Psalm 34:18
David wrote it after one of his worst days.
Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.
What’s happening here
The heading of Psalm 34 tells us the setting: David, on the run from Saul, has fled to a Philistine king and, recognized and in danger, saves his life by acting like a madman, drooling into his beard. It is not a dignified story. The psalm he writes afterward is about a God who hears the cry of the humiliated. Verse 18 says God is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit. Notice the order: the nearness is a response to the breaking, not a reward for recovering. You don’t have to be put back together first.
How it gets misread
Rarely misread; more often quoted without the story, which is what makes it credible.
How to use it
One of the best sympathy-card verses because it requires nothing of the reader but being broken. Read the whole psalm to someone who has been humiliated as well as hurt.
Read it with its neighbors
Context is the whole method. The search shows any verse with the ones around it.
Read Psalm 34 in the search