Psalm 34:14

Scripture Explained · Pairs with New Beginnings

“Depart from evil, and do good. Seek peace, and pursue it.”

Psalm 34:14 · World English Bible

What it meant then

Psalm 34 is an acrostic, each verse in the Hebrew originally starting with the next letter of the alphabet in order, a structure built so the whole psalm could be memorized and carried around in someone's head. Its superscription ties it to the moment right after David escaped a hostile king by pretending to be insane (1 Samuel 21), so the practical wisdom in this verse comes from someone who had just needed real deliverance himself, no theorizing from a place of safety.

“Seek peace, and pursue it” uses two separate Hebrew verbs on purpose. Seeking is something a person can do quietly from wherever they already are. Pursuing means actively chasing something down before it slips away. Together the two verbs treat peace as work, something a person goes after rather than something that simply shows up.

What William Booth wrote

In his last public address, delivered at the Royal Albert Hall in 1912, Booth described a lifetime spent pursuing good and fighting evil: “While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight. While little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight. While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight.”

“While there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight. I'll fight to the very end!”

General William Booth, final public address, Royal Albert Hall, 1912