There are 4 participants/characters in Psalm 34:
| David
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| "Poor man" (v. 7)
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| David's Soul
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| The Afflicted
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| "Holy ones" (v. 10)
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| "Children" (v. 12)
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| The Righteous
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| "Those who fear [YHWH]" (v. 8)
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| "The man who seeks refuge in [YHWH]" (v. 9)
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| "Those who seek YHWH" (v. 11)
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| "The person who desires life" (v. 13)
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| "The broken-hearted" (v. 19)
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| "The crushed in spirit" (v. 19)
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| "[YHWH's] servants" (v. 23)
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| The Righteous One's Body
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| "[The righteous one's] lips" (v. 14)
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| YHWH
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| YHWH's Body
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| "YHWH's face" (v. 17*)
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| "YHWH's eyes" (v. 16*)
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| "YHWH's ears" (v. 16*)
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| YHWH's Angel
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| Enemies
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| "Wicked person" (v. 22)
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| "Those who hate a righteous person" (v. 22)
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| Young lions
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| Abimelek
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- 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).