secret knowledge that they only share with each other so when they take a passage like Psalms 34 they know the word ‘eth should be rendered as time and not one of the other half dozen possibilities.  They have some deep, scholastic, academic knowledge that average Joe Christian does not have therefore the word times, must be the true meaning of the word ‘eth in this passage. Let me tell you like it is baby, translation work is still man’s best guess.  Indeed there is much basis for the accuracy of the translations we have, strict consideration has been given to the context and the historical and cultural basis for a rendering, but they are not perfect in a long shot.

 

So just because our scholars say that ‘eth should be translated as times or continually in this passage does not necessarily mean we have an accurate idea of what David had in mind when he said this.   I personally just cannot wrap my brain around the idea of that I can bless the Lord at all times. If you can, then good for you, but I can’t, I have tried.  Therefore I am going to take a gander over the list of words that the Hebrew word ‘eth has been rendered in other cases. The word times is ‘eth which is not the Aleph Taw ‘eth that everyone gets excited about for reasons I fail to understand. This ‘eth is spelled Ayin Taw.  Yes, it means times, but it has a wide range of meanings.  It has been used to express the idea of experiences, fortunes, an occurrence, and occasion or event, continually, distant time, former time, right now, or an appointed time.

 

I just happened to find a word that fits my relationship with God perfectly.  It is the word event.  I personally would translate this as: “I will praise the Lord in every event.”   Yesterday I was blessed with driving the Town Sorehead to a doctor’s appointment on North Ave, a good half hour’s drive. Now I really tried to bless the Lord at all times during this trip but as the Town Sorehead began telling me what streets to take, how to drive, how fast to drive, that I was stopping to quickly, that her seat belt was uncomfortable and why I did not have an extension for the seat I fear I was not blessing the Lord at all times.  However, when I arrived at the doctor’s office and passed our Town’s Sorehead off the receptionist in the doctor’s office so she could she in the blessing, I got back on my bus and I blessed the Lord for the event because David teaches we are to bless the Lord in every event in our lives.

 

Years ago Merlin Carothers wrote a book called Power in Praise.  Before long everyone was praising God in every situation.  Their car breaks down, they lose their job, they suffer a health crisis or a relationship crisis and they start to praise God.  People began to realize that indeed there was power in praising God in every event of their lives. I haven’t heard much about this lately, perhaps it was just another Christian fad that died out, another whiz bang and gone. Yet, I believe the Bible teaches us to praise the Lord and bless Him no matter what the circumstances or situation is. There is truly power in praise, let’s revive that old fad. Merlin Carothers book is on Amazon.

 

Look at this first verse, it was written at a time when David pretended to be insane in front of Abimelech.  I will address this incident in tomorrow’s study but let me just say this was a very trying time in David’s life and yet the very first words out of his mouth is that he will bless the Lord in every event, even this one that brought him to Abimelech. Are you going to face an Abimelech this weekend, a boss, a strained relationship, a health issue?  Maybe you can learn something from David, bless the Lord in that event taking place in your life.

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