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Psalm 34 (LXX 33) - Taste and See That the Lord Is Good

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Psalm 34 is praise born from humiliating deliverance. David escaped Gath not by royal dignity, but amid weakness, fear, and God’s hidden mercy. Private rescue becomes public worship: the man who has been spared invites others to discover the Lord’s goodness. The Church receives this prayer in the light of Christ’s Passion and Eucharistic gift, without forgetting its plain assurance to the afflicted: God’s nearness is not measured by how little we suffer.

Psalm Metadata

FieldNotes
NKJV / Masoretic numberingPsalm 34
Septuagint / Coptic numberingPsalm 33. Verse divisions must also be checked; the chapter-number difference does not establish a universal verse offset.
Accepted authorDavid by superscription. Brenton names Abimelech; 1 Samuel 21 names Achish, king of Gath. A royal title or differing naming tradition has been proposed, but the difference should not be treated as settled.
Period in author’s lifeDavid fleeing Saul, exposed among the Philistines at Gath, feigning madness to escape. See 1 Samuel 21:10-15.
Christ prophecy statusJohn 19:36 presents the unbroken-bones promise as fulfilled in Christ. Exodus 12:46 supplies the related Passover-lamb background. “Taste and see” also receives a Eucharistic reading.
Coptic lectionary/service useThe whole Psalm belongs to the Agpeya Third Hour. Selected verses occur in the named procession rite and the source-qualified seasonal and dated readings discussed below.
Text and numberingCommentary references use Psalm 34 first, followed by the corresponding Brenton LXX reference. Scripture blocks preserve Brenton’s own numbering. The Agpeya prints the whole Psalm as Psalm 33 (34).

Historical and Scriptural Context

The superscription points to one of the most uncomfortable scenes in David’s life. Fleeing Saul, David runs to Gath, the city of Goliath, carrying Goliath’s sword. When recognized, he becomes afraid and pretends madness before the Philistine king. He survives, but not with dignity intact.

Psalm 34 is therefore not praise from a clean victory parade. It is praise after rescue through humiliation. Many believers can praise God after obvious success. This Psalm teaches praise after an escape that exposes fear, weakness, and dependence.

Fr. Tadros Malaty’s modern pastoral commentary emphasizes that David’s weakness did not exhaust God’s mercy. That is a useful distinction: the Psalm celebrates the Lord’s deliverance, not the perfection of David’s conduct. The narrative does not require us to invent David’s unrecorded thoughts or to turn his means of escape into a rule for every danger.

Geographical Significance ⛰️

Gath is the key background place. David stands in enemy territory, among the Philistines, in the city associated with Goliath. The geography intensifies the irony: the young man who killed the giant now survives by appearing powerless. The Psalm turns that humiliation into worship.

🕯️ Light from the Word

Psalm 34:1-3 and superscription (Brenton LXX 33:1-4), praise after humiliation

33:1 A Psalm of David, when he changed his countenance before Abimelech; and he let him go, and he departed. 33:2 I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall be continually in my mouth. 33:3 My soul shall boast herself in the Lord: let the meek hear, and rejoice. 33:4 Magnify ye the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

The superscription prevents a shallow reading. David blesses the Lord at all times after an episode that was frightening and humiliating. He has no heroic image to protect.

His boast is therefore in the Lord. This is not religious language covering pride. It is the speech of a man who knows he has been spared.

The praise becomes communal: “Magnify ye the Lord with me.” Private rescue becomes public worship. The humbled person invites the meek to rejoice. He does not ask them to admire his resourcefulness; he asks them to join his thanksgiving.

St. Athanasius, in his Letter to Marcellinus, recommends this Psalm for shared praise after escape from enemies and rejection of their evil counsel. His counsel helps us hear the plural invitation: deliverance becomes an occasion to gather others before God, not merely to retell our own story.

