[The righteous] cry, and Jehovah heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
David wrote this psalm, and this verse makes a large promise: God hears His people when they cry, and He rescues them. Two questions follow. Who counts as "the righteous"? And what does deliverance look like when the trouble does not go away?
One writer marks how this Psalm differs from the two before it:
Verse 15 of this Psalm states again that "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous." This time it is not for guidance, as in Psalm 32. Nor is it for deliverance, as in Psalm 33. It is in government, so that He may listen to their cry, and overrule affairs on their behalf. But notice — it is "the righteous" for whom He acts in this way.
Another writer shows how closely He watches and listens:
Those treading this path will realize that the eyes of the Lord are on His people and His ears open to their cry. He is not unmindful of their sorrows: He sees them all. He is not indifferent to their cry; He hears the faintest whisper.
Being heard does not mean being spared. Commentators tie the crying itself to the trouble that produced it:
But though the righteous are not cut off with the ungodly, yet it is necessary that they should be tried. In their trial they cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles (v. 17). So the trial itself serves a good purpose — that of casting souls dependently on the Lord to prove the value of His deliverance.
The same logic explains why the world is so full of hardship:
There is trial also, and it falls on the righteous; and, as he soon admits, even much of it. What does this mean? First, that being brought down by trial is what makes men cry to God and learn His delivering grace. And it is to the broken in heart that He is near, and the contrite that He saves. So there is abundant reason for all the trial of which the world is full.
The cry God hears comes from a particular kind of heart:
What kind of man could God walk with? With the man of a contrite spirit. If you want to secure the presence of the Lord, what must there be? A broken, and a contrite heart. In plain language, there is a moral state that engages the company of Christ.
Another writer contrasts a will still at work with a heart that has submitted:
If in the middle of trial there is irritation and anger, even if only in thought, it is the sure sign of self-will at work… But when the heart is broken by the evil, and fully submits to all that God in His government allows, the will is no longer at work. Then it will find great blessing in the trial, and will bless the Lord "at all times."
"Out of all their troubles" is a total promise, but not an immediate one:
And if the righteous man finds great spiritual blessing in this way, it does not follow that in an evil world he will not suffer. For, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Still, the Lord, in His own time and way, will deliver the godly out of his afflictions.
And deliverance need not mean escape from the circumstances at all:
It does not follow that there will always be deliverance from circumstances. That is not the point. In a world of evil we must never forget that righteousness may suffer, but God governs.
Commentators read the psalm as reaching past David to Christ, and then to believers today:
The righteous must expect suffering while man has his day, but Jehovah delivers him… Here is full assurance that Jehovah governs in favour of the humble in heart. This enables them to bless, not only when they are blessed (that is not faith), but at all times. The reason is that they are heard, preserved, and redeemed when they are in trouble. Christ is the great example of this.
The promise has not lapsed with the change of era:
The principles of God's government of His people do not change. When David wrote Psalm 34, it was the age of law and God's people were in the place of servants. Today is the age of grace and we are before God as His sons… Yet the apostle Peter can quote David's words from Psalm 34 as applying equally to us.
- Trouble — affliction has a purpose. It brings people low, so they cry to God and learn what His delivering grace is worth.
- Cry — the cry that counts comes from a broken heart, a will that has stopped fighting what God allows.
- Heard — God governs on their behalf. He sees every sorrow and catches the faintest whisper.
- Delivered — the rescue is certain and complete. But it comes in His time and way, and it may not take them out of the circumstances.
- Bless — faith blesses God at all times, not only when blessed. Christ is the great example, and Peter applies the same promise to believers now.
Jehovah is nigh to those that are of a broken heart, and saveth them that are of a contrite spirit.
David wrote Psalm 34 at one of the lowest points of his life, and its promise falls on those whose hearts have given way, not on the confident. That raises a question: why would the God who is high and holy draw closest to crushed people?
The heading of this psalm points back to a low moment before a Philistine king. One writer sees shame and grace working together there:
He pretended to be insane to escape harsh treatment from the Philistine king. He was in the wrong place, so he acted wrongly. But he must have confessed and judged this failure before God. Otherwise he could not have written as he did in this psalm. In His wise government God dealt honestly with David and made him feel the shame of what he had done. At the same time He showed the grace of His heart by drawing him to bless the Lord.
The broken heart of verse 18, then, was David's own. What looked like pure loss became the door to a closer knowledge of God:
David's time at the Philistine king's court had humbled him deeply. His own behaviour had thrown away the dignity God gave him. This broke his heart and crushed his spirit. But under this discipline he came to know himself and to know the Lord more closely. What more could he want?
The verse names two things: a broken heart and a crushed spirit. One writer traces them to two different sources:
If our hearts are broken by all that is around, and our spirits contrite because of what we find in ourselves, we will find it is still true: "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."
God's nearness to the low does not cancel His holiness. It flows from who He is:
He is high and holy, and He dwells in the high and holy place. But He dwells also with the one "who is of a contrite and humble spirit," for He finds there something suited to Himself. Heaven's highest place is honoured by the presence of Him who still stoops to make the lowly heart His throne. The highest heavens cannot contain God. Yet we may have Him as our Guest — but only by going down ourselves into the lowest place. So if we have never met Him, it is because we have never gone that low. Self-judgment is where we find Him in grace.
So nothing keeps us from meeting Him except our own refusal to go that low.
The verse promises rescue, not only comfort. One writer applies it to the moment when every human answer has run out:
When we see so much sorrow and so many problems and trials, how do we react? Are we looking for a "solution" in a human way? We won't find one. On the contrary — we may make things worse. But we may be at the point where, like the apostle Paul, "we are perplexed." If we have a contrite spirit before the Lord there, He will save us. He will show us the way… This may not be the easy way — but we will have the certainty that it is His way.
The surrounding verses put this promise inside God's ongoing care for His own. One writer sees the trial itself as what produces this broken heart:
The trial itself serves a good purpose. It throws souls back on the Lord, and proves the value of His deliverance. We also learn through trial to "have a broken heart" (v. 18), A broken heart is so precious to the Lord that He comes especially near to us at such times. And does it not move us deeply to remember the Lord Jesus facing the terrible sorrow of the cross? He said, "Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair." Only a broken heart can truly value such words from the blessed Lord of glory.
This same care is described as God's direct government of His children rather than distant providence:
Not only is it true that God is not mocked… but He also watches over and directly governs His children… "The eyes of Jehovah are upon the righteous, His ears open to their cry." Not only that, but "near to those of a broken heart, and He saves those of a contrite spirit."
- Broken — David's own humiliating failure broke his heart. That discipline taught him to know himself, and to know the Lord more closely.
- Twofold — what surrounds us breaks the heart; what we find inside us makes the spirit contrite.
- Near — the God whom the heavens cannot contain makes the lowly heart His throne. There He finds something suited to Himself.
- Down — if we have never met Him, it is because we have never come down to self-judgment. That is where His grace meets us.
- Saved — human solutions only make things worse. God shows the contrite spirit a way out — not the easy way, but His way.