Psalm 34
22 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 34×51 Peter 3×3Psalms 145×3Psalms 119×2Psalms 18×2Hebrews 12×2
Summary
Chapter summary
An acrostic from the cave era: 'A Psalm of David; when he changed his demeanor before Abimelech, who drove him away.' 'I will bless Jehovah at all times… Oh magnify Jehovah with me.' This poor man cried; the angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him. 'Oh taste and see that Jehovah is good' (1 Peter 2:3). Jehovah is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. 'He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken': John 19:36 hears it at the cross. Evil shall slay the wicked; Jehovah redeemeth the soul of his servants.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 34The history
The heading says David "changed his behaviour before Abimelech." The account in 1 Samuel names the king of Gath as Achish; Abimelech appears to be a title used by Philistine rulers, the way Pharaoh was in Egypt — the same pattern shows up in Genesis. Naming both is more honest than harmonizing them silently.
Gath was one of the five Philistine cities and the home town of Goliath, whose sword David was carrying when he arrived. Walking into that court was as bad an idea as it sounds, and the servants recognized him at once by the song the Israelite women sang about him.
Feigning madness worked for a reason. Across the ancient Near East the insane were widely regarded as touched by a god or spirit, unlucky to harm and useless to kill — Achish's reply is essentially that he has enough madmen already. Scratching on the gate doors and letting spittle run into his beard was a performance calculated for that belief.
The psalm is an alphabetic acrostic, one letter per verse, made for memory. Its subject matter is drawn from what a fugitive learns: hunger and lack, the young lions that do lack and suffer hunger, and "the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him" — camp language from a man sleeping rough with a few hundred debtors and outcasts in a cave.
What it meant to them
For Israel, this psalm turned a humiliating escape into a teaching text. The man who drooled on his own beard to survive says, "O taste and see that the Lord is good."
And it hands the lesson to the young: come, children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Not a war story — a school.
Sources cited
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 34
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 34. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 18 · Written to them
The LORD is nigh unto them of a broken heart
topics/grief→MannaFest topical index
v. 19 · Written to them
Many are the afflictions of the righteous
topics/suffering→MannaFest topical index
v. 20 · A picture of Christ · Fulfilled in the pattern
'not a bone broken' (w/ Exo 12:46 Passover typology); John
John 19:36→Now these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.”
MannaFest topical index
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.