Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 34:17
[The righteous] cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
17. They cried, and Jehovah heard;
And rescued them out of all their distresses.
We may understand a subject from the verb, they who cried cried, as in Psa 34:5, i.e., when any cried: or with LXX and Vulg. supply the righteous. (Had the LXX this reading, or did they merely insert the word from Psa 34:15?) It is however possible that Psa 34:15-16 should be transposed, and then the righteous in Psa 34:15 supplies the natural subject to Psa 34:17. This transposition deserts the present order of the letters of the alphabet, but is justified by Lamentations 2, 3, 4, and Proverbs 31 according to the LXX, where P precedes Ayin.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth – That is, one of the advantages or benefits of being righteous is the privilege of crying unto God, or of calling on his name, with the assurance that he will hear and deliver us. No one has ever yet fully appreciated the privilege of being permitted to call upon God; the privilege of prayer. There is no blessing conferred upon man in his present state superior to this; and no one can fully understand the force of the argument derived from this in favor of the service of God. What a world would this be – how sad, how helpless, how wretched – if there were no God to whom the guilty, the suffering, and the sorrowful might come; if God were a Being who never heard prayer at all; if he were a capricious Being who might or might not hear prayer; if He were a Being governed by fitful emotions, who would now hear the righteous, and then the wicked, and then neither, and who dispensed His favors in answer to prayer by no certain rule!
And delivereth them out of all their troubles –
(1) He often delivers them from trouble in this life in answer to prayer.
(2) he will deliver them literally from all trouble in the life to come.
The promise is not indeed, that they shall be delivered from all trouble on earth, but the idea is that God is able to rescue them from trouble here; that He often does it in answer to prayer; and that there will be, in the case of every righteous person, a sure and complete deliverance from all trouble hereafter. Compare the notes at Psa 34:6 : see Psa 34:19.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 17. The righteous cry] There is no word in the present Hebrew text for righteous; but all the versions preserve it. I suppose it was lost through its similitude to the word tsaaku, they cry tsaaku tsaddikim, the righteous cry.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Heb. They cry, to wit, the righteous, as is manifest both from the nature of the thing, and from Psa 34:15, where they are so called, and with which this verse is to be continued, the 16th verse coming in by way of parenthesis, as is very usual in many places of Scripture.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17, 18. Humble penitents areobjects of God’s special tender regard (Psa 51:19;Isa 57:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
[The righteous] cry,…. The word “righteous” is not in the original text, but is rightly supplied in our version, as it is in the Targum, and by Jarchi; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech observe, that these words are not to be connected with Ps 34:16, but with Ps 34:15; and they are indeed an amplification of the last clause of it; and the cry of the righteous is meant, to which the ears of the Lord are open; though Aben Ezra thinks that these words are to be understood of them that do evil, and of their cry to the Lord, when they turn from their evil ways; but the former sense is best;
and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles; their inward troubles, through the workings of corruption in their hearts; through the violent assaults of Satan, the blasphemous thoughts he injects into them, and his solicitations of them to sin; and through divine desertions, and their outward troubles; through afflictions of body, losses of estate and friends, and the reproaches and persecutions of men; out of all these the Lord sooner or later delivers his people who cry unto him.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
17. They (700) cried, and Jehovah heard them. The Psalmist’s meaning is, that they are heard as often as they cry. This is a doctrine applicable to all times; and David does not merely relate what God has done once or twice, but what he is accustomed to do. It is also a confirmation of the preceding sentence, where he had said that the ears of the Lord are open to the cry of the righteous; for he now demonstrates by the effect, that God is not deaf when we lay our complaints and groanings before him. By the word cry we are taught, that although God defend the righteous, they are not exempt from adversity. He regulates the protection which he affords them in such a wonderful manner, as that he notwithstanding exercises them by various trials. In like manner, when we here see that deliverance is promised only to those who call upon God, this ought to prove no small encouragement to us to pray to him; for it is not his will that the godly should so regard his providence as to indulge in idleness, but rather that, being firmly persuaded that he is the guardian of their safety, they should direct their prayers and supplications to him.
(700) It is wicked men who are spoken of in the immediately preceding verse; but they here evidently refers not to them, but to the righteous, mentioned in the fifteenth verse; and, accordingly, in all the ancient versions, and in our English Bible, the words the righteous are supplied. It is supposed by those who make this supplement, that the word צדיקים, tsaddikim, has been lost out of the text. But if we read the 16 verse as a parenthesis, it will not be necessary to make any supplement, and the words may be read exactly as they are in the Hebrew, They cried.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
These are all so many charming additions of the security and blessedness of the people of God, and so plain as to need no comment.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 34:17 [The righteous] cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
Ver. 17. The righteous cry, &c. ] This is often inculcated for our better assurance; because we are apt to doubt if delayed. See Psa 34:6 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
cry = have cried.
heareth = hath heard.
delivereth = hath rescued.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The righteous: There is no word for the righteous in the present Hebrew Text; but it is preserved in all the versions; and it was probably lost from its similitude to tzaakoo, “they cry:” – tzaakoo tazddeekim, “the righteous cry.”
cry: Psa 34:6, Psa 34:15, Psa 34:19, Psa 91:15, Psa 145:18-20, 2Ch 32:20, 2Ch 32:21, 2Ch 32:24, Isa 65:24, Act 12:5-11
Reciprocal: Exo 14:10 – cried out 1Sa 26:24 – let him deliver 2Sa 4:9 – who hath Psa 145:19 – he also will Act 7:10 – delivered 1Jo 5:14 – he
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
God grants the petitions of the righteous when they pray for deliverance out of broken hearts.