HEBREW WORD STUDY – AT ALL TIMES IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES – AYTH TAMID עת תמיד Ayin Taw Taw Mem Yod Daleth

Psalms 34:1: “[A Psalm] of David, when he changed his behavior 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.”

This Psalms starts off by giving you the background story which always sort of bothered me. I mean David is praising God for his deliverance from Abimelech. Yet, he was delivered by practicing deceit. He literally lied about his sanity. Does God really condone deceit?

I found two possible explanations for this. One is what I found studying Jewish rabbis. Deceit is a matter of the heart. I remember a student who came up to me all proud and excited. His wife just had a baby and the proud papa was showing off a picture of his newborn daughter apparently taken as she just came into the world. She was this mass of wrinkled red covered with disgusting-looking fluids and daddy declared: “Ain’t she beautiful?” Frankly, no. Of course, you would never say that to this glowing new father just bursting at the seams. So, I lied and said yes she is beautiful.

In God’s eyes was it a lie? From what I read in Jewish literature a lie is a falsehood meant to harm or take advantage of another person. So, David was not bringing any harm to anyone by his deception. In fact, the was preventing others from doing harm, ie., to himself. Nonetheless, his little deception kept someone or many people from committing the sin of bringing bodily harm to an innocent person or from even committing murder.

Well, that is one explanation that I will leave it up to you to decide if it makes sense or not. There is another explanation that I hold to. I did a study on this some time ago and hopefully, I will find this old study and repost it on my website. Thus, I will not go into detail but when examined from the Hebrew the drooling, scribbling on the walls, and other acts which were interpreted as insanity could have an alternative translation describing someone having a Pentecostal meltdown. At the moment David realized he was in danger and he called out to God. What people interpreted as insanity was just a guy overcome by the power of the Spirit of God. That word insanity could have an alternative rendering and I believe what happened is that when he called upon God, God simply filled David with his presence and love such that he had a real Hallelujah moment and started running around praising God like some lunatic.

I like that rendering because it would explain the rare occurrence of giving some background to the Psalm before it begins. This Psalm is one of praise to God, blessing the Lord. Much like David did when everyone thought he snapped his cap. Yet, in reality, he was just having a little quality time with His God. David’s words were carefully chosen, and coupled with the background to this story it would appear to me that David was a real Charismatic.

I don’t mean to suggest that the Pentecostal style of worship is the only way to go. There are many forms of worship which vary according to the cultural backgrounds, personalities, and traditions of the believers. Some Christians feel that true worship is achieved through the foot-stomping, hand-clapping heartfelt singing, others are more comfortable in worshipping God in a structured, liturgical, and meditative setting. Others seek a spontaneous, informal praise and testimony type of worship. Some like the Marty McFly Back to the Future approach where you turn the amps up to its max and the electric guitar up to its max and when they create an overload you get revival. Some like to add drums, others say the devil is in those drums while others say they are beating the devil out of them.

The bottom line, forms of worship are not important in themselves. In fact, there is a danger in getting caught up in the form of the worship that we fail to focus on the object of all worship – to praise the Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalms 34:1 talks about blessing the Lord at all times and having His praise continually in your mouth. Electric guitars and drums are not always present. Liturgical books are not always at hand. Sometimes worship is staged without props. I remember one of the most entertaining plays I ever attended was at the Goodman Theater in Downtown Chicago. It was a small stage with a relatively small seating capacity for the audience. The only prop was a curtain that opened and closed to indicate the close of a scene and the start of a new one. The only props on stage were a couple of wooden boxes. The play was “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” Even the actors did even attempt to dress or style their hair like the Peanut characters. Yet, the acting was so good that you had no problem distinguishing between these beloved characters. You had to have good acting with such little staging. The result was that the audience focused on the acting and not elaborate props.

Sometimes God calls us to worship without the elaborate props of a worship team, musical instruments and a large audience. There are times God just wants us to show off our personal abilities to worship Him without the aid of staging and props.

David said I will bless the Lord. The word bless is ‘abarakah from the root word barak. This is a verb in an imperfect cohortative form. This makes it very personal and very intense. When David had his Pentecostal breakdown before Abimelech he was so caught up in the spirit of God that he did not care how foolish he looked. This is the best way to explain ‘abarakah and to put ‘abarakah into its emotional context. David is talking about blessing God, that is glorifying and honoring him with every fiber of his being, and then his praise will be continually in his mouth. The word continually is tamid from the root madad and the word ayth. These two words together have the idea of both perpetually from his mouth but also with ayth there is indicates that it will be there no matter what the circumstance, even a life-threatening circumstance that David experienced before Abimelech.

Today with this pandemic many of us are facing a life-threatening or changing circumstance. We can let the circumstances take us down or we can be like David and let our praise to God be ayth tamid, continually in our mouths no matter what the circumstances may be.

In the early 1800s a German Pastor Edward Caswall wrote a simple hymn of praise to God:

“When morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries

May Jesus Christ be praise

Alike at work and prayer, to Jesus, I repair

May Jesus Christ be praise.”

Thought out Caswall’s life praising God continually he kept adding verses to this hymn until he had over 28 verses. Even today Christian are still adding their own verses to this simple hymn. Perhaps now is a good time to add some verses of your own.

I’ve added a couple of my own:

“When cabin fever comes and lock down’s no longer fun

May Jesus Christ be praise

If my job just disappears and my bank account looks bare

May Jesus Christ be praise.

When Satan whisper’s doom, that God has left the room

May Jesus Christ be praised

I tell the devil to run, his words effects are none.

May Jesus Christ be praised.

Yea, maybe the neighbors will start saying: “Get the net, get the net, the lockdown is too much, the old professor finally snapped his cap.” But what they would call crazy, I call a personal encounter with God.