Psalm 65:4

Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name. (Psalm 65:4 DR)

The Psalmist introduces a juxtaposition in this Psalm following off of the previous passage in which the enemies of God are said to lie to Him in the multitude of His strength. Fathers such as St. Augustine read this in light of the life and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, for in Him was the fullness of divinity and thus the multitude of His strength, yet He was put to death by men who rejected the truth.

Their lies exist on the literal historical level, such as the false witnesses who testified against Him or the guards who lied about His resurrection. But on the spiritual level this naturally applies to those who do not love the truth and reject it for the lies and deceptions of evil and the love of this world:

Therefore they lied, in the multitude of Your power they lied: to confound liars You have appeared to men of truth, and You have appeared to those men of truth whom You have made men of truth. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 65, 8.)

It is the lowliness of our Lord in the humility of the Incarnation that prompts these lies, for—as St. Paul says—if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8 DR). This lowliness that prompts lies is now juxtaposed with His highness, as it were, for the Psalmist now says Let all the earth adore Thee, and sing to Thee; let it sing a psalm to Thy name. In the glory of our Lord’s resurrection His power and might and highness were made manifest. And even though in His lowliness He suffered the lies of His enemies, now in His glory the truth of His highness is undeniable.

Thus all the earth is called upon to adore Him—adoret te—and sing to Him—psallat tibi—and sing or play a psalm—psalmum dicat—to His name. All three verbs here (adoret, psallat, dicat) are in the subjunctive mood which can express a desire or a command. The English generally renders these here using the word let, which in English can have many connotations, but is often used in this type of context to mean allow or not prevent in the sense of something that should naturally come forth. That is, the highness of the wonders and works of God—especially as worked in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ—is such that a response is required from the earth, which really means the people of the earth.

In this sense then we say let the earth do these things: a response is required, there can be no neutral ground. Either one will lie unto God in the multitude of His strength—that is, in all the terrible works of the Lord—or one will adore and sing and praise His name. These are the only two options available, and the only proper and true one is to adore and sing to the Lord. The use of the subjunctive thus provides that choice in which one will either continue in lies or embrace the truth and act accordingly.

For if the Psalmist says let all the earth adore Thee, then the only thing which prevents this adoration are the lies with which the enemies of God lie unto Him in the multitude of His strength. That is, they come face to face with the truth of God as He revealed Himself in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in response to this revelation of truth reject that truth for the sake of their lies. Those who believe, on the other hand, reject the kingdom of lies and deception and embrace the truth Who is Truth Himself, and the only fitting response to this is to adore and praise. Thus, let all the earth adore Thee.

The Old Latin has two extra words to conclude this passage, the first of which is Altissime, which in English is generally rendered as Most High or Highest. In respect to this passage the addition of Altissime fills out the prophetic juxtaposition from the previous passage, as the lowliness of our Lord is set next to His highness here:

Let every land worship You, and play to You, play to Your name, O Most Highest. A little before, Most Lowly, now Most Highest: Most Lowly in the hands of lying enemies; Most Highest above the head of praising Angels. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 65, 9.)

The final extra word in the Old Latin is the Diapsalma, which in Hebrew is equivalent to Selah and rendered as Semper (always) in St. Jerome’s Hebrew translation. This Diapsalma on the literal level signals a pause or break in the poetic structure of the Psalm. However, many Fathers read this as having a deeper significance, of which St. Gregory of Nyssa is an example:

We must not proceed further without considering the term diapsalma. Our predecessors take it either as a change in understanding, appearance or activity. We do not reject the opinion of the Fathers, nor refuse the significance of this term as they understood it. We accept the meaning of diapsalma occurring in the following psalms provided that it is another illumination of the Holy Spirit in David’s prophecy and an occasion of grace with respect to knowledge for the benefit of persons amenable to prophecy. Diapsalma contains [David’s] own voice and gives an occasion for us to understand the content of his thoughts through God’s enlightenment. It often happens to persons on a journey, at feasts or gatherings, that if a sound reaches their ears, they cease to pay attention and resume their conversation. Thus the great David acted as the Spirit’s mouthpiece, expressed what he had been taught and explained it through singing [of the psalms]. When David taught in the midst of his discourse, he yielded his attentive soul to listen to the Spirit, silenced his physical ear to be filled with [divine] thoughts and again explained his experience by combining his words with singing. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On The Inscriptions of the Psalms, Chapter 10, p. 43).

It is then perhaps in this pause of the diapsalma that the choice presented to the soul between lies and truth comes to a head, for in the silence of contemplation the lowliness of our Lord in His Incarnation is set next to His highness in His resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father. Or rather, the lowliness and highness are completely held together in His own Divine Person, consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit yet united hypostatically with His humanity. This truth is the multitude of His strength from the previous passage, and the only fitting response is to adore and praise and sing to His glorious Name.

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I used Video-Copilot’s Orb plugin—which is a more functional version of the built-in Sphere effect—to create the Earth sphere, and then applied various texture, bump and illumination maps. I then animated the spinning and applied some motion blur.

In the main precomp I applied a time remap to the precomp and then duplicated it to create the grid and offset the various precomps in time so they would spin differently. I overlaid an adjustment layer using Deep Glow 2 to give it some shine and then used Looks to add a bunch of diffusion, halation and the sparkle shimmers.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: