Today’s Passage: Psalm 34
David wrote this psalm out of Gath, and he wrote it with no army and no plan of his own. He had been recognized in the court of the very king whose champion he had killed, so he played the madman until they waved him out the gate, and he got away with his life. Yet the first line of the psalm is not a complaint but a settled resolve: I will bless the LORD at all times. What begins as one man’s private thank-you does not stay private for long. It opens out into an invitation, ta'am, pronounced tah-AHM. Strong's H2938, to taste; to perceive or know firsthand. At its root the word means the plain, physical act of tasting food, and Scripture also stretches it to mean knowing a thing firsthand rather than merely being told about it. So David is not asking the reader to agree, from a safe distance, that God is good. He is asking for contact. A person can say that honey is sweet without ever once having tasted it, and verse 8 will not settle for that kind of secondhand word. and see. The Hebrew of the psalm is arranged with great care, but the arrangement was never meant to be the meal. The taste is what he wants us to hold.
As you read, hold this: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Context Of David, when he pretended madness before Abimelech
The heading points us back to 1 Samuel 21:10-15, where the king called Achish of Gath is named Abimelech here, which was a throne title rather than a personal name. There David scratched at the gate and let the spittle run down into his beard until he was waved off as a harmless madman. That humiliating escape is the memory lying underneath the words “at all times.” In the Hebrew the psalm is also an acrostic, running nearly letter by letter through the alphabet, a form that helped a whole congregation carry it in memory. But the form is not the point. The invitation is.
Psalm 34:1-3 (BSB)
¹ Of David, when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, so that the king drove him away. I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. ² My soul boasts in the LORD; let the oppressed hear and rejoice. ³ Magnify the LORD with me; let us exalt His name together.
At all times, he says, and he means it. Not only on the good days, but on the days a man has to feign madness to stay alive. Verse 2 turns and names the oppressed, for someone who has just escaped by pretending to be out of his mind has standing to speak to anyone who feels cornered. Then verse 3 opens the private thank-you into a summons, calling others to magnify the LORD together.
Psalm 34:4-7 (BSB)
⁴ I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. ⁵ Those who look to Him are radiant with joy; their faces shall never be ashamed. ⁶ This poor man called out, and the LORD heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. ⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, and he delivers them.
I sought, and He answered; I called, and He delivered. Then David steps back and speaks of himself as “this poor man,” as though he has set his own story down on the table so that another reader can pick it up and find himself in it. And the angel of the LORD does not simply pass through once and move on. He encamps. He surrounds those who fear Him, and stays.
Psalm 34:8 (BSB)
⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Psalm 34:9-11 (BSB)
⁹ Fear the LORD, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. ¹⁰ Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. ¹¹ Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Even young lions, strong as they are, go lacking and hungry, for strength on its own guarantees nothing. Those who seek the LORD, by contrast, lack no good thing, and not because they have learned to hunt better than the lions. It is because their supply never depended on the hunt in the first place. And then the old warrior turns teacher: come, children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Psalm 34:12-14 (BSB)
¹² Who is the man who delights in life, who desires to see good days? ¹³ Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. ¹⁴ Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Who is it that wants a good life and long days to enjoy it? Everyone does, of course. But the answer David gives is not some hidden mystical secret. It is plain and near at hand: guard your tongue, turn away from evil, do good, and seek peace. That last word, pursue, is an active one. Peace is not something that simply drifts down on us. It is something we go after.
Study notes Peter hands these verses to a suffering church
"Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." 1 Peter 3:10-12 (BSB)
Peter is not merely decorating his letter with an old quotation. He is telling a church under real pressure that David’s counsel still holds true even when peace has become something costly to pursue.
Psalm 34:15-18 (BSB)
¹⁵ The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their cry. ¹⁶ But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to wipe out all memory of them from the earth. ¹⁷ The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears; He delivers them from all their troubles. ¹⁸ The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are turned toward their cry. Then the psalm looks the other direction, to a face set against those who do evil. But verse 18 is the tenderest line of all. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and not merely aware of them from far off. He is near, present in the breaking itself, close to the one whose spirit has been crushed.
Psalm 34:19-22 (BSB)
¹⁹ Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him from them all. ²⁰ He protects all his bones; not one of them will be broken. ²¹ Evil will slay the wicked, and the haters of the righteous will be condemned. ²² The LORD redeems His servants, and none who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, the psalm says plainly, and so this was never a promise of an easy life. David wrote it while he was fleeing for his own. The deliverance he sings of comes through the afflictions, not by way of exemption from them. And verse 20 reaches further than David himself could have seen, for John will name it standing at the foot of the cross.
"These things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: 'Not one of His bones will be broken.'" John 19:36 (BSB)
The soldiers broke the legs of the men crucified beside Him, but they did not break His. A line that once spoke of David’s deliverance became, centuries later, a small and exact detail at the one death where deliverance came through the cross rather than around it.
Taste and see that the LORD is good.