Psalm 31:7
checkmate
Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me:
my joy, deliver me from them that surround me. (Psalm 31:7 DR)
In this verse the Psalmist—having completed the recollection of his confession—now looks to the present, noticing the many troubles which surround him. This had been prophesied to him by Nathan the prophet when the latter confronted David over his sin:
Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house… “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you…” (2 Samuel 12:10-11 DR)
This calamity was both that one of David’s sons Amnon raped his daughter Tamar, in response to which his son Absalom killed Amnon. Absalom then fomented a rebellion and eventually staged a coup, forcing David to flee. It is likely in the midst of this that David composes this verse.
David was forgiven his sin, but the temporal consequences still remain, as Nathan the prophet foretold. Here David asks for relief from those troubles and the remission of the temporal effects of his iniquity, which also carries a spiritual import in asking to be delivered from the snares of the evil one:
Having obtained remission of the sin, he now asks for remission of the punishment due to it; namely, his deliverance from the tribulation brought on him by the sin. He seems to allude to the persecution he was suffering from his son Absalom, of which he had said so much in the previous Psalm. Alludes also, perhaps, to the temptations of the evil spirits, that perpetually surround and harass us. “Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me.” My friends have deserted me, my enemies hem me in and surround me on all sides, and I, therefore, have no certain refuge but in thy mercy, O God; you alone, then, are “my joy,” the cause of it, and deliver me, therefore, from them. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 31, 7.)
We cannot always expect that God will free us from the physical consequences of our sins, and while David eventually was restored to his thrown, he nevertheless paid a steep price for his sin in the death of his infant son by Bathsheba, the rape of his daughter by his son Amnon, the murder of Amnon by Absalom, the rebellion of Absalom and the eventual death in battle of Absalom, not to mention the insubordination of Joab, one of his most trusted commanders and the constant disorder in his own household.
These types of things are often a natural result of the chaos created by sin, but the disorder in our own hearts can be repaired when we come to God for refuge.
In this animation I was thinking about chess moves for some reason, and thought that an illustration of the castling move might be a good approach to this psalm verse.
Castling is a strategic move that in the opening of the game can both protect the king by moving him out of the line of fire as well as giving greater freedom to the rook to be able to be active. There are various conditions which I won’t belabor, but it involves moving the king over two spaces and moving the rook to the immediate opposite side of the king. For kingside castling the rook moves over two spaces, but in queenside castling the rook moves over three. Both types of castling have strategic purposes, the former generally defensive (since the king is closer to the side) and the latter offensive (as the rook is closer to the middle)
I created the shapes of the pieces in Illustrator and then brought them into after effects using the indispensable Overlord tool which sends shape layers directly from Illustrator to After Effects. Once in After Effects I added marble textures to each shape to create the look of the pieces and the board.
The board is of course truncated, but I needed to have space for text and to not have it be so small like a full-size chess board would be. Additionally, the pieces in this scenario based on the colors of the board would actually be the white pieces, but I also had a look I was going for, so it’s not meant to be a perfect representation.
The rest of the animation was basically some simple position animation, both on the textures on the board but also the board and the pieces. I gave a little overshoot on the rotation of the pieces as they slide in for visual interest, which obviously isn’t realistic but helps to give them visual weight and presence.
Enjoy.
Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me:
my joy, deliver me from them that surround me.
(Psalm 31:7 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: