This is the wisdom that will set you free to go home:
A journey into Psalm 34 is shaped by one’s previous experience with hymns of praise and with
wisdom literature. For many people in today’s society, a psalm is something one reads occasionally in
church; the Book of Proverbs may in the end be less influential than Ann Landers, Dear Abby, or
Life’s Little Instruction Book. We know almost nothing of teaching acrostics (if one doesn’t
count the sentimental song “M‑O‑T‑H‑E‑R”). Songs do set out to teach — I remember the Mouseketeer
Darlene singing about how to be beautiful, back in the '50s; it was by washing the dishes — but I cannot
dredge up from my memory any teaching songs that involve anything deeper than advice for
succeeding in the mundane world.
Walter Brueggeman divides Psalm 34 as follows: verses 1-7, thanksgiving and praise; verses 8-14, wisdom instruction; verses 11-22, reflection on righteousness (Brueggemann, 133-34). With all due respect, I have to say that I find the Septuagint’s structuring more compelling: Between its verses 11 and 12 (in English, verses 10 and 11), the Septuagint inserts a line containing the single word diapsalma. This word appears in none of my lexicons, but dividing it into dia- and -psalma, coupled with its place in the hymn, makes its intention obvious. Moreover, the translation that I did myself from the Septuagint makes it clear that the first half of the psalm is praise and the second wisdom instruction.
(Aside: I've done my best to transliterate the Greek into English characters, but my best is probably not all that great. For those of you who might care: I render the omega as "w" and the eta as "ay." Curse the limitations of HTML, not me!)
When I began researching Psalm 34, I started by reading all the English translations I had available — NRSV, KJV, NIV, The Inclusive Psalms, and even an ancient Coverdale that belonged to my great-grandmother — and then moved on to the Internet, where I acquired six more. The “speed bumps” of Psalm 34 include: Who was Abimelech? Why did the angel encamp? Taste that the Lord is good? What about those young lions? Coveting many days? (Doesn’t coveting refer to wanting something that doesn’t belong to you and taking active steps to acquire it, as by stealing, cheating, etc.?) What is “he keeps all his bones” about?
The first speed bump comes immediately, in what in some translations is verse 1 and in others is the superscription. In The Inclusive Psalms, the translation reads, “By David. Written when he pretended to be insane in front of Abimelech, who drove him away and he escaped.” The Darby translation, on the other hand, reads, “([A Psalm] of David; when he changed his behaviour before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed).” The RSV and the NRSV both say “feigned madness”; Young’s Literal Translation says, “By David, in his changing his behaviour before Abimelech, and he driveth him away, and he goeth.”
A footnote in the NIV directs the reader to 1 Samuel 21:10-14, adding, “but note ‘Abimelech’ rather
than ‘Achish’
1 Samuel 21 tells the story of David’s visit to the priest Ahimelech in Nob while he (David) was on
the lam from King Saul. From the understandably nervous priest David demanded five loaves of bread.
Ahimelech explained that the only bread handy was holy bread, and that one had to have been
abstaining from sex to eat it. No problem, David replied; my men and I have been on a holy mission.
David took the bread and borrowed the sword of Goliath the Philistine, and then continued his flight
from Saul by proceeding to visit King Achish of Gath. Achish’s servants were also wary of their visitor,
having heard that while Saul had killed in the thousands, David had killed in the tens of thousands (1 Sam. 18:7).
David, who for some unknown reason was “very much afraid of King Achish” (in contrast to the
version of the same story in chapter 27), pretended to be insane, and Achish let him go — probably with
a sigh of relief. “Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow
This pericope is entertaining enough, but it seemed to me to have little to do with an acrostic psalm equally divided between praise and wisdom. It was not until I did my own translation from the Septuagint that I got my first clue. The literal version of the Greek says, “To the David, when he altered his face opposing Abimelech (aylloiwsen to proswpon autou enantion), and he set him free, and he went home.”
For reasons that I will go into later on, I believe this psalm may have been written during the Babylonian Exile. Some 73 psalms indicate Davidic authorship, although in many cases, as Biblical Interpretation points out, “concerning” is a better translation than “by.” The literal meaning of “Abimelech” is “father of the king” (Smith’s, 12), and I don’t see how the confusion between Ahimelech and Abimelech could have been a mistake. My theory is that perhaps “Abimelech” was meant to refer to Jesse, the father of "THE" king of Israel, David; perhaps the original readers of the superscription of this teaching / wisdom acrostic were meant to understand, “if you ‘alter your face’ and stop opposing your parents' guidance, the wisdom you acquire in taking this psalm to heart will be enough to set you free, and you can go home again.” If this psalm was indeed written during the Exile, that would give this verse an added layer of meaning.
The NRSV translates verse 8 as “O taste and see that [Yahweh] is good.” Young’s Literal Translation shows “by experience you will see” for “taste and see,” which agrees with the lexicons’ allowing of “perceive” as another meaning of the Greek. My feeling is, why worry about not being able to taste God when one can’t see, hear, touch, or smell God either?
Verse 12 / 13 is a thornier problem, and each translation has its own approach:
ASV, “What man is he that desireth life, And loveth [many] days, that he may see good?”
BBE, “What man has a love of life, and a desire that his days be increased so that he may see good?”
Coverdale, “What man is he that lusteth to live : and would fain see good days?”
Darby, “What man is he that desireth life, [and] loveth days, that he may see good?”
Inclusive, “Which of you loves life, and wants to enjoy a long life of prosperity?”
