Salve! How are you today? Hope you are well. The first word from the paragraph of this e Newsletter, “Salve” looks like the word meaning a medicinal ointment that helps for healing or protecting the skin however that’s not the only possible definition for it. Another possibility, and my intended use of the word, was the Latin, “Salve!” which could be translated into English as, “Hello!” or “Hail!” A single word that could signify multiple words with different meanings is known as a homonym in the world of grammar and “Salve” has the distinction of being a multi-lingual homonym. That’s a bit of a digression from the primary purpose of this message, namely, a brief reflection on Psalm 34.
For many people, myself included, the most memorable part of Psalm 34 are the words, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Verse 9). This is an interesting turn of phrase. In fact, in all of Sacred Scripture that particular wording is unique to the Thirty-Fourth Psalm. And yet it’s a phrase that has great significance when pondering the work of God throughout all of salvation history. As the Israelites were wandering in the desert for forty years it was the LORD who provided them with food in the form of quails for meat and manna for bread (Exodus 16). When a large crowd had gathered and was hungry the LORD blessed them through the Prophet Elisha. He was able to satiate their longings with twenty barley loaves (2 Kings 4:42).
There were so many moments in the Old Testament and the New Testament as well when God did wondrous deeds that the people were physically able to see the goodness of the LORD. Some include the parting of the Red Sea and the escape of the Egyptians (Exodus 14); David slaying Goliath (1 Samuel 17); the Jewish widow Judith helping to free her people from the tyrannical Holofernes (Judith 13); Jesus feeding the five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:31-44; Luke 9:12-17; John 6:1-14); Jesus healing the sick (Matthew 12:15; Mark 3:10; Luke 4:40; John 5:11); Jesus giving sight to the man born blind (John 9:1-12); and Jesus raising the dead (Mark 5:41; Luke 7:11-17; John 11:1-44).
A phrase which is relatively common throughout the Bible is “The Lord is kind and merciful” (Psalms 86, 103, and 145) and the marvelous deeds that He has done give witness to that profound reality. Perhaps not surprisingly one phrase that does not appear in Sacred Scripture is “Hear and Smell the Goodness of the Lord.” While this wording seems a bit humorous for its unusual combination there is nonetheless biblical evidence to show that the People of God have indeed heard and smelled His Goodness.
Psalm 2 has a particularly striking way to put it, “O God, we have heard with our own ears; our ancestors have told us. The deeds you did in their days, with your own hand in days of old” (Verse 2). In the Song of Songs we read a description of the fragrant aroma of the Lord, “for your love is better than wine, better than the fragrance of your perfumes. Your name is a flowing perfume” (1:3). All of these passages point to the reality that the goodness of the Lord has been and can indeed still be experienced through our senses.
May we bless God through our bodies in our words and actions, calling to mind those moments that He has been at work in salvation history. As we do so, let’s also think about those times in our own lives when we experienced the fullness of His Grace and Mercy. In doing so we will then be enabled on a daily basis “taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”
