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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 34:4 - 34:4
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(Heb.: 34:5-7) The poet now gives the reason for this praise by setting forth the deliverance he has experienced. He longed for God and took pains to find Him (such is the meaning of דָּרַשׁ in distinction from בִּקֵּשׁ), and this striving, which took the form of prayer, did not remain without some actual answer (עָנָה is used of the being heard and the fulfilment as an answer to the petition of the praying one). The perfects, as also in Psa 34:6, Psa 34:7, describe facts, one of which did not take place without the other; whereas וַיַּֽעֲנֵנִי would give them the relation of antecedent and consequent. In Psa 34:6, his own personal experience is generalised into an experimental truth, expressed in the historical form: they look unto Him and brighten up, i.e., whosoever looketh unto Him (הִבִּיט אֶל of a look of intense yearning, eager for salvation, as in Num 21:9; Zec 12:10) brightens up. It is impracticable to make the עֲנָוִים from Psa 34:3 the subject; it is an act and the experience that immediately accompanies it, that is expressed with an universal subject and in gnomical perfects. The verb נָהַר, here as in Isa 60:5, has the signification to shine, glitter (whence נְהָרָה, light). Theodoret renders it: Ὁ μετὰ πίστεως τῷ θεῷ προσιὼν φωτὸς ἀκτῖνας δέχεται νοεροῦ, the gracious countenance of God is reflected on their faces; to the actus directus of fides supplex succeeds the actus reflexus of fides triumphans. It never comes to pass that their countenances must be covered with shame on account of disappointed hope: this shall not and cannot be, as the sympathetic force of אַל implies. In all the three dialects חָפַר (חָפֵר) has the signification of being ashamed and sacred; according to Gesenius and Fürst (root פר) it proceeds from the primary signification of reddening, blushing; in reality, however, since it is to be combined, not with Arab. hmr, but with chmr (cf. Arab. kfr, כפר, Arab. gfr, gmr), it proceeds from the primary signification of covering, hiding, veiling (Arabic chafira, tachaffara, used of a woman, cf. chamara, to be ashamed, to blush, to be modest, used of both sexes), so that consequently the shame-covered countenance is contrasted with that which has a bright, bold, and free look. In Psa 34:7, this general truth is again individualised. By זֶה עָנִי (like זֶה סִינַי in Psa 68:9) David points to himself. From the great peril in which he was placed at the court of the Philistines, from which God has rescued him, he turns his thoughts with gratitude and praise to all the deliverances which lie in the past.