What Does Psalms 34:19 Mean?

Verse 19 gives the honest-and-hopeful account of the righteous person's experiential reality: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but YHWH delivers him out of them all." The many afflictions (rabbah ra'ot tzaddiq, many are the evils/troubles of the righteous: the rabbah/many of the same verbal quantity as verse 10's young-lions' hunger and verse 6's kol-tzarotav : the truthful acknowledgment that the righteous do not avoid trouble) and the complete deliverance (umikullam yatzilenu YHWH, and from all of them YHWH delivers him: the mikullam of every-single-one of the many-troubles, the kol-completeness of the deliverance matching and exceeding the rabbah-many of the afflictions) are the promise paired with honesty.

The verse is the Psalter's most realistic comfort: not "the righteous have few troubles" (which is false) but "the righteous have many troubles AND YHWH delivers from all of them." The rabbah (many) is the realistic admission of what following YHWH involves in a broken world; the mikullam (from all of them) is the covenant-promise that no single one of the many is beyond YHWH's deliverance. The verse combines the most uncomfortable truth with the most sweeping promise.

Acts 14:22's "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God" is verse 19's rabbah-ra'ot-tzaddiq (many troubles of the righteous) as the NT missionary-travel reality: the many tribulations are not evidence of divine abandonment but the expected path toward the kingdom. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5's "blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" is verse 19's mikullam-yatzilenu (from all of them he delivers) applied to the comfort-dimension: the deliverance of verse 19 includes the comfort of 2 Corinthians 1 which is then passed to others. John 16:33's "in the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world" is verse 19's rabbah-ra'ot (many troubles) acknowledged by Christ and the mikullam-yatzilenu (from all of them he delivers) grounded in his overcoming.