Psalms 34:7

(Heb.: 34:8-11) This praise is supported by a setting forth of the gracious protection under which God's saints continually are. The מלאך יהוה, is none other than He who was the medium of Jahve's intercourse with the patriarchs, and who accompanied Israel to Canaan. This name is not collective (Calvin, Hupfeld, Kamphausen, and others). He, the One, encampeth round about them, in so far as He is the Captain of the host of Jahve (Jos 5:14), and consequently is accompanied by a host of inferior ministering angels; or insofar as He can, as being a spirit not limited by space, furnish protection that covers them on every side. חנה (cf. Zac 9:8) is perhaps an allusion to מחנים in Gen 32:2., that angel-camp which joined itself to Jacob's camp, and surrounded it like a barricade or carrago. On the fut. consec. ויחלּצם, et expedit eos, as a simple expression of the sequence, or even only of a weak or loose internal connection, vid., Ewald, 343, a. By reason of this protection by the Angel of God arises (Psa 34:9) the summons to test the graciousness of God in their own experience. Tasting (γεύσαστηαι, Heb 6:4., Pe1 2:3) stands before seeing; for spiritual experience leads to spiritual perception or knowledge, and not vice versa. Nisi gustaveris, says Bernard, non videbis. David is desirous that others also should experience what he has experienced in order that they may come to know what he has come to know, viz., the goodness of God. (Note: On account of this Psa 34:9, Γεύσασθε καὶ Ἴδετε κ. τ. λ., Ps 33 (34) was the Communion Psalm of the early church, Constit. Apost. viii. 13, Cyril,. Catech. Myst. v 17.) Hence, in Psa 34:10, the call to the saints to fear Jahve (יראוּ instead of יראוּ, in order to preserve the distinction between veremini and videbunt, as in Jos 24:14; S…

This psalm was penned upon a particular occasion, as appears by the title, and yet there is little in it peculiar to that occasion, but that which is general, both by way of thanksgiving to God an instruction to us. I. He praises God for the experience which he and others had had of his goodness (Psa 34:1-6). II. He encourages all good people to trust in God and to seek to him (Psa 34:7-10). III. He gives good counsel to us all, as unto children, to take heed of sin, and to make conscience of our duty both to God and man (Psa 34:11-14). IV. To enforce this good counsel he shows God's favour to the righteous and his displeasure against the wicked, in which he sets before us good and evil, the blessing and the curse (Psa 34:15-22). So that, in singing this psalm, we are both to give glory to God and to teach and admonish ourselves and one another. A psalm of David when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.

34:7 The angel of the Lord represented the Lord’s presence during the wilderness journey. He protected Israel from the forces of Egypt (Exod 14:19-20), and he will guard all the godly (Ps 91:11).