Psalm 3:1
fight or flight
The psalm of David when he fled from the face of his son Absalom. (Psalm 3:1 DR)
Many commentators (such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome) apply the sense of this entire Psalm to our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection. St. Liguori remarks that in the Vulgate David is set in the dative case, and thus signifies that the Psalm is of David in the sense that it was given to or inspired into him (cf. St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Divine Office: Explanation of the Psalms and Canticles, Psalm 3, p. 39).
St. Augustine also notes that the Latin translation of “Absalom” is rendered Patris pax, which means “father’s peace.” Given that he understands Absalom as prophetically standing in for Judas in this Psalm, he wonders aloud how this could be fittingly applied to our Lord’s betrayer, and answers himself as follows:
But both in the former place they who read carefully, see that David in that war was at peace with his son, who even with sore grief lamented his death, saying, “O Absalom, my son, would God I had died for you!” [2 Samuel 18:33] And in the history of the New Testament by that so great and so wonderful forbearance of our Lord; in that He bore so long with him as if good, when He was not ignorant of his thoughts… finally, in that He received the kiss of peace at the very time of His betrayal; it is easily understood how Christ showed peace to His betrayer, although he was laid waste by the intestine war of so abominable a device. And therefore is Absalom called father's peace, because his father had the peace, which he had not. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 3, 1.)
He earlier remarks that Christ did not flee from his betrayer as David did from Absalom, but rather understands the fleeing from the other side. That is, since Judas betrayed him, the Lord left his mind (so to speak) and he was inhabited by Satan (cf. John 13:27):
…in a spiritual sense, when the Son of God, that is the Power and Wisdom of God, abandoned the mind of Judas; when the Devil wholly occupied him; as it is written, “The Devil entered into his heart,” [John 13:27] may it be well understood that Christ fled from his face; not that Christ gave place to the Devil, but that on Christ's departure the Devil took possession. (ibid.)
St. Augustine also uses an example from everyday speech to demonstrate what is happening here. For when we are trying to remember something and just cannot come up with it, we sometimes say colloquially that it has “fled” from us, not because we think thoughts actually fly away but rather because they aren’t where they should be when they should be.
The spiritual application is then straightforward, for what we fill our minds with is what will occupy us. The more we meditate upon something or give our thoughts and efforts to it, the more it becomes a part of us and ceases to “fly” from us. As our Lord’s teaching on the expelling of demons (cf. Matthew 12:43-45) demonstrates, it is not enough to merely avoid evil; one must replace it with good, to crowd out evil, as it were. St. James describes this:
Be subject therefore to God, but resist the devil, and he will fly from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye double minded. (James 4:7-8 DR)
Just as the truth “fled” from Judas when he rejected it and allowed himself to be filled by the devil, so the devil will likewise “flee” from us when we resist him by being subject to God and cleansing our hearts and minds, filling them with all goodness (cf. Philippians 4:8) and giving no room for evil to dwell therein. St. Alphonsus Liguori remarks that this is the ultimate aim of this Psalm:
We would here once more remark on the subject of the enemies from whom the royal prophet endured persecution, that all the psalms when they speak literally are to be understood mystically of all the internal and external enemies, especially of our most powerful and most dangerous enemies,—I mean the devils who are plotting against our eternal salvation. (St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Divine Office: Explanation of the Psalms and Canticles, Psalm 3, p. 39).
For this animation I went super literal and found a great image of David in mourning from the Winchester Bible. The original scene is actually of him mourning Absalom’s death, but I thought it would work just as well for my purposes.
I cut it out in Photoshop and isolated the legs, using Generative Fill to replace some missing pixels. I brought the layers into Photoshop and animated the quick shuffling of the feet with a slight body bobbing to make it look somewhat like he was walking/fleeing. I added in some fast pixel sorting animation to act as wind streaks to give a sense of movement and then layered in a bunch of textures with varying blending modes to give the scene a bit more of a chaotic feel.
Enjoy.
The psalm of David when he fled from the face of his son Absalom.
(Psalm 3:1 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: