Psalm 34:14

As a neighbour and as an own brother, so did I please: as one mourning and sorrowful so was I humbled. (Psalm 34:14 DR)

For us humans the line between the sorrow of despair and the ecstasy of delight is not always sharp nor thick, and we can move between the two rather effortlessly depending on the object of our affection. As the Proverb says:

Hope that is deferred afflicteth the soul: desire when it cometh is a tree of life. (Proverbs 13:12 DR)

We probably desire the delights of the soul more than its despair, but perhaps we also know in the depths of ourselves that the longing that we feel for what do not as of yet possess is what makes delight all the sweeter. Sacrifice is, after all, built into the fabric of our being, and it is difficult to delight in that which costs us nothing.

The Psalmist in his humility of fasting and sackcloth now looks back upon the cause of his current humiliation, and the seeming injustice of it. Those who persecute him do so without cause, and to add even further salt into the wound do so in spite of the good he has done to them. He says that he did good—that is, so did I please—as if doing so to a neighbor or a brother. St. Jerome’s Hebrew translation emphasizes this more explicitly:

Quasi ad amicum, quasi ad fratrem meum, sic ambulabam: quasi lugens mater tristis incurvabar.

I walked as if towards a friend, as if towards my brother: I was bent down like a grieving, sorrowful mother.

St. Robert Bellarmine comments on this rendering and application:

This verse is much more clearly expressed in the Hebrew, and the meaning of it is, in my affliction I not only abstained from doing evil for evil, but I even did good for evil, for I felt towards my enemies, as a friend would for his friend, as a brother for a brother, or rather as a mother for her ailing and languishing child. For, as a mother, when she sees her child ailing, in sorrow and sadness bends over it to raise it up, so did I in regard of my enemies. He could not give a more eloquent or a more touching account of his feelings to them. David actually carried out what he expresses here in the person of Christ, in his own person, and in that of all the perfect. He loved Saul as a brother, while he lived, and deplored him as a child when he died. Christ did the same in a higher degree, for, when he saw the city, he wept over it, and he compares his affection to that of the hen seeking to gather her little ones under her wings. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 34, 14.)

Cassiodorus reads this similarly from the Old Latin, although the action is seen in retrospect rather than forward looking:

So far as the Latin usage goes, we say “He was pleasing to a neighbor and a brother,” but here the case of nouns is changed, accusative replacing ablatives. This figure is known as antipsosis, when one case replaces another. He means, “I showed myself favorable as towards a neighbor, as towards our brother;” in other words, “I rejoiced in the kinship of those who attacked me as enemies.” It is a perfect requital if favor is extended in return for hatred, if kindness is offered in return for injury. The Lord was pleased in their case when He taught them not to sin, when He prayed for them to the Father as He hung on the cross. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 14, Ancient Christian Writers.)

These two readings thus follow the parallelism of the text as a through line from clause to clause; that is, the humility of heart expressed in the second half is an expansion of the desire and goodwill in the first. The Psalmist is saying that not only did he desire good to those who are doing evil to him, but he even humbled himself so as to do good to them; that is, he went out of his way to repay them good for evil, in contrast to them repaying him evil for good. In this respect the subject of this passage is still those who have done him wrong.

St. Augustine reads this in a different yet complementary way. In the previous passage the Psalmist spoke of how his soul was humbled with fasting and his prayer would be turned into his own bosom. St. Augustine sees this as our Lord looking back at Himself, as it were: “Now looketh He back to His Own Body,” as he opens his commentary on this passage. It is because the Psalmist has turned his prayer into his bosom that he is now examining himself before God:

When we rejoice in prayer, when our mind is calmed, not by the world’s prosperity, but by the light of Truth: (who perceiveth this light, knoweth what I say, and he seeth and acknowledgeth what is said, As a Neighbour, as our Brother, so I pleased Him:) even then our soul pleaseth God, not placed afar off, for, In Him, saith one, we live and move and have our being, but as a Brother, as a Neighbour, as a Friend. But if it be not such that it can so rejoice, so shine, so approach, so cleave unto Him, and seeth itself far off thence, then let it do what followeth, As one mourning and sorrowful, so I humbled Myself. As our Brother, so I pleased Him, said He, drawing near; As one mourning and sorrowful, so I humbled myself, said He, removed and set afar off. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 6.)

The parallelism in this passage is thus expanded by means of contrast, for in the first half of the passage he speaks of the state of being near to God, whereas the second bespeaks the state of being set afar off. The through line that connects them is the relation of the soul to God, and the reality is that both of these states can be present in the same man:

For what mourneth any one, but that which he desireth, and hath not? And sometimes in one man happen both, that at one time he should draw near, at another be far off; draw near by the light of Truth, be far off by the cloud of the flesh. For neither, Brethren, unto God, Who is every where, and is contained in no place, do we through place draw near, or from Him through place remove. To draw near unto Him, is to become like unto Him; to remove from Him, to become unlike unto Him. Dost not thou, when thou seest two things nearly alike, say, This comes near to that? and when things unlike are shewn to thee, though in one place, and though they be held often in one hand, say, This kind is far off from that? Thou holdest both, joinest both, and sayest, This thing is far from that, not forsooth in place, but in unlikeness. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 6.)

The state of our souls does not thus exist in a one-to-one correlation with the circumstances of our lives or what we possess, for one can have the blessings and prosperity of this world and yet be either like unto God in the soul in purity and holiness and thus near Him, or can be unlike unto God through sin and obstinacy and thus be set afar off from Him. The outward state of the body has not changed, yet the soul can change. Conversely, the outward state of the body can change yet the soul remain like unto God and thus near Him, as St. Paul relates:

I speak not as it were for want. For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, to be content therewith. I know both how to be brought low, and I know how to abound: (everywhere, and in all things I am instructed) both to be full, and to be hungry; both to abound, and to suffer need. I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me. (Philippians 4:11-13 DR)

Job is perhaps a preeminent example of this, for though he suffered immensely and lost all that he possessed and was brought to the brink of death, yet in his soul he still remained near unto God, accepting the good and the bad from the hand of the Lord. In doing so he both was as a neighbor and an own brother who pleased, and was sorrowful and humbled in mourning. Yet the humility that he endured and learned was the eventual cause of his vindication.

This passage thus forms a paradigm of the soul in prayer which should rejoice when near unto God and groan in sorrow when afar off:

If then thou wouldest draw near to Him, be like unto Him: if thou wilt not be like, thou wilt be far off. But when thou art like, rejoice; when unlike, groan; that groaning may excite desire, nay that desire may excite groaning, and that through groaning thou mayest draw near, who hadst begun to be afar off. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 6.)

St. Augustine then uses examples from the life of St. Peter to demonstrate this movement from rejoicing to mourning, from likeness to unlikeness, from near to far off:

Did not Peter draw near, when He said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God? And yet the same man became afar off by saying. Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee. Lastly, what said He, his Neighbour, as it were, to him drawing near? Blessed art thou, Simon, Barjona. To him afar off, as it were, and unlike, what said He? Get thee behind Me, Satan. To him drawing near, Flesh and blood, saith He, hath not revealed it unto Thee, but My Father, which is in Heaven. His Light is shed over Thee, in His Light Thou shinest. But when having become afar off, he spake against the Lord’s Passion, which should be for our Salvation, Thou savourest not, said He, the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 6.)

We can see in St. Peter this tendency that exists in all of us to vacillate between being near unto God and being afar off by how closely our wills are aligned with His. St. Peter was completely in union with God’s will when he confessed Who Christ is and for this was made head of the Church, but when he started thinking like men think, he turned his will away from God’s will and was rebuked harshly for it.

When we turn our wills to God we become like the neighbor and the own brother and are pleasing unto God as we draw near. But when we turn our hearts and wills away we go far off and must be humbled in sorrow and mourning so as to draw near again:

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners: and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into sorrow. Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. (James 4:8-10 DR)

In this manner the ecstasy of the soul in union with God is simultaneously that of humility of heart, for in humility we turn our eyes away from ourselves and our own supposed self-sufficiency and desires and onto the Lord in imitation of His humility by which He was exalted (cf. Philippians 2:8-9). Doing so, whether in rejoicing or in weeping, we will remain near unto God:

One rightly placing together both of these says in a certain Psalm, I said in my ecstasy, I am cast off from before Your Eyes. In my ecstasy, would he not have said, had he not drawn near; for ecstasy is the transporting of the mind. He poured over himself his own soul, and drew near unto God; and through some cloud and weight of the flesh being again cast down to earth, and recollecting where he had been, and seeing where he was, he said, I am cast off from before Your Eyes. This then, As a Neighbour, as our Brother, so I pleased Him, may He grant to be done in us; but when that is not, let even this be done, As one mourning and sorrowful, so I humbled myself. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 6.)

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I kept this animation very simple. I found this interesting plant image and brought it into After Effects and applied some color correction. I then used the Plexus plugin to generate the triangles and lines. I applied Shadow Studio to the text to pull it off the background a bit.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: