Psalm 34 Overview
Taste and see!
Psalm 34
Welcome to the Overview of Psalm 34
This page will introduce and provide orientation to Psalm 34 as a whole. It includes the following sections:
Introduction to Psalm 34
Author:
Purpose:
- To encourage others to fear YHWH.
Content:
- Fear YHWH! Because YHWH protects and provides for those who fear him.
Message:
- YHWH protects and provides for those who fear him.
Psalm 34 At-a-Glance
These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.
Background Orientation for Psalm 34
Following are the common-ground assumptionsCommon-ground assumptions include information shared by the speaker and hearers. In our analysis, we mainly use this category for Biblical/Ancient Near Eastern background. which are the most helpful for making sense of the psalm.
- The appropriate response to YHWH's deliverance is to bless/praise YHWH (cf. Ps. 103).
- Lengthening one's days (i.e., living a long time) and seeing "good" is a tremendous blessing (cf. Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16, 33; 6:2; 25:15; 1 Kgs. 3:14; cf. Paul Sanders, "A Long Life as a Blessing in the Old Testament and the Ancient Levant," forthcoming).
- Fearing YHWH is the key to a long and peaceful life (cf. Deut. 5:33).
- The alphabet is a symbol of completeness (cf. Gottwald 1954:23-32; IVP Dictionary, “Acrostic”, Soll Anchor Bible Dictionary; Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry 2001; Zenger 1993:211). In an acrostic poem, the poet takes a topic (e.g., Torah [Ps. 119], or the virtuous woman [Prov. 31]) and expounds on it completely (from every possible angle), so that the reader walks away with a high-resolution image of the topic (i.e., he/she understands it “from A to Z”).
Background Situation for Psalm 34
The background situation is the series of events leading up to the time in which the psalm is spoken. These are taken from the story triangle – whatever lies to the left of the star icon.
Participants in Psalm 34
There are 4 participants/characters in Psalm 34:
| David |
| "Poor man" (v. 7) |
| David's Soul |
| The Afflicted |
| "Holy ones" (v. 10) |
| "Children" (v. 12) |
| The Righteous |
| "Those who fear [YHWH]" (v. 8) |
| "The man who seeks refuge in [YHWH]" (v. 9) |
| "Those who seek YHWH" (v. 11) |
| "The person who desires life" (v. 13) |
| "The broken-hearted" (v. 19) |
| "The crushed in spirit" (v. 19) |
| "[YHWH's] servants" (v. 23) |
| The Righteous One's Body |
| "[The righteous one's] lips" (v. 14) |
| YHWH |
| YHWH's Body |
| "YHWH's face" (v. 17*) |
| "YHWH's eyes" (v. 16*) |
| "YHWH's ears" (v. 16*) |
| YHWH's Angel |
| Enemies |
| "Wicked person" (v. 22) |
| "Those who hate a righteous person" (v. 22) |
| Young lions |
| Abimelek |
- Young lions: Lions are a metaphor for those who don't fear YHWH. (See [Psalm 34 Story Behind | Story Behind]).
- Non-Agentive Participants - YHWH's Body / The Righteous One's Body: While not agentive participants per se, included in this list of participants are inanimate entities personified as performing relational actions, or entities representing a metonymy for an agentive participant.
- The Afflicted vs. the Righteous: While there is significant overlap between these two participant sets (hence their grouping as related sets), the distinction made here is between the psalmist's addressee (the Afflicted) and the hypothetical person whom the addressee is encouraged to emulated (the Righteous).