Psalm 131:3

destroying and building

If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house: if I shall go up into the bed wherein I lie: (Psalm 131:3 DR)

The content of the following three verses in this Psalm relay the content of the vow that David made to the Lord in respect to the temple, that he would not rest until he had built it. As noted previously, this was prompted by David’s completion of the construction of his royal palace, and there grew a disjunction in his mind between his resting place and that of the Ark.

This passage hints at this disquiet in his soul, as he sets up the contrast between the tabernacle of his house (i.e., the recently built royal palace) and the tabernacle in which the Ark dwelt. His palace was made of cedar, the Tabernacle of animal skins, and he naturally finds this to be unfitting.

David’s desire to build the temple was good in and of itself, but it was not God’s will that he should be the one to build it. It is interesting that David’s motive to build the temple isn’t framed positively but rather negatively; that is, it is because of the disjunction he perceives between the luxury of his house and modesty of God’s house. In other words, he senses a wrong to be corrected rather than seeking a good to be done for its own sake. This arose because the Lord had blessed him and given him victory and peace. The narrative frames this as the impetus for his consideration:

And it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, he said to Nathan the prophet: Dost thou see that I dwell in a house of cedar, and the ark of God is lodged within skins? (2 Samuel 7:1-2 DR)

It was not wrong for David to sense a disjunction here, and the prophet Nathan encourages him to do what is in his heart. But the Lord’s response to him is a means of purification. The Lord tells David that He never asked for a splendid dwelling and—to be blunt—doesn’t need one. To someone other than David this may have been taken as a rebuke, but since David was humble in heart and meek it was a correction unto greater sanctification. David’s desire—even though it arose from a crisis in conscience—was nevertheless still good since it had the honor of God as its ultimate object. But the temple would not be built to salve David’s conscience or to make God’s house engage in some sort of one-ups-manship of splendor on a worldly level. Instead, David’s son would be the one to build the temple for the honor and glory of God, thus honoring David’s desire and fulfilling his vow.

This purification of David’s desire occurs because of his meekness; even though his original desire was not fulfilled in the way he intended, he aligned his will with the Lord’s and thus came into a greater desire and vowed a greater vow. Even though God seemingly rebukes him, in the next breath He promises even greater blessings to David and thus crowns the gifts and grace which He had lavished upon David.

David would of course literally go into his house and literally sleep before the temple was built since it was not constructed until after his death, but within himself his soul was always longing for the courts of the Lord (cf. Psalm 83:2-3). As he aligned his will with the Lord’s he himself became a tabernacle for the Lord:

For how is one a place for the Lord? Hear the Prophet: “Upon whom shall My Spirit rest? Even upon him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My words.” [Isaiah 66:2] Do you wish to be a place for the Lord? Be thou poor in spirit, and contrite, and trembling at the word of God, and you will yourself be made what you seek. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 131, 2.)

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I was searching for palaces or houses in medieval manuscripts and came across this one which had a nice terraced effect which I thought would be great for this animation. In Photoshop I cut out each terrace and used some Generative Fill to add back in missing pixels and then brought the files into After Effects.

I parented each successive terrace to the one before it in the layer stack and animated each piece emerging from the one below and then offset them in time to create a nice accordion effect on the build.

I then created a precomp with an ellipse and used it as a matte for a metal texture to create the wrecking ball. I animated the ball hitting the building and manually timed the building pieces to fly away when struck, although eventually I’d like to get some sort of physics engine to accomplish them. Goals.

The .gif compression on this was kind of murderous, but created some interesting if unintentional effects.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: