Psalm 34:26

Let them blush: and be ashamed together, who rejoice at my evils. Let them be clothed with confusion and shame, who speak great things against me. (Psalm 34:26 DR)

As the Psalmist concludes his invectives against the wicked who persecute him, he asks that they blush; that is, that those who rejoice at my evils would feel within themselves shame at the wrongs they have done. This completes the final parallelism which is found at the end of verse 21, whereas after having told him euge, euge, they now say our eyes have seen it.

What they have seen could be interpreted in two ways. The first, in reference to our Lord, was in respect to His good works and miracles, and this is used in a mocking sense since He was seemingly capable of performing such great wonders, but couldn’t (so it seemed to them) come down from the cross and save Himself.

The second reading is that it is self-referential, in that they are pleased with themselves and the evil they have caused him. That is, they have begun to love their evil deeds and thus say euge, euge as they consider what they have done.

But now the Psalmist asks that they would blush and be ashamed together, which can also be interpreted in a number of ways. The first is probably the most straightforward, in that they would feel the shame of their evil deeds within themselves, that their machinations would be brought to nothing and revealed for the depravity that lurks within.

The second is more along the lines of contrition and is prompted by the ambiguity of the Latin term used here. The Vulgate has erubescant et revereantur simul qui gratulantur malis meis, with revereantur translated in the Douay-Rheims as ashamed. This is certainly a valid translation and is probably prompted by the previous use of erubescant, which means to redden or blush or to be ashamed. However, revereantur can have the sense of to stand in awe of or to stand in fear of, and thus it can also be rendered using something like the term reverence, which is how Cassiodorus reads it:

Let them blush and have reverence as well who rejoice at my evils. Let them be clothed with shame and reverence who speak great things against me. The revenge is worthy, the punishment sufficient. He who blushes at his own deeds is condemned on his own assessment; he who is enchained with the bonds of embarrassment is tortured by the vengeance which he exacts from himself. Yet a man can blush and still not have reverence; here however He added: And have reverence as well, so that He might announce the signs of conversion. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 26, Ancient Christian Writers.)

Cassiodorus has interpreted the invectives of this Psalm thus far in a manner in which they are promptings to conversion, and here he continues that project. The prayer of the Psalmist that his enemies would feel shame for their evil is thus prompted not by malice or a desire for vengeance, but rather a desire that they would be brought to conversion. Cassiodorus sees two components necessary here: firstly that they would feel compunction for their wicked deeds and thus blush, followed by a reverence for God and His law by which they put away their wicked deeds and come to repentance. The blushing in and of itself is not enough, for this sense of shame at one’s evil is its own punishment, but does not necessarily entail a change of heart. It is the being clothed with both shame and reverence that brings about conversion:

Reverence is the fear of the Lord mingled with love. It springs up in men who through most pure desire obtain the gift of confession. Next comes: Let them be clothed with shame and reverence, as though with the haircloth of repentance and with garments of mourning. He speaks of shame in contrast to the daring which they showed in their madness, and reverence in contrast to the shamelessness of their falsehood, so that by the two virtues they may heal what they perpetuated by the two sins. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 26, Ancient Christian Writers.)

Both readings can thus be harmonized, for if one is not clothed with both shame and reverence, one will not be brought to repentance, at which point one will certainly be clothed with confusion and shame.

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I found this interesting bust of a statue that I thought might work nicely for this, so I isolated it in Photoshop and precomped the head in After Effects, adding a bit of wiggle hold to the Position. I had some marble arms from a previous project that I also used and color corrected to look similar and had them covering the face. I added in some random floral elements for visual interest, but kept it pretty simple overall.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: