Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22

Psalm 34:1-8, 19-22 (NRSV)

Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

¹ I will bless the Lord at all times;

his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

² My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

let the humble hear and be glad.

³ O magnify the Lord with me,

and let us exalt his name together. 

⁴ I sought the Lord, and he answered me,

and delivered me from all my fears.

⁵ Look to him, and be radiant;

so your faces shall never be ashamed.

⁶ This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,

and was saved from every trouble.

⁷ The angel of the Lord encamps

around those who fear him, and delivers them.

⁸ O taste and see that the Lord is good;

happy are those who take refuge in him.

¹⁹ Many are the afflictions of the righteous,

but the Lord rescues them from them all.

²⁰ He keeps all their bones;

not one of them will be broken.

²¹ Evil brings death to the wicked,

and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

²² The Lord redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

Psalm 34 is an individual thanksgiving hymn. The psalm has a close relationship to Psalm 25, but not necessarily the same author or the same situation. The Psalm is acrostic, each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.[1] It also means loosely connected thoughts between the verses. The grateful poet invites other afflicted persons to join him. 

The Hebrew heading, alluding to I Samuel 21:11-16, says Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away. David flees from the court of Saul, Israel's first king, to Gath, one of the five city-kingdoms of the Philistine confederation, where he feigns madness in the court of King Achish. The author appends the story to the story of David's encounter with the priest Ahimelech at the sanctuary of Nob. A Greek manuscript of the Septuagint corrected the name "Abimelech" in the superscription of the Hebrew version to "Ahimelech," clearly reflecting the confusion in sources of both the name and the incident. The secondary nature of the psalm superscriptions is also evident in the lack of connection between the historical context proposed in the superscription and the content of the composition that follows; nothing in the psalm suggests the work of an inspired lunatic.

Psalm 34: 1-3 introduce this Psalm. It reminds us that the Lord intends that our entire lives serve the glory of the Lord. The witness of the individual is also an invitation to the community. ¹ I will bless[2] (avaracha)[3] the Lord at all times. Among the striking theological perspectives we find in the psalter is the human blessing the divine. Psalmists use the word as a synonym of offering praise to the Lord. Further, the praise of the Lord shall continually be in my mouth.  ² My soul (nephesh) makes its boast in the Lord (ba-yahweh); let the humble hear and be glad.[4]  “My soul” is in parallel construction with “I” in verse 1. The person is a psychosomatic unity in the Old Testament. Thus, we are not to think of the “soul” as something separate from “I.” ³ O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt the name of the Lord together.  Largely because of Mary's song of praise in Luke 1:46 ("My soul magnifies the LORD"), “magnify” has pious overtones.[5] Notice the importance of human activity here. The person blesses, praises, boasts, magnifies, and exalts the Lord.

In Psalm 34: 4-8, in a segment that extends to verse 10, we find the answering of the prayer. Here is the reason for the offering of praise to the Lord. It becomes a testimony by the worshipper in the community. The witness of the individual moves easily to the community, since they have union at a deep level. It offers a goldmine of religious aphorisms. ⁴ I sought the Lord, and the Lord answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.  In Old Testament psalms, such deliverance is usually physical, but here, it seems to be psychological.[6] ⁵ Look to the Lord, and be radiant; so your faces shall never experience shame.  ⁶ This poor soul cried,[7] and the Lord heard him, and the Lord saved him from every trouble.  ⁷ The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear the Lord, and delivers them.  ⁸ O taste and see that the Lord is good. Here is why the early church used this Psalm during Holy Communion. The phrase is unique in the Old Testament. Nowhere else does the Old Testament suggest that one can know the divine by taste. The closest referent would be the many stories of deliverance from hunger by the LORD (e.g., with manna in the wilderness, Exodus 16). Happy are those who take refuge in the Lord. Note the human activity again, as the human being seeks the Lord, looks to the Lord, cries to the Lord, and even tastes and sees the Lord. Yet, we should also note the divine activity. The Lord answered, delivered, and hears. The Lord is the one in whom we can take refuge. The psalm reminds us that we worship an active God. 

Psalm 34: 19-22, part of a segment that began in verse 11, shows that personal experiences receive wider application by presenting their universal significance. The theme is the fear of the Lord while happiness is the supreme goal. In fact, ¹⁹ Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all. ²⁰ The Lord keeps all their bones; not one of them will be broken. ²¹ Evil brings death to the wicked, and the Lord will condemn those who hate the righteous. ²² The Lord redeems the life of the servants of the Lord; the Lord will condemn none of those who take refuge in the Lord. Such thoughts reflect the piety of orthodox Yahwism.[8]

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[1] Acrosticism is a feature of several passages in the Hebrew Bible. Psalms 9 and 10 (originally a single composition) and Psalm 37 devote two verses to each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. In Psalms 25 and 145, each verse begins with a letter. Psalms 111 and 112 devote half a verse each to a letter, and Psalm 119, perhaps the best known of the acrostic psalms, devotes eight verses to each of the Hebrew consonants (vowels are not part of the original Hebrew alphabet). (Other passages in the Hebrew Bible that feature acrosticism are the first four of the five songs that make up the book of Lamentations and the poem "Praise of the Good Wife" in Proverbs 31:10-31.)

Although acrosticism is sometimes considered proof that a written composition did not emerge from oral literature (see, for example, the entry on "Acrostic" in Wikipedia), there are counter-examples. In Scotland, for instance, one of the ways Gaelic is taught to children (and foreigners) is through a round-game called "The Minister's Cat," in which the sentence "The minister's cat is a ___ cat" is completed with a Gaelic word following the order of the alphabet. The first person may say, for instance, "The minister's cat is an auld cat," and the next person has to repeat that sentence and add another Gaelic adjective beginning with the letter b, e.g, "The minister's cat is an auld and bonny cat" and so on until a player can't remember all the Gaelic adjectives in their proper order and the game begins again with new adjectives. (A brief and not entirely satisfactory description of this game may be found in Wikipedia, and to watch a filmed variation of the game in the 1970 musical Scrooge, see youtube.com/watch?v=M-Nh7tXEX00.)

It is possible, therefore, that the acrostic compositions in the OT may have served a similar mnemonic and didactic purpose. It is certainly the case that acrostic compositions bear the marks of the wisdom tradition in ancient Israel, that is, they reveal conscious (and sometimes highly artificial) literary features, along with the concerns for broad and sustained reflection on God and the world that characterize the work of Israel's professional scribes and teachers.

[2] Elsewhere in the OT, the first-person use of the Hebrew verb barach is reserved exclusively for the divine (e.g., Genesis 12:2, 3; 17:16, 20; Numbers 6:27; Ezekiel 37:26; Haggai 2:19; compare Psalms 26:12; 63:4; 145:2). The word "bless" outside its use in the psalter ordinarily means "cause to prosper."

[3] Which begins with the letter 'aleph, and in verse 2 with the letter beth, and so on throughout the psalm.

[4] The late origin of this psalm is apparent in the breakdown of classical poetic parallelism found in the second half of verse two. Classical Hebrew poetry, as represented widely in the psalter, would consist of the following:
I will bless the LORD at all times --
(that is to say) his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
(To say again) My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
because he ....
One expects the second half of verse 2 to be the reason for the psalmist's blessing, praising and spiritual boasting -- this would be classic climactic parallelism. So the abrupt appearance of the admonition "let the humble hear and be glad" is a didactic intrusion that doesn't fit the context established in the psalm's opening lines. Such weakening of primitive forms is one of the signs scholars typically recognize as evidence of lateness.

[5] The use of the word in the OT is not entirely positive. Outside the psalter (here and Psalm 69:30), the word means "lift up in opposition to" (as in Job 19:5 and Isaiah 10:15). Only in Isaiah 42:21 and the Apocrypha does the use of the word mean "make great" in a positive sense.

[6] This fact is a sign for some scholars of the late date of the psalm. The religion of the OT is manifestly concrete, so that when someone speaks of divine deliverance, they are typically referring to being rescued from real, physical dangers or threats. Verse 4, however, says that the LORD delivered the psalmist from his "fears," a psychological problem. One expects the word "enemies" (Psalms 3:7; 5:8; 18:48; 2 Samuel 22:4, 49; etc.) or "foes" (Psalms 3:1; 30:1; 44:7; etc.) or something equally concrete. The psalmist is "interiorizing" classical religious ideas.

[7] An odd periphrasis. While circumlocutions denoting humility are not uncommon in the OT (e.g., Genesis 18:3; 32:4; 2 Samuel 9:8) the juxtaposition of the very concrete word "poor" with the less tangible "soul" is unexpected; it may reflect the wisdom idea that poverty and wisdom frequently coincide (see, e.g., Ecclesiastes 9:15, 16).

[8] Very much at odds with the wisdom influence seen elsewhere in this psalm. For some scholars, it seems likely that these verses were not part of the original psalm, but were appended to it to make the composition more palatable for a wider audience (as the conclusion of the book of Job, 42:7-17, was appended to the theologically daring tale that precedes it).