Lesson 34: Taste And See That The Lord Is Good Series

That it is "desirable" to be remembered after we are dead. There is in us a deep-rooted principle, of great value to the cause of virtue, which prompts us to "desire" that we may be held in grateful recollection by mankind after we have passed away; that is, which prompts us to do something in our lives, the remembrance of which the world will not "willingly let die." - Milton.

The other idea is that there is a condition of things on earth which has a tendency to cause the remembrance of the wicked to die out, or to make people forget them. There is nothing to make men desire to retain remembrance of them, or to create monuments to them. It is true that people remember some bad people (Al Capone, for example); but the world will forget a wicked man just as soon as it can. This is stated here as a reason why young people (Psalm 34:11) should seek God, and pursue the ways of righteousness. The motive is that men will "gladly" retain the remembrance of those who are good; of those who have done anything worthy to be remembered, but that a life of sin will make men desire to forget as soon as possible all those who practice it. This is not a low and sordid motive to be addressed to the young; but a high and honorable principle which makes us wish that our names would be held in the highest regard by those who live after us, and is one of the original principles by which God preserves virtue in the world—one of those arrangements, those safeguards of virtue, by which we are prompted to do right, and to abstain from that which is wrong. The desire not to be forgotten when we are dead contributes a great deal to the industriousness, the enterprise, and the generosity in the world today, and is one of the most effective means for keeping us from sin.

17 The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

The righteous cry

One of the advantages or benefits of being righteous (a Christian) is the privilege of prayer; crying unto God, or 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 which is superior to this.

They cry, that is, “the righteous cry,” which is obvious both from the nature of the thing (prayer), and from Psalm 34:15, where they are also called “righteous.” "Cry," which by the ordinary rules of grammar should have for its subject the "evil-doers" of the preceding verse, must, and it is obvious from the context, refer to the "righteous" of ver. 15, who are the predominant subject of the entire passage (verses 15-22). This verse would fit the flow of thought better if it came immediately after verse 15, since Psalm 34:15 supplies the natural subject for Psalm 34:17.; therefore, the 16th verse should be thought of as coming in by way of parenthesis, a practice that exists many places in Scripture.