Psalm 136:5
losing limbs
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. (Psalm 136:5 DR)
As humans we are great at making plans and resolutions, but usually pretty terrible at actually carrying them out. This is especially the case when the goal in question requires sacrifice or self-mastery on our part; the best-laid plans will often start out promising in a flourish of sparks but then ultimately fizzle out. It’s not that we desire to fail; rather, it is—as our Lord said—that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. One only need briefly consult the success percentage of one’s New Year’s resolutions to understand the truth of this.
In this verse the Psalmist recognizes this reality. The exile promises to be long, and while the initial shock and pain are great, we tend to get accustomed to Babylon and may find ourselves playing the songs of Sion therein after its comforts and allures work their way into our hearts.
Diligence is thus required, along with a refusal to compromise. The Psalmist thinks of his hand with which he once played the harp, and understands that this very hand which can strike the chords that lift aloft the songs of Sion can also drag his soul into the depths of Babylon—he may even find himself using that same hand to proclaim the glories of his captivity.
The upshot is that there is nothing in our lives that truly has neutrality; we are either serving one Master or another. The Psalmist knows that if he allows himself to delight in the songs of Sion in a strange land, that strange land will eventually work its way into his heart. He will become comfortable there, and the old piety from former times may become inverted and turned away from God.
He thus wishes for the loss of the comfort that he once enjoyed in the songs of Sion rather than to let his heart be led astray. He is willing to forego comfort and the delights of the senses and the flesh so as to retain his fidelity to God, to keep his soul from evil. This verse seems to form the background of our Lord’s words who said:
And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell. (Matthew 5:30 DR)
Our Lord isn’t literally advocating for chopping off our hands, for our hands are not what actually cause us to sin. Rather, it is our sinful desires that cause us to sin and which need to be cut off. But the members of the body do stand as a proxy for those desires, and as such we must be mindful while in exile of what temptations befall us and willing to expunge from our lives what leads us astray. Far too often these things are the comforts and delights of this world, as St. John notes:
Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. (1 John 2:15-16 DR)
The delights of the world are not evil per se, but become stumbling blocks because they lull us into imagining the place of our captivity is actually our home. As the Psalmist we must be diligent, desiring rather to lose or set aside comfort rather than to let Babylon into our hearts:
Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. (Apocalypse 18:4 DR)
This animation was admittedly very on the nose, but I’m ok with that because I also thought it was appropriate.
I found some pieces of a statue that I had used a couple years before for a previous unrelated project, and thought it would work well for this. I always like to re-purpose things whenever I can as a creative exercise a way to be lazy.
The animation itself is pretty straightforward: the arm slides in and breaks apart, and then the head reacts to it. I decided to go over the top with the reaction—especially the mouth—just to sell the whole sequence in an amusing way. For the mouth I just masked the lower jaw and placed a black box behind it that is revealed as it lowers.
Enjoy.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.
(Psalm 136:5 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: