Psalm 34:21

And they opened their mouth wide against me; they said: Well done, well done, our eyes have seen it. (Psalm 34:21 DR)

It is probably overdone, but in terms of movies there is something about a well done trilogy that can be very satisfying and bring a sense of completion or finality. Most probably are forced past the glory of the original and fizzle out as the third film begins, but a few are able to take the original story and expand upon it enough to make it worth your while. To my mind the most notable are the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Back to Future Trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy and Toy Story 1-3. In Star Wars and Back to the Future the third films are admittedly weaker, and Toy Story 2 and Back to the Future 2 are weaker as sequels than the original, but as a whole they all keep enough of the original’s magic while innovating on its premise to finish well. Lord of the Rings probably stands alone in my mind as getting consistently better as it progresses, which is probably helped by it being derived from a single work.

The Psalmist concludes a trilogy of sorts, as it were, in that he has been developing a litany of the means by which his enemies have persecuted him, with each successive “sequel” expanding upon what came before.

There seems to be an embedded double parallelism here with this trilogy of actions against him and a similar trilogy of adverse actions from previous passages, contrasted with a trilogy of ways in which he was humbled and innocent of wrongdoing.

• They rejoiced and gathered scourges (v. 15)

  They rejoiced over me and winked with the eyes (v. 19)

  But the Psalmist was humbled with sackcloth (v.13a)

• They scoffed at me with scorn (v. 16a)

  They spoke peaceably to me (v. 20)

  But the Psalmist turned his prayer into his bosom (v. 13b)

• They opened their mouths against him (v. 21)

  They gnashed upon him with their teeth (v. 16)

  But the Psalmist pleased as a brother and was humbled (v. 14)

The concluding act of this trilogy of evil is thus presented, and in that sense brings their wickedness against him to a sort of completion, and we can see how they are in a sense doubling-down on their evil against him, and how their wickedness parallels his innocence and righteousness—or, rather, their wickedness becomes a perversion of his innocence and righteousness, as evil is a privation of good.

There is also a noticeable increase in wickedness from his enemies, and as with all evil there is a ratchet effect—the more one engages in it, the more perverse one’s actions and intents become. Without a rejection of vice and a concomitant embrace of virtue, evil will always get worse; it cannot reverse ratchet.

His enemies began by winking with their eyes, by which they pretended friendship and goodwill yet hid untoward plans within themselves. As was earlier seen, there is an embedded betrayal at their hands here, and in our Lord’s case it was at the hands of His own countrymen. This initial deception is then magnified into deceit, in which they say one thing and intend another, speaking peace yet devising evils in their hearts, as was manifest in the many ways in which they attempted to trap our Lord in His words.

But now the mask is off, as it were, and the trilogy is complete: the Psalmist’s enemies now openly declare themselves against him by opening their mouths wide against him. Sin has run its course and there is no more pretense, no more tricks, but rather simply open malice. St. Augustine details how the Psalmist’s words here now culminate in our Lord’s Passion and Death on the cross:

Afterward, they opened their mouth wide against Me, crying, Crucify Him, Crucify Him! [Luke 23:21] and said, Aha, Aha, our eyes have seen it. This, when they insulted Him, Aha, Aha, Prophesy unto us, Thou Christ. [Matthew 26:68] As their peace was pretended when they tempted Him concerning the money, so now insulting was their praise. They said, Aha, Aha, our eyes have seen it: that is, Your deeds, Your miracles. This Man is the Christ. “If He be the Christ, let Him come down from the Cross, and we will believe Him. He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” Our eyes have seen it. This is all whereof He boasted Himself, when He called Himself the Son of God. [John 19:7] (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 11.)

The term for well done in the Vulgate is euge, which means well done or excellent, and like similar expressions in English can be used in both a sincere and an ironic sense. Cassiodorus notes that this is an example of epizeuxis, which is a deliberate and immediate succession of words for emphasis or emotional appeal.

There are two equally applicable senses in which this can be understood. The first is as St. Augustine reads it, that they intend euge ironically in reference to our Lord’s works. They thus mock Him on the cross by noting that He did wonderful and powerful miracles, but seems unable to save Himself. In this manner He has done well but it is to no avail.

The second is that this is self-referential; that is, they are not being ironic but instead are pleased with their own works. They see the evil that they intend and instead of being horrified with their evil desires, instead approve of it and commend it as good. This is the manner in which evil comes to fruition, as it were. Often when we sin through mere human weakness we can deceive ourselves about our true intent; maybe we think we didn’t really want to do that but fell nevertheless. There are a host of motivations and weaknesses always at play, and we are very good at lying to ourselves.

But in this reading the Psalmist’s enemies have stopped even lying to themselves. Their duplicity and sin lies naked before them and they have chosen to love it, to call evil good and to congratulate themselves on the successful persecution they have wrought. When they say our eyes have seen it, they speak the truth, as it were, for they are no longer feigning ignorance or deceiving themselves or trying to hide behind weakness or anything else. Rather, they see their perversion for what it is—their eyes are wide open and see it—and that is what they choose to call good.

Both readings are thus complementary, for in rejecting our Lord as the greatest good they have embraced their evil as the greatest good, and thus their self-congratulation becomes mockery of the good, the true and the beautiful. Their supposed strength in the present situation is contrasted with our Lord’s supposed weakness on the cross. But this contrast will become the difference between those who see our Lord’s death with eyes of the world as opposed to those who see it through the eyes of faith:

But the Lord was hanging patient upon the Cross: His power had He not lost, but He showed His patience. For what great thing was it for Him to come down from the Cross, who could afterward rise again from the sepulchre? But He seems to have yielded to His insulters; and this, beloved, that having risen again He should show Himself to His own, and not to them, and this is a great mystery; for His resurrection signified the New Life, but the New Life is known to His friends, not to His enemies. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 11.)

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I found this interesting image of a toy dinosaur and brought it into After Effects. I didn’t want to mess around with isolating it or anything else, but really just stacked a lot of glitch effects on top of each other, namely Rowbyte’s Bad TV and Data Glitch, along with some camera shake and color correction. Kind of silly but I liked how it turned out.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: