# General Information:

Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/writing-poetry]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-parallelism]])

# A psalm of David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him out

This is a superscription that tells about the psalm. Some scholars say that this is part of the scripture and some say that it is not. (See "What are Superscriptions in Psalms" in [Introduction to Psalms](../front/intro.md).)

# A psalm of David

Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.

# pretended to be insane

"acted like a crazy person"

# before Abimelek

This refers to a specific historical event that the Hebrews knew well. Alternate translation: "when he was in Abimelek's house" or "when he was Abimelek's prisoner" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-explicit]])

# his praise will always be in my mouth

Here "in my mouth" refers to David speaking about Yahweh. Alternate translation: "I will always praise him out loud" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-metonymy]])