Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 34:16

"The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth." — Psalms 34:16 (ASV)

To cut off. —Notice the fear, so intense and recurring to the Semitic mind, of the extinction of one's lineage. (Job 18:17, etc.)

This verse, according to its meaning, should certainly exchange places with Psalms 34:15. This would disarrange the acrostic, bringing pe before ayin; but, as the same sequence of letters occurs in Lamentations 2:3-4, we are led to the conclusion that the order of the alphabet was not definitely or invariably fixed concerning these two letters. This was a license understandable enough when we remember that tsadde, which follows pe, was often interchanged with ayin, which precedes it.