Psalm 7:1
turning things around dramatically
The psalm of David which he sung to the Lord for the words of Chusi the son of Jemini. (Psalm 7:1 DR)
We all love a good plot twist in a book or a movie, especially the more unexpected and profound it is. Anagnorisis is one of the many forms this can take, which involves a sudden realization (usually by the protagonist) of the truth of a situation. Perhaps the most well-known example of this in tragedy is Oedipus Rex in which Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother, only to discover at the end what he has done.
It is this sudden passage from ignorance to knowledge of the truth that forms the catharsis of the tragedy and makes for an effective plot device, especially the more tightly integrated it is into the story. In the case of Oedipus the tragedy begins with his father trying to defy the prophesied fate of being killed by his son by having his infant son killed; it is this early separation from his father and mother which prevent Oedipus from recognizing them and thus leads to the fate being enacted in an even more horrific manner.
As we come to the Psalmist’s words in this passage we have another instance of an inscription which might seem to be hardly worth considering. However, St. Augustine sees within this passage a deeper meaning that frames the entirety of the Psalms.
Given his unshakable confidence in both the unity and inspiration of the Scriptures, St. Augustine sees even the superscriptions as having a mystical meaning to be explored. He begins by acknowledging the literal historical context, but quickly passes to to the mystical meaning as applied to Christ, as he sees all the Psalms as either prophetically about our Lord or about His mystical Body.
He begins with the etymologies of the names employed, which are as follows:
Chusi: silence
Jemini: right-handed
Achitophel: brother’s ruin
Abessalon/Absalom: father’s peace
The name of Achitophel—which isn’t in the text—is drawn from the story which forms the context of this Psalm and thus its inscription (cf. 2 Samuel 15).
Achitophel was a figure loyal to Absalom who had been one of David’s counselors and thus turned traitor to David, likely revealing information that made Absalom’s coup initially so successful. David is so distraught by this betrayal that he prays to have Achitophel’s counsel confounded (cf. 2 Samuel 15:31). It is immediately after this prayer that Chusi comes to David and David essentially commissions him to be a double-agent, acting as if he is assisting Absalom but in reality serving as an information agent for David. He is so effective that his counsel ultimately forces Achitophel to take his own life in disgrace (cf. 2 Samuel 17) and leads to the equally sudden end of the coup.
It is this historical context that led many of the Church Fathers—including St. Augustine—to see Achitophel as a type of Judas, and thus this entire Psalm as a prefiguring of the Passion of our Lord. For it is our Lord’s reference to His disciples as brethren which gives St. Augustine the hermeneutical space to see Achitophel as the type of Judas, as Judas was one of our lord’s disciples and came to ruin in a manner similar to Achitophel. The “silence” of Chusi (as his name implies) becomes the contention of our Lord against Judas’ schemes in silence, and in fact in secret:
Now as to Chusi, from the interpretation of silence, it is rightly understood that our Lord contended against that guile in silence, that is, in that most deep secret, whereby “blindness happened in part to Israel,” [Romans 11:25] when they were persecuting the Lord, that the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in, and “so all Israel might be saved.” (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 7, 1.)
This silence becomes the occasion of the great turn-around, for the mystery and glory of our Lord’s triumph over death and sin is hidden within the supposed weakness of his Passion and Death. This “weakness” in silence ends up turning the betrayal into the greatest occasion of grace, so that what was meant for the worst evil (i.e., crucifying our Lord) is used to be the cause of mankind’s salvation:
In this silence the Lord, hiding the sacrament of His adorable passion, turns the brother's voluntary ruin, that is, His betrayer's impious wickedness, into the order of His mercy and providence: that what he with perverse mind wrought for one Man's destruction, He might by providential overruling dispose for all men's salvation. (ibid.)
Seen from the perspective of anagnorisis, the devil’s very machinations to thwart God’s plans for mankind’s redemption becomes the means of that redemption, and thus the plot-twist takes on a satisfying and ultimately salvific component of irony, as death is defeated by our Lord’s death.
Those who are called into friendship with God come into the understanding of what the silence of our Lord wrought:
Which silence, that is, Chusi, is called the son of Gemini, that is, righthanded. For what was done for the Saints was not to be hidden from them. And yet He says, “Let not the left hand know what the right hand does.” [Matthew 6:3] The perfect soul then, to which that secret has been made known, sings in prophecy “for the words of Chusi,” that is, for the knowledge of that same secret. Which secret God at her right hand, that is, favourable and propitious unto her, has wrought. Wherefore this silence is called the Son of the right hand, which is, “Chusi, the son of Gemini.” (ibid.)
I didn’t have a great direction in mind for this, so I decided to go for something a bit abstract yet contemplative. I found this nice photo of a field and applied some pixel sorting to it just to give it a mysterious vibe, and added in some floating particles to complete the look.
Enjoy.
The psalm of David which he sung to the Lord for the words of Chusi the son of Jemini.
(Psalm 7:1 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: