Psalm 34:23

Arise, and be attentive to my judgment: to my cause, my God, and my Lord. (Psalm 34:23 DR)

The Psalmist now turns to consider the various responses of the Lord to the unjust persecutions he faces from his enemies, each in turn paralleled by the preceding verses. He continues the bridging of their actions and the Lord’s responses, expanding on the previous passage in which he recalls how God has seen the evils against him, has pronounced the hidden judgment, and has not abandoned him.

Here he now directly invokes the Lord to arise, in the Vulgate exsurge, a term often used by the Psalmist. Exsurge means to rise or to stand up, and the Psalmist often employs this terminology when contrasting God’s action on his behalf with the extremities he himself faces. It is not that God Himself is roused into action, as if God is suddenly made aware of something and then acts. Rather, the Psalmist uses such language to bespeak his own helplessness and need, such that God’s intervention on his behalf is as if God suddenly arises:

Exsurge, Domine, in ira tua, et exaltare in finibus inimicorum meorum: et exsurge, Domine Deus meus, in praecepto quod mandasti.

Rise up, O Lord, in thy anger: and be thou exalted in the borders of my enemies. And arise, O Lord my God, in the precept which thou hast commanded. (Psalm 7:7 DR)

In the previous passage was noted the distinction between the hidden and manifest judgment of God, and here the Psalmist calls upon that judgment to be manifested for him; that is, that God would judge on his behalf for his innocence and by doing so deliver him from his enemies.

The Psalmist speaks of the Lord arising (exsurge) and being attentive to my judgment, which is then followed by the parallelism in which the thought is expanded to God being attentive to my cause. St. Augustine understands there to be a noticeable distinction here beyond the poetic phraseology, in that the judgment of which the Psalmist speaks is indeterminate, whereas the cause is not:

Arise, Lord, and attend to My judgment. To what judgment? That You are in tribulation; that You are tormented with labours and pains? Do not even many wicked men suffer the same? To what judgment? Therefore are You righteous, because Thou sufferest these things? No: but what? To My judgment. What follows? Attend to My judgment; even to My cause, My God, and My Lord. Not to My punishment, but to My cause: not to that which the robber has in common with Me, but to that whereof is said, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. [Matthew 5:10] For this cause is distinguished. For punishment is equal to good and bad. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 13.)

In other words, the sufferings and tribulations of this life are in some sense normal and are to some extent suffered by both the righteous and the wicked irrespective of their particular actions; it is not for nothing that this world is called a vale of tears. Suffering in and of itself is not meritorious, for we can often suffer for doing what is wrong. It is suffering for the cause of righteousness that is pleasing in God’s sight:

For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if committing sin, and being buffeted for it, you endure? But if doing well you suffer patiently; this is thankworthy before God. (1 Peter 2:19-20 DR)

For the Lord to be attentive to my cause thus goes beyond normal suffering, and certainly beyond suffering which is the result of sin. It is suffering for the sake of righteousness, like our Lord and the martyrs who followed in His train:

Therefore Martyrs, not the punishment, but the cause makes, for if punishment made Martyrs, all the mines would be full of Martyrs, every chain would drag Martyrs, all that are executed with the sword would be crowned. Therefore let the cause be distinguished; let none say, because I suffer, I am righteous. Because He who first suffered, suffered for righteousness’ sake, therefore He added a great exception, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. For many having a good cause do persecution, and many having a bad cause suffer persecution. For if persecution could not be done rightly, it had not been said in a certain Psalm, Whoever privily slanders his neighbour, him did I persecute. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 13.)

St. Augustine makes a somewhat subtle yet important point here, in that it is the cause that makes a martyr, rather than the punishment or suffering the martyr endures. In the case of our Lord, His suffering upon the cross—while to the modern mind seems notable—was in His own day a very common form of execution used by the Romans for the basest and lowest of criminals. That is, our Lord died the death of a common criminal, and in this respect there was nothing remarkable about His death.

However, it was the cause for which He died—righteousness’ sake—that made His death on the cross the meritorious cause of our salvation.

In a similar manner, many of the martyrs were subjected to various forms of punishment that other criminals or lowly persons might endure, and in this regard were not notable for their suffering. However, it was their suffering for the sake of Christ that made their sufferings and punishments glorious, and the cause for which God will arise.

If suffering and punishment itself was meritorious, then every criminal would be a martyr. However—as St. Peter noted above—there can be punishment that must be borne because of sins committed, and this punishment or persecution can be done for a right cause. St. Augustine invokes Psalm 100 in which the Psalmist speaks of persecuting the wicked for the cause of their wicked deeds, and St. Paul takes up this thought to speak of the rightness of the punishment of evil:

For princes are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: and thou shalt have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to thee, for good. But if thou do that which is evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is God’s minister: an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. (Romans 13:3-4 DR)

St. Augustine adduces the figure of a father who persecutes a wayward son so as to bring him back to his senses and to the right way. In this manner he doesn’t persecute the son per se but rather the wrongs the son commits, so that the wrongs can be purged and the health of the son as a son can be restored. In this manner such rightly ordered persecutions are like a surgeon restoring a man to health:

The surgeon truly, who is called in to give health, is not he mostly armed with a knife? but against the wound, not against the man: he cuts that he may cure: and yet when he cuts the sick man, he is pained, cries out, resists, and if haply by fever he hath lost his senses, even strikes the surgeon: nor yet does not he desist from seeking the health of the sick man; what he knoweth right he doth, him cursing and reviling he regardeth not. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 13.)

The distinction that St. Augustine wants to emphasize is that it is the cause that distinguishes the judgment; that is, the Psalmist entreats the Lord to arise not simply because he is suffering, but because the cause for which he is suffering is just. Embedded in this is the discipline of the Lord by which those who are truly sons are scourged so as to bring forth righteousness:

And you have forgotten the consolation, which speaketh to you, as unto children, saying: My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons. Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live? And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification. Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice. (Hebrews 12:5-11 DR)

It is thus because of the innocence of his heart that the Psalmist speaks thusly to the Lord, asking Him to arise. However, since it is the cause and not the judgment or punishment which makes the martyr, the Psalmist’s entreaty is thus less about the alleviation of suffering—which is common to all—and more about God’s vindication of his innocence, by which he prophetically anticipates the sufferings of Christ for righteousness’ sake and all those who follow after Him:

Let none then say, I suffer persecution: let him not sift the punishment, but prove the cause: lest if he prove not the cause, he be numbered with the ungodly. Therefore how watchfully, how excellently has This Man recommended Himself, O Lord, attend to My judgment, not to My punishments; even to My cause, My God, and My Lord. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, Sermon 2, 13.)

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For some reason I decided to go with a classic 80’s vibe, so I generated everything within After Effects. I used Trapcode Mir for the wireframe mountain range and then used Trapcode Particular for the light streaks coming towards the camera. I drew a simple ellipse for the sun behind the horizon and used a rectangle with a Scale Repeater for the diminishing lines, using the Ellipse as a Matte.

I added in a silly amount of glows and used Red Giant’s VHS effect for the glitches. Pretty fun to make, although the .gif compression murders it.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: