Psalm 131:18

clearing up the confusion

His enemies I will clothe with confusion: but upon him will my sanctification flourish. (Psalm 131:18 DR)

It is a wonderful irony of language that the English word “confused” has itself a rather confusing etymology.

The adjective confused (which originally meant discomfited, routed, etc.), arrived in Middle English as a past participle of “confound.” Confused came from the Latin confusus, itself a past participle of confundere, the latter the sense of things being mixed or mingled together. This meaning was thus figuratively used in the sense of “being thrown into disorder.” The Latin confusus took on this adjectival meaning which came into Old French as confus and finally into Middle English as the same. It eventually gained the -ed ending and was then retrofitted into its verbal form of confuse by the mid-16th century. As the Online Etymological Dictionary (from which this information is drawn) dryly—and wryly—states:

Few English etymologies are more confusing. (Online Etymological Dictionary, confused.)

In modern parlance we tend to use “confused” or “confusion” as a mental state, generally in the sense that we don’t see the logic of something or are otherwise unsure of what is occurring. Thus, if someone says something that we are not understanding we might say “I am so confused,” or if instructions for IKEA furniture don’t make sense: “these instructions are so confusing!”

But the original sense of disparate things being mingled or mixed together should not be overlooked, for even in our modern understanding of confusion this still obtains, even if under the surface. It’s not the mixture of things per se that creates the confusion, but rather the mixture of things which should not be mixed together.

This is exceptionally seen in the Scriptural narrative of the Tower of Babel, in which all the peoples of the earth have one language and are—in their pride—building a tower to heaven. God in his judgment of them confuses their tongues so that they no longer speak one language, and this confusion (or confounding, as the Douay-Rheims renders it) has an ironic function, for the mingling of what should not be mingled is the cause of the scattering of nations:

And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries. (Genesis 11:9 DR)

It is this mingling of tongues which is the overthrow of their pride and their designs against heaven, and thus confusion in the Scriptural sense carries the sense of overthrowing something by means of a disparate admixture.

The Psalmist concludes this Psalm by drawing such a distinction between the enemies of the Lord’s Anointed and the Anointed Himself. These enemies are said specifically to be clothed with confusion, which is a common refrain in the Psalms. If clothing is that which covers a man and exteriorly presents him and his acts to the world, then to be clothed with confusion speaks to all his ways being marked or circumscribed by being overthrown. In other words, he desires evil things or to persecute the Lord’s anointed, but his acts are either frustrated by other circumstances or become the very means of his being overthrown.

In respect to our Lord this is very evident, for while his enemies sought to destroy Him, their murder of our Lord brought about His victory over sin and death:

Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him, in the midst of you, as you also know: This same being delivered up, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain. Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the sorrows of hell, as it was impossible that he should be holden by it. (Acts 2:22-24 DR)

In contrast to the enemies of the Lord, the Lord’s anointed is clothed with sanctification. The enlargement of the thought through the parallelism brings out what this sanctification means: if confusion is the mingling of things, then sanctification as its opposite is purity or singularity. This contrast is made more evident by two scriptural passages:

• Confusion: “A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways.” (James 1:8 DR)

• Sanctification: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8 DR)

The double-minded man has his thoughts mingled between what he knows he ought to desire and that which he ought not; this admixture makes him unstable and unable to discern God’s will or to receive wisdom from the Lord. But the clean in heart have a singular focus to their thought and desires, seeking God and His will alone.

If purity of heart is to will one thing, then this is supernaturally exemplified in our Lord’s Passion in which in His human nature desired the avoidance of His death, yet submitted His will to the Father precisely because He possessed that cleanness of heart. As the Psalmist looks forward prophetically to our Lord and His purity of heart, he also builds into the conclusion of this Psalm the hope of all who unite themselves to Christ:

But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God, From henceforth expecting, until his enemies be made his footstool. For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:12-14 DR)

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I had the idea of using something clean and green—for whatever reason—for this animation, and I happened upon an image that had a bunch of leaves and citrus fruits and cucumbers which I thought might work nicely. I cut out each of the pieces in Photoshop and created five precomps in After Effects which were all the same size, placing each piece into its own precomp.

I then applied Motion Tile to each precomp and animated them moving horizontally. And—of course—by “animated” them I mean I animated one and then copied and pasted the effect because I wanted to be really efficient lazy.

Inside each precomp I animated the rotation of the objects for a bit more visual interest and then added in the text and some color correction.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: