And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (Psalm 129:8 DR)
As the Psalmist concludes this poignant Psalm, he locates the hope of his people as transcending time. His own experience of redemption from sin serves as a prototype of the redemption that awaits his people, a future still to come. This embrace of both past, present and future naturally corresponds to our Lord who self-describes as:
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. (Apocalypse 1:8 DR)
It is because our Lord is the Eternal Word (cf. John 1:1) that the Psalmist’s hope is both rooted in the past and confident in the future, for the same God Who rescued him from the depths out of which he cried is the same one who will redeem his people from their iniquities. It is not in his own righteousness that he affixes his hope but in the Righteous One Himself Who was without sin:
Though therefore he was weighed down with his sins, the mercy of God is present to him. For this reason, He went before without sin, that He may blot out the sins of those that follow Him. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 129, 8.)
There is an slight yet interesting distinction in the rendering of the Vulgate that perhaps draws this out a bit more clearly. St. Jerome’s translation from the Hebrew and some versions of the Old Latin read the direct object “Israel” in the plural in relation to the iniquities:
Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus eorum.
And he shall redeem Israel from all their iniquities.
The difference is probably linguistically rather minor, as a nation like Israel can legitimately be conceived singularly as a people or a plurality of persons. However, by rendering it in the singular, the LXX and the Vulgate link Israel directly to the Psalmist, and thus fortunes of the Psalmist are read as those of his people. Just as the promises made to King David as head of his people are applied to his people, so the redemption of the Psalmist from the depths likewise.
This is how St. Augustine reads it in the quotation above, for he always sees in the Psalms either Christ or His Body. This is more fully explicated in that the redemption is explicitly referred to as from iniquities or sins, which is precisely the reasons assigned to our Lord’s Incarnation and the Name He was given:
And she shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name JESUS. For he shall save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21 DR)
In tis manner the prophetic nature of the Psalmist’s words is mystically embedded into this Psalm, for the very redemption of the Psalmist prefigures the salvation from sin that our Lord would come to accomplish. He stands in, as it were, for the Church which our Lord bought with His own blood. This thread which the Psalmist lays down is woven throughout the entire Old Testament and culminates in our Lord who brings about the redemption longed for. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant (of which the Psalmist was familiar) could not bring an end to sin, but are spoken of in the very same covenant as a shadow of the One Who would come to bring an end to sin forever:
This redemption has begun, and is going on, and will be completely accomplished on the last day, when we shall be delivered not only from our sins, but even from the punishment due to them, and from any danger of relapse, as is conveyed to us by David in Psalm 102, when he says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us;” and, again, in the same Psalm, “Who forgiveth all thy iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who satisfieth thy desire with good things;” and most clearly in Daniel, “That transgression may be finished, and sin may have an end, and iniquity may be abolished, and everlasting justice may be brought.” (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 129, 8.)
I’ll admit to not having a great concept for this animation, but I was playing around with Trapcode Mir and came up with this floating, undulating orb which I thought looked kind of interesting. I’m not going to say it has any particular meaning, but it’s more just a fun thing.
Sometimes—after all—a bob is just a blob.
Enjoy.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
(Psalm 129:8 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: