Psalm 34:4

Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and be confounded that devise against me. (Psalm 34:4 DR)

In our limited understanding we often cannot perceive the purposes or intentions of others in any given situation. We are wont to interpret intentions or actions through our preconceived notions of the action or the person conducting the action, and the same action done by one person is deemed malicious or virtuous depending on the person.

This is further complicated where we bring into account divine Providence, whereby God not infrequently allows us to experience evils so that some good may result.

The biblical story of Joseph is of course paradigmatic. He was betrayed by his brothers out of jealousy and sold into slavery. They were, to their minds, being kind in not outright murdering him. While in slavery he was a faithful steward to his master, and was rewarded with a false accusation against him concerning his master’s wife, for which he was imprisoned. The subtext here seems to be that his master probably knew his innocence but had to save face, and so imprisoned him rather than outright murdering him, as would have been his right. In prison Joseph yet again distinguished himself and became the cause of the freedom of one of his fellow prisoners, who promptly forgot his kindness. It wasn’t until later that Joseph was finally released from his unjust imprisonment, at which point his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams led to a high place in the administration of the kingdom.

All of his suffering was leading up to this point, for he was entrusted with preparing for a coming famine that would grip Egypt and the surrounding nations, and he became the source of ensuring that this wouldn’t devastate Egypt or its people. It also led to greater prosperity for Egypt, as it was the only nation prepared for this famine, and thus was capable of selling grain to other peoples.

Eventually Joseph’s brothers arrived to buy grain, and eventually the brothers were reconciled as Joseph in his virtue chose to forgive the great wrongs they had done. Throughout his many unjust persecutions and sufferings he had his perspective conjoined with that of God’s will, such that he could see God’s providence at work so as to say:

Fear not: can we resist the will of God? You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good, that he might exalt me, as at present you see, and might save many people. (Genesis 50:19-20 DR)

The Psalmist now shifts the Psalm from the armaments which God takes up to fight for him to now focus on the actual fight itself. But the outcome of this battle contains an ambiguity. To be sure, it is not in the victory itself, which inevitably belongs to the Lord, but rather on the part of the enemy.

The Vulgate has confundantur et revereantur quaerentes animam meam, and almost every term and phrase of this passage can be taken in a negative or positive connotation.

Confundantur (confounded) is rendered in the Douay-Rheims as confounded, but it can also be taken in the sense of reaching the end of one’s ignorance or realizing one’s errors:

When at this point He turns to men, no abuse is uttered but correction is demanded. To be confounded means to blush at their deeds, and to change so as to obtain a better judgment, for men are said to be confounded when sentenced to punishment. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 4, Ancient Christians Writers.)

When Cassiodorus mentions that being confounded has the sense of “blushing” in shame, he likely is alluding to Psalm 69, which utilizes similar language:

O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be confounded and ashamed that seek my soul: Let them be turned backward, and blush for shame that desire evils to me: Let them be presently turned away blushing for shame that say to me: Tis well, tis well. (Psalm 69:2-4 DR)

Their blushing for shame as part of being confounded implies that shame is possible, and thus conversion is possible. This is why Cassiodorus introduces this passage with the shift from the enemy being the demons to it now being men, for the demons are not capable of conversion, but men are. Thus, if the enemies here can be confounded so as to blush at their evil, they can ultimately be turned back to God once they come to the end of themselves and recognize the evil of their ways.

The term revereantur is even more ambiguous, having the sense of either standing in awe or reverence of something, or of standing in fear and shame of something. Cassiodorus sees this as illuminating confundantur:

So that you should understand [confundantur] rather in the sense of conversion, He added: And show reverence; in other words, become changed and worship the One who they thought should be persecuted. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 4, Ancient Christians Writers.)

Finally, the phrase “that seek after my soul” has, in this passage, a decidedly negative connotation (as also in Psalm 69), but it is also employed in a positive sense elsewhere, namely in Psalm 141, as Cassiodorus explains:

Those that seek after my soul expresses a derogatory sense. They seek in such a way that they do not desire to revere it, but hasten to separate it from the body. Seeking after Christ’s soul is an expression also used in a good sense, when He says: Flight hath failed me, and there is no-one that seeks after my soul. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 4, Ancient Christians Writers.)

There is thus introduced in this first half of the passage the state of the matter, as it were, in that prior to conversion the human heart and will seeks to do evil and fights against the Lord and His Christ (cf. Psalm 2:2). However, even in this fighting against God there remains the hope of salvation, for the confounding and shame that results from its futility can be the means by which the soul is awakened out of its stupor, brought to the end of itself and finally to conversion. The language here is thus relative to the manner in which the soul of Christ is sought, either in malice or in charity:

And what follows? Let them be confounded and put to shame, that seek after my soul: for to this end they seek after it, to destroy it. For I would that they would seek it for good! For in another Psalm he blames this in men, that there was none who would seek after his soul: Refuge failed me: there was none that would seek after my soul. Who is this that says, There was none that would seek after my soul? Is it haply He, of whom so long before it was predicted, They pierced My Hands and My Feet, they numbered all My Bones, they stared and looked upon Me, they have parted My Garments among them, and cast lots for My Vesture? Now all these things were done before their eyes, and there was none who would seek after His Soul. Let us then call upon Him, Brethren, that He may say unto our soul, I am thy Salvation; and may open its ears, that it may hear Him, saying, I am thy Salvation. For We saith it, but some are deaf, wherefore they hear rather those enemies that persecute them, being in tribulation. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 6.)

In this manner what seems on the surface to be an imprecation is in fact a prayer for conversion woven within the prophecy:

Let them be confounded and put to shame, that seek after my soul. Look to men. Pray (saith He) for your enemies. But here it is a prophecy: and those things which are said under the figure of wishing are to be explained in the sense of prophesying. Let this be done, or that be done, is nothing more than, this or that will be done. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 8.)

This is further elaborated by the nature of how being confounded and brought to shame in our evil deeds can be the means by which we reach the bottom of ourselves, as it were, and turn our eyes to God so as to be saved. Conviction of sin is never pleasant but always painful, yet in the midst of this pain is the remedy, just as the surgeon’s knife brings agony but cuts out the diseased tissue:

Many have been confounded to their health: many, put to shame, have passed over from the persecution of Christ to the society of His members with devoted piety; and this would not have been, had they not been confounded and put to shame. Therefore he wished well to them. But because there are two kinds of those who are conquered; for in two ways are they conquered, either to this end they are conquered that they may be converted unto Christ, or to this, that they be condemned by Christ; here also are explained the same two kinds, obscurely indeed, but wanting only an understanding hearer. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 8.)

This is paradigmatic in St. Paul who prior to his conversion was zealously persecuting the Church until he received a vision of Christ which confounded and ashamed him, and of which he still carried the marks throughout his life (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9). And just as he was turned aside from his devices against the Church, so the Psalmist continues by praying that his enemies would be turned back. The Vulgate has avertantur retrorsum for turned back here, with avertantur meaning to turn away (such as in the cognate avert), and retrorsum meaning backwards. St. Jerome’s Hebrew translation intensifies this turning back by using convertantur retrorsum, as convertantur has the sense of being turned upside down, around or reversed or converted.

This being turned back is why both Cassiodorus and St. Augustine read this passage as referring to the possibility of conversion, for, as Cassiodorus says:

To be turned back is spoken only of those judged worthy of correction; when He said to the apostle Peter, who in the human sense defended Christ’s safety: Go behind me, Satan, He said it not so that Peter should perish, but that by a happy improvement he might follow the Lord’s will. So those whom He wished to get behind Him He desires not to carry out the most wicked intention of their will, but rather to follow Him in the place where they clearly do not wander. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 34, 4, Ancient Christians Writers.)

Joseph in the midst of his many tribulations and unjust sufferings no doubt wondered why such evils were befalling him, yet in the midst of them he got behind God’s will and followed after it, entrusting himself to the providence of the Lord in the hope and confidence that by his will being turned towards God, God would turn all those things to good. It was later that he was graced with the ability to see his life from this 50,000 foot view and see the ordering of Providence throughout it, which allowed him to forgive his brothers. They themselves were confounded and ashamed when brought face to face with the brother they had wronged, yet this allowed them also the grace to be turned back even though they had devised evils against him.

Similarly St. Peter was rebuked by our Lord for his presumption and lack of faith, by which he became a Satan unto our Lord, tempting Him to turn away from the will of the Father. Yet this rebuke became the source of his eventual healing, which would carry him all the way to his own cross for love of our Lord:

Let them not go before, but follow; let them not give counsel, but take it. For Peter would go before the Lord, when the Lord spoke of His future Passion: he would to Him as it were give counsel for His health. The sick man to the Saviour give counsel for His health! And what said he to the Lord, affirming that His future Passion? Be it far from You, Lord. Be gracious to Yourself. This shall not be to You. He would go before that the Lord might follow; and what said He? Get behind Me, Satan. By going before you are Satan, by following you will be a disciple. The same then is said to these also, Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that think evil against me. For when they have begun to follow after, now they will not think evil against me, but desire my good. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 34, 8.)

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