Psalm 34:15

But they rejoiced against me, and came together: scourges were gathered together upon me, and I knew not. (Psalm 34:15 DR)

Ignorance is bliss, we sometimes say, by which we generally wish to avoid confronting something unpleasant, hoping instead that it will somehow work itself out or go away. Nor is all ignorance created equal. Some ignorance is a true unknowing, a piece of knowledge that lies beyond our grasp or even recognition that the knowledge exists. But other forms of ignorance are more sinister, a feigned failure to know what one knows one should know, all the more damning since the purpose of the mind is to know.

Another kind of ignorance is actually virtuous, a deliberate refusal to know what one should not know, generally in the sense of an act of will to not engage in some behavior or look into something that might be an occasion of sin. The Psalmist in many places speaks of his refusal to know the wicked or malignant, by which he means that he will not act as they do or learn their evil ways:

The perverse heart did not cleave to me: and the malignant, that turned aside from me, I would not know. (Psalm 100:4 DR)

There is a sense, of course, in which he knows the malignant, for he knows what they do and the content of their character. However, it is this knowing itself which prompts him to not know them, to not “go in with the doers of unjust things” (Psalm 25:4 DR).

As the Psalmist continues this Psalm, he moves from his humility in the face of his enemies (and before God) to the cause of this humility; that is, even though he has done them no wrong, they persecute him. Not only that, but they delight and rejoice in this persecution. Nor is this just random violence leveled against him; they have rejoiced at the sufferings which they have inflicted and came together precisely for the purpose of doing so. Thus, there is a calculated and cold-blooded aspect to this in that they have conspired to harm him and work in concert to afflict him.

One of the prophetic aspects of this Psalm is brought out in that scourges (flagella) are gathered upon him, which naturally relates to our Lord’s scourging at the pillar as related in the Gospel of John. The Septuagint repeats the same word for the “gathering” of both the attackers and the scourges—συνήχθησαν, συνήχθησαν—and thus those who rejoiced against him were gathered together just as the scourges were gathered together. One can thus see that the scourges are both literal and metaphorical, as the gathering together of his enemies is in an of itself like a form of scourging. In the Gospel is it Jesus’ countrymen who gather together against Him and hand Him over to the Romans, the latter of which are the ones who literally scourge Him.

The Psalmist concludes this thought by hearkening back to a previous verse by saying and I knew not. This ignorance was previously predicated on the unjust witnesses rising up against him (cf. Psalm 34:11), with the meaning being that he was innocent of the charges brought against him. A similar theme seems to be developed here, in that their conspiracy against him is equally unjust, and thus the parallelism stretches across these verses.

The Old Latin has a divergent reading here from the Vulgate and the Septuagint, in that the ending phrase is ignoraverunt rather than ignoravi, meaning they knew not rather than I knew not. In this manner there is a contrast made in the parallelism between this passage and verse 11, in that the ignorance, as it were, has been shifted. The Psalmist is ignorant of the crimes of which he is accused, and they are ignorant of what they are doing, which is prophetic of our Lord’s words on the cross:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34 DR)

St. Augustine sums up this shifting of ignorance:

And against Me they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together, against Me only: they rejoicing, I sorrowful. But we heard just now in the Gospel, Blessed are they that mourn. [Matthew 5:5] If they are blessed that mourn, miserable are they that laugh. Against Me they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: scourges were gathered together against Me, and they knew not. Because they laid to My charge things that I knew not, they also knew not Whom they charged. (St. Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms, 34, Exposition 2, 7.)

The contrast thus couldn’t be starker. Our Lord in His ignorance of the evil devised against Him—that is, in His being innocent of any sin—mourns in His suffering, yet is blessed for that mourning. Those who persecute and afflict him, on the other hand, know the evil they devise against Him, yet in that knowledge of evil become ignorant about the truth; that is, about the One Whom they are afflicting. They rejoice to scourge Him Who mourns, yet they are the ones who are scourged in their souls and made miserable. They were made to know the truth and follow it, yet in their wickedness follow the pride of the devil and are brought to ruin, as the prophet foretells:

For if he be the true son of God, he will defend him, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies. Let us examine him by outrages and tortures, that we may know his meekness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a most shameful death: for there shall be respect had unto him by his words. These things they thought, and were deceived: for their own malice blinded them. And they knew not the secrets of God, nor hoped for the wages of justice, nor esteemed the honour of holy souls. For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: And they follow him that are of his side. (Wisdom 2:18-25 DR)

Following after sin leads to a darkening of the intellect, as St. Paul warns (cf. Romans 1:21), and the more we reject the good and cling to evil the more we unknowingly gather together scourges for our own souls. The one who seeks after virtue, on the other hand, willingly scourges his own flesh so as to have mastery over it:

And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air: But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. (1 Corinthians 9:25-27 DR)

In turning our hearts and minds and wills towards God we lay aside the envy of the devil which brings death and imitate our Lord’s humility by which we can walk on the narrow road that leads to life. The pride of Jesus’ persecutors blinded them to Who He was, or else they would have never crucified the Lord of glory (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:8). But in humility we see Jesus for Who He is since He came in humility to redeem us, and all those who wish to follow Him must walk as He walked:

But he that keepeth his word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected; and by this we know that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk, even as he walked. (1 John 2:5-6 DR)

---

I found a classic image of Jesus being scourged and brought it into After Effects, using masks to mask out the area behind him. I brought in a reddish abstract texture and used loopFlow on it to get it to move and then applied Turbulent Displace and cranked up the complexity to make it feel more splotchy. I used Video Copilot’s Twitch to create some of the twitchiness on the camera, and finally added in some color correction and other noise effects.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: