the psalmist will greatly help to strengthen and encourage such; for it applies to the Deliverer of the oppressed. But in order that this praise may sound forth with strength and fulness of tone, he courts the assistance of companions in Psa 34:4. To acknowledge the divine greatness with the utterance of praise is expressed by גּדּל with an accusative in Psa 69:31; in this instance with ל: to offer גּדלּה unto Him, cf. Psa 29:2. Even רומם has this subjective meaning: with the heart and in word and deed, to place the exalted Name of God as high as it really is in itself. In accordance with the rule, that when in any word two of the same letters follow one another and the first has a Shebâ, this Shebâ must be an audible one, and in fact Chateph Pathach preceded by Gaja (Metheg), we must write וּנרוממה.
Verses 4-6
Psa 34:4-6 (Hebrew_Bible_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 דּרשׁ in distinction from בּקּשׁ), and this striving, which took the form of prayer, did not remain without some actual answer (ענה 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 ויּענני 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 (הבּיט אל 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 ענוים 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 נהר, here as in Isa 60:5, has the signification to shine, glitter (whence נהרה, 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
