HEBREW WORD STUDY – A CRAZY MAN – הלל Hei Lamed Lamed 

I Samuel 21:13, “And he changed his demeanor before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.”

Psalms 56:5, “In God I will praise His word, In God do I trust, I will not be afraid; What can flesh do to me.” 

Psalm 56 is believed to have been written when David was hiding from King Saul and sought refuge with Achish King of Gath (I Samuel 21:11-15).  That is a very unusual story.  David is running in fear of King Saul and seeks refuge among the Philistines, the very people he defeated when he killed Goliath. Historians feel that King Saul had, by this time degenerated into a tyrant and desertions were not unusual at this time.  It has been about three or four years since the battle of Elah when David killed Goliath.  David may have hoped that he could win favor by appearing with Goliath’s sword and declaring himself a deserter.  Yet, that would not fly with the brothers and relatives of Goliath who would seek their revenge on David even if King Achish were to show favor to David.  

So here we have David, no more than 21 or 22 years of age fleeing for his life from his homeland and the only place to go would be the land where he is probably hated more than in his own land. Truly a man without a country who has the crazy promise that he would one day be the King of Israel. 

Do you ever feel like David, maybe your marriage has gone sour and you seek refuge in your job but then layoffs are coming, your boss is on your back and you have no security there.  You flee to church but because of your marriage situation you do feel comfortable there or  maybe you feel condemned because you are not walking in victory like everyone else. You have nowhere to turn. Maybe you feel like David where things are so bad you wonder if you are going mad.   Things were so bad for David he probably did not even have to pretend to be mad.  Some people wonder how a man of God like David could practice deception and act mad.  Who needed to act?   He probably was just acting the way he felt and only by the grace of God did he not slip into actual madness. I Samuel 21:13 says he pretended madness. The word pretend madness is one word halal.  You read me right, it is the same root where we get the word hallelujah.  Odd that the same word for pretending madness is the same word for praising God.  That ought to warm the cockles of the heart of you charismatics.  When halal is used in a Hithpael form it means to act madly or act like a mad man, or a wild man. 

You know it doesn’t really say David was pretending, the translators are only assuming this. Perhaps David did the only thing he could do, perhaps he was doing what many of us have learned to do when we really find ourselves in a situation where we feel we will lose our minds, we begin to praise and worship God in earnest. I’ve seen some people do some pretty strange and embarrassing things when they were praising and worshipping God in earnest.  Heck, even I have done some pretty weird things when I was in a state of halal.  I even scribbled on the door of the gates, or to put it another way put handwritten scripture passages on the door of my refrigerator and doors of my home. When I get to praising God in real earnest I have to wear a bib to catch all the slobber from my tears, running nose or as the Hebrew put it riyar which is any substance that comes from head of the body, tears, snot, or dribble.  Yeah, maybe I was mad at the time, but desperate situations call for desperate actions. 

When David went into his halal he probably appeared to be mad.  Remember his dance before the ark of the covenant. Perhaps David was mad as men call madness, but as we who have been through the fires simply call it, it is just getting so down and heavy before God we don’t care what people think, we need to hear from God and we will post His word on billboards if we have to, not caring who sees it and slobber like a little baby for that is about as helpless as we feel. 

Pause with me a moment and look at this word for praise in Psalms 56:5., Yep, you guessed it, it is the word  halal.  We could actually translate this as In God will I appear mad or insane with His word such that I will proclaim His Word to whoever will listen, even if I have to scribble it on the gates.  The word used for God’s word here is dabar, which are words from God’s heart and words of power.  They are his personal promises to me.  

People thought David was mad.  But I believe David was simply having a Pentecostal melt down praising God and scribbling the promises of God declaring to the world that his God gave him promises and he was trusting in this God.  The people of Gath thought: “Get the net, get the net, call the men in white togas. This old boy has really snapped his cap 

I once attended a home church right in the city of Chicago which attracted some street people. I met a homeless man there that most people thought was crazy. But I heard him play the piano to a melody that was in tune with the spirit of room. That was his version of scribbling on the gates.  He then said God called him to homelessness  so he could reach other homeless people with Jesus’s message of salvation.  In the minds of most people that is crazy talk, that is dribbling from the mouth.  

Just between you, me and David, that is halal.