Psalm 18:4
undoing all the babel-ing
There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard. (Psalm 18:4 DR)
The Psalmist continues the theme of creation speaking forth the glory of God, analogizing its ubiquity in man’s experience to a sort of universal language. Since the thoughts of the mind are facilitated by what comes into the senses—as the axiom has it, there is nothing in the mind which is not first in the senses—so the very existence of the grandeur of creation is not an end unto itself but has its meaning fully consummated in its creator.
This existential dependency—in which every moment of creation’s existence is a giftedness from God— and the multiform diversity of creatures displays God’s gratuitous benevolence—God being open-handed to some and close-fisted towards others, as Richard of St. Victor has it—are the language, so to speak, that creation speaks at all times:
…the preaching of the heavens is delivered in all languages, that is to say, can be understood by all nations, as if the heavens spoke in the language of every one of them: because all nations, when they behold the beauty and the excellence of the heavens, cannot but understand the excellence and the superiority of him who made them. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Psalms, 18, 3.)
At Pentecost this passage is fulfilled, as the apostles are heard proclaiming the gospel in the languages of all those present. There is a fascinating juxtaposition at play. In Genesis at the Babel the languages were confused, but at Pentecost Babylon is reversed. The confusion of humans in sin is set, in some respect, against the orderliness of the universe which in that unity proclaims the glory of God at all times and is ubiquitous and united in its message. At Pentecost man is brought back into this chorus, so to speak, and now speaks in a similar language without the division brought about by his sin and pride.
I used a technique for this animation that I’ve employed elsewhere in my other work. I wanted to take this idea of this Psalm verse being a fulfillment of both the Holy Ghost’s coming at Pentecost and the preaching of the Gospel in all nations.
I started by creating a simple square at specific dimensions; namely, nice round numbers that would be easy to divide in half. I made the square into a precomp and then made it a 3D layer. Next I duplicated it and positioned it in space at a specified interval so as to form the back of the cube. I duplicated four more times and positioned them to form the rest of the cube.
Next I duplicated the precomp in the Project panel multiple times to make it them each individual and non-dependent precomps. I then went into each precomp and added a texture for the background and the word gospel in various languages.
The next step was to animate the cube, which was just simple 90 degree turns for the duration of the animation, coming back to the original position at the loop point. I then duplicated the faces of the cube in the project panel and performed the same process to make two more completely independent cubes for variety. I retained the same animation but just offset them in time.
Finally I added a few lights with shadows to get shadows and shading at different angles and a camera that I think has a bit of depth of field. A fun animation that I was pleased with how it turned out.
Enjoy.
There are no speeches nor languages, where their voices are not heard. (Psalm 18:4 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: