Psalm 7:10
the end of different things
The wickedness of sinners shall be brought to nought: and thou shalt direct the just: the searcher of hearts and reins is God. (Psalm 7:10 DR)
Itis a truism that things are not always as they appear, ad this is perhaps no more true than when we consider the works of the wicked and of the just. For there seems to be an inherent tension that the Psalmist elsewhere notes in that the wicked often seem to prosper:
But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped. Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners. (Psalm 72:2-3 DR)
But the glory of this world is a passing mist, and the means by which the wicked come to prosperity and glory carries in itself its own destruction; as is sometimes colloquially put, sin becomes its own punishment. In this manner the glory of the wicked and their destruction is simply two sides of the same coin, as it were, which seems counter-intuitive unless one has a perspective that transcends the temporal. The Psalmist elsewhere describes this:
Be not thou afraid, when a man shall be made rich, and when the glory of his house shall be increased. For when he shall die he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him. For in his lifetime his soul will be blessed: and he will praise thee when thou shalt do well to him. He shall go in to the generations of his fathers: and he shall never see light. Man when he was in honour did not understand: he hath been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them. (Psalm 48:17-21 DR)
The Psalmist doesn’t try to sugar-coat the truth; rather, he affirms that the riches of this world are often obtained by the wicked, and that they seem to proper within this world. However, this prosperity is completely fleeting as it passes away when they die, which means that they have tied the totality of their lives and works to the pursuit of things which they cannot hold onto and which will decay like them. This is why they are like senseless beasts who are born and eat and breed and die, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The more their wickedness abounds, the more this end is poignantly seen, for all the machinations and blasphemies and the like come to the same end as the lowliest brute.
St. Augustine in his Latin version of the Psalms reads this wickedness being brought to nought as their wickedness being consummated; that is, it is perfected, as it were, and brought to its ultimate end within them. By end I mean the teleology of sin, which is somewhat of a contradiction in terms, for sin as non-being doesn’t have a teleology; it is an anti-teleology, so to speak. It instead frustrates the end of man, for man who was created a “little less than the angels” (Psalm 8:6) and is intended for the Beatific Vision and to partake in the divine nature (cf. 2 Peter 1:3-4) is instead made like unto senseless beasts. The consummation of this sin thus contains with itself its own being brought to nought:
“But let the wickedness of sinners be consummated” [Psalm 7:9.] He says, “be consummated,” be completed, according to that in the Apocalypse, “Let the righteous become more righteous, and let the filthy be filthy still.” [Revelation 22:11] For the wickedness of those men appears consummate, who crucified the Son of God; but greater is theirs who will not live uprightly, and hate the precepts of truth, for whom the Son of God was crucified. “Let the wickedness of sinners,” then he says, “be consummated,” that is, arrive at the height of wickedness, that just judgment may be able to come at once. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 7:9.)
The just judgment of God thus comes upon the wicked, sometimes in preventing their wickedness, but often in allowing it to run its course. St. Paul teaches that the descent into increasing perversion is often the result of God’s judgment on men and their societies; God “lets go of the rope,” so to speak, and things degenerate quickly when His preventing hand is removed:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them… Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 1:18-19, 24-25 DR)
However, in a parallel way in which God allows the wicked to consummate their wickedness so that it may be brought to nought, so He directs the righteous so as to bring them to greater glory and perfection:
But since it is not only said, “Let the filthy be filthy still;” but it is said also, “Let the righteous become more righteous;” he joins on the words, “And You shall direct the righteous, O God, who searches the hearts and reins.” How then can the righteous be directed but in secret?
…How then is the righteous man directed in so great confusion of pretence, save while God searches the hearts and reins; seeing all men's thoughts, which are meant by the word heart; and their delights, which are understood by the word reins? (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 7:9.)
Since there is this tension in the temporal world of the prosperity of the wicked, one might ask with the Psalmist what value there is in righteousness, and what living uprightly avails. He doesn’t mince words:
Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches. And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent. And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings. (Psalm 72:12-14 DR)
But the confidence of the one who trusts in God is not in the outward appearances of this world—which are often deceptive—but in God’s justice who sees the inward heart and believes He will reward those who seek Him (cf. Hebrews 11:6). This self-same Lord searches our hearts (the will) and our reins (the appetites of the flesh) and judges of the righteous that they have properly ordered their hearts and reins in that the will (that is, the heart) delights in the law of God and thus orders its appetites (the reins) accordingly. The wicked, on the other hand, become like the senseless beasts in that they allow their reins (the appetites) to control their wills, giving up the higher faculty to service of the lower, which is disordered and leads ultimately to the consummation of sin as noted above.
But as God searches the heart and the reins of the righteous, He sees that their hearts are directed towards Him and that their appetites are controlled towards the lusts of the concupiscence; they may not abound in the riches of his world, but their riches are in heaven, as our Lord says:
Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. The light of thy body is thy eye. If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome. But if thy eye be evil thy whole body shall be darksome. If then the light that is in thee, be darkness: the darkness itself how great shall it be! (Matthew 6:19-23 DR)
The final portion of that passage dovetails perfectly into the Psalmist’s words, for the “consummation of wickedness” or its being “brought to nought” is the result of the nature of one’s “eye,” for if it is evil and dark it will make the entire body and person dark and evil, bringing sin to its consummation. When we allow our appetites to direct our will we become like the senseless beasts and the “light” of reason is extinguished in act for we subordinate it to the lower faculties, which has the result of enslaving us to them.
But if we reorient our will to delight in or to be in the law of the Lord (cf. Psalm 1:2), we allow the light of truth to open up within us and the grace of God to illumine our hearts and minds (cf. Ephesians 1:17-18), which leads us to grow in sanctification and grace (cf. 2 Peter 3:18):
God then, searching our heart, and perceiving that it is there where our treasure is, that is, in heaven; searching also the reins, and perceiving that we do not assent to flesh and blood, but delight ourselves in the Lord, directs the righteous man in his inward conscience before Him, where no man sees, but He alone who perceives what each man thinks, and what delights each... For our works, which we do in deeds and words, may be known unto men; but with what mind they are done, and to what end we would attain by means of them, He alone knows, the God who searches the hearts and reins. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 7:9.)
I decided to go literal with this and opted for a search bar, which I drew in After Effects. Not much to this one, I just made some precomps with the various search results from various scriptural passages and animated them on appropriately. Pretty simple, but I liked how it turned out.
Enjoy.
The wickedness of sinners shall be brought to nought: and thou shalt direct the just: the searcher of hearts and reins is God.
(Psalm 7:10 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: