Psalms 34:11

"Come ye children, hearken unto me:

I will teach you the fear of Jehovah.

What man is he that desireth life,

And loveth many days, that he may see good?

Keep thy tongue from evil,

And thy lips from speaking guile.

Depart from evil, and do good;

Seek peace, and pursue it."

"I will teach you the fear of Jehovah" (Psalms 34:11). "David was a famous musician, a statesman, and a great soldier; but he does not say, `I will teach you to play on the harp,' or `how to handle the sword, or the spear, or to draw the bow,' nor, `to know the maxims of state policy,' but `I will teach you the fear of the Lord.'"[14]

The knowledge that David here proposed to teach the young is the best knowledge of all; it is better than knowing all of the sciences, all of the arts, and all of the secrets of making war. Today, many a learned man is simply an ignoramus unless he also knows the Lord.

"What man is he that desireth life" (Psalms 34:12)? David's method of teaching here follows the classical pattern of throwing out a question and then providing the answer. "This method was a habit with David."[15] We have already encountered it in Psalms 15; Psalms 24, and Psalms 25. Notice that David here gives preeminence to the avoidance of sins of the tongue, reminding us of the words of James who said that, "If a man stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man" (James 3:2).

The few things mentioned here by David are merely a few token things that suggest a truly righteous life in its fulness and obedience of the truth. This type of figure of speech is frequently used in the New Testament. One or two, or a very few, related things are mentioned as a metaphor standing for the whole list! This type of metaphor is called a synecdoche, In the New Testament, the most famous example of this is, "We are justified by faith," not meaning, of course, that we are justified by "faith alone," but by all of those Christian qualities of which `faith' is a prominent part.