Promised Praise Produces Peace

“Thy vows [are] upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee.” (Ps 56:12 AV)

Not the vows God made to David, but rather, the vows to praise God made by David to the LORD.  Of the understanding of ‘vow’ here, Albert Barnes writes, “The word ‘vow’ means something promised; some obligation under which we have voluntarily brought ourselves. It differs from duty, or obligation in general, since that is the result of the divine command, while this is an obligation arising from the fact that we have “voluntarily” taken it upon ourselves.”  In other words, David is not speaking of praise offered to the LORD required of him from the law.  Rather, these vows are promises made by David to praise the LORD above and beyond what the law might require.  The title to the psalm suggests David wrote this when he allied with the Philistines at Gath when he fled from Saul.  The title further suggests David may have gone to Gath voluntarily, but when he arrived, the greeting was not as amiable as it could be.  The word ‘took’ is used, and this word means seized.  Seeing as how a few years back, David killed their champion in Goliath and killed thousands of the Philistine army, this would make sense.

David was at the lowest point in his life.  He had run from his father-in-law for many years.  Several close calls and his supporters losing their families saw David alone and encouraging himself in the LORD.  He was among his Gentile enemies.  Forced to act the part of a madman, he was giving a remote place to live.  He was under the dominion of his enemies, acting crazy, yet he was free from Saul.  Sort of like a catch twenty-two.  For the moment, he chose the lesser of two evils.  In this situation, he must remember his vow to praise the LORD.  The whole psalm is about deliverance.  The deliverance he experienced, but also the deliverance yet to come.  We don’t know exactly which vow to which the above passage refers.  It really doesn’t matter.  The promise of David to praise the LORD in good times and hard times is the vow of concern here.  Note also the plural.  This wasn’t a onetime vow.  A onetime vow would be easy to forget.  These vows were multiple vows.  What motivated David to make those vows at the time he made them matters not as well.  What we want to see is that David made vows to praise the LORD.  These vows were kept in the toughest of times.

There is a value in counting your blessings.  Yesterday was Christmas.  This year, my wife and I decided to do a Dollar Tree Christmas.  No expensive gifts.  The rule was to make the gifts sentimental.  As we know, Lisa has stage IV, grade I, Neuroendocrine Cancer.  It has its challenges.  The pattern for ribbons is the Zebra pattern.  This pattern is for rare cancers.  I got her a Zebra blanket, a Zebra notebook, and some tea for relaxing.  One of the gifts I found for her was a picture to hang on the wall that says, “Celebrate every little blessing.”  The funny thing is, we are trying to do that more and more.  Little things become big things.  My hearing aids were going bad.  I do not have thousands of dollars to replace them.  The audiologist fixed them for free.  The check engine light came on.  It went off.  I invited my next-door neighbor to our Christmas eve service.  He came.  We often use the term “the stars a aligned” to describe when little things all work together.  A better phrase would be, “It’s a God-thing.”  This is the heart of David.  His situation was not perfect.  It never is.  But he had the heart to look for things which were praise worthy!  He never would have found them unless the vows to praise God did not come first.  Perhaps the key to a more joy-filled life is to vow to praise God no matter what.  David did.  He wrote the book of Psalms as a result.