PSALM 34
1For David, when he altered his good sense before Abimelech, who banished him, and he went away.
2Let me bless the LORD at all times,ℵ
always His praise in my mouth.
3In the LORD do I glory.ב
Let the lowly hear and rejoice.
4Extol the LORD with me,ג
let us exalt His name one and all.
5I sought the LORD and He answered me,ד
and from all that I dreaded He saved me.
6They looked to Him and they beamed,ה
and their faces were no longer dark.
7When the lowly calls, God listensז
and from all his straits rescues him.
8The LORD’s messenger encampsח
round those who fear Him and sets them free.
9Taste and see that the LORD is good,ט
happy the man who shelters in Him.
10Fear the LORD, O His holy ones,י
for those who fear Him know no want.
11Lions are wretched, and hunger,כ
but the LORD’s seekers lack no good.
12Come, sons, listen to me,ל
the LORD’s fear will I teach you.
13Whoever the man desiring life,מ
who loves long days to see good,
14keep your tongue from evilנ
and your lips from speaking deceit.
15Swerve from evil and do good,ט
seek peace and pursue it.
16The LORD’s eyes are on the righteousע
and His ears to their outcry.
17The LORD’s face is against evildoers,פ
to cut off from the earth their name.
18Cry out and the LORD hears,צ
and from all their straits He saves them.
19Near is the LORD to the broken-hearted,ק
and the crushed in spirit He rescues.
20Many the evils of the righteous man,ר
yet from all of them the LORD will save him.
21He guards all his bones,ש
not a single one is broken.
22Evil will kill the wicked,ת
and the righteous man’s foes will bear guilt.
23The LORD ransoms His servants’ lives,
they will bear no guilt, all who shelter in Him.
PSALM 34 NOTES
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1. when he altered his good sense before Abimelech. The superscription refers directly to 1 Samuel 21:14, where David, surrounded before the city of Gath by the Philistine king and his men, saves himself by playing the madman. The same unusual idiom for feigning madness, “altered his good sense” (shanot ʾet taʿamo), is used in Samuel. But the Philistine king there is not Abimelech (who appears in Genesis 20) but Achish. This may be a confusion on the part of the editor, though Rashi and other medieval commentators try to save the text by arguing that Abimelech was a hereditary royal title, not a proper name. Why did the editor detect a link between our psalm and this incident in the David story? In all likelihood, the connection he saw was the psalm’s emphasis on God’s rescuing power, even when the just man is threatened with imminent death by his enemies. Particularly pertinent are these lines near the end of the poem: “Many the evils of the righteous man, / yet from all of them the LORD will save him. / He guards all his bones, / not a single one is broken.” And perhaps the image in 1 Samuel 21 of the future king of Israel scrabbling on the doors and drooling over his beard may have been called to the editor’s mind by “Near is the LORD to the broken-hearted, / and the crushed in spirit He rescues.”
2. Let me bless. The first Hebrew word, ʾavarakha, beginning with an ʾaleph, signals the start of an alphabetic acrostic. Only the sixth letter, waw, is missing. The psalm ends, as does the acrostic in Psalm 25, with a wrap-up verse that begins with the verb padah, “redeem.”
3. do I glory. Although this is the proper sense of the verb hithalel, it also plays etymologically with the noun for “praise,” tehilah, which appears in the previous line.
8. The LORD’s messenger encamps. The idea that God sends a divine emissary to accompany man, guide him, protect him, and, in some instances, scrutinize his actions, is common in biblical literature, with instances occurring as early as Genesis and Exodus. When Abraham dispatches his servant to Mesopotamia to find a bride for Isaac, the servant is persuaded that the LORD’s messenger has come along with him to show him the right way.
9. Taste and see that the LORD is good. The sensory concreteness of the verb is somewhat startling, perhaps intended to suggest the powerful immediacy of experiencing God’s beneficence. It also probably puns on the same root—t-ʿ-m—used as a noun in the super-scription with the meaning “good sense.” If the pun is significant, “tasting” may also mean using good sense.
11. Lions are wretched, and hunger, / but the LORD’s seekers lack no good. There is a certain smoothness—indeed, a kind of patness—in the formulation of this line and, in fact, in most of the lines of this poem. The language is more formulaic than elsewhere, and the moral calculus invoked is itself a kind of pious formula. All this gives this psalm a measured, choreographed dignity (it is not surprising that this text has been incorporated into the sabbath morning liturgy). But the expression of God’s unwavering protection of the just and His punishment of the wicked is precisely the view against which the Job poet will rebel so vehemently.
12. Come, sons, listen to me. This introductory phrase and what follows in the next few verses have a distinct coloration of Wisdom literature.
19. Near is the LORD to the broken-hearted, / and the crushed in spirit He rescues. If one is inclined to agree with Job that this psalm puts forth a view of the implementation of divine justice that disintegrates in the harsh crucible of experience, the poet nevertheless succeeds, at moments like this, in articulating a moving vision of hope for the desperate. Part of the spiritual greatness of Psalms, part of the source of its enduring appeal through the ages, is that it profoundly recognizes the bleakness, the dark terrors, the long nights of despair that shadow most lives, and, against all this, evokes the notion of a caring presence that can reach out to the broken-hearted.