Psalm 34:4-7 (Brenton LXX 33:5-8), the poor man and the angel of the Lord

33:5 I sought the Lord diligently, and he hearkened to me, and delivered me from all my sojournings. 33:6 Draw near to him, and be enlightened: and your faces shall not by any means be ashamed. 33:7 This poor man cried, and the Lord hearkened to him, and delivered him out of all his afflictions. 33:8 The angel of the Lord will encamp round about them that fear him, and will deliver them.

Brenton’s “all my sojournings” is unfamiliar. Sojournings are stays away from one’s settled home. In David’s narrative setting, the wording can bring his exposed life as a fugitive into view: he seeks God while living where he does not belong and cannot make himself secure. This is a cautious application of the narrative, not a claim that sojournings means fears, the wording found in the NKJV and some service selections.

“This poor man cried” is not sentimental. It is David stripped of control. This particular poor man knows his need and asks for help. Material poverty does not automatically make everyone humble; neither does material security remove anyone’s need for mercy. The Lord hears the vulnerable person whom worldly strength cannot protect.

“Draw near to him, and be enlightened” is an invitation, not merely a report about someone else’s experience. Shame darkens the face. Communion with God illumines it. The person who has been humiliated need not hide from the Lord until a more respectable story can be told.

The angel’s encampment answers the fugitive’s insecurity with God’s protection. Yet the Psalm will shortly name the many afflictions of the righteous. Angelic care means that the faithful are not forsaken; it does not mean that they cannot be wounded.

Psalm 34:8-10 (Brenton LXX 33:9-11), taste, fear, and holy lack

33:9 Taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man who hopes in him. 33:10 Fear the Lord, all ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him. 33:11 The rich have become poor and hungry: but they that seek the Lord diligently shall not want any good thing. Pause.

“Taste and see” is experiential. The Lord is not only to be explained. He is to be received. In the Psalm’s immediate sense, the invitation is to trust Him and discover His goodness by taking refuge in Him.

First Peter 2:1-5 takes up this tasting language while urging believers to abandon malice, deceit, envy, and evil speaking, and to grow as they come to Christ. That apostolic use should not be reduced to an explicit Eucharistic appointment. It does, however, show that tasting the Lord’s goodness belongs to a life being renewed in Him.

The Eucharistic reading is a further, received Christian reading. Augustine makes the connection directly in his exposition: he relates approaching and receiving light to receiving Christ’s Body and Blood, then reads “taste and see” through Christ’s teaching in John 6. His argument concerns receiving the crucified Lord in faith and love, not merely noticing a resemblance between food and spiritual experience.1

The fear of the Lord is not terror that runs away. It is reverent dependence that draws near. Brenton speaks here of the rich, not young lions. The rich can become hungry because self-sufficiency is brittle. Those who seek the Lord may suffer real need, but they are not abandoned by the One who gives life.

This is no promise of prosperity. The Psalm itself rules out that reading by naming the righteous person’s many afflictions. Nor may we use spiritual riches as an excuse to leave a hungry neighbor unfed. Having received God’s goodness, we are called to do good.

Psalm 34:11-15 (Brenton LXX 33:12-16), the fear of the Lord in speech and peace

33:12 Come, ye children, hear me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. 33:13 What man is there that desires life, loving to see good days? 33:14 Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. 33:15 Turn away from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. 33:16 The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer:

St. Peter quotes this teaching in 1 Peter 3:10-12, after calling Christians to compassion and to blessing rather than retaliation. The fear of the Lord becomes practical: the tongue, the lips, turning from evil, doing good, pursuing peace.

Psalm 34 is often remembered for comfort, but it also teaches discipline. The person who tastes God’s goodness must learn truthful speech and active peace. The mouth that blesses God cannot be surrendered without resistance to gossip, deception, or contempt.

Peace is not mere avoidance of conflict. It must be pursued. The tongue is often the first battlefield. Sometimes pursuing peace means refusing to repeat an accusation; sometimes it means admitting a wrong, repairing harm, or speaking truth that others would rather avoid.

“Turn away from evil” is only the beginning. “Do good” calls for a positive act of mercy. Augustine sharpens this distinction: refraining from taking another person’s clothing is not yet the same as clothing someone in need. God’s goodness is to become visible in what we give, not only in what we refuse to do.2

Psalm 34:16-22 (Brenton LXX 33:17-23), affliction, unbroken bones, and redemption

33:17 but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to destroy their memorial from the earth. The righteous cried, and the Lord hearkened to them, 33:18 and delivered them out of all their afflictions. 33:19 The Lord is near to them that are of a contrite heart; and will save the lowly in spirit. 33:20 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but out of them all the Lord will deliver them. 33:21 He keeps all their bones: not one of them shall be broken. 33:22 The death of sinners is evil: and they that hate righteousness will go wrong. 33:23 The Lord will redeem the souls of his servants: and none of those that hope in him shall go wrong.

The Lord’s open ears do not mean indifference to evil. His face is against those who practice it: violence and deceit will not secure a lasting place before Him. The prayer therefore holds together two truths that must not be separated—God hears the afflicted, and God judges wrongdoing.

The Psalm does not promise the righteous a painless life. It says the opposite: many are the afflictions of the righteous. Deliverance is real, but not shallow. The Lord is near to the contrite heart, the heart that ceases defending itself before Him and asks for mercy. Contrition is not despair, and suffering by itself is not proof of either guilt or holiness.

John 19:31-37 presents the unbroken-bones promise of Psalm 34:20 (Brenton LXX 33:21) as fulfilled in Christ. The soldiers do not break His legs because He is already dead. Alongside Exodus 12:46, the promise reveals Him as the Passover Lamb, whole in sacrifice. His death is not the failure of God’s saving purpose.

The next sentence is hard: “The death of sinners is evil.” Read it beside both “they that hate righteousness will go wrong” and the final promise of redemption. The contrast concerns the ruin of persisting against God, not the physical cause or painfulness of a person’s death. An agonizing death does not establish condemnation; a peaceful death does not establish righteousness. We cannot judge someone’s salvation from the manner of dying.

Likewise, “none of those that hope in him shall go wrong” is not a claim that believers never stumble or need forgiveness. It promises that hope placed in the Redeemer will not end in ultimate ruin. The closing word is not the sinner’s self-sufficiency but the Lord’s redemption.

Augustine’s closing exposition makes this distinction concrete. In section 23, he recalls that the believing thief’s legs were broken, yet Christ promised him Paradise: bodily injury could not destroy his faith. In section 24, Lazarus and the rich man expose the unreliability of outward appearances at death. He concludes:

“But according to the soul is death to be understood either the worst or best, not according to bodily either dishonour, or honours which men see.”3

In section 25, Augustine brings the promise home to believers who still need forgiveness: their hope rests in Christ, through whom sinners are reconciled to God. The Psalm ends where the afflicted person needs to stand—not claiming an untroubled life or personal sinlessness, but trusting the Lord who redeems His servants.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

The following connections belong to the named service books and retained reading witnesses. Printed service labels are distinguished from the corresponding words in Brenton; they are not a certification of every parish’s present practice.

  • Agpeya Third Hour: The whole Psalm is printed as Psalm 33 (34). The hour’s Gospel, John 14:26-15:4, speaks of the Comforter, Christ’s peace, and abiding in Him. Within that prayer, enlightened faces, guarded speech, and tasted goodness become requests for a life sustained by the Holy Spirit.

  • Palm Sunday procession, station 3, Archangel Gabriel: The Saint Bishoy rite prints “Psalm 34:7-8 (Psalm 33 in Coptic)”: the angel encamps and delivers, followed by the invitation to taste God’s goodness. These are Psalm 34:7-8 (Brenton LXX 33:8-9), paired with Luke 1:26-38. Gabriel announces the Incarnation to Mary; the Psalm supplies thanksgiving for God’s protection and goodness. It does not originally identify its angel as Gabriel.4

  • Great Lent, Friday of the sixth week: The retained Liturgy reading for March 31, 2023, prints Psalm 34:5, then 34:4, corresponding to Brenton LXX 33:6, then 33:5. Its wording speaks of radiant faces and deliverance from fears; the latter differs from Brenton’s “sojournings.” With John 3:1-13, the invitation to enlightenment stands beside Christ’s teaching about birth from above.

