Psalm 34 Bible study: Taste and see

The psalm's title reads, "By David; when he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed" (34:1). In Hebrew, pretended to be insane is literally changed his ta'am, and ta'am is a noun Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "taste, judgment". Seven verses later comes this line: "Oh taste and see that the LORD is good" (34:8). Taste there is the verb ta'am (tap taste), and Strong's gives the title's noun as "from 2938", this verb. Here is what almost everyone misses. The Psalms have the verb only this once. The noun comes in them only twice: in this title, and in "Teach me good judgment and knowledge" (Psalm 119:66). The psalm doesn't comment on its title's word, and these notes don't say more than the words show. What the line asks is plain: taste, see, and then, "Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him" (34:8).

Psalms 34:8→leads to1 Peter 2:3

The psalmist says, "Oh taste and see that the LORD is good" (Psalm 34:8). 1 Peter tells its readers, "long for the pure spiritual milk" (1 Peter 2:2), "if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious" (1 Peter 2:3). 1 Peter doesn't name Psalm 34 here, and the WEB words the two differently ("the LORD is good", "the Lord is gracious"), so setting them side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, tasting and finding the Lord good or gracious, and on 1 Peter's next chapter, which sets words close to Psalm 34:12-16 in quotation marks (1 Peter 3:10-12). Some read "the Lord" whom 1 Peter's readers have tasted as Jesus, since the next verse goes on, "Come to him, a living stone" (1 Peter 2:4), in a passage that names "Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). Others read "the Lord" there as God, or read 1 Peter's words as an echo only, and draw no line from the psalm, since 1 Peter doesn't cite it. Neither reading makes the psalmist Jesus or says the psalm speaks of him.

טָעַםta'amsay ta-AM

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "taste, perceive". Strong's: "to taste; figuratively, to perceive". "Oh taste and see that the LORD is good" (34:8). The Hebrew Bible has the verb 11 times, and this is its only use in the Psalms. Strong's gives the noun in the psalm's title, ta'am (in Hebrew David changed his ta'am, which the WEB gives as "pretended to be insane", 34:1), as "from 2938", this verb. Jonathan has the verb with the verb of 34:8's see: "Please look how my eyes have brightened because I tasted a little of this honey" (1 Samuel 14:29).