Psalms 34:22 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants That is, their lives, or their persons, from the malicious designs of all their enemies, from the power of the grave, and from the sting of every affliction. He keeps them from sinning in their troubles, which is the only thing that could do them a real injury, and keeps them from despair, and from being put out of possession of their own souls. None that trust in him shall be desolate Or, comfortless; for they shall not be cut off from communion with God. And no man is desolate, but he whom God has forsaken, nor is any man undone till he is in hell. Instead of, shall be desolate, in this and the preceding verse, the margin reads, shall be guilty; as the word יאשׁמו, jeshemu, here used, is frequently and properly rendered. Indeed, it includes in it both the idea of guilt and the punishment incurred thereby. Now, they that in the way of true repentance, living faith, and new obedience, trust in the Lord, are both rescued from guilt and the punishment to which it had exposed them. It may not be improper to observe here that, as this is another of the alphabetical Psalms, every verse beginning with a distinct letter of the Hebrew alphabet, except the fifth, which includes two letters; so this verse is a kind of detached sentence, added, as in Psalms 25., beyond the alphabet, perhaps in order that the Psalm might end with a promise rather than a threatening. For a similar reason the Jews repeat a verse at the end of some books of the Old Testament.