Psalm 34: Taste and See

The superscription ties this psalm to one of the most undignified scenes in David's life. 1 Samuel 21:10-15 tells the story: David, fleeing Saul, has run all the way to Gath, the heart of Philistine territory, hoping to disappear among Israel's enemies. He is recognized almost immediately. With nowhere to run, he feigns madness in the king's court. He scratches at the doorposts. He lets spit run down into his beard. The Philistine king (named Achish in 1 Samuel and titled Abimelech in the superscription, since 'Abimelech' was likely a Philistine royal title rather than a personal name, the way 'Pharaoh' worked in Egypt) takes one look at him and says, in essence, why are you bringing me another madman, I have enough of my own. David is driven out and survives. This psalm is the survivor's reflection, written by a man who got out of a Philistine throne room by drooling on himself.

The psalm is an alphabetic acrostic, like Psalm 25, with each line beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet. The acrostic form is a teaching device: it makes the psalm easier to memorize, and it signals 'completeness,' praise from A to Z, the whole alphabet of trust. David is teaching what he learned in Gath. 'This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles' (v. 6). The Hebrew word for 'poor' here is 'ani,' the same word the prophets use for the destitute, the wronged, the ones with nothing. David in this moment is not a king. He is a fugitive with no army, no land, no clean way out. He is 'ani.' The psalm refuses to romanticize his situation. It just names that the LORD heard him in it.

Verse 8 contains one of the most famous invitations in scripture: 'taste and see that the LORD is good.' The Hebrew verb 'ta'amu' is sensory and immediate, the verb you would use for actually putting something on your tongue. It is not abstract reasoning, it is firsthand experience. Peter calls his readers to it in 1 Peter 2:3, 'now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.' Peter assumes his Christian readers have already begun the tasting, the way David had already begun it on the road out of Gath. Verse 20 ('he keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken') gets picked up in John 19:36, applied to Jesus when the soldiers, finding him already dead, do not break his legs. John reads David's deliverance as a foreshadowing of a deeper deliverance.

What is striking about Psalm 34 is how teacherly it is. Verse 11 turns directly to instruction: 'come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.' David, who got out of Gath by faking madness, sits the next generation down and tells them what he learned. Keep your tongue from evil (v. 13). Turn from evil and do good (v. 14). The LORD is near to the brokenhearted (v. 18). This is the wisdom of someone who has been low enough to know what nearness means. The psalm is not a victory lap. It is a survivor passing on what kept him alive.