Psalms 34:8–10

Psalms 34:8 — "Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good"

The verb ṭaʿam ("taste") is striking in its physicality. In the ancient Near Eastern world, taste was the most intimate of the senses — you cannot taste at arm's length. The Psalmist deliberately chooses an embodied, experiential verb rather than a cognitive one: this is not "consider" or "acknowledge," but taste. The companion verb rāʾâ ("see") widens the invitation to full perception. Together they insist that knowledge of God's goodness is not merely propositional but participatory — it must be personally verified.

The verse is grammatically imperative yet tonally jubilant; the opening ṭaʿamû is a pl. imperative, addressed to anyone within earshot of the Psalmist's testimony. This is important: God's goodness is not a private mystical datum but something reproducible, universally verifiable. The Psalmist is saying, in effect: I have tasted; now you taste — and you will find what I found.

The broader context of Psalm 34 is David's deliverance from Abimelech (likely Achish of Gath, 1 Sam 21), a moment of acute vulnerability that yielded a trust-vindicating rescue. Verse 8 is not theoretical theology; it is a post-deliverance testimony issued as an invitation.

Psalms 34:9 — "Oh fear Yahweh, you his saints"

Yirʾû ("fear") in the Hebrew wisdom tradition does not mean cringing dread (Hebrew paḥad) but the oriented, whole-person reverence that reorganizes one's life around God's reality — what we might call filial awe. The word qedōšāyw ("his saints/holy ones") is rich: in the Psalter it denotes those set apart by covenant belonging, those who have been consecrated through relationship with God. The verse implies a logic: those who have tasted (v. 8) naturally arrive at fear/reverence (v. 9). Experience of goodness does not breed familiarity that cancels awe; paradoxically, it deepens it.

The promise appended — "for there is no want to those who fear him" — connects reverent trust directly to providential sufficiency. This is not a prosperity formula but a relational claim: those oriented toward God lack nothing essential, because their deepest need — communion with the Source of all good — is being met.

Psalms 34:10 — "The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger"

The Hebrew kefîrîm ("young lions") denotes lions at their physical prime — apex predators, the paradigm of self-sufficiency and aggressive acquisition. That even they hunger is a pointed reversal. The verse is a mashal (a wisdom aphorism) operating on the principle of a fortiori: if even the strongest, most capable creature in the wild goes without, then reliance on personal strength or cunning is no guarantee of provision. Only those who "seek the LORD" (v. 10b in the full verse) shall not lack any good thing — a contrast built entirely on dependent trust versus autonomous striving.

Typological/Spiritual Sense

In the allegorical sense, "tasting" anticipates the Eucharist: the literal ingestion of divine goodness made flesh. The "saints" (v. 9) who fear the Lord and lack nothing find their fullest identity in the baptized faithful gathered at the table. The "young lions" who go hungry typologically evoke those who seek satiation in worldly power and self-reliance — and are ultimately found wanting.

Catholic tradition has read verse 8 as one of Scripture's most explicit anticipations of the Eucharist — a reading with patristic, conciliar, and magisterial density.

St. Augustine comments in his Expositions on the Psalms: "Taste and see — do not see before you taste... Faith is the tasting; understanding is the seeing, which follows." He distinguishes the initial act of faith-as-tasting from the deeper beatific vision that follows. Yet he also links the verse directly to the Eucharistic table, noting that the Body of Christ is the good into which the believer is invited.

St. Peter Chrysologus explicitly identifies the "taste" of verse 8 with the Eucharistic species, writing that God "placed himself within the reach of our mouths" so that the commandment to taste might be literally fulfilled at the altar.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (§1380) teaches that Christ "is present... in the Eucharistic species" so that the faithful "taste the sweetness" of the Lord — language that directly echoes Psalm 34:8 and the Eucharistic theology it undergirds. The Directory for Masses with Children likewise invokes this verse in encouraging that the liturgy engage the full person.

The "fear of the Lord" in verse 9 is identified by Catholic tradition as one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (CCC §1831), and the tradition from Aquinas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 19) onward distinguishes between servile fear (terror of punishment) and filial fear (reverential awe born of love) — the latter being what the Psalmist commends. This filial fear, far from contradicting love, is its deepest expression.

The image of the hungry young lions (v. 10) resonates with the Augustinian axiom (Confessions I.1): "our heart is restless until it rests in Thee" — the paradox that creaturely striving, even at its most vigorous, cannot produce the satiation that only divine communion provides.

Contemporary Catholic life is saturated with competing invitations to "taste" — consumption, entertainment, achievement — all promising satisfaction and delivering restlessness. Psalm 34:8 cuts through this noise with a countercultural dare: taste this, and see. The practical implication is Eucharistic. Catholics have access to the literal fulfillment of this verse every time they receive Holy Communion, yet familiarity can dull the sense of daring invitation the Psalmist intends. Approaching the Eucharist with the expectant, experimental posture of verse 8 — I am about to verify, again, that God is good — transforms reception from routine to encounter.

Verse 9's call to "fear the LORD" challenges the therapeutic drift of much contemporary religiosity, which reduces God to a cosmic affirmer. Filial awe — taking God seriously enough to reorganize one's choices around his reality — is presented here not as spiritual immaturity but as the mark of the saints.

The young lions of verse 10 speak directly to the exhausted high-achiever: aggressive self-provision, however competent, is not the path to sufficiency. The invitation is to loosen the grip — to seek rather than seize — and discover the paradoxical abundance that flows from dependence on God.