Psalm 44:4
unity in division
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty. (Psalm 44:4 DR)
The Psalmist in this verse moves from exalting the praiseworthy beauty of the Word to now setting forth his power, which is given in the figure of a sword. It is perhaps a happy accident of English that the word word is contained in the word sword, which fits nicely with the meaning of St. Paul in his epistle:
For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 DR)
The Psalmist speaks of girding this sword upon the thigh, an image of preparing for battle. In American Christianity we too often prize a false unity and a false peace over all other things, not recognizing that heresy isn’t simply an accident of ignorance or even ill will, but is a means of purification, as St. Paul relates:
Now this I ordain: not praising you, that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all I hear that when you come together in the church, there are schisms among you; and in part I believe it. For there must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you.
(1 Corinthians 11:17-19 DR)
The fascinating aspect to this passage is that there is—at least in outward appearance—a unity among the Corinthians, for they are still meeting together. Yet this “unity” merely papers over deeper issues, namely schisms and heresies. But even more amazing is that although St. Paul rebukes them for this, he also states that this is in some respects inevitable and is a means of purification, as those of ill-will and insincere belief are exposed as false by these means. The sword of the word brings this into sharp relief within the church. And as much as this may be lamented, it follows not only Christ’s instruction that “I came not to send peace, but the sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
St. Augustine notices this theme in this verse of Psalm 44, identifying the sword girded upon the thigh as the word which divides:
What is meant by “Your sword,” but “Your word?” It was by that sword He scattered His enemies; by that sword he divided the son from the father, “the daughter from the mother, the daughter-in-law from the mother-in-law.” We read these words in the Gospel, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” [Matthew 10:34] (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 44, 10.)
This division is not God’s positive will, as if he desires anyone to reject his word or to turn from it; rather, it is the natural result of rejecting the truth, or of someone preferring God to the things of this world. This can occur in the highest levels of the church and in the most ordinary actions of family life:
And indeed, my brethren, we see this exemplified daily. Some young man is minded to give himself up to God's service; his father is opposed to it; they are “divided against each other:” the one promises an earthly inheritance, the other loves an heavenly; the one promises one thing, the other prefers another. The father should not think himself wronged: God alone is preferred to him. And yet he is at strife with the son, who would fain give himself to God's service. But the spiritual sword is mightier to separate them, than the ties of carnal nature to bind them together. (ibid.)
In the movie Becket there is a scene near the end where Becket is preparing to meet King Henry on the shores of France prior to Becket’s return to England. As he sits on horseback next to King Louis, the king asks him: “Why does he hate you so?” To which Becket replies: “He’s never forgiven me for preferring God to him.”
The truth is truly a sword, and truth Incarnate cannot but help divide.
For this animation I decided to go in an overly-literal direction.
I had a previous image of some statue legs from a previous project that I decided to reuse, and found a sword image that wasn’t overly long. Once cutout in Photoshop I brought the images into After Effects and created a Matte for the thigh, the latter of which I duplicated so that one image was of the part of the thigh that slides out, and the other was cutout by the matte.
I put a black rectangle behind the cutout so it would appear like the sword was going into the thigh as the upper portion slid to reveal the cavity. I then created another matte for the sword to obscure it as it goes into the thigh.
Finally I precomped the animation and duplicated it, rotated it and offset it in time to complete the animation, with a bit of wiggle hold on the precomps for a bit of visual interest.
Enjoy.
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty.
(Psalm 44:4 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: