From such thoughts the transition to the second part of the main body of the psalm is natural. Vv. 12-19 are a joyous celebration of the blessedness of Israel as the people of so great a God. The most striking feature of these verses is the pervading reference to the passage of the Red Sea which, as we have already seen, has coloured ver. 7. From Miriam's song come the designation of the people as God's "inheritance," and the phrase "the place of His habitation" (Exod. xv. 17). The "looking upon the inhabitants of the earth," and the thought that the "eye of Jehovah is upon them that fear Him, to deliver their soul in death" (vv. 14, 18), remind us of the Lord's looking from the pillar on the host of Egyptians and the terrified crowd of fugitives, and of the same glance being darkness to the one and light to the other. The abrupt introduction of the king not saved by his host, and of the vanity of the horse for safety, are explained if we catch an echo of Miriam's ringing notes, "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea.... The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea" (Exod. xv. 4, 21).
If this historical allusion be not recognised, the connection of these verses is somewhat obscure, but still discernible. The people who stand in special relation to God are blessed, because that eye, which sees all men, rests on them in loving-kindness and with gracious purpose of special protection. This contrast of God's universal knowledge and of that knowledge which is accompanied with loving care is the very nerve of these verses, as is shown by the otherwise aimless repetition of the thought of God's looking down on men. There is a wide all-seeingness, characterised by three words in an ascending scale of closeness of observance, in vv. 13, 14. It is possible to God as being Creator: "He fashions their hearts individually," or "one by one," seems the best interpretation of ver. 15 a, and thence is deduced His intimate knowledge of all His creatures' doings. The sudden turn to the impotence of earthly might, as illustrated by the king and the hero and the battle-horse, may be taken as intended to contrast the weakness of such strength both with the preceding picture of Divine omniscience and almightiness, and with the succeeding assurance of safety in Jehovah. The true reason for the blessedness of the chosen people is that God's eye is on them, not merely with cold omniscience nor with critical considering of their works, but with the direct purpose of sheltering them from surrounding evil. But the stress of the characterisation of these guarded and nourished favourites of heaven is now laid not upon a Divine act of choice, but upon their meek looking to Him. His eye meets with love the upturned patient eye of humble expectance and loving fear.
What should be the issue of such thoughts, but the glad profession of trust, with which the psalm fittingly ends, corresponding to the invocation to praise which began it? Once in each of these three closing verses do the speakers profess their dependence on God. The attitude of waiting with fixed hope and patient submission is the characteristic of God's true servants in all ages. In it are blended consciousness of weakness and vulnerability, dread of assault, reliance on Divine Love, confidence of safety, patience, submission and strong aspiration.
These were the tribal marks of God's people, when this was "a new song"; they are so to-day, for, though the Name of the Lord be more fully known by Christ, the trust in it is the same. A threefold good is possessed, expected and asked as the issue of this waiting. God is "help and shield" to those who exercise it. Its sure fruit is joy in Him, since He will answer the expectance of His people, and will make His name more fully known and more sweet to those who have clung to it, in so far as they knew it. The measure of hope in God is the measure of experience of His loving-kindness, and the closing prayer does not allege hope as meriting the answer which it expects, but recognises that desire is a condition of possession of God's best gifts, and knows it to be most impossible of all impossibilities that hope fixed on God should be ashamed. Hands, lifted empty to heaven in longing trust, will never drop empty back and hang listless, without a blessing in their grasp.
[PSALM XXXIV.]
1 (א) I will bless Jehovah at all times,
Continually shall His praise be in my mouth.
2 (ב) In Jehovah my soul shall boast herself,
The humble shall hear and rejoice.
3 (ג) Magnify Jehovah with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
4 (ד) I sought Jehovah and He answered me,
And from all my terrors did He deliver me.
5 (ה) They looked to Him and were brightened,
(ו) And their faces did not blush.
6 (ז) This afflicted man cried and Jehovah heard,
And from all his distresses saved him.
7 (ח) The angel of Jehovah encamps round them that fear Him,
And delivers them.
8 (ט) Taste and see that Jehovah is good;
Happy the man that takes refuge in Him.
9 (י) Fear Jehovah, ye His holy ones;
For there is no want to them that fear Him.
10 (כ) Young lions famish and starve,
But they that seek Jehovah shall not want any good.
11 (ל) Come [my] sons, hearken to me;
I will teach you the fear of Jehovah.
12 (מ) Who is the man who desires life,
Who loves [many] days, in order to see good?
13 (נ) Keep thy tongue from evil,
And thy lips from speaking deceit.
14 (ס) Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.
15 (ע) The eyes of Jehovah are toward the righteous,
And His ears are towards their loud cry.
16 (פ) The face of Jehovah is against the doers of evil
To cut off their remembrance from the earth.
17 (צ) The righteous cry and Jehovah hears;
And from all their straits He rescues them.
18 (ק) Jehovah is near to the broken in heart,
And the crushed in spirit He saves.
19 (ר) Many are the afflictions of the righteous;
But from them all Jehovah delivers him.
20 (ש) He keeps all his bones,
Not one of them is broken.
21 (ת) Evil shall slay the wicked;
And the haters of the righteous shall be held guilty.
22 (פ) Jehovah redeems the soul of His servants;
And not held guilty shall any be who take refuge in Him.
The occasion of this psalm, according to the superscription, was that humiliating and questionable episode, when David pretended insanity to save his life from the ruler of Goliath's city of Gath. The set of critical opinion sweeps away this tradition as unworthy of serious refutation. The psalm is acrostic, therefore of late date; there are no references to the supposed occasion; the careless scribe has blundered "blindly" (Hupfeld) in the king's name, mixing up the stories about Abraham and Isaac in Genesis with the legend about David at Gath; the didactic, gnomical cast of the psalm speaks of a late age. But the assumption that acrostic structure is necessarily a mark of late date is not by any means self-evident, and needs more proof than is forthcoming; the absence of plain allusions to the singer's circumstances cuts both ways, and suggests the question, how the attribution to the period stated arose, since there is nothing in the psalm to suggest it; the blunder of the king's name is perhaps not a blunder after all, but, as the Genesis passages seem to imply, "Abimelech" (the father of the King) may be a title, like Pharaoh, common to Philistine "kings," and Achish may have been the name of the reigning Abimelech; the proverbial style and somewhat slight connection and progress of thought are necessary results of acrostic fetters. If the psalm be David's, the contrast between the degrading expedient which saved him and the exalted sentiments here is remarkable, but not incredible. The seeming idiot scrabbling on the gate is now saint, poet, and preacher; and, looking back on the deliverance won by a trick, he thinks of it as an instance of Jehovah's answer to prayer! It is a strange psychological study; and yet, keeping in view the then existing standard of morality as to stratagems in warfare, and the wonderful power that even good men have of ignoring flaws in their faith and faults in their conduct, we may venture to suppose that the event which evoked this song of thanksgiving and is transfigured in ver. 4 is the escape by craft from Achish. To David his feigning madness did not seem inconsistent with trust and prayer.
Whatever be the occasion of the psalm, its course of thought is obvious. There is first a vow of praise in which others are summoned to unite (vv. 1-3); then follows a section in which personal experience and invocation to others are similarly blended (vv. 4-10); and finally a purely didactic section, analysing the practical manifestations of "the fear of the Lord" and enforcing it by the familiar contrast of the blessedness of the righteous and the miserable fate of the ungodly. Throughout we find familiar turns of thought and expression, such as are usual in acrostic psalms.