KJV, “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?”
NASB, “Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good?”
NIV, “Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,”
NRSV, “Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good?”
RSV, “What man is there who desires life, and covets many days, that he may enjoy good?”
YLT, “Who [is] the man that is desiring life? Loving days to see good?”
The literal Greek says, “Who is the person (anthropos) who is wishing / willing / intending / accustomed / meaning to (thelwn) life, and loving (agapwn) days to behold (idein) good?” It seems to me that there must be something in the Masoretic text that didn’t make it into the Greek, since neither ethelw nor agapay has anything to do with coveting, desiring, or lusting. Although the NIV has a point in acknowledging that the translation could just as easily have been “good days” — both words are in the accusative — the original verse ends with a question mark after the word “good,” while the NIV runs it on to the following verse. I thought about this conundrum a long time, and in the end decided in favor of “none of the above” — my translation is,“Who is the person who chooses life, and loves to behold life’s good days?”
And what about them bones in verse 20? Matthew Henry says merely, “The righteous are taken under the
special protection of the Lord.” St. Augustine gives this verse 482 words, which can be summarized in,
“The patience then which is in faith, is as the bones of the inner man: this is that which cannot be
broken.” St. Augustine goes on to point out that Jesus’ legs were not broken as he hung on the Cross,
“for the firm support of his faith could not be broken” (not to mention the requirement that a living sacrifice to God be intact (Ex. 12:46 and Num. 9:12)), but St. Augustine may not have realized that
breaking the leg bones of someone being crucified is an act of mercy, in that it hastens the victim’s death. It
seems to me that this verse must be a convention of the era in which it was written, and indicates
merely that God loves
us through and through, not just for our outer semblance, but right down to our very marrow (Heb.
4:12).
Because the acrostic nature of Psalm 34 means that it contains almost no sequentiality, I found comparing the eleven versions that I had accumulated puzzling and the exclusivist language of almost all of them a little annoying. I finally decided that I would translate the psalm (from the Septuagint; I still haven't mastered Hebrew) myself.
I realize, of course, that it is the height of hubris of me to pit my puny command of Greek against centuries of scholarly consensus; one or two of my lines are wildly different from the usual English translations, which I believe are based either on the original Masoretic text or perhaps, for the earliest texts, on Jerome’s Vulgate version. I have gone ahead with this approach for two reasons, which can be encapsulated as “nobody’s perfect” and “why not a fresh eye?”
At many points, the traditional Masoretic text of the Psalms is corrupt and in need of emendation. Such correction is based on the usual sources, especially the ancient translations. But these are not always trustworthy; the rendering of the tenses in the Septuagint is particularly misleading. In order to restore the supposedly original form of the text, scholars also have recourse to the resources of related Semitic languages, especially for the meanings of words. (Oxford, 626)
The Oxford Companion to the Bible also says that “since the Septuagint
My hunch is that when a scholarly translator runs into a difficult word or usage, he or she consults other, earlier translations, thinks “Yes, that’s a reasonable solution to the problem,” and proceeds from there. When I translated Psalm 34 from the Septuagint (in which, of course, it is Psalm 33), I relied on no earlier translation at all, but merely the two best Greek-English lexicons I own. The verses that diverge from the standard English translations are footnoted appropriately.
I have made two different translations from the Greek. This paper began with a sense-for-sense translation, what some call “dynamic equivalence.” This section shows you the nitty-gritty details of how I got there.
For the following, rough translation, my only deviations from the literal Greek are preferring “YHWH” to “the Lord”
and deliberately changing approximately half the pronouns referring to YHWH to the feminine to
reflect God’s nature as neither male nor female but both — and much more.
Of David, when he altered his face opposing Abimelech (aylloiwsen to proswpon autou enantion), and he set him free, and he went home.
I have already discussed the references to 1 Samuel and 2 Kings. The 1 Samuel reference speaks of
David when he is far from home and surrounded by enemies. Verse 4 / 5’s reference to temporary
residences in foreign lands (paroikiwn) is also suggestive, as are the enemies who surround the
psalmist in verse 7 / 8 and the connotation of diminishment and disenfranchisement
(elattwthaysontai) in verse 10 / 11. In light of these references and connotations, I would call
verse 22 / 23’s “YHWH will ransom the psyches of his slaves” the textual equivalent of a bop on the
head: The original audience of this psalm is far from home, surrounded by enemies, disenfranchised, and
living in temporary residences in foreign lands, but trusts so firmly that YHWH will save them that the
first half of the psalm is not lament or complaint but praise.
Psalm 34 is an acrostic, teaching psalm; its mixture of praise and wisdom instruction told the children of the Exiles that God is a God who releases, who rescues, who hears prayers, who smiles on the righteous, who protects from all danger, and who ransoms those in bondage. Its message is a message of hope that speaks to the alienated and the lonely in all times: Goe loves us down to our very bone marrow, no matter what. Who could not love a God so good?
While alienation is no longer the buzzword du jour, millions do still feel alienated, out of place — millions know firsthand what it is to be oppressed, marginalized, powerless, miles from all they hold dear; millions long unavailingly for home. Psalm 34 invites us to connect with God as a center of vitality and meaning. Its wisdom is a message of optimism. The ancient message is there for people today, although Bible Interpretation is probably right in its pessimistic view that the psalter tends to get short shrift from most if not all of our churches (Bible Interpretation, 165). Hope in the midst of alienation is news that more of us need to hear.