Psalms 34:10 Meaning and Explanation
“The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Read Full Chapter →Strength gives no guarantee of supply, and this verse proves the point with an image from the wild. Psalm 34 has been teaching the fear of the LORD to beginners, and here it hands them a comparison anyone can check. The question underneath is practical. What actually secures a person's needs? David answers by pointing away from capability altogether.
Even the strongest hunters go hungry when the prey runs out. David sets that plain fact beside a promise: those who seek the LORD lack nothing that he counts good for them.
The Context of Psalms 34:10
Psalm 34 carries a title connecting it to David's escape after he changed his behaviour before Abimelech and was driven away. The poem is an acrostic mixing praise with instruction. Verses 1 through 7 recount David's own rescue, including the angel of the LORD encamping around those who fear him. Verse 8 invites the hearer to taste and see that the LORD is good, and verse 9 promises that there is no want to those who fear him. Verse 10 restates verse 9 with a picture drawn from nature. From verse 11 David turns teacher, calling children to come and learn the fear of the LORD from him directly.
What Does Psalms 34:10 Mean?
The image is chosen with care. Young lions are at the peak of their powers, hunting for themselves and answerable to nobody, and Scripture elsewhere uses them for predatory human strength. Even these, David says, 'do lack, and suffer hunger,' since raw capability cannot manufacture prey where there is none. Alongside them stands a different sort of person, 'they that seek the LORD,' described with a verb of searching out and inquiring, the word used for consulting God before a decision. The promise given them is carefully worded: they 'shall not want any good thing.' The measure of what is good belongs to the giver, which keeps the promise honest while keeping it generous.
Verse 10 is the second half of a pair. Verse 9 states the promise plainly for the saints who fear the LORD, and verse 10 supplies an image to hold it by. The whole psalm works this way, alternating testimony with instruction so a learner can follow the argument. Wider Scripture keeps the same balance. Israel in the wilderness gathered bread daily and had enough, with nothing left over to hoard. A later psalm promises that God withholds no good thing from those who walk uprightly. The consistent claim is that seeking God is itself the arrangement by which needs are met, and that this arrangement holds precisely where strength runs out.
Jesus taught the same logic on the mountain, telling anxious listeners to seek first the kingdom of God with the assurance that what they needed would be added to them. He lived it as well, having nowhere to lay his head while lacking nothing his Father intended for him. Psalm 34 itself became a New Testament text: its invitation to taste and see is applied to Christ in 1 Peter 2:3, and its instruction about the tongue is quoted in 1 Peter 3:10. The promise about seeking now has a name attached to it, and those who seek the LORD have a face to look toward while they do.
Psalms 34:10 in the Original Language
darash (דָרַשׁ), 'seek' -- to search out, to inquire of, to resort to someone for counsel. It describes going to God deliberately for guidance and help, so the verse commends a settled practice of turning to him that is repeated over time.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 34:10
“O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.”
- Psalm 34:9
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
- Psalm 84:11
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
- Psalm 23:1
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
- Matthew 6:33
Where Psalms 34:10 Echoes in Scripture
Matthew 6:33 carries this promise into Jesus' teaching on anxiety. He tells listeners worried about food and clothing to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, with the assurance that these things will be added to them. The structure matches the psalm exactly, with seeking placed first and provision following as its consequence. Jesus adds what the psalm implies, that the seeking is directed toward a Father who already knows what his children need before they ask him for it.
How to Apply Psalms 34:10 Today
This verse gives us a way to test our own reflexes. When money tightens or work dries up, the instinct is to hunt harder, and the image of the lions gently questions that instinct. Seeking God can be concrete: bringing the actual budget into prayer, asking counsel from people who fear him, and keeping the practices that connect us to him at the very times they feel least productive. The verse also asks us to define a good thing honestly. Reviewing the past year for provision we did not engineer usually turns up more than we remembered, and that memory steadies the next lean stretch.
Reflection & Prayer
What do we currently call a need, and would we still call it that after a week of praying about it? Consider one thing we have been hunting for on our own strength. Prayer: Lord, you feed what you have made and you know what I actually need. Teach me to seek you first and to trust your judgment about what is good. Keep me from measuring your care by the size of my supply. Amen.