Psalm 34:2-3

2          My soul makes its boast in the LORD;

                        let the humble hear and be glad.

3          Oh, magnify[1] the LORD with me,

                        and let us exalt his name together!

            We are to boast AND be humble? Aren’t these two traits diametrically opposed to each other? Well, yes and no.

            David speaks about his boast in Yhwh and invites the humble to do the same. David is not encouraging prideful boasting. Rather his boasting is couched in humility. He knows and has experienced deliverance from the hand of Yhwh.[2] Without the LORD David would have been toast and he knows this.

            David now invites the poor and the needy to join together with him in exalting God. The poor and needy are not used as economic terms. In fact, the poor and the needy have nothing at all to do with someone’s socio-economic situation. I’ve met some very wealthy people who are “poor and needy.” On the other side of the coin, I’ve met people who are very poor economically who do not meet the Biblical definition of “poor and needy” because there’s not an ounce of humility coursing through their heart.

            The poor and needy are those who seek life, and life is found only in the source of life—Yhwh. Kraus writes:

Since life—not in its immanent power, but as the gift of Yahweh, life in the presence of Israel’s God—was for the people of the Old Testament the highest good, they prayed for and waited expectantly for “long life” as the most precious gift and the most marvelous blessing (Ps. 21:4*; 61:6*; 91:16*; 133:3*). Decisive, however, is the direction of one’s life, its openness to Yahweh.^[3]

Dr. Martin Luther writes:

 Let them hear is set here in an absolute sense, for the haughty and wrathful want to be heard and not hear, but it is characteristic of the gentle to hear and receive the Word in patience. And therefore, as hearing and, consequently, training belongs only to the gentle, so also rejoicing. So the psalmist says in Ps. 122:1: “I was glad when they said to me.” But those people want to rejoice at what they themselves say. They do not want to be taught, but they want to teach; they seek to be masters and rabbis, but not disciples (cf. Matt. 23:7–8). So the Jews stopped their ears against Stephen in Acts 7:57 and against Paul in Acts 22:22.

Therefore the attribute “meek” is noteworthy, because they are patient to hear, they are blessed and made joyful. The others, however, refuse to let anyone tell them anything, as the Germans express it. Because they rely too much on their own prudence, they fall into evil.^[4]

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[1]  “’Magnify’ (גדלו), or ‘make great’; in one sense, it is impossible to conceive of mankind making God great. God is already great, without any human help. Yet the essence of praise is the acknowledgment and public declaration of God’s greatness; such praise does not change the divine essence, but creates awareness of God’s greatness in the perception of others. And, as an expression of awareness, it is also a personal acknowledgment of divine majesty and glory.” Peter C. Craigie, Psalms *1–50, vol. 19 of Word Biblical Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 279.

[2] Ringgren, TDOT, s.v. “הלל הִלּוּלִים תְּהִלָּה,” 3:409-410.

^[3] Hans-Joachim Kraus, A Continental Commentary: Theology of the Psalms (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 164.

^[4] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 10: First Lectures on the Psalms I: Psalms 1-75, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, electronic ed., vol. 10 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 160.