Psalm 34: Taste and See That the Lord Is Good

The psalm carries a heading in the Bible: “By David; when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.” The story is in 1 Samuel 21. David, running from Saul, took refuge with a Philistine king and, recognized and afraid, “changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane” (1 Samuel 21:13) until he was sent away. The king there is named Achish, not Abimelech. Abimelech may have been a title used for Philistine kings, or the names may have been exchanged as the tradition was handed on; either way, the heading ties the psalm to a real escape.

That background explains its tone. Psalm 34 is not the prayer of someone in danger but of someone just out of it, telling others what happened: “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” It is also an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew, each verse starting with the next letter, which is why it reads in short, memorable sentences. It was made to be learned by heart and passed on.

Verses 1–3: an invitation to praise together

“I will bless the LORD at all times.” At all times, not only in good ones. By verse 3 the praise is shared: “Oh magnify the LORD with me. Let’s exalt his name together.” The psalm is a testimony meant to be joined.

Verses 4–7: what happened

“I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Notice from what: his fears, not only his dangers. Verse 7 gives the picture that has made the psalm dear to anyone devoted to the guardian angels: “The LORD’s angel encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.”

Verses 8–10: taste and see

“Oh taste and see that the LORD is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.” Tasting is the least theoretical way of knowing anything, and it cannot be done at a distance. Even young lions go hungry, verse 10 says, “but those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.”

Verses 11–14: a teacher’s advice

“Come, you children, listen to me.” Then the most practical lines in the Psalter: “Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking lies. Depart from evil, and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it.” Saint Peter quotes these lines, with the verses that follow, in his first letter (1 Peter 3:10-12) as a rule of life for Christians.

Verses 15–22: near to the broken-hearted

“The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.” The next verse is just as honest: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Many afflictions, not none. Verse 20, “He protects all of his bones. Not one of them is broken,” John applies to Christ on the cross, whose legs the soldiers did not break: it happened, he writes, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 19:36).

The Church heard the Eucharist in verse 8 very early. The Mystagogical Catecheses of Jerusalem, instructions for the newly baptized traditionally attributed to Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth century, describe the moment of Communion: “you hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good.” They add: “Trust not the judgment to your bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering.”

The New Testament makes the same connection. Saint Peter writes to new Christians, “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:3), echoing the psalm. And the Lectionary sets Psalm 34, with the refrain “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” beside Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse in John 6 on three Sundays in a row in Year B. On the first of them the first reading is Elijah, exhausted under a tree in the wilderness, woken by an angel who tells him, “Arise and eat!” (1 Kings 19:5): the angel of verse 7 and the taste of verse 8 in one story.

A simple practice: pray verse 8 in the line for Communion, as an approach rather than a reflection afterwards.

Verse 7 is one of the Old Testament verses the Church draws on when she teaches about guardian angels. The Catechism, citing Psalm 34:7 among its sources, says: “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession” (CCC 336). The image is military. An army encamps around what it guards, and the angel pitches camp around those who fear the Lord.

The Church sings this verse on June 29, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, with the refrain “The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him,” after a first reading (Acts 12) in which an angel leads Peter out of prison. The angel does not replace God in the psalm; he is sent, and it is the Lord who delivers. To pray with this verse, see the Guardian Angel prayer and the Church’s feast of the Guardian Angels on October 2.

People often turn to Psalm 34 in illness and heartbreak, and it bears the weight, but it is worth reading what it actually promises. Verse 18 promises nearness: the Lord is near the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Verse 19 promises deliverance through many afflictions, not the absence of them. It is a psalm for the person whose situation has not changed yet, which is why it survives a bad week. Pray it alongside the sacraments and good medical care, never instead of them. The Bible verses for healing and the prayer for healing a broken heart go further.

To apply it, start with the middle. Verses 13 and 14 are four instructions small enough for one day: keep your tongue from evil, do not lie, turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. Pursue is an active verb; peace is chased, not waited for. Then end the day with verse 1: bless the Lord at all times, including this one.

Psalm 34 contains two of the most used lines in Catholic prayer, and they sit unexpectedly close together.

The first is the invitation: taste and see that the Lord is good. It is a strange verb to use about God, and the strangeness is the point. Not consider, not conclude. Taste, which is the most direct and least theoretical way of knowing anything, and which cannot be done at a distance. The Church heard the Eucharist in that line very early, and it has been sung at Communion for centuries.

The second comes near the end: the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. That verse has done more pastoral work than most of the Psalter. It promises nearness rather than repair, which is why it survives being read by someone whose situation has not improved.

Between the two the psalm is practical to the point of bluntness. Keep your tongue from evil. Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. It reads less like poetry than like advice from someone who has been through something, which the heading suggests: it is attributed to David when he escaped by feigning madness before a foreign king.

The psalm is an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew, each verse beginning with a successive letter. It was built to be memorised.

Psalm 34 has been sung at Communion since at least the fourth century, for its taste and see verse, and it is still a favourite Communion chant. At Mass it is the responsorial psalm, with the refrain "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord," on three of the Bread of Life Sundays in Year B (the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-First Sundays in Ordinary Time) and on the Fourth Sunday of Lent in Year C; on the Thirtieth Sunday in Year C its refrain is "The Lord hears the cry of the poor," and at the Mass of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29 it is "The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him." In the Liturgy of the Hours it is prayed at Daytime Prayer on Saturday of Weeks I and III.

Learn verse 18 by heart; it is the single most useful verse in the Psalter to have available when someone you love is suffering and nothing you can say will help. Use the taste and see verse before Communion rather than after, as an approach rather than a reflection. The practical middle section rewards being read slowly on an ordinary weekday when nothing is wrong.