  • Holy Fifty Days, Tuesday of the fifth week: The retained Liturgy reading for May 16, 2023, prints Psalm 34:5 and 34:8, corresponding to Brenton LXX 33:6 and 33:9. Its Gospel is John 12:44-48, where Christ speaks of coming as light. The selected Psalm words invite the faithful to receive His goodness rather than remain in darkness.

  • Second day of Epiphany, Matins: The Toba 12 cycle and the retained reading for January 20, 2023, print Psalm 34:11 and 34:5—the children learning the fear of the Lord and the faces made radiant. These correspond to Brenton LXX 33:12 and 33:6, not to its rich-and-hungry verse. The Gospel is Matthew 3:13-17, the Baptism of Christ. The faithful are called to listen and draw near as the Son is manifested and the Spirit descends.

  • A retained Nineveh Fast example: The dated Liturgy witness for February 3, 2031, prints Psalm 34:19-20, corresponding to Brenton LXX 33:20-21, with Matthew 4:23-5:16. Affliction and preservation are heard beside Christ’s healing ministry and Beatitudes. This remains a bounded retained calendar witness, not an invariant Nineveh assignment. A separate retained witness for January 30, 2034, has Luke 12:32-44 and a different composite Psalm selection; the two services must not be combined into one schedule.

  • An annual example, Abib 12: The retained Liturgy reading for July 19, 2023, prints Psalm 34:19-20, corresponding to Brenton LXX 33:20-21, with Luke 11:53-12:12. Hostility to Christ and His teaching against fear give the affliction promise a concrete setting: disciples may be opposed, but they are not forgotten.

Iconography Connection 🖼️

The Mystical Supper and the Crucifixion offer useful images for praying this Psalm. “Taste and see” opens toward Eucharistic reception. The unbroken-bones promise belongs at the Cross, where Christ is revealed as the true Passover Lamb.

These are scriptural and liturgical connections, not claims that every icon was composed as an illustration of Psalm 34. Before an icon of the Crucifixion, the suffering believer can pray without pretending that wounds mean abandonment.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

  1. Bless the Lord after humiliating deliverance. Do not wait until the story flatters you. Thank Him for mercy without turning your weakness into heroism.
  2. Bring shame into the light. Draw near in prayer; bring sins honestly to confession rather than hiding until you feel worthy to approach.
  3. Receive the goodness you confess. Come to Christ in faith, repentance, and Eucharistic thanksgiving. The Christian life is received, not only analyzed.
  4. Guard your tongue as part of Eucharistic life. The mouth that receives must also be trained to bless. Refuse one piece of gossip; repair one deceitful word.
  5. Pursue peace by doing good. Move beyond avoiding harm to a concrete act of mercy.
  6. Do not confuse affliction with abandonment. Ask for deliverance, remain near the suffering, and leave judgment of the departed to the Redeemer.

Footnotes

  1. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, “Psalm XXXIV” (Latin XXXIII), §§9 and 11, read with §§1-3: approach to Christ, reception of His Body and Blood, and the appeal to John 6. In NPNF, first series, vol. 8, CCEL edition. ↩

  2. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, “Psalm XXXIV” (Latin XXXIII), §18, on departing from evil, clothing the naked, hospitality, and pursuing peace in Christ. CCEL, NPNF, first series, vol. 8. ↩

  3. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, “Psalm XXXIV” (Latin XXXIII), §25; the quoted sentence concludes his distinction between the soul’s condition and outward honors or dishonors at death. See §§23-24 for the believing thief and Lazarus, and the remainder of §25 for hope in Christ’s forgiveness. CCEL, NPNF, first series, vol. 8. ↩

  4. Saint Bishoy, Rites and Readings of Palm Sunday, Procession and General Funeral, station 3, “The Archangel Gabriel,” PDF pp. 127-128: printed Psalm 34:7-8 (Psalm 33 in Coptic) and Luke 1:26-38. Printed rite. ↩

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