Psalm 34 is a psalm full of the praises of God and calls for our need for humility. The title says it is ‘A psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed’. This psalm and its sentiments would fit very well with feelings of devotion and gratitude to God for being given safety.

The language throughout this psalm is very beautiful, and is written in a consistent style. Every verse in the psalm is a ‘couplet’ in which one thing gets said and is then repeated in a different way. This style of writing actually has a spiritual meaning, because one part relates to what is good and the other part to what is true. This duality is present in many places throughout the Word. (Sacred Scripture 80)

The Psalm begins with the idea of never-ending praise. Spiritually, expressions in the Word of time and duration are about our enduring acknowledgement of the Lord, and the way in which this continually leads us and shapes our thoughts and actions, even when we are not consciously thinking about Him. (Read more about this in Arcana Caelestia 4814.2, and in Arcana Caelestia 5253.)

After this comes the idea of the greatness of God and of our own consequent humility. We boast, magnify and exalt the Lord, and the humble hear and are glad. The word for ‘boast’ has the meaning ‘to praise’ which can mean praise of myself or of another, in this case, the Lord. Spiritually, the link between praise and humility lies in the universal truth that, as we praise God, we lose self-centredness. We become truly aware of our dependence on the Lord. (See Divine Providence 42.)

The next few verses carry the idea of our need to seek the Lord and keep turning to him - an action on our part which brings the Lord to us to deliver and save us. The truth is that the Lord is always present with us and does not leave or move from us. But from where we stand, we can and will lose our sense of Him. We need to focus, to become aware of him and bring ourselves back into dependence on him. (Divine Providence 91)

This section ends with a reference to the ‘angel of the Lord’ and deliverance. Spiritually, the ‘angel’ of the Lord stands for the truth we receive from the Lord since an angel is a ‘messenger’. (Arcana Caelestia 8495)

This is followed by the invitation to “taste and see that the Lord is good”. Spiritually, to ‘taste’ means to receive truth from the Lord and then to experience its effect and benefit to us. This is the reason why the two words ‘taste’ and ‘see’ are used in this verse. (Arcana Caelestia 4792)

This couplet ends by affirming the happiness – more accurately ‘blessedness’ – of one who trusts in the Lord. (Divine Providence 39)

The next part emphasises that those who live by the Lord shall lack for nothing. It is interesting that this is put in the negative, ‘not lack’ rather than in the positive, ‘be given everything’. This gives a stronger emphasis. Spiritually, it reinforces our experience of how our work to live by the Lord's Word brings a completeness to our personal life, while natural life is inevitably caught up with lacking what we want. (Arcana Caelestia 8939.2)

Verses 11 to 14 are an invitation and a description to choose, live and practise the life of ‘the fear of the Lord’. By ‘fear’ is meant reverence and holiness in a personal and spiritual way, and the examples which are used in this section describe the qualities that such a care for the Lord brings us. This is followed by a reassurance that the Lord’s presence and awareness is always there in our intention to follow and serve him. (Heaven and Hell 218)

The last part of this psalm, in verses 17 to 22, provides strong encouragements of the Lord’s deliverance and redeeming work for those who put their complete faith and trust in Him. ‘He guards all his bones, not one of them is broken.’ Spiritually, bones stand for the truths which support and hold our personal life, and here, with the meaning that our spiritual wholeness shall be kept together and be in integrity. (Arcana Caelestia 6138)

6138. 'And we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves' means total submission. This is clear from the meaning of 'us and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135-6137; and from the meaning of 'slaves' as existing without any freedom of one's own, dealt with in 5760, 5763, thus total submission. By receptacles are meant human forms themselves. For human beings are nothing else than forms receiving life from the Lord; yet the nature of those forms is such, owing to people's heredity and their own actions, that they refuse spiritual life coming from the Lord. But once those receptacles have been renounced so completely that they no longer claim any freedom of their own, there is total submission. The person who is being regenerated is brought at length, through the repeated experiences of desolation and sustainment, to a point at which he no longer wishes to be his own man but the Lord's. And once he has become the Lord's he passes into a state in which, if left to himself, he is dejected and gripped by anxiety. But when he is brought out of that state he returns to the bliss and happiness that are his, to the kind of state all the angels experience.

[2] The Lord desires any person's total submission so that He can make him blissful and happy. That is, He does not want him to be partly his own man and partly the Lord's, for then there are two masters whom a person cannot serve simultaneously, Matthew 6:24. Total submission is again meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Whoever loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:37.

'Father or mother' in general means those aspects of a person essentially his own by virtue of his heredity, and 'son or daughter' those essentially his own by virtue of his own actions. What is essentially a person's own is also meant by his 'soul' in John,

He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it into eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. John 11:25-26.

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Another disciple said, Lord, let me first go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their dead. Matthew 8:21-22.

[3] The need for total submission is perfectly clear from the Church's first commandment,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30.

Thus since love to the Lord does not come from man but from the Lord Himself, all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, which are recipients, must be the Lord's; they must therefore be submitted totally to Him. Such a submission is what is meant by 'we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves'; for 'Pharaoh' represents the natural in general, which is subject to the control of the internal celestial, in the highest sense to the control of the Lord, who is 'Joseph' in that highest sense.