Psalm 41:11

Whilst my bones are broken, my enemies who trouble me have reproached me; Whilst they say to me day by day: Where is thy God? (Psalm 41:11 DR)

We all know that we have bones inside of us, and we all know that having a broken bone is a bad thing. But it is particularly horrifying when the broken bone is so broken that the bone itself protrudes from the skin. Something about seeing it outside of the body ratchets up the repulsion.

Broken bones have a way of reminding us of the fragility of our bodies and our human nature. They are the strongest parts of our bodies and provide the support to the rest and allow for mobility, and are designed to take a lot of abuse and withstand a lot of force. So when they do break it’s a big deal, and the part that suffers the break is generally either completely immobilized or heavily limited in its function. And unless it is properly cared for, it may not always heal properly.

There are also various conditions that can weaken bones. Osteoporosis is a condition in which the new replacement tissue of bones does not keep up with the dying of old tissue, which causes bones loss and can lead to many deleterious results such as stooping and back pain since there is less bone to support the body’s weight, as well as a higher propensity of breaks for the same reason.

As the Psalmist prepares to conclude this Psalm, he gives voice to what we might call a kind of spiritual osteoporosis. The “bones” in this case are the strength of his mind, as Cassiodorus explains:

We have often remarked that bones refers to strength of mind. So when the strength of our patience is under pressure, it is as if our bones are broken. When our enemies see this they mock at it, and they curse a person as though he were wicked if they perceive that no happiness of this world smiles on him. (Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms, 41, 11, Ancient Christian Writers.)

The pressure that is brought to bear is what the Psalmist has been describing in this passage and the last. He has hoped in God as his rock or support, yet still feels forgotten in the midst of the trials and tribulations of this life. This combined with his longing for God creates an intolerable situation in which that which he longs for seems out of reach because he cannot move to it, much like someone with broken legs cannot walk.

Thus, the enemies of the Psalmist see him as doubly cursed, for not only does he not possess the goods and pleasures of this world, but he is also seemingly deprived of the strong living God that he desires. Further, the bones can also be read as those within the Church who seem to be strong but then fall in the midst of temptation, which furnishes discouragement to the weak and fodder for mockery to the wicked:

Why have You rejected me? Why go I mourning, while mine enemy troubles me, while he breaks my bones? Even he, my tempter, the devil; while offenses are everywhere on the increase, because of the abundance of which the love of many is waxing cold. [Matthew 24:12] When we see the strong members of the Church generally giving way to the causes of offense, does not Christ’s body say, The enemy breaks my bones? For it is the strong members that are the bones; and sometimes even those that are strong sink under their temptations. For whosoever of the body of Christ considers this, does he not exclaim, with the voice of Christ’s Body, Why have You rejected me? Why go I mourning, while mine enemy troubles me, while he breaks my bones?

You may see not my flesh merely, but even my bones. To see those who were thought to have some stability, giving way under temptations, so that the rest of the weak brethren despair when they see those who are strong succumbing; how great, my brethren, are the dangers! (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 41, 18.)

This leads them to mocking, which Cassiodorus likens to a hammer which causes the breaking of his bones, and this reproach of theirs is a common refrain brought against the righteous:

The very enemies who persecute and harass me, reproach me with the confidence I have in you, as if the confidence were of no avail, for they constantly ask, “Where is thy God?” who you boasted was “your helper and protector.” So Tobias was reproached, “where is thy hope for which thou gavest alms and buried the dead?” and again, “It is evident thy hope is come to nothing, and thy alms now appear.” So the Jews upbraided Christ on the cross, “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will.” (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 41, 10-11.)

This hammer thus strikes hard and often, and the Psalmist brackets the beginning and end of this Psalm with this mocking question: Where is thy God? In the first instance it is in respect to the Psalmist’s longing wherein he made his tears his bread day and night; that is, in the midst of both prosperity and adversity. One can perhaps understand sacrificing for something worthwhile, and thus his rejection of the pleasures and goods of this world in his desire for God on that level can make some sense to the worldly-minded man, if what he sacrifices for is received. However, they will still find it not worthwhile and will mock him for it, and in the previous passage his tears day and night are met with their daily mocking.

But now even his longing seems unfulfilled and he is left in desolation, and thus they again bring down the hammer of mockery, but this time day by day. The first instance in the Vulgate is dum dicitur mihi quotidie: “whilst it is said to me daily.” There is a certain distance here in both the source and the regularity of the mockery, for to say “whilst it is said” abstracts the source of the mockery in some sense; that is, there is not a definite person or persons as yet in view, much like how we will sometimes generically speak of something bad happening to us even though we know very well why it happened and by whom. Similarly, quotidie means daily but also has a tinge of an abstract or generic sense to it in the sense of regularity.

However, as we reach the penultimate verse of this Psalm the language is repeated yet intensified and made more concrete: the Vulgate has dum dicunt mihi per singulos dies: “Whilst they say to me day be day.” Now it is not something being generically said but from a specific source—the enemies who are breaking his bones and afflicting him. And it is also not just a generically regular thing, but per singulos dies, which literally means “for (each) single day,” or “day by day” as the Douay-Rheims has it. The intensified focus on each single day drives home the hammer of his enemies’ mockery, as if the constant mocking every single day or day by day captures the rhythm of that hammer.

We can, after all, bear great strain if we know it is temporary or at least have hope that it will be so. But there is something about the incessant hammering of time from day to day to day—ad infinitum—that is more than we can bear, and the strength of mind—the bones, as Cassiodorus mentioned— cannot hep but eventually break.

However, perhaps these passages end up getting read in the wrong order, as it were. It seemed strange, as was previously noted, that the Psalmist would say to God: “Thou art my support,” but then launch into this litany of ways in which God has forsaken him and seemingly abandoned him to his enemies.

But perhaps it is better seen as framing his plea. For if his bones are broken because of all these things, that implies that he cannot move. The hart that longs for the fountains will run to those waters, but it cannot do so if its legs are broken, and so for the Psalmist. However, it is perhaps precisely because his bones are broken that he begins by saying Thou art my support. His confidence in God’s grace and mercy and lovingkindness is thus like a crutch, or—even better—like a stretcher that carries him to the waters he longs for. For even in the tribulations of life, whether in being beaten down in his mind or bearing the mockery of his enemies or seeing the fall of those he looked up to, his hope and confidence is ultimately in God, and thus even though his bones are broken he knows that he has a firm support:

But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure was taken for misery: And their going away from us, for utter destruction: but they are in peace. And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality. Afflicted in few things, in many they shall be well rewarded: because God hath tried them, and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust he hath received them, and in time there shall be respect had to them. The just shall shine, and shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds. They shall judge nations, and rule over people, and their Lord shall reign for ever. They that trust in him, shall understand the truth: and they that are faithful in love shall rest in him: for grace and peace is to his elect. (Wisdom 3:1-9 DR)

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In this animation I found an old illustration of some bones and isolated them in Photoshop. In After Effects I put the bone into a precomp and used it as a sprite for Trapcode Particular, and then had it generate all the bones and their various movements, positions and rotations.

The text “bones” was just individual letters with wiggle hold animation applied to the position and rotation. I finalized this with some noise and color correction.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: