Psalm 3:3
the lies that hurt the most
Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God. (Psalm 3:3 DR)
Whenever we face troubles or trials, it can be natural to fall into despair, for in the throes of suffering all hope can seem absent. And as the saying goes—it rains, it pours—so often when we are at our lowest is when we receive the most blows from others. One is reminded of the story of Job who, after having lost everything, is mocked by his wife in her bitterness for his fidelity to God:
Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? bless God and die. (Job 2:9 DR)
The term “bless” used here in the Douay-Rheims (and other translations that follow the LXX) is obviously meant to convey “curse,” but the translators of the LXX were loathe to use the phrase “curse God” (much like the reticence to use the holy name of God) and thus employed this as a circumlocution that the context would readily disambiguate. However, there is also an irony here in that in the previous chapter Job actually did literally “bless” God even though he had been so afflicted:
Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:21 DR)
His wife, likely knowing of this blessing, is thus cynically mocking him for his piety, for now that his health has been taken she fully expects him to now “bless” God and receive his end.
Often we can bear the insults and rebukes of others, but when they come from those closest to us they wound the most. The Psalmist elsewhere says of someone who betrays him:
For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him. But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar, Who didst take sweetmeats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent. (Psalm 54:13-15 DR)
The theme of Christ’s Passion and betrayal continue in this passage, as both His betrayer and those of His own people hand Him over to death and mock Him to His face as He hung on the cross:
He trusted in God; let him now deliver him if he will have him; for he said: I am the Son of God. (Matthew 27:43 DR)
And following the same layered meaning, the soul’s struggle against sin and temptation is also again highlighted. For though we can be prideful and over-confident in ourselves, we can also be prone to despair in ever overcoming our sins. This is especially true when it comes to the daily battle against the desires of the flesh, that concupiscence that rages against our minds and souls. Its constant pressures can make us despair of ever overcoming and give us cause to doubt the efficacy of God’s grace to enable us to overcome.
These lies are lies, however, in the same vein as the mocking wife of Job or the crowds who mocked our Lord on the cross. The truth is that there will be many voices that say to our souls that there is no salvation in our God, but the only voice that matters is the voice of God who has promised it to those who trust in him. The Psalmist elsewhere says:
In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded… (Psalm 30:1 DR)
This is the hope and confidence that enables us by God’s grace to overcome sin, through our Lord Jesus Christ:
Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:24-25 DR)
For this animation I repurposed some pieces from a previous one and split the hand and arm and added a bit of wiggle hold animation to them. I found some interesting background textures and brought them into After Effects and applied some pixel sorting to them which I thought created a nice background effect. I finally added Shadow Studio 3 to the arm and hand for some depth and general visual interest.
Enjoy.
Many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God.
(Psalm 3:3 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: